Matt Egan

At the iPad 2 launch (you may have noticed it), Steve Jobs used the phrase "post-PC world", suggesting that Apple''s second-generation Tablet means the PC is no longer central to our lives.

Mac fans won't want to hear this, but Apple's idea is little more than a development of the 'always-on, everywhere' ideal as promoted for years by companies as disparate as Google, Microsoft and RIM (make your own jokes about Apple taking other people's ideas, adding polish and walking away with the loot).

It won't have escaped your notice that Intel's Sandy Bridge processor microarchitecture has made an impact. A glance at our PCs reviews will soon show that the performance of Sandy Bridge PCs is head and shoulders above the rest.

Alas, that's not the whole story: within weeks of the Sandy Bridge launch, Intel announced it had found a design flaw in its 6-series 'Cougar Point' chipset, forcing a recall to be issued. You can find out exactly what happened, and what you should do if you intend to buy a PC, in our story: Intel Sandy Bridge recall: what you need to know.

In an otherwise underwhelming keynote speech at this year's CES tradeshow, Microsoft made a play to control the biggest screen in the house.

The battle for the remote control is a staple of family life. Throw a games console into the mix and older family members can find themselves consigned to the spare room. But because the living room TV is the gateway to the digital home, today's 'gaming device' is tomorrow's gesture- and voice-controlled media centre.

Kingston this week at CES showed PC Advisor an Apple iPad accessory that dramatically increases the storage capabilities of Apple's tablet PC. The 'Mobi SX' is a WEP-secured wireless storage device that allows up to three people to store and then stream media files.

'Mobi SX' is the code name for a device Kingston claims will be available in the second quarter of 2011. Using 802.11a/b/g/n wireless, the 'Mobi SX' will come in 16GB and 32GB capacities, and will work with any Apple iOS device. It is a good-looking device, with the shiny black finish of an Apple iPhone.

It feels like a generation ago that the Asus Eee PC 701 revolutionized portable computing. In fact, Asus revealed its 7in-screen Linux laptop in June 2007, making the netbook two years younger than the still fresh-feeling PlayStation 3.

Netbooks raced straight from concept to world domination -- the Eee PC alone sold more than 300,000 units in four months, Windows XP was reprieved for netbook duty, and sales of Atom chips saw Intel's market share grow in every quarter of 2008.

Apple's iPad is a success. The speed with which Apple flogged a million units of its sugar-coated 9.7in tablet PC was unprecedented, and anyone who's visited a U.S. hotel recently will have thrilled at the site of business titans hanging around the lobby to get online. (Note to hoteliers: the iPad has no ethernet port. Give the rooms wireless.)

The biggest sign that Apple has a winner is when punters start using its product names as generic names. Just as every digital audio player is referred to as an "iPod," I can't be the only person who has been asked what brand my iPhone is.

3M this week here at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is showing the 3M MPro150 - a portable projector that it says will remove the need for travelling business people to carry both a laptop and a projector.

See all projector reviews

Liquid Image is showing off a pair of snow goggles with a difference, at the Consumer Electronics Show here in Las Vegas. They are, in fact, a digital stills and video camera.

According to the company, the Liquid Image Summit Series is the world's first pair of snow goggles with an integrated digital camera, and PC Advisor got a quick hands-on at CES.

Google has added more than 50 newspapers, magazines, websites and TV stations to Fast Flip, the service that allows users to preview or 'flip' through news stories. Google Fast Flip was introduced in September and can currently be found in the Google Labs beta site.

Articles from UK newspapers The Telegraph, The Independent and The Express have been added, along with the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. The Miami Herald and the Kansas City Star, the Huffington Post, Popular Science, Reuters, Public Radio International, POLITICO, and US News & World Report are also added.

‘The Most Significant Product Launch in Microsoft's History'. So ran Microsoft's hype: rammed into every media outlet in the known universe by The Most Capslock-Heavy PR Machine in History, on the occasion of Windows Vista's 2006 birth. Significant... how exactly?

Make such a claim, and you're a hostage to fortune. Short of doing your ironing and cooking your tea, Vista could never match its billing. But significant Vista's launch truly was.

AVG launched AVG LinkScanner as a free standalone product.

AVG LinkScanner examines in real time the web pages behind links and URLs to assess their potential danger. Available free for Windows XP and Windows Vista users, it's designed to offer an extra real-time layer of protection for web users who already use a security software suite. AVG today told PC Advisor that a Windows 7 build already exists, and will be available shortly after the OS launches.

Internet Explorer 8.0 is now available and, by all accounts, it's a decent web browser. But really, who cares?

Let's get the good stuff out of the way first. IE8 is, to be clear, a significant improvement over Internet Explorer 7.0. (And that particular release was Microsoft's first worthwhile attempt to grab the coat tails of Mozilla.)