Designed to utilize minimal desk space or meet the needs of the mobile professional, the compact and lightweight PIXMA iP100 is the first ever mobile printer to have a minimum one picoliter droplet size according to Canon. Offering resolution of up to 9600 x 2400 dpi, the unit features two black inks, one a pigment-based black ink that delivers sharp text and another for printing rich photos. The overall size of the pigment black ink tank has been increased by 50%, reducing the risk of running out of ink during a last-minute project.

A Canon first

Assassin’s Creed loosely follows real-life events during 1191 in Jerusalem, Acre, Masyaf and Damascus. You play as Altair, a member of the Assassin’s Brotherhood, and your task is to assassinate nine targets that the Brotherhood have chosen for you. Each target requires you to gather information from the city. This can be done in a number of ways - assassinations, eavesdropping on important conversations, pickpocketing useful documents, completing tasks for informants, or beating someone until they talk.

Altair moves convincingly and fluidly. You feel like you are controlling an real object with mass, which is something that has been tried before in many games featuring mechs or robots - and most of the time, failed miserably. Holding R1 puts Altair into high-profile mode, which when combined with an attack will lead to a crash tackle followed by a knife to the throat, rather than a stealth kill from behind. When combined with X, it activates free-running mode - which allows you to climb just about anything, and make massive leaps from building to building - turning the massive city environments into Altair’s playthings, and the best way to escape from trouble.

To find your assassination targets, you’ll need to find view points in the city - high places where you can “synchronize” and look for places or people of interest. This gives you a breathtaking 360 degree pan of the city - the draw distance is massive, it’s just a shame the framerate never keeps up.

Despite a premise with potential, the story fails to inspire throughout the game. I put this down to it being told, for the most part, with in-game cutscenes that feature decidedly uncinematic, static shots of stationary character models - made worse by the dry, unconvincing performances from the voice actors.

The game is amazing for the first couple of hours, but starts to wear thin due to repetition. You’re doing the same thing again and again in a different environment. It does work if you’re the kind of gamer that plays in half-hour stints, but fails if you’re looking for a game to get lost in for a night or weekend.

Ubisoft made a bad choice in how to go about increasing the difficulty of the game towards the end. While Heavenly Sword made the combat deeper as you progressed, introducing attacks that could only be blocked in certain stances, or not at all, Assassin’s Creed merely throws more opponents at you.

This in turn works against them by repeatedly reminding the player of how lacking the combat system of the game is. Combat consists of holding the R1 button to guard, and using Square to attack, or using correctly-timed presses of Square to perform an insta-kill counter-attack. Later in the game, when there’s 20 guards circling you waiting for an opportunity to have a crack, this becomes mind-numbingly boring.

The screen is 5×3.6cm and it can display video quite well. The base has a bung to cover the mini USB connector that enables transfer of items to and from the PC and also to charge the unit. Beside this is a 3.5mm earbud socket.

So now to try and cover everything this does apart from playing music it also plays video and is an FM radio. Just for good measure it can be used as a voice recorder.

The screen controls take a while to get used to but once you have mastered the requirements all work fine, just remember to slide the hold (lock) slider on the top before placing in the pocket.

A permanently attached link is provided to connect the station to the notebook via USB and thus gives the user access to the built-in three USB 2.0 ports located on the docking station. Actually you only get two extra ports as you use up one of your original quota when making the connection. For power hungry USB devices you will need to use the supplied mains power lead rather than rely on the notebook to provide the necessary power. Tucked away at the rear of the docking station are channels to help organise any connecting leads and keep them under control. The weight of the docking station, approximately 4.5 lb., means it is better suited to a desk or office environment when it does not need to be lugged about.

As well as the docking station, this kit contains a wireless keyboard. With a rubberised palm rest, this keyboard features the standard QWERTY layout with the usual collection of additional keys for handling various media and application tasks such as Internet and e-mail. The wireless connection between the keyboard and docking station was particularly impressive as there was no problem with communication at distances up to 15 metres with the two elements located in different rooms - apart, of course, from not being able to see the screen. Working at distance also revealed a problem with regards to the Caps and Num lock features. Lights indicating when these features were turned on are present but located on the docking station rather than the more convenient location of the keyboard.

Powered by two AAA batteries, the keyboard is light enough to be positioned on your knee when working. The keys are reasonably responsive with a muted click to indicate when pressure has been applied while the rubberised palm rest adds a degree of comfort.

With capacities such as these it is obvious that the “mini” reference is more to do with the size of the device rather than its storage capacity. In this respect it will get no argument from me as it measures 125 x 15 x 82mm (H x D x W). With its weight of 167g, this external drive is eminently portable - it is just a pity that no carry pouch is included in the box to help in this respect. What is included, alongside the actual drive and mini manual, is a double-headed USB lead to provide power and data connectivity. This does mean that you will require two USB ports available on your computer.

