The Office for National Statistics has refreshed its hypothetical shopping basket again.
Alongside the addition of liquid soap, cereal bars and garlic bread (it’s the future!) comes the arrival of the more gadgety Blu-ray player!
If you’re not sure what all this is about the ONS updates this rather huge ‘basket’ to reflect the average urban consumer’s spending habits.
This is then used to calculate the consumer prices index (CPI), which the Bank of England is furiously trying to keep below 3 per cent according to The Guardian.
Now that Blu-ray players are pretty affordable, with even top notch gear falling in the sub-£200 zone the HD tech now sits in the country’s basket in order to “capture price changes in this new expanding technology”.
Also joining the gadgety invasion are video game accessories thanks to the extra cash being spent by gamers on the likes of Wii Fit, GuitarHero, Rock Band and Singstar.
The ONS calls this a “relatively new market” – just wait til Xbox 360’s Project Natal and the PlayStation 3’s Move busts out!
Gone are disposable cameras thanks to “decreasing expenditure as digital compact cameras and mobile phone photography become increasingly popular”.
Do you think that this represents the average shopper?
Exciting times at MIX 10 where Microsoft took the Las Vegas stage in order to show off a lot of the applications that will soon be hitting the streets with Windows Phone 7 Series.
Because Silverlight 4 and the XNA Framework have been baked into the Windows Phone platform this unleashes quite a bit of power to the developers who, judging by the demos, have jumped at the chance of showing what can be done on modern smartphones.
The usual run-of-the-mill apps were present; such as Twitter client Seesmic, location-based social network Foursquare, music identification service Shazam and the Associated Press but the ones that made me sit up and take notice were Netflix and the slickness of Windows Mobile 7 Series love of gaming!
Netflix is quite a popular video rental service and most of its mobile apps are focused on accessing and modifying the user’s list of movies. Now, Netflix can be used to stream your choice of flicks on the likes of the Nintendo Wii right through to TiVo but thanks to the lovely Silverlight you can sling those films right onto Windows Phone 7 Series devices to watch as you go
Even though rumour has it that the iPhone may grab this before Microsoft gets it out the display of gaming on Windows Phone 7 Series handsets was pretty impressive.
The Harvest was demoed and what was highlighted was that this game could be played on a Windows Phone, PC, or Xbox 360 and no matter which platform you choose as your arena you can unlock achievements, increase your gamer score, access leaderboards, and connect to your friends over Live.
Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel said that “Developers and designers can now build their code once and optimize it to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the phone, Web, PC or Xbox 360. Due to common shared libraries, controls and runtimes across these many screens and the cloud, developers now have the opportunity to reach over 1 billion customers,”
Do you get twitchy when you’re away from your Xbox 360 for more than an hour?
Do you happen to own an iPhone?
Well, you could get Xbox 360 games on your iPhone soon – and it may hit the Appley hand-held before landing on Windows Phone 7.
Odd as it may sound but then this isn’t [...]
Barcelona’s MWC has been buzzing as to what Microsoft was going to bring to the stand.
Even though the Project Pink hasn’t been officially outed yet the Windows Phone 7 Series has.
“Smart design and truly integrated experiences” is how the big M describes it.
What is cool is the Xbox LIVE games and Zune music and video [...]
The Zune / Xbox Phone rumours had quietened down for a while but now Katherine Egbert, an anylist with Jefferies & Company, has said that Microsoft is getting ready to bust out a phone based on Windows Mobile 7.
This would make the job offer make sense as well don’t you think?
“Our recent industry checks [...]
There it is in its multi-font, easy read format.
What’s not to like about infographics – especially when about gaming consoles?
How many of you had your Xbox 360 give you the RRoD?
Who has NEVER played a Mario game?
Click the pic to make it pop larger
Way back in May there was quite a stir caused by the rumour of the xYz portable device that was to sit somewhere between the Zune and Xbox platforms.
