Murderer convicted by text message, the Commodore 64 now fits in your pocket and the Bat-phone goes on sale

Kia Ora!

Do you watch less TV these days? Or, to put it another way, do you watch fewer TV programmes as they're being broadcasted? Chances are you do, what with us having hard drive recorders so we can skip the ads, and pocket fulls of other forms of entertainment providing our viewing needs.

So the TV companies must be feeling the pinch (and possibly even regretting the myopic decision to only show tawdry soap operas, impractical decorating shows, unreality TV and cooking programs on the terrestrial channels) and are turning their attention toward mobile phones in an attempt to get back in front of our wandering eyeballs. The Beeb promised to extend its portable iPlayer service to Nokia's N95 handset some time back, though it would appear it's now going to land on the N96 first. A practical decision, technologically speaking, but that's small consolation to the horde of N95 users who are still missing Doctor Who while out and about.

The UK seems to be Nokia's favoured testing ground these days, and if rumours are to be believed (and our Pocket Picks research gnomes believe they are, which is good enough for us) we should be seeing the release of its inaugral full touchscreen handset, the Nokia Tube, first. So what, say you? Well, it's the handset used by Lucius Fox in The Dark Knight, say we! A devilishly clever bit of product placement that got us pocket gamers a tad excited, though perhaps the whole thing's just a cunning ploy by The Joker. We'll find out on October 8th, so stay tuned (zap, kapow, etc.).

And the Caped Crusader isn't the only one who's using mobile phones to fight crime. It's come to light that when David Hodgson was convicted of killing his girlfriend back in February, it was in no small part due to SMS forensics. In an attempt to cover his tracks and make it appear his girlfriend was still alive, Hodgson sent text messages from her phone after her death. But a forensic linguistic analysis determined these text messages carried Hodgson's phonetic writing style, strongly suggesting it wasn't his girlfriend who'd sent them at all. Technology, it seems, doesn't lie.

Amidst all this iPhone and Nokia talk, Microsoft has been feeling decidedly snubbed that people are spending their tech pennies elsewhere (Bill Gates just doesn't know where this year's tropical French-Polynesian island is coming from) and has been advertising for programmers to help expand the Zune to the Xbox 360, mobile and PC. Quite what the job posting means in terms of 'connected entertainment' we can only guess, lie and spread rumours, but well versed gadgeteers like us can conjure realistic images of iPhone-meets-DS-via-N-Gage type scenarios.

Meanwhile, you either don't understand what Facebook is all about, and therefore can find no use for it, or you don't care what it's about, and therefore base your entire life around it. For the latter, there's good news from a couple of different sources which will allow you to stay in contact with friends (by other means than calling them, texting, email, faxing or that most heinous technological sin, meeting in person). Vodaphone has generously released an application allowing mobile users (on any network) to update their Face via text message, while Nokia reports it's working closely with popular social networking sites to integrate access into future handsets. It must be nice, this writer solemnly muses to himself, to have so many friends it takes a computer program to properly organise your association with them (he only has his cat to talk to, and Ramesses is asleep most of the time).

Wiping a solitary tear from a pallid and untouched cheek, we move on to one of our favourite areas of ever decreasing speculation, the Android OS-equipped handset. UK mobile maestros had been feeling mildly perturbed regarding news that T-Mobile would be launching the first Android handset, the HTC Dream, in the US before the end of the year. The Big T has now announced it'll be landing on British soil by November, however, so technophiles should go right ahead and download themselves a Sing Huzzah ringtone.

But while you're rejoicing over the technological feast laid before you, spare a thought for the mobile phone obsessed Chinese. While they labour night and day building iPhones for the rest of the world, the largest population on the planet is yet to have an official release of Apple's mobile revolution. The Chinese tech jockey has been forced to resort to re-importing unlocked iPhones so they can join in the fun, which we and our Pocket Picks imps feel is monumentally unfair. We've started a petition around the Pocket Gamer dungeon demanding Steve Jobs take that permanent smile of his over-photographed face until the world is allowed to unite as one under the iPhone banner. We're up to six signatures already, Jobs, so get ready to start looking a little bit sad for your press meetings.

In other news, retro heads will be excited to hear that the classic, beige, clunky computer Commodore is set to return in mobile form. That's an exaggeration, of course (it's not a classic – the ZX Spectrum was king, damn you!), as this is a Commodore in name only, but it's nice to think Jack Tramiel is still with us in spirit.

Final mention this week has to go to Sony Ericcson, with its showcase of two sexy little numbers that are bound to catch the eye of the social elite. First it announced the sudden and unexpected arrival of the Xperia X1 as soon as the end of September, then went ahead and flashed us some centrefold pictures of the gorgeous G705 slider handset. Laced with high speed connectivity, the sleek beauty also packs in an accelerometer, a 3.2-megapixel (video) camera and wi-fi. How to look good naked while making a phone call, eh?

Kia Ora!