Also included in the box is a SafetyDrill Recovery CD that can be used to help restore your computer to a working state following a system failure. This Recovery CD works in conjunction with the Maxtor Manager software that forms part of the OneTouch 4 Mini solution and is located on the device. This software needs to be installed as your first act after attaching the drive to your system. In fact this could be your second task as there is a recommendation mentioned in the manual to copy the software, located on the device, to your computer’s hard disk prior to installation.

If you’re one of those people who just can’t let go of your classic music or you know someone who has a box of records gathering dust in a closet, you will definitely want to tell them about the LP-to-MP3 Converter. You don’t need to let go of your favorite music because the player is obsolete. This handy gadget will allow you to convert it to MP3 format to be played back on an iPod or other MP3 device.

Simply plug the LP-to-MP3 Converter into your computer using the USB. The belt-driven turntable plays LPs at 3313 and 45 rpm speeds, converts the music, and saves it to be stored later on an MP3 device. Featuring anti-skating control to increase stereo balancing your out-of-print music will sound its best with this handy gadget. The system also includes recording and cleaning software so you can remove unwanted scratches, hisses, and pops that appear in your music.

You will be lucky to find 8GB iPhones in local stores, as they are all clearing stock ready for the 3G phone, also we have heard that specs have been leaked from a “trusted source” of Engadget’s. This leaked information has the 3G iPhone sporting GPS and that is a massive improvement on the first iPhone, as you can see in the photo below it looks like the 3G phone will also have a glossy black finish and chrome volume buttons (although that photo is said to be the current iphone with a black case on it), more rounded edges and a flush headphone jack.
While we are talking rumors, let us add that pocket lint are reporting today that the next-gen iPhone may also feature haptic touch technology. It’s a shame we do not have any information on the storage, camera, battery life or weight. It’s safe to say that the camera will be increased as the current 2 megapixels is a bit weak, it would be nice to see that increased to 5 megapixels. Personally I would imagine that I would be upgrading to the new 3G iPhone, as GPS would be a nice feature, also the better camera and more than 8GB storage.

The thing is when you sit back and think about it, why would Nintendo want to reduce the price when the company are selling more consoles than the Sony PS3 and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft. However; Nintendo Wii sales are only going to get better as the launch of Mario Kart and Wii Fit has proved very popular, and with the launch of even more titles rivals Microsoft and Sony must have a lot to worry about and this has been evident with both consoles being reduced in price a number of times.

Nintendo have always done well in Japan as well as over in America however; Europe has never embraced their consoles, but this has changed with the launch of the ever popular Wii and the cool portable DS. It seems that no matter whom you talk to they own either a Nintendo or a Nintendo DS, the Xbox 360 or Sony PlayStation 3 might have better graphics, but when it comes to the fun factor nothing comes close.

The Portable iPod Video Enlarger and DVD Player is a gadget that can solve all iPod Video watching problems at once. It comes with a big 8 1/2″ widescreen LCD that is 2 3/4 times larger than the iPods screen! It uses active matrix technology, which makes screen draw images faster than typical LCD monitors, resulting in a sharper, more detailed resolution. iPod is carefully placed in the plastic case at the right side of video enlarger, it can charge, remains fully functional and is protected from scratches. If you want to watch movie with someone, you will find useful the dual headphone jacks, and if there are more than two viewers then remote control and AV output feature will come in handy. However, big screen means big battery drainage: you will be able to watch one-two movies before the battery will be depleted, it allows three hours of continuous DVD playback on a five-hour charge and four hours of iPod video playback, so do not forget to charge it before a long trip.

This gadget will be very useful for enhancing the video watching experience on iPod. Moreover, the ability to play DVD frees you from that entire DVD-to-iPod conversion problem, which troubles many iPod owners. While selling at almost the same price as usual portable DVD players, its connectivity with iPod makes this gadget a lot more interesting. If you liked it, you can get it for 269.95 dollars.

The concept of Nokia Scentsory can be considered as an overwhelmingly innovative one. It represents a mobile communication device that works with the senses of smell, sight, hearing and touch. So, besides basic audiovisual features, Scentsory is able to detect, transmit and emit smells as well. In addition to this it can also radiate colours, lighting, and temperature from the caller’s environment. The dual-screen mobile has a LED touchpad, speakers, hidden camera and temperature sensors. Nanotechnology has played an important role in the development of this original device. Using highly sophisticated sensors, the electronic ‘nose’ samples the odour of the caller’s environment and transmits it to the recipient electronically.

Given gadget has three different working modes that distinguish from each other according to the available functions. When the phone is in ‘flat mode’, the LED touchpad, two screens and stereo speakers for audiovisual calls are accessible. In ‘open mode’, two screens with a hidden camera and stereo speakers, interior scent detectors, emitter and exterior temperature sensors are exposed. In ‘closed mode’, the phone’s slim profile suits traditional voice calls. The LED screen on the lower folding surface alerts the user to incoming calls.

Thus, at present the creation of such a device seems to be unreal. Yet if this phone appears in the near future, it will be very popular for sure.