Knowing where you are, what time it is and who you are with is obviously a huge help when it comes to filing a photograph in your collection. It also happens to be information that can now be compiled by any Bluetooth-enabled camera cellphone.

The phone will allow the growing number of camera phone users to organise their digital photo albums by automatically identifying and labelling the people and places within each snap, as they are taken.

The concept, being developed by Marc Davis of Yahoo's Berkeley research lab in California, is based on a central server that registers details sent by the phone when the photo is taken. These include the nearest cellphone mast, the strength of the call signal and the time the photo was taken.

The system also identifies the other Bluetooth-enabled cellphones within range of the photographer and combines this with the time and place information to create a shortlist of people who might be in the picture. This can then be combined with facial-recognition algorithms to identify the subjects from the shortlist.

I guess the way this works is that the phone taking the picture reports what other Bluetooth phones are within range. A clever approach, but it is exactly this sort of application that would make me want to turn off the Bluetooth on my phone.

Obviously, such a system could also be used by the police or other government agents for surveillance. Imagine them using such techniques to identify all the Bluetooth-phone-carrying protesters at a political rally. Or, just as creepy, imagine camera-phone toting marketers taking pictures of people at, say, retail stores for market research.

Fewer replacements and slower economic growth will slow down computer sales in the coming months, but the lure of low-cost and portable machines will keep the growth rate at double digits in 2006, the market researcher said in its forecast on Tuesday.

The overall growth rate for 2006 might have been even lower but for a revised forecast of 15 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2005, IDC said. The earlier projection for the quarter was 12.6 percent, and 9.1 percent for 2006. The strength of the overall market, particularly in portable PC adoption, has boosted prospects in all markets except Japan.

"Following the shocks of 2001 and 2002 many people were impressed with the strength of the market in 2004 but cautious about the foundation and longevity of this growth," Loren Loverde, director of PC research at IDC, said in a statement. "The fact that solid double-digit growth has continued through 2005 shows that the market recovery did not peak in 2004 as many expected but is still ongoing."

The new projections make 2006 the fourth consecutive year likely to have double-digit shipment growth, and raise the compound annual growth rate for 2005 through 2009 to 9.4 percent, IDC said. The number of shipments is projected to touch 300 million units in 2009, while the value of shipments will be $250 billion.

"Rogue/Suspect" means that these products are of unknown, questionable, or dubious value as anti-spyware protection.

Some of the products listed on this page simply do not provide proven, reliable anti-spyware protection or may be prone to ridiculous false positives. Others may use unfair, deceptive, high pressure sales tactics to scare up sales from gullible, confused users. A very few of these products are either associated with known distributors of spyware/adware or have been known to install spyware/adware themselves.

With more joints and flexibility of movement, Asimo can now also grip and carry a tray of drinks, placing it safely on a table.

Demonstrating its latest tricks through video footage, Honda showed the 4.25-foot-tall Asimo addressing a mock visitor by name and showing her to a conference room, all the while maintaining a steady and natural distance from the guest.

"Welcome, Sato-san," Asimo said, bowing deeply as per standard Japanese etiquette.

By preprogramming the guest's name, meeting room and other data in an IC (integrated circuit) tag to be worn by the visitor upon arrival, an office worker can remotely send commands to Asimo, which in turn would pick up the commands through a built-in IC tag reader.

But in terms of groundbreaking new features, there wasn't much to cheer about this year, and next year probably won't be very different. Leaps in PC technology, seen in previous advances like wireless networking, truly portable notebooks, or optical storage technology, will be hard to find in moderately priced PCs in 2006. Dual-core processors will become the norm, but companies such as Microsoft are worried about the leisurely pace at which PC application developers are converting their products to take advantage of a new parallel world.

Perpendicular data storage technology for hard-disk drives, which allows for much more data to be stored than currently, has been talked about for years and now it's finally starting to appear in a handful of commercial drives. In 2007, it will become mainstream in PC drives. That will push storage space in desktop drives toward the terabyte level, according to most estimates.

In removable media, the big change will be the slow transition from DVD to Blu-ray Disc or HD-DVD. This is expected to start on a few high-end machines in 2006 but it won't be until 2007 that the technology starts to penetrate the upper-end of the mass market.

Yahoo will effectively act as the preferred provider of Movable Type for small business users, taking advantage of its scale and efficiency, Anil Dash, vice president of professional products for San Francisco-based Six Apart, said in a phone interview.

"This is going to be our recommended (sales) channel for small business," he said.

Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said it will offer commercial blogs based on Movable Type as part of its existing small business Web-site management service.

Yahoo provides customers with a unique Web address, blogging tools and business-class e-mail services with spam and virus protections for less than $12 a month.

"Any suggestion that information technology is yesterday's news, doesn't matter, or has lost its edge as an economic driver is just plain wrong," Miller said. "In fact, major trends indicate the opposite is true."

