Nothing like a large flat lightbulb in the office that replicates the light of the sun and diffuses energy and happiness eh? Making you happy may seem like a big ask from a lightbulb, but that's what the Philips Original Energy Light promises to do. We sat in a dark room and tried it out... does it make the Shiny team happier?

£150 - find out more on the Phillips website

The Joby Gorillapod is probably the funnest camera tripod out there right now, and they've just put together a version for the iPhone 4.

Made for cameras, camcorders or phones, the Gorillapod specialises in letting you put your camera in weird places. Its flexible legs can be twisted around tree branches, chair legs or dog collars - making for cute pictures and films from interesting angles. It also functions as a normal table-top tripod for more standard films.

The Gorillapod for iPhone 4 comes with a black polycarbonate case fitted to the phone's shape, the tripod legs clip onto the case securing the phone. There's also a GorillaPod app for iPhone which takes time-lapse videos - an interesting use of the tripod tech. See more on it all here

Gorillapod for iPhone 4 is £34.95 from Joby.com

It's not often I get freaked out by an app. I mean usually the worst they do is make fart noises - but SeenEarly for Android does actually make me a bit scared.

It's a fully-featured surveillance app that syncs your phone with another phone or PC and lets the other person see pretty much everything you do on your handset. Let's just lay that out:
- it will send a copy of all texts you send or receive to the other phone
- it will make a record of all calls you make including time, duration and who the calls are to (picked up from your contacts list) and send it to the other phone
- it can read and collect what you enter into phone apps like Facebook and Twitter including private messages

Seenearly is not compatible with all other apps on the Android, but it can read and store your keystrokes, so would be able to track pretty much everything you ever do on your phone.

I asked CEO Peter Karsten why he had invented this app which sounds like something from George Orwell's nightmares and he sketched out 3 possible uses:
1) for lovers who want to keep track of what their other half is up to
2) for employers tracking how their employees use work gadgets
3) for parents who give their children phones and want to make sure they don't get cyber-bullied.

The information flow can be two-way (as in the lovers scenario) or one-way so one phone will see the information from the other.

SeenEarly is also invisible - while most apps sit on your homescreen, this goes incognito so unless you know the app has been downloaded onto your phone, you won't be aware that someone else is monitoring everything you do on your phone.

To me this creates massive problems around privacy and data protection. I'm not sold on the Romeo and Juliet blurb either - the first thing you read on their home page:

Basically if your boyfriend/girlfriend ask you to download this - dump them asap. Wanting this kind of control and access to someone else's life is not a sign of love, more of psychosis. Just saying.

I'm really not sure if this thing is legal, though obviously it got into the Android store successfully and they are building versions of it for Blackberry and iPhone.

CEO of app-makers Acquad Peter Karsten was articulate but not very convincing about how this would help with things like cyber-bullying. It means you can track what your child is doing on their phone, but I still don't see how it could stop anything like that happening.

I also asked whether the people at SeenEarly could see all the data that users were willingly letting go of. He said that they could, also mentioning that it was very valuable information that would be really useful to advertisers. I asked whether they intended to sell it to advertisers. He said that SeenEarly didn't but refused to comment on whether they ever would.

Conclusion: NO.

Seenearly website here

We had a quick hands-on with the LG Optimus 7, the new Windows 7 handset from LG, just after it landed in the office. The long screen and elegant looks show off the Windows 7 tile display well, but what makes it different from the other Windows 7 Phones out there...

LG Optimus 7 will be £30 a month on Vodafone for a 24 month contract

From the people who do the audio in IMAX cinemas comes a desktop iPhone dock with some of the weightiest speakers I've ever seen.

Built like the prow of a ship, this dock packs some quite innovative features and a couple of smart technologies that aim to get the best quality and least distorted sound. Let's just say that the bass gets lower as well as louder when you turn the sound up.

Robb from Audessy brought one over from California to show us. He laughed at my request for a Cut Copy song so we played something with more bass instead.

This is just a quick demo so take into account the price as well.
The Audessy sits in top bracket of iPhone speaker docks along with names like Bose, so it is correspondingly expensive.
£349 from the Apple Store from Nov 17th 2010

From the guys behind the motion sensor on the Wii comes... a mouse. Okay, I understand you're not falling over with excitement, but this is a nice mouse. It won a prize at CES, has several unique and heavily patented features, and could actually make powerpoint presentations interesting.
Quick demo with Christian from Gyration who explains why it is different from any other mouse.

