expansys appears to have overstocked on the Qtek 8500 (at the time of writing there are 1654 in stock). Because of this the price is £69.95 including VAT. Not bad for a back up device.

"The HTC 8500 Smartphone is the thinnest clam-shell Window Mobile 5.0 Smartphone on the market. This stylish device places you firmly in control with high speed Internet surfing and data downloads linked through the latest connectivity technologies like EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth and Quad-Band.

This clamshell Smartphone offers a comprehensive range of office functions and incorporates a high quality camera and personal music player that allow you to take full advantage of any free time.

Dedicated music buttons ensure that you have an easy to use personal soundtrack always within reach. The secondary 1.2” TFT LCD on the front cover keeps you always informed of the time / date, identity of callers, and what music is playing.

The phone ships with 64MB of ROM and 64MB of RAM for contacts, emails and MP3's. Store extra MP3's on micro-SD cards. The handset supports a range of multimedia file formats such as video playback (H.263, MPEG4, WMV) and audio play back (AAC, MP3, WMA, WAV, AMRNB/ WB) software."

Is this you? A growing number of people are becoming addicted to their mobile phones, Blackberries and other digital devices, researchers are warning.

Techno addiction can become so bad that people wake up several times a night to check their e-mails and text messages.

It can even interfere with an addict's job as he feels he has to be linked up all the time, says Professor Nada Kakabadse of Northampton University.

She is conducting research into how widespread the addiction may be.

You would be surprised how many people had their PDA or Blackberry next to their bed heads

Evidence emerging from a small-scale study of 360 people carried out by Prof Kakabadse and her colleagues suggested up to a third were addicted. More at BBCi.

Michael Mace is asking for question ideas for the upcoming CTIA conference in April- "I've been invited to moderate a panel on mobile operating systems at the CTIA conference this April. No doubt this will be the highlight of the entire conference ;-) , so make your travel reservations early.

Participants tentatively will include Symbian, Microsoft, Access, RIM, and several others..."

Today's free eBook is The Fly and Die Ticket by Jay Lake- "Slow down, buddy. You’re all right. Here, have a drink. It’s a Spican ringstinger. You’ll love it. If you don’t, no matter–by the time you’ve choked it down you’ll be too drunk to care.

Don’t get any in your eye, though.

Trust me on that one.

Of course I know you’re new here. How many customers you think a place like this gets? Yeah, every one of us came in on the same ticket.

Me? Ah heck. Can’t hurt to tell it again. Probably about the same as your story. I got the bad news from a blind-doc on Tremayne Station. Everybody knows the drill. You come off a run a little space sick. Somebody on your shore leave rotation says, “hey, get your med clearance on the way,” so you find a med terminal before you head down to Fat Jake’s or The Spooky Action or whatever the local supra crew bar of choice might be. One of the self-serve ones, where you slip bearer credits in and there’s no one standing around with one eye on the monitors..."