We’ll also have new shows here soon, so stay tuned tech fans.

TomTom GoLive 820

How does a portable hands free speakerphone that does double duty as an external speaker for your music on your mobile phone sound as a gift idea? And it even acts as an emergency battery charger for your mobile phone as well? That’s exactly what the Uniden BTS200 does.

Yes, it’s a hands free speakerphone that connects with your mobile phone or computer (or other bluetooth enabled device) and lets you conduct your phone calls in a hands free mode, with better sound quality than most phones can offer, because it has bigger and better speakers than your phone will have. Being connected to your phone or computer, it also can be used in place of the built in speakers for playback of music or movie soundtracks, and the removable battery has a USB port that lets you plug it directly into your phone to give it a boost if the phone’s battery has died.

WD TV Live Hub (Image copyright (c) 2011 Gary Stark)

Although it’s been discontinued by HP (pulled from the market almost as soon as it was released, in fact) HP’s WebOS based Touchpad tablet might make a great present for dad if you can find one and get it for a good (sub $150) price point. It offers a great browsing experience, there’s a kindle reader available, and it can handle email as well. Great for casual use within the home environment, say while watching tv, as long as you’re not going to paying too much for it.

Netgear Powerline AV500 (Image copyright (c) 2011 Gary Stark)

Hopefully, some of the ideas that we’ve presented will be of use to you as Fathers’ Day approaches.

Here’s a few ideas, pulled from the various gadgets that we get to look at throughout the year.

Jabra Drive

For the coffee-aholic dad in your family, how about the Nespresso Pixie? This is a compact, one touch coffee machine, that can make your cup of coffee in less than a minute. It’s a truly fuss free, mess free way of getting your hit of coffee, at any time of the day.

Pixie Nespresso

If dad already has a cappuccino machine, or if you think that the Pixie isn’t quite enough, perhaps the Nespresso Aeroccino milk frother might be a nice idea? Inexpensive, it’s a simple and elegant way of frothing up your milk for that perfect latte or cappuccino.

Maybe dad fancies himself as a bit of a shutterbug? Be sure to check out the Olympus Pen EP-3. This is a camera that’s small, but not too small. At the basic level it offers the advantages of interchangeable lenses and a relatively large sensor size, which means that your image quality will benefit as a result. but ease of use is a big feature here as well: it sports a touch screen interface, that lets you see, on the screen, the image that you’re going to capture. Touch the screen in the area where you want the image to be focused, and the camera will automatically focus at that location, and then take the photo for you. How cool is that?

Pen E-P3

Does dad need a new mobile phone? If your dad’s well into social networking and Facebook, maybe something like HTC’s Cha Cha or Salsa might be of interest? These are both very nicely featured smartphones running under the Android operating system, but specially developed for allowing the owner to interact with Facebook.

If they’re beyond your budget, maybe take a look at Huawei’s Sonic or Ideos X1 – perfectly inexpensive smartphones that are also running under the Android operating system, but very keenly priced.

It’s beginning to turn up more and more and in a lot more places.

Basically, it refers to a set of systems that can collect data and respond to that collected data, and in so doing, act in a manner that can help to control the systems that they’re monitoring. While it used to more generally refer to mechanical controls, this is become less and less the case.

A few weeks back we mentioned the CareTracker system. That was a means of data acquisition, but there is no means of control attached to that system, so it’s not really a SCADA system. But Google has a fully automated – as in driverless – car under development. That would rely upon a SCADA system in order to operate.

In just the last few days SCADA has turned up a few times within references to the Black Hat security conference, within the context of the potential for some SCADA systems to be hacked.

Insulin Pump

Specifically, if these systems – which constantly monitor his blood sugar levels and can respond by providing him with insulin – are able to be hacked, then what is the potential for a third party to be able to do this, and thereby endanger his (or your) life?

In the US, you can now have the option of having an on-board router installed within your new car, thereby giving you connectivity wherever you may roam, but also at this conference, some people from iSec Partners were able to demonstrate how to unlock, and then start the engine, of a car using an Android powered mobile phone.

And this is just the beginning.

Comscore advises that Microsoft’s share of the mobile phone space has now dropped, from 7.5% for the three months to March, to just 5.8% as at the end of June.

HTC Mozart

Just under a year ago I had my first hands-on experience with some actual hardware, and while it was very obvious that Microsoft were trying their hardest to push this as the best thing since sliced bread, I still had my reservations.

The first production versions of the hardware came, but some primary features were absent, and many people also reported crashes and a lack of general reliability. All of this is supposed to be fixed with the upcoming release of the Mango update, but there are a couple of serious questions that now need to be answered.

First of all, will Mango be enough to save Phone 7?

Second, how long will manufacturers like HTC, Nokia and Samsung be willing to invest their money in a platform that’s not paying its way? In this realm, one must wonder at what sort of subsidies Microsoft may be paying to the manufacturers in order to keep this OS alive.

But finally, does anyone, beyond Microsoft, really care?