Charles Wright lets his fingers do the walking on a revolutionary keyboard

The theory is that the average set of digits makes a mere two million keystrokes a year during 200 hours at the keyboard, which, in our experience, is ludicrously inaccurate.

We tend to spend 200 hours at the keyboard every day. Some fingers find the task of pressing … that … damned … key more difficult than others, due to a variation in finger lengths, a fact that is apparently verified by a Harvard University study commissioned by Logitech to market the Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave Laser keyboard/mouse.

When we stopped laughing, we tried out the keyboard, and were astonished to discover that it actually does feel more comfortable.

The subtle U-shaped constant curve positions the A and Enter keys, typically hit by the little fingers, higher than their immediate neighbours. Moving inward towards those long pointer fingers, the keys gradually decrease in height. There's a cushioned palm rest, and programmable hot keys.

It comes with an ambidextrous mouse, which sounds like a pretty neat trick for a little digital animal. Price: $140

Shrunk, and stuffed

Designing the ideal ultra-light portable computer isn't all that hard. You just have to master two completely contradictory forces: shrinking everything while stuffing more things in.

It's taken Toshiba two years to follow up on its brilliant little R200, but the wait for the Toshiba Portege R500 notebook PC has been worth it. The R500 is the thinnest, lightest notebook, which happens also to be the first to include a DVD burner. And it's the first with a super-thin LED backlit transreflective screen.

And a 64GB SSD 'hard disk' which is actually NAND flash memory, which, because there are no moving parts, is faster, lighter, consumes less power and scarcely notices if you happen to drop it. Oh, and battery life is rated for 12 hours. Simple, huh? Price: A$3300/A$4125

Don't panic

It was predictable, surely, that a device that gives you driving directions would sooner or later want to guide you in other areas.

First the TomTom linked to your telephone, so you could route calls via your windscreen. Now the latest model, the TomTom Go 720, will do voice recording, so you can record and play your own driving directions (which, given you've bought the machine to do that, sounds a touch zany).

You can use Bluetooth to transfer pictures to the thing, and an FM transmitter means you can play the audio through your car stereo. The SiRFstarIII chipset, faster processor and more RAM means faster satellite acquisition and route calculation. The 4.3-inch screen is clearer, thinner and lighter, with better 3D graphics, and upgraded software makes the digital scenery just a touch more interesting. Price: $799

Slab o' storage

What with having to constantly lug ever-growing masses of data from one location to another, you too may have begun musing on the inadequacies of those USB keys. If so, you'll love this slim (121.9mm x 99mm x 17.7mm), light (186g), fetchingly designed slab of storage known as the Seagate FreeAgent Go 160GB portable USB hard drive.

It fits easily into a bag - quite comfortably even into a trouser or coat pocket. You don't need power, because it draws its own supply from a second USB cable. It ships with several applications, including encryption and backup software.

Up to 100 others are available, and the onboard web browser means you can plug it into a public PC and cover all your tracks when you unplug. There are smaller capacity models, but this one hits the spot. Price: $175

Reference: November 2007, volume 77:10, p. 78-79