Bioshock is Gene-ius

A colossal heatwave is approaching - but not from global warming. BioShock is blazing onto our shores this summer – and it’s a scorcher. Gadgits’ was bundled off to New York to bring you an exclusive review of the game XBOX 360 and PC owners are drooling over.

The game – out later this summer - thrusts players into the jaw-dropping underwater city known as Rapture; a utopian society created by brilliant separatists after World War II. You pay an unsuspecting visit after your plane crash lands by its hidden entrance. But, as the computer-gaming gods would have it, you happen to check-in just as everything goes to pot.

Dirt Quad's razor sharp

Razor’s Dirt Quad is an ideal electric ride for young kids keen on racing. Its 350w motor lets your little ones ride for 60 minutes non-stop over rough terrain at variable speeds. The shatter resistant plastic fairings and steel frame make this a rugged four-wheeler your kids can feel safe on. Available for £300 from Toys R Us now.

Jukebox gets us in a Wurl

Old school jukeboxes are a must-have for die-hard music fans, and the Wurlitzer One More Time Jukebox is top of the pops. It stores 100 CDs and a will play the tunes from your 60GB iPod via an attached socket. Available in black onyx or white finishes, you’ll have over ten thousand songs to choose from at the touch of a button. But you’ll need to be a big spender like Shirley Bassey to get one – it costs £6000 from www.drinkstuff.com

Arsenal on target with Sony

Sony have outlined plans to give Arsenal supporters access to match highlights and live streams of Gunners’ games at the Emirates’ Stadium using their PSP handheld. The new S.PORT system – set to be trialled later this year – will enable fans to review controversial decisions during the game. The electronics’ giant is still finalising the full details with Arsenal, but around 4000 fans will have the chance to trial the service and if it proves successful, Sony will look at offering it to other clubs around the country.

BBQ makes your bangers sing

Your food with be sizzling to the hits on your iPod if you buy this brilliant Memphis BBQ. It’s a double gas burner barbie that’s boasts a speaker in the front panel and MP3 player connectivity in the back. And at £230, it won’t burn too big a hole in your pocket. Get one from www.diy.com

Dyson's an Animal

Cleaning’s a pig of a job, so Dyson are making it easier with the release of their stowaway Animal vacuum cleaner. Root Cyclone technology means this sucker never clogs and the whole unit shrinks so you can store it away easily. Variable suction power allows you to clean everything from delicate curtains, upholstery or tough carpets without fear of damage. It costs around £230 online and is available in three models – see www.dyson.co.uk for more details.

Go-Kart is Dino-mite

The Dino Blizzard go-kart is road legal and has a five-speed gearbox, dynamo driven front lights and a sleek metallic black paint job. You’ll be spinning donuts round your local car park this summer in no time – but it’ll cost you around £730 for the pleasure. See www.paramountzone.com for more info.

Phone hits the Sky

Here’s a new look for mobile phones – a sexy compact handset with dual screens!

Korean firm Pantech and Curitel’s new IM-R200 SKY mobile sports a unique LCD keypad, single slider mechanism, 116MB of memory with microSD support, QVGA display and the usual multimedia facilities. Price details and availability aren’t yet known, but it’ll be landing in South Korea first.

iPod gets the golden touch

Seems like everything Steve Jobs touches turns to gold at the moment, and now iPod owners can perform their own Midas touch with Amosu’s new range of 24 carat gold-plated iPods.

Finished in toughened mirror gold, a 30GB version will set you back around £300 while the top-of-the-range 80GB ‘Pod will cost £400.

One downside is that the gold plating doesn’t adorn the face of the iPod – it’s only appears on the back of the player. Get the golden touch here.

Up close with Ms Pac Man

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We've been munching pills with Ms Pac Man on our iPod this week and you can check out the video above for some in-game action. The sequel to the 1980's classic Pac Man is available to download from the iTunes music store now. It's a faithful conversion of the old-skool arcade favourite and features 256 levels for you to chomp your way through. Download it from iTunes now.

Halo 3 demo date revealed

Make sure you’re on XBOX Live at 1pm on May 16^th because Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie Studios will be releasing a demo of 2007’s most eagerly awaited game – Halo 3.

It’ll be your first opportunity to get play as Master Chief and make use of a full new armoury of weapons, play a load of new levels, drive beefed up vehicles and enjoy new game types while offering players the chance to feedback their views on the latest instalment of the classic franchise.

