Hanover, Germany - When the CeBIT rolled out in March 2008, nobody had an answer to the small yet affordable Asus EeePC.

The market has rushed to fill the gap in the interim, however, with several new devices seeking to make headway in the netbook market. Devices in this class are designed to have dimensions comparable to a sheet of paper and weigh just one kilogramme, yet cost a fraction of their similarly dimensioned cousins, the subnotebook.

Even so, buyers must make clear sacrifices in terms of options and performance.

Berlin - Most German senior citizens - or 58 per cent of those over 65 - have neither a mobile phone nor computer while the figure plunges to 5 per cent in the 14- to 
29-year age group, a study by the researcher Aris for BITKOM, a technology industry association found.

"The digital divide in society is mainly a divide between old and young," said BITKOM President August-Wilhelm Scheer.

Hamburg - In this digital age, there are still plenty of opportunities, private and professional, to exchange business cards.

Companies generally print standardized business cards for their employees. But the self-employed often find the costs of printing sufficient numbers too high. Making your own cards on your PC is a cheaper alternative.

There are a variety of programs to create business cards. Office supply and software companies like Sigel, Avery, