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Carrying too much! - Gadget Guy looks for smaller toys, with fewer wires

One alternative to carrying a half-dozen single-purpose devices, may be to look for an all-in-one box that does everything, suggests the Gadget Guy. But has he found one yet? Or is this survey of "toys with small screens" just an attempt by Davey Winder to prove that he is still a young man who doesn't need bifocals?

<1/> Davey<1/>Winder<1/>

Miniaturisation is marching ever onward, and the computer-using public as well as the ever optimistic (I could add often wildly misguided and always out of pocket) 'early adopter' types are coming to realise that they do not need to be bound to their binary babies by an umbilical forest of cabling.

Portability is still the key to wireless success, and smaller doesn't always mean better. Currently, many of us are struggling to carry around myriad devices using myriad wireless communication technologies. I myself can cite mobile phone (which has infra-red and Bluetooth) plus no less than two PocketPC devices - one with a WiFi (IEEE 802.11b) card, the other using infra-red - and also, a digital camera (also IR), 'pen' scanner (another IR) and a handful of Compact Flash (CF) cards. All of these are wire free, but combined, they weigh as much as a small poodle and are just as difficult to control on the move.

I am faced with two options, invest in one of those eVest jobbies that Guy has the hots for and end up looking like a geek gone fishing, or upscale and get a bigger device whose whole is less than the sum of my parts.

I have, for now, opted for the latter solution in the sexy form of a Sony C1 'picturebook' which handily comes with Bluetooth by default, and will happily let me stuff a decent enough GSM phone card into it. But it isn't ideal, and being both a Happy Geek and the Gadget Guy I am a little disappointed at having to regress to a larger form in order to get the functionality I need without the clutter.

What else is there? Well, there's the Pogo.

<1/> Pogo runs Flash, not Windows

Or maybe, there will be the Pogo. Like many 'technologists' , I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of this an intriguing device, a four-inch (10 cm) square colour screen with a button at each corner best describes the Pogo Technology Terminal which has been on my wish list seemingly forever.

This looks a bit like a Windows device at first. Look deeper and you'll discover this Flash-driven device (the user interface and most of the applications are written in Flash so it's both easy to use and easy on the eye) conceals a phone for voice calls, email capability, web browsing, MP3 player and a proprietary compression technology that it claims can deliver the wireless Internet at an effective bandwidth exceeding 56Kbps - all on a bog standard GSM connection.

The only trouble is that Pogo has been so long on the 'available soon' list that it has gained a vapourware reputation.

Mind you, it is not alone on my mobile must-have list. Take the wristwatch PC, and no, I don't mean the Argos catalogue definition of a computer on your wrist either although Casio are showing that form and function can marry, with their MP3 watch, GPS SatNav watch and of course the Peeping Tom tool of choice, the digital camera watch (also known as the upskirt cam).

And Casio has come pretty close with that readily available PC Unite model - a PIM and watch combined: custom 4-bit CPU, 24Kb of memory, 48x10 LCD screen and IrDA-standard infra-red built-in; with some basic PDA software as well, which can synch appointments etc with your desktop machine.

<1/> Casio: few functions

It's pretty clever and I've got two, but I hardly ever wear either because it sure ain't a PC on my wrist when it comes to real world functionality.

<1/> IBM's prototype runs Linux

No, what I really had in mind is something more akin to this prototype IBM Linux Watch, which I haven't got. Yes, it is slightly bulky but instead of Windows or Flash, it runs Linux 2.2 and the X11 graphic library, has 8Mb permanent "flash" memory and another 8Mb of ordinary DRAM memory. What's more on its tiny motherboard - measuring just 1.08 inches by 0.48 inches - it can pack a touch sensitive display and IrDA as well as a proprietary radio frequency wireless connectivity. The IBM Research Labs experts have demoed it working, and they promise email messaging and real time Internet content access to supplement PDA-alike features real soon now.

My aspirations towards wearable wireless technology pale into insignificance when stood next to some folk though, OK one folk in particular: Professor Kevin Warwick, head of the cybernetics department at Reading University. The Prof takes the future of wearables to the extreme, and has already starting experimenting on himself (in true Mad Professor style) with in-body implants.

In 1998 he had a silicon chip transponder surgically implanted in his forearm, part of a project known as Cyborg 1.0. This consisted of a glass capsule (containing an electromagnetic coil and a collection of silicon chips) one inch (23mm) long and just over a tenth of an inch (3mm) in diameter. The coil generates an electric current when a radio frequency signal is transmitted to the transponder. The current drives the chip circuitry, the circuitry transmits a unique 64bit signal, and a receiver picking up this signal was connected to an intelligent building network within the cybernetics department.

Yep, you guessed it, Dr Doomobile could open doors, turn on the lights and activate other computers just by walking into the room.

One might remain unimpressed seeing as anyone can do these things just by walking into the room and opening the door, turning on the light and activating the computers, but when the imminent Cyborg 2.0 project begins all that will change.

This second stage will involve a new transponder, designed to be connected to nerve fibres in the left arm (Warwick is right handed so the left is used as a safer bet if anything goes wrong), about halfway between the shoulder and the elbow. When the thumb is wriggled a signal will be received and recorded by computer, for example, a signal will be returned to see if the same movement can be generated remotely. Similarly, a pain response will be "solicited" and then returned, in order to determine if a remote signal can generate the same feeling of pain or if it will be more akin to 'phantom limb' syndrome.

Then another transponder will be implanted in his wife Irena, and signals sent between the two to test if emotion and thought can be transmitted between the two using the Internet as the conduit.

The medical implications are wide ranging, not least the prospect of being able to recreate damaged nervous system responses, or provide new routes to enable blind people to navigate around objects using ultrasonic radar of the type bats have. But naturally I'm not so concerned about these altruistic side-effects, it's the advance in the development of the smallest possible wireless PC that floats my boat.