Exclusive Review If your home entertainment system is almost complete - Sky Plus is set, the games console is comfortable and the HD DVD player is in place - but getting down to an hour or two of some serious gameplay means rearranging the furniture, then the aptly named SlouchPod could be the solution.

Now you too can spank your plank just like legendary axeman Jimi Hendrix. Well, almost. New software, released today, can make you sound like Hendrix, but riffing like the great man will take a bucket-load talent too.

On the off-chance you want to take a USB Flash drive up Everest or down the Amazon, memory specialist Corsair has launched Survivor, an "ultra-rugged" storage tool that's drop-proof and water resistant to a depth of 200m.

Spider-man 3 opens on 4 May but you can get an ahead-of-time Spidey fix by snagging a special edition Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo memory card or Micro Vault USB Flash drive.

California-based DXG has launched a new ultra-compact digital camera/camcorder that doubles as a portable entertainment centre. The DXG-589V features a 3in LCD Screen that rotates to a Gameboy-style shape for playing 20 built-in video games.

Carnivorous computer users with a taste for pork will undoubtedly find Hong Kong-based accessory maker Brando's latest memory card reader a toothsome treat: it's pig-shaped.

When I was a kid, I'd be lucky if an Easter Egg had a few Smarties inside. Offspring are more spoiled these days: now they find MP3 players inside their seasonal confections.

Site News It's been a while, but we're delighted to announce today the immediate availability of some all-new, geek-magnet El Reg apparel, including the splendid Hard Wear line, presented in three choices of colour on black. Pick from: Hot Pink, Lime Green, and Silver-Grey.

Hardware Widow So what do women really want from technology? That it should be easy to use? That it should work straight out of the box? That it should be, dare I say it, useful? Not at all, says Philips, we want it to sparkle.

Sony will ship a USB-connected rechargeable battery power supply unit later this year, the consumer electronics giant pledged this week. The device, dubbed Energy LINK, ships with a pair of AA batteries that slip inside to be charged when the unit's plugged into a computer.

Reminiscent of something you might find in the workshop of a mad inventor, the latest in the equip-everything-with-USB craze, according to Akihabara News, is the USB hub Sellotape dispenser, made by a Hong Kong-based company called Earth-Trek.

Assuming, of course, it doesn't suddenly pop off into the vortex where time and space are one, taking all your peripherals with it, we'd say this here Tardis four-port USB hub's a dinger and a must for the Doctor Who fan in your life. Now available from Firebox.com for a mere 20 quid, this hub not only flashes its light and blares out the time-space craft's famous ripping-a-hole-in-reality take-off sound. "Sheer poetry, dear boy."

CES 2007 This year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has been quiet, very quiet. However the absence of mega announcements from Microsoft, Sony et al has left space open for some of the smaller, quirkier manufacturers to grab their share of their limelight. Here then, much more fun than an LG Blu-ray/HD DVD player, are the ten best things we have seen at Vegas so far...

It's been one of those years when technology came on in leaps and bounds. Around the world, thousands of pointy-headed scientists and product designers beavered away in high-security laboratories, investing time, money and effort to create... more silly USB gadgets.

The reaction of many people to the idea of playing sports games on Nintendo's new Wii console is to shout: "Get a life and go do it for real." Well, you could say they same thing about this USB pole dancer toy, launched today.

The Universal Serial Bus has come to the rescue of smokers who want to partake of a crafty ciggie but ensure the boss doesn't get a whiff that office regulations are being so flagrantly transgressed. Yes, it's the USB ashtray, disguises when closed as a car.

A YouTube video of a man opening a box has been downloaded more than 73,000 times since it was uploaded on November the eleventh, the WSJ reports.

So what's so special about this cardboard box? It holds a PlayStation 3, and its owner, a guy called David Abrams who runs a website called Cheap Ass Gamer, supplies a running commentary on his new baby.

This has to be one of the daftest USB gadgets we've come across: the Secret Base Emergency Button. Plug it in, press the top to open the shutter and reveal the red emergency key, hit that and... your PC shuts down. Yes, but it's the way it shuts down that matters.

No, it's not Apple's next-generation iPod Shuffle, but add-on maker Buffalo's latest mouse, a slimline 8mm-thick rodent with an iPod-style scrollwheel in place of the more usual vertically placed rotary control. The wheel rotates to control a window's vertical scroll bar, but pressing the left or right edges scrolls horizontally in that direction.

Will anyone buy Lacie's new designer USB hub - or is it destined to appear only as an on-shelf accessory in Ikea catalogues? It certainly looks the part, and wouldn't seem out of place next to an iMac. Styled by French designer Ora-Ito, the Huby provides an array of five USB and three Firewire plugs and sockets, along with a fan and a light for good measure, all on flexible cables.