We’ve got an exclusive first look at the making of the game and you can watch the trailer – which is freely available on the XBOX Live service – so you can take a peak at what’s sure to be the biggest-selling title of the year. Check out www.bungie.net for more details.

Sony's Wi-Fi cube lacks edge

Here’s a picture of Sony’s new cube-shaped wireless music receiver – but MP3 fans and Mac owners may find it a bit square.

The TDM-NC1 unit measures just three inches in size and you just need to attach it to your BRAVIA TV via the digital media port, fire up your PC and start streaming tunes from your computer to your home theatre over your network.

But with no support for MP3s or any protected music bought other than from Sony’s Connect store, it’s aimed at a very niche market. Seems a bit of a half-hearted effort to us and is definitely an example of style over substance from Sony this time round. It’s set to land here in the summer and should cost around £130.

Up close with Diddy Kong Racing

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Diddy Kong Racing on the DS is out on Friday and follows on from where Nintendo’s greatest racing game – Mario Kart – left off. You’re able to design, build and race on your own tracks and take control of two new racers – Dixie Kong and Tiny Kong. With brand new levels, tougher challenges and improved vehicle control, it’s one of the most fun race games around. It’s available for £25 from www.play.com and you can check out some in-game play by clicking on the video above.

iRiver Clix into gear

iRiver have just launched their 4GB Click 2 player which will play back your tunes, videos, podcasts, audiobooks and FM radio stations. Downloadable flash games, a text viewer and image galleries are also available on it. It’s basically an updated version of the old U10 player which was a GadgiTs favourite back in 2005. Simple controls, a 2.2inch AMOLED screen that emits light at a higher rate than standard LED displays and the D-click control system make this a worthy option to consider for anyone bored with the iPod. Pick one up now priced at around £139 from here.

Dragon I speakers

These are possibly the weirdest looking speakers we’ve ever seen on the GadgiTs desk. The Dragon I sound system features an integrated iPod dock and each of the tentacles is an independent speaker that each packs 5 watts of power. You can bend them as you wish and can control the unit via a remote and other MP3 players can also work with it. We’re hearing whispers it’ll be out in the UK later this year, with a price tag of around £200 being touted.

New iRobot cleans your pool

Innovative robotics firm iRobot have today unveiled their new Verro 300 which claims to offer those of you lucky enough to own a pool an easier way to clean it. Two models are on sale – the 300 (pictured above) which is priced around £450 and the Verro 600 which costs about £650. PVA brushes scrub and clean the bottom of your pool while the powerful vacuum and self-contained filter collects debris and bacteria. We’re not convinced the Verro robots will be as popular as the Roomba indoor vacuum we featured last year, but head over to www.irobot.com for more information.

Apple shift 100 million iPods

APPLE boss Steve Jobs is celebrating iPod sales topping 100 million. Since its launch in 2001, the iPod has defined a generation and is seen by many as the most important gadget since Sony’s Walkman back in the 1980’s. “We want to thank music lovers everywhere for making the iPod such an incredible success,” said Jobs.

As reported in this week's News of the World, the music player can even be a lifesaver, literally. Here's a picture of Kevin Garrad's iPod after it was hit by a bullet from a terrorist's AK-47 out in Iraq. It was in a pocket close to the U.S. soldier's heart on the left-hand side of his chest. Luckily it deflected the deadly round fired by an insurgent in Tikrit. Kevin survived unhurt. The iPod ended up in a bit of a mess though. Apple might want to think about producing a "ruggedised" bullet-proof version of their big seller.
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On hand with new "Mac" tablet...

Here’s a piece of kit that’s set to become a real stylus icon.

It’s a custom-built tablet version of Apple’s MacBook designed by Canadian firm Axiotron and One World Computing.

Christened the Modbook, it comes without a keyboard or mouse and instead uses special hardware and software designed to work with the bundled pen stylus.

All typing and data input is done using the stylus directly on to the 13-inch LCD screen. You can either use the Inkwell handwriting recognition technology found in OSX or tap the onscreen keyboard using the pen. If you want a keyboard and mouse, you can plug those devices into one of the USB ports on the side of the Modbook or use the Bluetooth facility to hook up wireless peripherals.

