The futuristic looking picture on this page is of the Logitech Quickcam Sphere, also known as the Quickcam Orbit in the US and European markets. Its aim? To stand ta lion your desktop and track your face as and when you move it.

With the Internet continuing to spread its web to even some of the most remote places on God’s earth, videoconferencing, chatting, and staying in touch is passe. What’s cool now is to be able to see the person you are chatting with! Which explains the popularity of webcams.

The choice that manufacturers offer in this product category is interesting because here it’s not about how fast the device is, but rather, how good the image quality is and how the product looks-it’s about style and flaunt value. Speaking of visual appeal, it’s hard to beat the Logitech Quickcam Sphere in that department.

Sonic’s Record Now! Deluxe edition is a powerful and easy-to-use tool for CD and DVD recording. It comes bundled with Cine Player, My DVD, Record Now and a quick file archiving tool. Sonic has made very interesting changes; for instance the whole application is given a Wizard-based feel and \ a pleasant interface.

Getting started is a simple matter of choosing one of the four iconic project tabs-Audio, Data, Copy, or VCD-from below the main player window. Record Now will launch one of these categories; these in turn come with their own sub-categories.

Next is music compilation, which comes with the familiar drag-and-drop options placed in a lucid two-window interface. Peculiarly, when you drag and drop tracks, the last track always ends up first, thus completely changing the order! How annoying is that? A CD-labeling application also forms a part of Record Now- it will directly import track information onto your label. Unfortunately it lacks advanced options.

My DVD, is a longtime front-runner in the entry-level DVD authoring field and comes with stunning motion backgrounds. Although the program doesn’t allow you to freely place menu buttons or text, its ease of use and professional-looking results go a long way. Cine Player sports a very uncluttered interface and gives Open DVD support as a major feature, beneficial for authoring DVDs using Open DVD-compliant authoring programs. Lastly, Quick Archiving features allow quick backup and disk copy options. For: Easy to use, provides Cine Player with Open DVD and good DVD authoring. Against: Changes track order, lacks advanced CD-labeling features.

CrazyTalk is 3D morphing software from Reallusion which allows morphing your photos and syncing them with audio to help you create talking pictures, complete with animated emotions. The software allows you to pick any photo, resize it and place wire-frame points, simulating the facial muscle points in orderto edit them.

It lets you add facial gestures to every word or sound from within a bank of 20 different expressions. We added fake eyeballs to our photos and then played around with their color and size. Although they did add zing to the pictures, they looked quite unnatural.

You can breathe your pictures to life using the audio-sync option; use their Text-To-Speech technology to speak a written text message with a synthesized voice; or better still, you can record your own voice using its built-in audio studio. The preset sound filters lack advanced voice manipulation features and the output sounds a bit tinny at certain times.

CrazyTalk has both Home and Web editions. The trial versions are available for download on its site-hefty downloads of 17 MB or 24 MB respectively. The evaluation period is just 7 days, after the expiry of which you must buy the full version for a huge $49.95.

For: Commendable picture morphing and audio-sync features.

Against: The software lacks advanced audio and video editing features. Besides, it also proves to be a tad expensive.

Most people nowadays have huge hard disks. Which is why everybody stores all kinds of documents on their machines and routinely forget what they’ve stored and where. That is precisely where software like ScopeWare Vision comes in handy. It’s like having a search engine for your hard disk-and if you choose to activate it, for all the external disks that you use.

The 17 MB installation takes a while. But that’s because the software can’t work until it indexes what exists on your computer. Having indexed it, Scopeware creates snapshots of every file on the machine. With that done, you can get away without remembering file names or managing your data in neatfiles.

Simply type a keyword or phrase that you’re looking forfrom your machine and ScopeWare will locate all documents for you in barely a few seconds. This includes PDF files or even images for that matter. While the personal edition was created for a single machine, the professional edition, which we reviewed, does the job across a network.

A Cheap alternative to higher-priced Media Centre PCs, the card sports an FM radio that delivers excellent reception. The PlayTV@P7000 can store several presets that you can name and sort according to your preference.

Schedule and record your favourite TV serials thanks to its eDrive technology. Plus, you can e-mail your PC with the details of what you wish to record and leave eDrive to ha nd Ie the rest! Featured on the board is a Conexant CX23880 to decode video at 10-bit and a CX23416 that helps hardware encode a video stream into MPEG2 format.

The resultant recording, 720×576 at 30 fps, was of very good quality. Couple this with an audio sampling rate of48 KHz and you have an extremely accurate and snow-less replication of your favourite TV shows. The remote control is obscenely huge, because of all you can do with it in addition to the standard TV, video and FM controls.

For starters, click the Play button and have your e-mail read to you instead of you reading your e­mail. You can also launch applications and have direct access to any file stored inside Windows’ media library ­something no other product offers you control over. Its nifty Time­Shifting feature lets you pause and resume a live television feed! But you need a large hard disk and much free space.

It’s extremely easy to set up and the sampling/playback quality is on the superior side. The package comes replete with all the necessary software.

For: Features and functionality aplenty; its e Drive technology is especially sweet.

Against: The software activation can prove to be an unwarranted annoyance.

The Gainward Media Xtender is an external 5.1 soundcard that boasts of optical output and input, as well as a 6-in-1 card reader for Compact Flash, Smart Media Card, Memory Stick, Secure Digital Card, MultiMedia Card and Microdrive. It also has two USB 2.0 ports for additional connections to other devices.

The package includes a pair of headphones and a microphone and it can be powered by an external power adapter.

A bonus is the infrared remote, which is bundled with the device; this was easy to install, and produced no conflicts with the drivers. Sonix Sound Station, bundled with the product, allows you to configure the speaker type as well as the remote control, recording and conversion settings.