Medion have unveiled a new all-in-one PC, the oddly named Akoya “The Touch” X9613. Based around a 24-inch multitouch-capable touchscreen, rather than stuff the X9613 full of nettop components Medion have taken the far more sensible route and used Intel’s 2.0GHz Core 2 Quad Q9000 CPU with 4GB of RAM, NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 240M graphics card and a Blu-ray drive.

That combination is good for 1920 x 1080 full High Definition, and Medion throw in both an HDMI input and output, SCART and VGA inputs, and three TV tuners (DVB-T, DVB-S and analog). There’s also a 1TB hard-drive, eSATA, S/PDIF, WiFi b/g/n, gigabit ethernet and Bluetooth 2.1, together with a webcam and stereo speakers plus subwoofer.

Underneath, in the control bar, there’s a separate SideShow display which can be used to show Windows 7 widgets. All in all, there’s plenty of entertainment PC on offer here, hence the considerable price: two models will be on offer (no word on what differentiates them), at €1,499 ($2,152) and €1,900 ($2,727) respectively.

The N900 will be the first Nokia mobile phone to run Maemo, which is Linux derived. The N900 is the first Nokia handset that I have found particularly appealing in a long time.  I will run down some of the specs for you. The device will have 32GB of storage upgradable to 48GB with a microSD card. The camera has 5MP resolution and Carl Zeiss optics. The CPU inside the sexy device is an ARM Cortex-A8 processor and the phone has a slide out QWERTY keyboard.

Nokia has said that the device is expected to ship this October at a price of about €500. If you live in Germany you can pre-order the device right now directly from Nokia for €599,00. Italian N900 hopefuls can also grab a pre-order today at the same price. There is no word on availability or pre-orders in other countries at this time.

Microsoft's new Web browser, Internet Explorer 8, is now available in a beta version meant for ordinary users, and it's a pretty good piece of software.

Besides the private browsing mode, called InPrivate, which Microsoft has already announced, there are other nifty features. When your cursor moves over, say, an address on a Web site, one of IE 8's so-called Accelerators drops down a menu bar of different Web mapping services. Click and the address is mapped. No copying and pasting across Web sites.

IE8 has also been designed so that tabbed Web sites are isolated. That means a poorly behaving Web site won't crash the whole browser, just that tab.

The list goes on, and Microsoft explains all the new features on its Web site.

IE 6, introduced in 2001, was a mess, really opening the door for the open-source project Firefox, which is richly supported by Google. IE 7, analysts say, was a major catch-up effort, while IE 8 is Microsoft's bid to move ahead of Firefox and Apple's Safari in performance, features and user experience.

"In things big and small, it is a better experience," contends Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Microsoft's Internet Explorer group.

We'll see. But Microsoft's new entry and the revived competition in the browser market brings a sense of deja vu. I think back to the comment made by Marc Andreessen, Netscape's co-founder, in the heady days of the browser pioneer's ascent. The browser, he said, could "reduce Windows to a set of poorly debugged device drivers." Translated: the operating system would be relegated to plumbing, while all the action for users and programmers would be on the browser, riding above the operating system.

On the witness stand in 1998 during Microsoft's federal antitrust trial, Jim Barksdale, Netscape's chief executive, tried to dismiss the Andreessen comment as a young man's flippant joke.

But it was no laughing matter to Microsoft, and that potential threat was the animating force behind the tactics Microsoft used to stifle the Netscape challenge.

Today, the browser challenge — though not Netscape — is alive and well. And it is far more realistic now. The tools for making richer Web-based applications have vastly improved. There is the rise of cloud computing, with its promise of shifting all sorts of computing tasks from e-mail to word processing onto the Web. And there is the proliferation of powerful cellphones that can handle many computing tasks via a mobile browser.

So the browser could become "the universal client," noted Peter O'Kelly, an independent analyst. And Andreessen was "just ahead of his time," O'Kelly said.

Firefox is now a credible competitor to IE, with its share of the browser market having climbed to 19 percent, according to Net Applications, a research firm. Microsoft's IE has 73 percent and Apple's Safari has 6 percent.

IE 8 is Microsoft's answer to the renewed browser challenge. "There's competition now and competition does amazing things," says Matt Rosoff, an analyst for Directions on Microsoft, a research firm.

Sony  on Thursday announced its smallest HD camcorder, the Handycam HDR-TG1. Measuring 4.7 by 1.3 by 2.5 inches (LWD) and weighing a mere ten ounces, this flash memory camcorder is definitely designed for the frequent traveler.

The HDR-TG1 records in the AVCHD format at full HD resolution (1920 by 1080), contains a 4-megapixel still image camera, and includes a 4GB Pro Duo Mark2 media card. It also offers the ability to see up to 8 faces within a scene and will automatically adjust focus, exposure, and color while shooting video, thanks to its face detection technology.

Using the BIONZ processing engine, the tiny camcorder has a Carl Zeiss 10x optical zoom lens with improved dynamic range that should increase the quality of still images.

Overall, Sony seems to have a decent travel camcorder on its hands. The HDR-TG1 will retail for roughly $900 and will be available in May.