Microsoft has shipped an early trial version of "Freestyle" -- its new entertainment-centric PC design -- to some beta testers, a company representative confirmed on Thursday.

PCs equipped with a remote control and an early, pre-beta release of the Freestyle software were sent to a small group of testers that have been accepted into the Freestyle beta programme, said Jodie Cadieux, marketing manager for Microsoft's eHome division. She said comments from the advance test will help decide the nature and release date of a full beta version of Freestyle...

Just received this from AT&T. The US voices are amazingly realistic and now they have released UK ones.

We are delighted to introduce you to the two newest members of the AT&T Natural Voices product offering - "Audrey" and "Charles" - two voice fonts from the United Kingdom...

"Automated Future Home software allows your computer to have interactive communication with the X10 devices in your home. Your desktop can communicate with and control various devices such as lamps, appliances and motion detectors. As you enter a room, lights go on automatically and then turn off after you leave. Motion detectors placed inside and outside your home will give you a unique perspective of your surroundings. The software's natural speech can alert you to locations where motion has been detected or remind you about an upcoming TV show or birthday. X10 technology is wireless and enables home automation without running any wires."...

A new version of the DivX player was released a few days ago, one of the major new enhancements is compatibility with ATI's RF remote control....

400 megahertz X Scale processor
64 meg of RAM
**Built in 802.11b WI-FI networking**
Built in compact flash (type II)
Built in SD slot

I've had some problems with my TiVo signaling the Sky Digibox. I'm using a Pyramid affair to control TiVo from the bedroom upstairs and these seem to be notorious for sending out spurious IR. This noise then interferes with legitimate signal between TiVo and the Sky box. So, I decided to try one of the new RF2Links from PaceLink.

The RF2Link is a "hard wired" solution that takes the IR output on the back of TiVo and inserts it into the Sky Digibox on its RF2 connector in the same way the Sky TV Link IR extenders do...

Laser now have the PDA-ir CF cards in stock! The confirmed price is £23+VAT (£27.03)

This update has been posted on the PCMCIA sleeve compatability issue
"Please note that the PDA-IR module currently does not work in the iPAQ PC Card sleeve with a PC Card adaptor. This is due to a technical issue with the PDAwin TV Remote Controller software. PDAwin is aware of the problem and is working on rectifying it."

I first looked at these as being a very expensive option to an LW10 or AW10 UK wall switch and, let's face it, the UK X10 gear is not the prettiest, however that was an incorrect assumption they offer far more flexibility...

Microsoft said Monday that it isn't among those to fully back new wireless wunderkind 802.11a...