But Forrester officials said there are some signs of a slow-down ahead. Early reports have chief executive officers (CIOs) confidence measures down in the last quarter of this year, and large U.S. companies are projecting only small budget increases for 2006, Forrester said. The U.S. tech industry could see a "mild" downturn in 2007 after an up-and-down 2006, said George Colony, Forrester's chairman and chief executive officer.

The tech industry has "clearly recovered" from the recession of 2001-02, Colony said.

The two organizations didn't release in-depth details of the guts of the index during a press conference, but they noted that there's been steady improvement since 2003.

A cyberspace security responsibility was newly included in the mission statement, released Wednesday. The new mission statement, intended to set the current and future direction of the Air Force, reads: "The mission of the United States Air Force is to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests--to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace."

A story on the Air Force Web site quotes a letter to airmen from Michael Wynne, secretary of the Air Force, and Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, saying U.S. enemies will use any means to strike at the country and it is the Air Force's calling to "dominate" air, space and cyberspace.

European businesses rushed to sign up for the new ".eu" Internet domain name, putting in 100,000 Web site applications by the end of its first day available, the group in charge of registering the requests said Thursday.

Businesses and public bodies were able to sign up for the new European Union Internet address starting Wednesday morning, and they did so with haste.

They filed 40,503 applications within the first 15 minutes of availability — hitting a top speed of 60 requests per second — according to the European Registry of Internet Domain Names, or EURid, the nonprofit organization in charge of handling requests.

It performs at 800dpi but isn't recommended for any major gaming habits you may have. The Zspire has a metal base and top, with plastic buttons and battery cover. If you want your mouse customized, you can actually design your own from several options, but remember, it's not going to be easy to return after that-and for $119, that may be something to consider.

1. Shape: Well, you can interpret it in many ways - we have heard "coffin" (seems pretty popular), we have heard "stealth", we have heard "diamond", we have heard "Tron" (?????). It's unique, it's different, it is NOT for gaming. This comes more from the Bluetooth side than the mouse itself.

2. Weight: It's not as heavy as it sounds - heavier than those junky plastic pieces that everyone has on their desk, but no unmanagable - try it - really!

3. Style/Ergonomics - We actually did research on this - while it appears that may be uncomfortable, our usage has shown comfort, because your fingers are put into a nice easy position. Also, the couple of points (which are not that sharp) are actually along acupuncture points that make it feel nice. The back fits very nicely into the cleft of the bottom of your hand.

4. Coldness: Well - it is what is is. Maybe a little in the morning (probably shouldn't keep it out in the cold anyway :) ) - it's style - it's also yours. And it's art - unique.

More than 300 episodes from about a dozen prime time, cable, late-night and classic TV shows are now available for $1.99 apiece, viewable on computers or downloadable on the latest, video-capable iPod.

The programming spans from the 1950s to the present, including shows from "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Dragnet," USA Network's "Monk," the Sci-Fi Channel's "Battlestar Galactica," and NBC's hit series "Law & Order." Sketches from "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" are also for sale.

Apple unleashed a dramatically different way of distributing television programs when it debuted videos for sale on its iTunes Music Store on Oct. 20 with Walt Disney Co.'s ABC as its first network partner. Customers have since downloaded more than three million videos.

"A critical new ingredient we'll see (in 2006) is the acceleration of disruptive business models; 'open innovation' in IT product and service development--the open-source effect--and online delivery of IT as a service--the Google effect," Gens said in a statement. "These disruptive shifts will force most vendors to perform a strategic 'gut check' as they enter the year."

The "Google effect" that Gens described would be prompted by the fear that the search giant will dominate more markets in the years ahead.

"While much of this disruption will be years in the making, and will be overhyped in 2006, the more important impact of 'Google as a disrupter' will be as a spur for traditional suppliers to disrupt themselves before competitors do. This will be evident in enterprise applications, information management and IT services," IDC said.

Gens also believes that open-source-like collaboration will grow in popularity.

The poster-size calendar features scantily clad babes in technology-related scenes: March is serving up a platter of iPods at a fast-food restaurant while October is wearing a halter-top made of computer cables.

The women also reveal precious details about their inner nerdiness. For example, Mohr is a Trekkie whose "latest obsession is data mining and statistical analysis of econometric data for an upcoming real estate investment application." Tracy, Miss March, attends "Sci-Fi conventions, although she's never attended one in costume." And Barbara, Miss August, said her "friends give her a hard time because she'd rather stay home and play computer games than go out to the movies."

Mohr said she knows some people will see the calendar as objectifying women. But she argues that teenagers these days look up to celebrities who flaunt their beauty and sexiness. The calendar, she said, shows them that you can be all that, and intelligent and tech savvy, too.