Air Mouse Elite by Gyration, £89 on Amazon

Note: I make a mistake - it won the prize at CES 2010, not CES 2009.

Poynt got in touch with us after we wrote this piece about how difficult it is to get location right on mobile. In the piece I complained that a lot of the services didn't provide real reasons to keep using them..

Well, CEO of Poynt Andrew Osis has got several good reasons why you should use Poynt and why you should keep using it. If longevity is good sign in the tech world, these guys have everything in their favour, they've been tinkering around with location on mobile phones since 2002, using instant messenger queries to provide local information back in that dark time when apps weren't even invented and people would have laughed at you if you said "iPhone".

Anyway, in the packed market of location apps, what has Poynt got going for it? a focus on the USER according to Andrew [and those are his capitals]. And an awareness that services need to solve problems to be truly useful.

As he says: "the gaming aspect of checking in or notifying the world where you are is neat, but what problem does it solve?".

From its background as a mobile yellowpages service, Poynt uses clean accurate information designed to people to businesses - giving you help when you need to know something about what's around you quickly.

Poynt is currently on Blackberry and iPhone in the UK, Android in the next few weeks, and it will be rolling out to the rest of Europe shortly. It's also coming to Windows 7 and Nokia.

We Interviewed CEO Andrew Osis over instant chat (how else), scroll down for the transcripts.

See the Poynt Website
on Android Store
on iTunes
on Blackberry

ANDREW ON FACEBOOK PLACES AND FOURSQUARE
[15:39:20] Anna Leach: One *more* question are you worried about Facebook places...?
[15:39:36] Andrew Osis: no
[15:39:54] Andrew Osis: facebook places is like all user generated content providers
[15:40:01] Andrew Osis: the data is only as good as the last posting
[15:40:10] Andrew Osis: so its notoriously incomplete
[15:40:12] Andrew Osis: and biased
[15:40:26] Andrew Osis: it will provide additional information for a service like ours
[15:40:29] Anna Leach: ah i see, so same with foursquare?
[15:40:47] Andrew Osis: foursquare is really going to find it tough to compete with facebook and yelp
[15:40:53] Andrew Osis: they are in a very competitive spot and i wouldnt want to be in their shoes
[15:41:11] Andrew Osis: we dont compete with those guys
[15:41:18] Andrew Osis: they can be data providers to our service
[15:41:28] Anna Leach: mm, so you see yourself in separate territory - the information dealers not the content curators
[15:41:47] Andrew Osis: mmm
[15:41:50] Andrew Osis: yes and no
[15:41:57] Andrew Osis: we are a local search company
[15:42:10] Andrew Osis: we provide a conduit for users to get accurate up to date information
[15:42:13] Andrew Osis: to solve a problem
[15:42:22] Andrew Osis: the gaming aspect of checking in or notifying the world where you are is neat, but what problem does it solve
[15:42:57] Andrew Osis: we connect people with the businesses around them
[15:43:02] Anna Leach: mm, "the solve a problem" bit is an interesting point. that comes up quite often with techie innovation.
[15:43:11] Andrew Osis: and then they can tell their friends where they are going
[15:43:30] Andrew Osis: because we deeply integrate with the device you can push a listing to a friend via text/email and say
[15:43:41] Andrew Osis: i am going here for coffee, this is the address
[15:43:49] Andrew Osis: and here is the app that got me there
[15:43:54] Andrew Osis: come and join me
[15:44:07] Andrew Osis: it certainly doesnt need to be announced to the world
[15:44:18] Andrew Osis: sometimes announcement are a great thing
[15:44:21] Anna Leach: oh yeah, i see. so that comes when it's useful, not just when it's flaunting your cool location in your status
[15:44:27] Andrew Osis: but that is more of a novelty
[15:44:30] Andrew Osis: yes
[15:44:54] Andrew Osis: solving a problem is a better value proposition
[15:45:02] Andrew Osis: for the user
[15:45:07] Andrew Osis: the advertiser
[15:45:12] Andrew Osis: and for us

