Hot wired: Speeding to the Airport

By PETER GRIFFIN

Apple fans now have a nifty way of beaming music files from their Mac in the office to the stereo in the lounge at highspeed with the wi-fi device, the Apple Airport Express. Apple has done high-speed wireless networking before but Express is different for its cool design. It basically looks like a power adapter and plugging into the wall connects to your stereo to feed digital song files from your iTunes software through your stereo speakers. It's a neat idea, hampered only by the unavailabilty of the iTunes music downloading service here. Apple has no firm date for when the iTunes online store will launch locally. But you'll be able to beam out your existing music collection. PC users can do this with wireless routers but once again, Apple wins hands down for style. As with the iPod, PC users can also use Airport Express.

Price: $276. Available late July

Plug in and print

Fancy printing out your digital pictures really big? Canon reckons that with the improving quality of today's digital cameras, amateur snappers are wanting to print their photos in A3 size, maybe to hang on the wall. The i9950 fills this high-end niche.

This printer has eight ink tanks spanning the whole rainbow of colours - imagine the bill for refilling them? Nevertheless, the addition of separate ink wells give richer colours. Maximum colour resolution has been increased to an impressive 4800x2400 dots per inch.

Plug in your digital camera or camcorder to print your pics without messing around on your PC. The only downside - the price. The i9950 is expensive, serious photo enthusiasts only need apply.

Price: $1199. Available now

Cradle snapper

The idea of taking pictures on your flash new digital camera and then placing the thing on a docking cradle to have them transferred across to the PC has always seemed a bit, well, naff. But it obviously works for Kodak which apart from making enough film to circle the earth a few times every year also makes lots of cameras. The EasyShare CX7530 continues the cradle tradition. There's everything you need in a good quality point and shoot camera - five megapixel resolution, a 3X optical zoom, direct from camera printing via the cradle. Records video with sound and has some intelligent software thrown in.

Price: $649. Available now.

When Commodore was short-hand for computer

Remember the good old Commodore 64, a machine that supplied endless fun for the family with the same grunt as today's average digital wrist watch? Well, Commodore died out with the rise of the PC, but computer maker Tulip bought the name and is now flogging mp3 music players under the Commodore name. Tulip has released two portable music players, the eVic, a 20 gigabyte hard-drive based version and a much smaller flash memory model. No word on when the devices, which will begin selling in the US in August will arrive locally, but overseas reviewers are already hinting it may have been better to let the Commodore rest in peace.