One of the great mysteries that confronts modern man is his inability to program a VCR, so you would have thought that it was incumbent on manufacturers to make programming a DVD recorder simpler. Unfortunately nobody told the author of the Philips DVDR890 instruction manual. It omits a vital step from the general instructions for programming the device to record a show in advance - it took three attempts to get the feature to work, and only after stumbling across the missing instructions in the section for using G-codes (though I wasn't planning to use G-codes).

Panasonic claims this to be the world's smallest palm-type DV camera, and who am I to argue?

Ever since the mid-1990s, a variety of manufacturers have been attempting to find a reliable way to turn your PC into a television – without a huge amount of success.

How many acronyms can a monitor have before it chokes on its own resolution? We have all come to expect CRTs, LCDs, TFTs and God knows what else but now Samsung has come up with a monitor with so many acronyms it will leave you gasping.

According to analysts at IDC (International Data Group),DVD is now the fastestgrowing consumer electronic technology ever.

How will you be computing in the next 12 months? PC Authority brings you 2005's big technology stories - before they happen.