THE POYNT ETHOS AND WHY CANADIANS ARE GREAT
[15:05:42] Anna Leach: So when did you found Poynt and what gave you the idea to start it up?
[15:06:09] Andrew Osis: myself, and 2 other gentlemen founded the company in 2002
[15:06:33] Andrew Osis: it was based upon the idea that you should be able to get the information you want, at your finger tips
[15:06:42] Andrew Osis: ie the yellow pages on a mobile device
[15:07:00] Anna Leach: ah interesting. 2002 is ahead of the curve - not many people were considering mobile back then...
[15:07:19] Andrew Osis: yes well, we canadians are ahead of the curve....
[15:07:23] Andrew Osis: ;)
[15:07:26] Anna Leach: haha
[15:08:16] Anna Leach: well I guess your product has changed a lot in the 8 years you've been running then, because there have been a lot of technological changes in that time right? gps, apps...compasses
[15:08:33] Andrew Osis: yes
[15:08:40] Anna Leach: the fact that 20% of the population has a smartphone..

MOBILE LOCATION HISTORY - WHAT POYNT WAS LIKE IN 2002
[15:08:54] Anna Leach: what was your first product like? a text service?
Andrew Osis: the first product actually used a voice portal, then pushed back a wap session.
Andrew Osis: we found that voice recognition was terrible. still isnt very good today, then it was awful
Andrew Osis: so we actually transitioned to an IM front end, using mobile devices that connected through windows live messenger or yahoo messenger
[15:10:24] Andrew Osis: they could add a contact
[15:10:36] Andrew Osis: that would connect to our service,
[15:10:58] Andrew Osis: and perform look ups of yellow pages information through a natural language chat
[15:11:01] Andrew Osis: worked pretty well, but users didnt like it very much
[15:11:30] Anna Leach: ah why so? too techie for the mainstream?
[15:11:36] Andrew Osis: not sure, just didnt seem to catch on. people didnt think of search when they use IM
[15:12:22] Anna Leach: mm, fair enough, users are quite hard to train
[15:12:32] Andrew Osis: YES THEY ARE

THE USER AND WHAT POYNT THINK ABOUT HER
[15:22:01] Anna Leach: poynt still does similar stuff to what it did when you launched - you said it gave you "the information you want, at your finger tips"
[15:22:11] Andrew Osis: yes
[15:22:19] Andrew Osis: it Is focused on the USER
[15:22:23] Andrew Osis: what the user needs
[15:22:24] Andrew Osis: wants
[15:22:33] Anna Leach: ah ha, okay good point
[15:22:34] Andrew Osis: helps to solve a problem the user has
[15:22:48] Andrew Osis: that is really a fundamental point for us
[15:22:53] Andrew Osis: the USER is the most important thing

WHAT MAKES POYNT STAND OUT?
[15:23:15] Anna Leach: so was about to ask - it's obviously a competitive market for location-based apps, is that what makes you stand out?
[15:23:25] Andrew Osis: partly
[15:23:32] Anna Leach: sell it to me
[15:23:47] Andrew Osis: because we focus on the user, we have much higher stickiness,
[15:23:59] Andrew Osis: because we solve problems for the user, rather than have them play a game, they can find what they need, when they need it and solve their problem right away
[15:24:27] Andrew Osis: it's FUNCTION over form
[15:24:49] Andrew Osis: we also listen very carefully to our users

MONETISATION
[15:26:49] Anna Leach: interesting okay, and how do you make money from the service?
[15:27:00] Andrew Osis: basically from each user interaction
[15:27:16] Andrew Osis: a user logs a query and that generates $ for us
[15:27:21] Andrew Osis: purchasing of tickets
[15:27:29] Andrew Osis: booking of restaurant reservations
[15:27:39] Andrew Osis: and then advertising that we provide through the service
[15:27:51] Anna Leach: makes sense
[15:27:57] Andrew Osis: so its free for the user
[15:28:25] Andrew Osis: we are looking at adding coupons/daily deals to the service
[15:28:36] Andrew Osis: so that shoppers that want the best deal can find that
[15:28:52] Andrew Osis: as well we will be adding events, (concerts etc) to the service

