Belkin WEMO Maker

Your world is now fully controllable with a WEMO maker.

I've wanted to write about Wemo for a while, as it's a really interesting technology. Devised by Belkin, Wemo products have the capability to be remotely controlled using a phone and tablet using local wi-fi. So far Belkin has released power switches. Smart LED Blubs and even some security cameras to utilise the technology, but the new Wemo Maker takes the concept to wholly new place, by embracing the maker community with a tool to Wemo almost any piece of low voltage electronics.

Samsung Galaxy Alpha on Vodafone

Vodafone offer most of the top designs in their Pay Monthly selection these days, and have included the Samsung Galaxy Alpha alongside the S5, Nexus 6, Apple's iPhone 6, and various LG, Blackberry, Nokia Lumia, Sony and HTC products.

You can get it free on contract from £30.50 a month, £4 less than the S5. Or, you can get that down to £22.50 a month if you stump £149 upfront, and agree to a 24 month contract for 100 mins, 100MB and unlimited texts.

Currently Vodafone haven't added this phone to their Pay Monthly range, but you can get it unlocked elsewhere for roughly £450-500. That price is an accurate reflection of the specification, where it's close to being a leader without ever actually heading the pack.

Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon R9 290X 8GB

The freaks come out at night.

Sometimes, at the tail end of a generation of GPUs or CPUs, you see something a little exotic get to retail shelves, perhaps as a way to boost sales of remaining inventory before the shiny new thing wipes the slate clean. Other times, it’s simply a window of opportunity for experimentation. Asus is delivering the Ares III, a Radeon R9 295X designed for custom water cooling and built on a custom PCB. (They’re only making 500 of them, though, so good luck tracking one down.) Now, Sapphire has come along with a 290X that doubles the VRAM allotment from 4GB to 8GB.