To me and a lot of others in the interweblogosphere thoughts of a Zune or Xbox phone rocking LIVE anywhere sprang to mind.
Now, Microsoft has advertised for [...]
I’ve just been pointed in the direction of Very.co.uk.
‘Very’ is a new online department store from Shop Direct and it’s offering Gadgety News readers a great discount of £10 off your first order of £40 or more when you open a credit account.
All you have to do to claim your discount is simply [...]
Zune coming to UK?
Yeah – that’s what I thought when I was told this.
I reckoned that these very shores were going to get a taste of the MP3 player that was designed to take on Apple’s iPod.
Ok, so almost four years later the Zune only owns 2% of the US MP3 market – a [...]
You can’t have gotten through this week without hearing about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
I’ve not bothered mentioning it as everyone seemed to be doing that.
But I can’t fail mentioning this.
The latest episode of the popular shooty-shooty-death-kill game has experienced the biggest launch of an entertainment product in history!
It has managed to haul a [...]
Don’t you just love leaked info?
Well, thanks to MCV the above news was gathered via a tricky tipster who said that the information was apparently the result of behind-closed-door meetings right here in the UK between Microsoft and third party developers.
Microsoft will be manufacturing 5 million Natals for a worldwide launch in November 2010 [...]
Gamers love to have the latest and bestest and it shows that 25% of gamers surveyed said that paying for and downloading the digital only version is the way forward.
The International Gamers Survey, conducted by Today’s Gamers took in the opinion of 13,000 gamers across Europe and the United States and found that, on average, [...]
Shigeru Miyamoto, the dude responsible for game greats Mario and Donkey Kong says that the Nintendo Wii 2 will be smaller and cheaper – who am I to argue with that?
He also says that the console will move into “other aspects of daily life” – so do we take it that Nintendo will be branching [...]
If you’re curious as to what Microsoft’s new retail stores are going to look like wonder no more – Gizmodo has been passed a Powerpoint presentation that shows all the plans and designs.
The presentation is by Lippincott, a “design and brand strategy” consultant firm with extensive retail experience that it appears Microsoft has hired to help develop [...]
It sounds like Microsoft isn’t settling for just bringing its gesture recognition Natal stuff to the Xbox – the Big M has its beadey little eyes on Windows, according to a very good source: That source happens to be a certain Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates.
Gates spoke to CNET News and talked about a world where [...]
More Microsoft Natal news!
It sounds like the Microsoft Xbox 360 will be arriving with built-in Project Natal motion-sensing camera and voice-recognition technology from 2010 – Could this be a reply to Sony’s Motion Contol release?
Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer was speaking to The Executive’s Club Of Chicago and stated that the new Xbox 360 hardware would provide a [...]
Hmmmm……..Microsoft officially outed the Zune HD a week ago – that’s old news now.
But the Amazon product listing under the Technical Details section is talking about Xbox Live integration – That’s new news!
Did I miss that in the actual Microsoft press release?
Integration with the Xbox LIVE network gives you access to millions of videos, TV shows, and [...]
As you’ve probably noticed; I don’t review games very often.
To be honest it’s rare I get the chance to play – but there is one FPS that keeps, quite literally, dragging me back – Valve’s award winning Left4Dead!
To my joy Left 4 Dead 2 has been announced at Microsoft’s E3 conference as an Xbox 360 [...]
First things first – I looooove the idea of gesture controls for my media player!
Project Natal is a bar that sits above or below your TV, much like the Wii’s sensor bar.
But instead of sensing controllers, this thing has a camera, sensors and a microphone inside that lets it get an accurate sense of where [...]
Now, I’m not sure if this is gonna be the fabled “Pink” Zune Phone is unclear, but Team Xbox claims to have sources inside Microsoft who are working on a new device that “sits somewhere in-between the Xbox and Zune platforms.”
Codenamed the “xYz” during discussions, this device will feature a WVGA touchscreen and a series [...]
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