USER-GENERATED CONTENT
[15:29:12] Anna Leach: interesting. So looking at the app now, you do list stuff by location, but you don't say have much user input (tips/rankings etc)
[15:29:22] Andrew Osis: not as yet
[15:29:28] Andrew Osis: we are going to add that very soon
[15:29:35] Andrew Osis: everything we add to the service
[15:29:41] Andrew Osis: is as a result of user feedback
[15:29:43] Anna Leach: oh okay so that would be an extra way to filter results then?
[15:29:51] Andrew Osis: we receive 100's of emails every day
[15:30:03] Andrew Osis: that usually tell us how much people like the service
[15:30:17] Andrew Osis: but about 10% of them tell us what they would like to see in the service
[15:30:29] Andrew Osis: so we will be adding User Generated Content
[15:30:32] Andrew Osis: very soon
[15:30:47] Andrew Osis: and yes people will be able to filter on reviews/rankings
[15:31:01] Anna Leach: i see interesting.
[15:31:10] Andrew Osis: UGC is a difficult thing to do
[15:31:15] Anna Leach: yeah i can imagine.
[15:31:17] Andrew Osis: because anyone can post anything
[15:31:24] Andrew Osis: so a competitor
[15:31:31] Andrew Osis: could go on and post very negative reviews
[15:31:39] Andrew Osis: and sink your ranking
[15:31:52] Andrew Osis: it needs careful consideration to provide a balanced view,
[15:32:07] Andrew Osis: that minimizes the chances of abuse
[15:32:09] Anna Leach: yes, moderation costs etc... do you have stats on number of users for your various apps?

USER STATS
[15:33:02] Andrew Osis: because we only launched on the android platform this past august we have less than 100,000 users there
[15:33:30] Andrew Osis: we launched in April on iphone, and that is has grown nicely in the US
[15:33:47] Andrew Osis: we will launch android and iphone for europe in the next 2-3 weeks
[15:34:06] Andrew Osis: blackberry is our largest user base with 3.6 million users

The big selling point of this phone, Samsung's only Windows 7 device is the huge glossy Super AMOLED screen, good for game-playing on that Xbox application..

The Omnia 7 is powered by a 1 GHz processor and has a 8GB of onboard memory for storing files. Other features include a 3.5 mm headphone socket, GPS and Wi-Fi support.

The Omnia 7 is available to preorder now from £35 a month on Three

Three of the six Windows 7 phones that will on sale in the UK will be made by HTC. They include the glam HD7 which features an enormous 4.3" screen and was the one that got Stephen Fry rooting for Microsoft - is it really that good? The Mozart packs many of the same features with a few twists...

Price plans on the HD7 and Mozart are TBC

And below we look at the HTC Trophy 7 - their entry-level WIndows 7 phone going for £25 a month on Vodafone. What are you getting for your money..?

With a kooky slender design, this handset from LG stands out for looks - but what else sets it apart from the other five Windows 7 phones launched yesterday? It has a couple of software tricks up its sleeve as Anna demonstrates in the video...

We were flashed through a range of the new windows 7 phones from glamourous and giant HTC HD7 - with kickstand - to the slender LG Optimus.

Here are the six they are launching in the UK

HTC Mozart - exclusively on Orange

Samsung Omnia 7 - very bright, 4 inch Amoled screen, on Vodafone

HTC Trophy on Vodafone

LG Optimus 7, supports live TV streaming, multimedia software

HTC HD7, largest screen, with kickstand, 4.3 inch screen

Dell Venue Pro, fold-out vertical screen, large 4.1 inch screen

No, I didn't get lost on the way to the launch of an MP3 Player, I was actually supposed to be in this white leather lined behemouth. What we were interested in was the little collaboration they had with high-end audio-makers Harman Kardon who make a lot of top products for the consumer market. They have done something pretty special with the inside...

[18+ warning. I say a swearword here. God knows how that slipped out.]

More Harman Kardon products can be seen here

It's so retro it hurts. One of the most loved cameras ever, the Polaroid is back after going out of production last year. It's all colourful moulded plastic these days but we love the prints. How 90s is it to get a physical photo on a piece of paper at the end - pretty sweet. Laura from Polaroid gave us a run down...

Polaroid 300 on firebox.com

We don't usually get to drop consumer electronics into vases of water, so we were pretty excited when we got to try it out with the Kodak Minis.

Just how waterproof are they...?

