The newest member of the Creative Zen family makes a debut - the Creative Zen Vision: W. Upping the ante to a 4.3-inch 16:9 widescreen, 480 x 272 resolution display, the W is said to take on just about every video format out there, including MPEGs, AVIs, and DivX too. In both 30GB and 60GB capacities, the Zen Vision W features FM radio with 32 station presets, voice recorder, and syncs with Microsoft Outlook contacts, calendar & tasks.

The Creative ZEN Vision W (30GB) premiered at COMEX 2006 for S$649. The 60GB model will be available in end September 2006 for S$749. Its definitely pricey for a device that cannot record video. Archos can breathe easy for now!

If you are thinking of buying or building your home theater pc (HTPC), check out this handy guide, by yours truely, featured in the July 2006 issue of Man's World.

Sony Ericsson recently unveiled the Z610 as the "shimmering ‘mirror’ clamshell with hidden depths". Darn, copywriters!! Where do they come up with such fancy words! But the phone is definitely far better than its description. This lustrous, mirror-like stylish clamshell boasts a 2 megapixel digital camera and a media player that supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+ music formats, as well as Bluetooth A2DP stereo headphones. There's an added bonus in the form of the ‘Picture Blog’ application, which lets you blog photos instantly and there's a slot for expandable memory for all your photos and media files.

The "hidden" external display is probably the most coolest things about this phone. When a call or SMS is received, the hidden external display, that uses OLED technology, illuminates, giving the effect that the caller-ID information is floating on the face of the phone itself.

The Sony Ericsson Z610 will become available in Q3 2006 in 3 flavors: black, pink and blue.

First Samsung gave us the very sexy and very red Q30 notebook. We loved it! Well, all that lovin wasn't enough for Samsung - they had to make us swoon some more. So here it is -Samsung’s diminutive Q40 in a beautiful new color - pink. Yeah, I know - I am not a big fan of gadgetmakers coloring their toys pink to get more women to buy them. But this really is a cutesy pink. Very unlike the shocking pink RAZR. And, pink or not, the Q40 is a talented little notebook. It boasts an Intel Core Solo U1400 (1.2-GHz) processor, 512MB DDR2 RAM, 60GB HDD, an external DVD burner, and a 12.1-inch widescreen display. Despite weighing just 1.2 kg, it still includes two USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port, Wi-fi and Bluetooth connectivity. Oh yes, its just 21 mm thick! Beat that!

Now the bad news, its available in just UK for now. For more info, check out PCWORLD.

A few women in Australia figured out that the best way to encourage young women to consider a computing career is to put together a racy calender. This calender is the brainchild of IT professional Sonja Bernhardt who says "the method in the madness is to get to a broader audience so that people can see that it's not nerds in the IT industry. They are full bodied, fully intelligent, fully socialised women who absolutely love what they do."

The IT Screen Goddesses Calendar 2006-2007, featuring female IT professionals posing as film icons, will be released in Queensland, Australia, at Movie World on Aug. 11. The calendar includes recreations of sexy females in their famous roles, such as Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction," Nicole Kidman in "Moulin Rouge" and a nearly naked Mena Suvari in rose petals from "American Beauty." The models are from all mainland Australian states as well as South Africa, Finland and Sri Lanka. Each month includes a biography of the woman featured that month, as well as a significant date in technology history, covering leading technology women.

However not everyone's really happy with the calender with a lot of criticism being fired their way. The opponents of the idea say that the message being sent is that being smart is no longer enough to succeed - you also have to be sexy.

Well, we think Ms Sonya's gimmick will definitely sell a lot of calendars. But if she thinks that this will be an incentive for girls to follow a career - she's totally wrong. Lots of doctors posing in Playboy will not make more girls want to pursue medicine! If only career choices were made the way these women think, then Hugh Hefner would be a much richer man!