Take the M3

Chinese firm Meizu have revealed their new M3 MP3 player will hit the UK later this year. It does everything an iPod Nano can in terms of music playback but also supports lossless audio and video too. That means you’ll be able to view XviD movie clips and play open source formats such as FLAC and OGG files on it. It’ll be available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB versions later this summer and prices should start at around £40 for the 2GB model. Keep an eye on www.advancedmp3players.co.uk for availability.

iPod alarm gets you from A to Zzz

Tired of waking up to the hum drum beeps of your alarm clock? Then plug your iPod in to this glam beauty and wake up to your favourite tunes. The bells on top of the alarm are actually speakers that pump out your ‘Pod’s soothing sounds so you’re able to pick any tune from A to Zzz before nodding off. Get one for £40 from here.

Microsoft home of the future

Voice-activated computers will become commonplace in houses across the world within ten years, according to Microsoft’s research team in America.

We were given an exclusive look at Microsoft’s “Home of the Future” at their Redmond campus in Seattle. The high-tech house features a range of stunning technological concepts that seamlessly sync with one another and is controlled via “Grace” – a talking, listening user interface. The fully-speech enabled computer is being developed by experts in Redmond that will bring the virtual world experienced by Tom Cruise in hit sci-fi film “Minority Report” one step closer to reality.

Nintendo launch online gaming

Nintendo are finally bringing online gaming to the UK with Mario Strikers Charged Football the first title on the Wii to get a network play option.

You’ll be able to battle your mates online from 25^th May when the game hits stores across the country.

The potential for online matches and tournaments to rival Microsoft’s XBOX Live and Sony’s new PlayStation Home service is now a real possibility, and this title is the first of many Nintendo have up their sleeves designed around online play.

Mario Strikers is a kind of cross between GadgiTs’ favourite Pro Evoloution Soccer and MarioKart – with a few extra turtle shelss and lightening strikes thrown into the mix.

It’ll cost around £40 when it goes on sale next month and will be available from www.game.co.uk but check out the trailer below for a taste of the action.

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Eight Core Mac set to drop

Apple have just unveiled their latest behemoth – an Apple Mac Pro with a stonking eight core processor!

The new machine boasts a double helping of Intel’s 3GHz “Clovertown” quad-core chips to create their new super-eight beast.

It’s only available in the States so far, and will set you back around $4000, but it’s due out in the UK later this year and should cost around £2500. See www.apple.com/uk for the latest updates.

Vertu teams with Ferrari

High rollers among you will want to get your hands on this Ferrari-branded Vertu mobile phone.

The Ascent Ferrari 1947 Limited Edition Vertu is a fairly low-spec handset that’ll give you four hours of talk time, 270 hours standby time, Bluetooth and a small memory capacity.

It features a scaled-down replicas of the Ferrari gas break pedal in aluminium on the back of the phone and the company’s signature horse motif on the front with a black and red trim to boot.

Only 1947 have been made – hence the name – and it’s been tested to withstand lipstick and petrol spills.

It hits the US in July and will follow here shortly afterwards but price details have yet to be disclosed so remember - if you need to ask, you probably can't afford it...

Mario & Sonic face off

A true clash of the titans has been announced with the news legendary game icons Mario and Sonic are to appear in the same title for the first time.

Mario and Sonic At The Olympic Games is an official title of the Beijing 2008 showpiece and sees the two arch rivals collide for the first time ever.

The game is set for release on the Nintendo Wii and DS in November and looks sure to be one of the biggest games available for Christmas.

The first real console war took place in the 1990’s with Nintendo’s NES and SNES machines battling it out against Sega’s Master System and Mega Drive.

Nintendo eventually won out with Sega choosing to concentrate on making games after their Dreamcast console flopped.

But now both Japanese firms have teamed up to offer fans the chance to see their heroes appear in the same title. Both characters will compete in a range of events including the 100m, swimming and table tennis and Sega president Hisao Oguchi said: “We’re thrilled to partner with Nintendo on this groundbreaking title.”

GadgiTs will have a full review of the game later this year – so keep checking back for the latest updates.

Game of the week - Motorstorm

We’ve been playing Motorstorm on the PS3 this week and reckon it’s the best racing game we’ve played this year. It easily surpasses the gameplay of Excite Truck on the Wii and Sega’s Full Auto 2 and is an absolute must-buy for Sony’s new console. With everything from motorbikes, quadnikes and trucks available to tear around in, this is one game that’ll have you coming back again and again. Check the video out below and take a look for yourselves. Motorstorm is available from www.play.com priced at £30.

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