Not on sale yet, Kodak Minis, will be £49.99 from Firebox.com

At the most affordable end of the phone family released by Nokia last night is the C6. Packing the same processor and smooth user interface as the other phones in the family, it doesn't have quite the same slickness of design, still that means it's a bit cheaper.

Lots of social networking features and a 8MP camera with full 720p HD recording abilities.

Out from October for 260 euros (excluding tax).

The E7 is Nokia's high-performance business smartphone launched yesterday at the Nokia World Conference 2010. A large four-inch screen and a slide out QWERTY keyboard set it apart from the pack. We gave the specs, a photo gallery and some first impressions here.

Here's a video run-down of the features:

See more stories on Nokia's new launches and future

Running on the same chipset as top phone the N8, the C7 is a lovely smooth phone, just a little cheaper than its big brother. The camera on the C7 is 8 megapixels to the N8's 12 megapixels, and there's a smaller memory.

Otherwise, how does it fare in our quick video run-down...?

The C7 has 720p HD recording abilities and the Symbian ^3 platform, it also has a 3.5 inch AMOLED touchscreen, as well as coming pre-installed wth Nokia's range of free Ovi apps.

The C7 will be in stores by Q4 of 2010, 335 euros (excluding VAT)

When the chairman was introducing this on stage, he said - "it's big, it's really big". And the blighter is. We can't call it a tablet, it's definitely still a phone, but its 4 inch screen and spacious slide out QWERTY keyboard push it a bit more into tablet terriority. So does its focus on the business market.

Little widgets that let you view and edit Excel documents and Powerpoint presentations make this gadget one for the suits. There's also a Microsoft-powered instant chat application. Aluminum casing and a clear AMOLED screen with some blacker-than-black colour wizardry makes it all look pretty sleek and attractive.

Pre-installed productivity apps include Vlingo, F-Secure Antitheft, QuickOffice and World Traveler. The multitasking was smart, but I have to say the software jammed twice while we were previewing it so I wasn't wowed by what's on the inside. Video review out later though.

On a personal note, I'm probably the sort of customer more impressed by the N8 -Nokia's other top product - which is glossier media-focussed phone.

The launch of the E7 is slated for beginning of Quarter 4 which is October, it will cost around 500 euros.

The Specs:
OS: Symbian^3
Dimensions: 123.7 x 62.4 x 13.6 mm (L x W x H)
Weight: 176 g

Media Storage/Memory: 16GB mass memory
Video Playback: Video recording, Performance: encoding 25 fps, decoding 30 fps,
Music Playback: radio, music player,
Main Camera: Image capture: 8 megapixels
Video capture: HD 720p
Flash: dual led

Connectivity
• WLAN IEEE802.11 b/g/n
than on most other smartphones BT3 0 with support for stereo headsets
• BT3.0 • Positioning with GPS, A-GPS, WLAN and Cell-ID
• Micro-USB 2.0 high speed for file transfers and charging
• USB On-the-Go
• Nokia AV connector 3.5 mm for audio input/output and TV out
• HSDPA Cat9, maximum speed up to 10.2 Mbps, HSUPA Cat5 2.0 Mbps

Operating times (estimates)
• Talk time (GSM/WCDMA) - 9 h /5 h
• Standby (GSM/WCDMA) - 18 d /20 d

• Free worldwide satellite car and walk navigation from Ovi Maps in over 70 countries
• Built in premium guides from Lonely Planet and Via Michelin for tips on travel, restaurants, weather and hotels

A rich multimedia experience
• HD quality imaging and cinematic sound
• Shoot and edit photos and video with a 8 MP camera
• Dolby Digital Plus Surround Sound and HDMI connection

Colors Silver White, Green, Blue, Orange, Dark Grey

• Three fully customizable home screens
• Live updates from Facebook, Twitter, and RenRen

Saskia gets to grips with the Putty Monster. £9.99 on Firebox.com. A variation on Firebox bestseller Thinking Putty, we look at what makes this, so uh, monstrous.

Portable computers are hot hot hot right now, but while mobile phone makers are dying to get into the market, it's hard to get it right. The Nokia Booklet was unveiled in August 2009, but despite having some damn fine features, it never took off. We look at the lessons to be learned from this little finely moulded piece of technology history..