Some business colleagues recommended that I pop into the Gizmondo flagship store on Regents Street, London. Some had felt they had seen the future in the little device.

I didn’t.

The sales pitch didn’t go well. Firstly the demonstration device’s battery failed after about 2 minutes. It seemed that I couldn’t use it while charging as they found me another. Apparently with constant use the battery lasts 3 hours, not very appealing.

I’m no games player, certainly not when on the move – I sold my GameBoy when I was 16. So, accepting that games were a major part of their pitch, I asked what else it could do. Well apparently a Gizmondo ‘sounds better’ than an iPod, though it only comes with 32Mb as standard. I don’t care if something sounds better than my iPod, mine sounds good enough to me. I’m also not convinced by this removable media malarkey. Didn’t the iPod show that even down at the Shuffle size people prefer long-battery life and fat capacity as opposed to loads of expensive, fiddly little cards? Didn’t MiniDiscs also show the same kind of trend previously?

Moving on, I tried to use the Internet access on the bright little colour screen. Unfortunately it’s a walled garden at the moment, you can only access sites approved by Vodafone and not enter the URL of choice. What a waste of time. The camera sucked and I couldn’t get the much vaunted GPS to work. All this with a Gizmondo lady helping me out.

Usability was terrible. Typing emails or SMS messages consisted of using the joypad to flick around a tiny software keyboard. Hellish. The controls are essentially a Nintendo gamepad with a few miniscule shortcut keys for power, volume etc. How one dials numbers or does anything remotely useful other than shoot aliens is beyond me. Perhaps one gets so frustrated with trying to dial that one resorts to shooting aliens…

I also find the lack of WiFi astonishing. Kids (ie game players) are cost conscious people – slurping down free bandwidth is a must. Perhaps nervous 3G providers are tightening the thumb-screws on handset designers to prevent revenue leaking out through big fat WiFi pipes. I hope not.

Gizmondo (a Windows-based gadget, £129 starting price) is going to get squashed horribly under Sony, Apple, Nokia, Nintendo, Blackberry… you get the picture. I’m sticking with my Blackberry.

At last (actually it didn't take long at all) we have Google Maps UK and Google Local UK. We also have Google SMS. They all work rather nicely… fun!

When I spent all of my time at university pestering my mate Paul about how brill Macs were I had absolutely no idea it would drive him to this….

Ben Hammersley uses a piece in The Guardian to kick off the end of the media's love-in with Google. Have Google done anything wrong? No. On the other hand Yahoo! have certainly turned things around quite dramatically and compared to MSN's continuously dismal efforts they seem to be getting value for money with their investments in search.

There is a sense of inevitability to this Google backlash. Having ridden the hype curve Google had to come down. Yahoo! have been there, done that and now they are quietly delivering… rather well it seems.

What is important to note is that from everything I can see Yahoo! and Google are fundamentally different companies. Ignoring the search, context-sensitive advertising and two Os in their name and what do I see? Google is focussed on providing simple, easy, powerful access to other people's data. Yahoo! is still hell bent on producing and delivering content. As we read all those years ago, Yahoo! really do want to be a media company. Google is a tech company through and through.

So why is Yahoo! piling dollars into better search? Without a decent search it can't keep drawing consumers in front of its content, adverts and dating services. Google, relax – let Yahoo! do their thing we still love you.

UPDATE: Google fights back with Google Gulp!

UPDATE 2: John Naughton doubts Hammersley's logic…

In exactly the same vein of a column I recently completed for LinuxUser, Wired magazine's editor Chris Anderson has put together an excellent post on why the TV business is in for a big change. Let's face it, the more we get used to downloading music etc the more not being able to watch video content when we want is going to grate. The technology (BitTorrent) is here – gimme gimme gimme!

Google News now how sports some interesting customisation features built in Dynamic HTML. Not only can you rearrange where blocks of news appear on your page but you can also add your own keyword driven news sections. Very interesting… It's My Yahoo all over again, but not, if you know what I mean!

