The sources pointed out that the iPad 2 will ship as soon as the end of February in 2011. Apple originally planned to start mass production in January, but because the device’s firmware is currently still in testing, Apple has been postponing the schedule. Since Foxconn’s new plants in Chengdu are still in pilot production, iPad 2 will be mainly supplied by its Shenzhen plants, while the company’s upstream component partners have all been notified of the shipments schedule.

A February launch would be consistent with rumours pegging the iPad revision in the first part of 2011. Other rumoured features include a FaceTime camera, gyroscope, faster processor, thinner form factor, retina display and a USB connector – possibly thinner.

Recently, I purchased a Roku box which allows me to stream video from Netflix to my television at the back of the house, and now I hear the exciting announcement that Netflix will provision the Playstation to stream Netflix content by the end of the year.

So many choices, but the technology is converging.

I have a trusty original Sling box from a few years ago and credit to Sling, they still support and maintain it. In fact, I’ve just downloaded some new firmware.

The application itself for the Blackberry is a little on the large size at around 1.5MB. If you haven’t got a newer type of Blackberry, you should even go there. Once I installed, I was using it quite quickly. I had one hitch in that you have to use the Windows version of SlingPlayer to configure mobile viewing – you can’t do this with the Mac. So, I had to go and drag out my trusty laptop running Vista! Once I had configured the software, the Slingbox and my Blackberry – I was nearly there! A quick tweak of my router to allow the correct port through for remote viewing and I was there.

Sling make this really easy for you with great FAQs, online help, video – and specific walkthroughs for various routers. The application itself works like a dream over wifi – and also over 3G. It can even at a push with a full signal scrape by on EDGE/GPRS – but not well.

I’m extremely pleased with this and it was well worth the wait – I’m just waiting to see how long it is before mobile operators start getting grumpy about bandwidth…

Sony has announced the PS3 now has DTS-HD Master Audio support, which is one of the highest resolution audio formats for films, with Dolby TrueHD being the only other contender (the PS3 supports this too, by the way).

Most new Blu-ray players can output DTS-HD MA, however only a small amount of AV receivers can actually decode it. The popular format gives the user a 7.1 audio channel, which is as close as you’ll get to the original studio master. The update will output all 7.1 channels via HDMI, but only to those few receivers that can actually take a 7.1 PCM stream, like the Onkyo TX-NR905.

There’s also a revamped Playstation store – not such a big deal, but it’s a deal. It now seems that the store is an application on the Playstation itself rather than it all being web-based. It’s very slick.

Sony PSP Remote Play allows you to control your PS3 over the internet – you can even remotely switch your PS3 on and off.

Now, when I’m traveling, I’ll have direct access to my whole film library whenever I like. It’s clever stuff.

Also, I see a new firmware version (3.90) has been released today which allows PSP users to access Skype.

He was addressing the annual Conservative Party Conference as a warm up for a live satellite link with the Governor of California. The audio of Arnold waiting in turn has leaked and you can hear him critiquing Boris’ delivery.

An Austrian-American giving feedback on English pronunciation and presentation hits a raw nerve – but Arnold is completely right! Good stuff.

You do not need Windows Media Centre to run it, just the latest version of Windows Media Player – infact as long as you have a DLNA enabled device/PC you should be good to go. This is how I got it going:

• On my Windows XP machine, I made sure I had the latest version of Windows Media Player. You can download it here
• Library > Media Sharing – then click Share My Media
• On your PS3, ensure that you have Media Sharing enabled under your Settings
• Your should then be able to see “Search for Media Servers” on your Pictures, Video and Music options which you should click to search for your PC
• The rest should be easy and you should be able to connect to your PC and view everything in your Shared Videos and Shared Music folders

There are a few quirks right now, such as the delay in getting the video to start, some pictures do not appear, there seems to be a maximum amount of pictures that can be displayed in a folder – apart from that, it’s very useable.

I wonder if the new PS3 update 1.9 due out anytime soon will address these issues?

Cameras come and go, but my D70 still absolutely rocks and takes cracking photographs. For Christmas last year I got the Nikon SB-800 Speedflash too – it just makes a fantastic camera even better.

What was my 7,000th photo? It was my elder girl dressing up to go out in the rain with Daddy.

Since the Freedom of Information (FOI) act was passed, the press have had some fun bringing to light the workings of the British government. The BBC have just made a request to see all correspondence relating to the film “Borat” – it seems there have been some serious conversations going on between the British and Kazakh governments!

The fact that it has been a touchy subject throughout the past year is made clear in documents released to the BBC by the Foreign Office under the FOI act. This stems from the period Borat has been a TV character, prior to the hit film coming out this month.

I didn’t get on very well. First of all, it’s a bit hit and miss whether you can find the download on the zune.net website. This might be intentional at first to limit the stress on the first day of the Zune. Once I found the download link (by chance), I downloaded and started to install.

The install took a long, long time. The first thing it did was check for application updates. The install software hung a little (even though I have a 8Mb DSL connection at home), again I put it down to first day overloads. Once the software installed, I had to reboot (annoying) – then once I signed in again, the install package started to scan my PC for songs.

I have around 8000 songs on my PC, so this was going to take some time. 1%, 2%, 3%… After one watching of the Daily Show on Comedy Central and two bottles of Amstel, the application hung on 86%. So, I skipped this search to start using the application.

Zune started up. I then thought I’d like to create a profile. Zune needs you to have a Windows Live account (which I have), I signed on – denied. I realised after a while that I hadn’t changed my Windows Passport profile in years (it was still set to the UK) – I signed into Passport and changed my details to show I was a US resident. Tried to sign in again, no such luck – denied once again.

I couldn’t use the application, it killed my PC and it was at that moment I removed Zune from my PC.

There’s an excellent first review of Zune at Engadget:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/15/zune-review/

http://www.zune.net