On MacOS X we have a number of relatively new interface widgets which are proving quite interesting. One is the drawer with many have strong feelings over. I have to admit that at first the idea did nothing for me, especially when seeing it implemented in Apple's Mail program.

However now that I'm working most of the time on a dual screen setup they're really beginning to make sense. My usual working arrangement is one 15″ Powerbook on an iCurve and one 20″ Cinema Display. With so much screen space I rarely have any application's window filling one screen as I was accustomed to doing on smaller screens in days gone by. With help from Expose I tend to have piles of windows open at the same time.

Palettes don't work so well in that kind of setup. On a single small screen they're inevitably squashed next to the relevant document window. On large or multi-screen systems the palette can be left a long way from the relevant window. Drawers on the other hand are elegantly attached to the appropriate window, quickly hidden if needed. Much better when there's lots of screen real-estate. Unfortunately when I'm back on the move again with just the single laptop screen drawers feel a little cluttered and inefficient if I have several windows open.

Below I've got two screen shots. First is a drawer attached to a Pages document showing the various formatting styles. Second is the Word 2004 document with the formatting palette showing the various available styles. This palette is mutli-purpose, it shows styles for whichever document is active but it's a separate window unto itself. If I shift my document onto another screen the palette doesn't move. It gets confusing and slow… your mouse has to travel a loooong way to click something on the palette.

A few thoughts on Pages

Apple call Pages 'a word processor with incredible style' but it sure doesn't feel like a word processor to me. From my usage so far, and I'm by no means a Pages guru yet, Pages fills the easy desktop publishing gap left by Pagemaker (or the likes of Serif PagePlus on the PC). Word is horrible for layout but it's a solid tool for the wordsmith. Managing revisions and integration with referencing tools is all solid in Word. Pages is not really built to integrate with third-party tools (developers tell me that it's barely scriptable). The included templates are also a little underwhelming but it's just a beautiful simple app to lay a brochure, newsletter or invitation in. It's Keynote and Omnigraffle for paper documents.

Seeing as it was inevitable that I would upgrade my much-loved copy of Keynote then Pages is effectively a free tool that comes in the same box. I like even more when I put it that way!

If you don't feel that QuickSilver is polished enough for you then you'll be pleased to know that LaunchBar 4.0.1 is out. It's well documented, reliable and incredibly useful. After years of use I find myself hitting command-space on every computer I sit in front – much to my frustration, especially on PCs!

Last night I attended Communities on the Move an NMK event looking at how the mobile Internet will change online communities. Chaired by the IPPR's ever-thoughtful Will Davies discussion roamed wide and far.

Interesting nuggets:

• The mobile Internet is developing 'backwards' with commercial content coming first and free stuff coming later – totally opposite to the 'wired' Internet.

• Todd Tran noted how people are very price insensitive with ring tones and other mobile purchases. They will often buy a ring tone or movie clip for

It's a relief to finally hear that there will be wifi on Brighton to London trains and stations along the way. It's been a very long time coming – being stuck at Victoria station without wifi has been feeling increasingly weird considering the wonders one can get at other train stations let alone airports, cafes, universities, hotels etc.

In fact I think I may have unintentionally beta-tested this a while back. I was doing something or other with my Powerbook just as we pulled into East Croydon station. I noticed that I hadn't turned Airport off which can be a battery drain. Just as I clicked the menu I noticed a wireless network. Curiosity led to me connecting and it worked – free wifi! Something to remember next time I'm stuck in East Croydon, I thought. Imagine my astonishment when the connection held strong as we pulled out of the station all the way to Victoria. I was so gobsmacked I mentioned it to a few colleagues none of whom had any such luck and neither have I since that day.

Unfortunately it will be a T-Mobile paid-for deal when it goes live properly. Which is ok except that T-Mobile charge their phone subscribers more per 15 minute unit than ordinary credit card users – doesn't seem right at all.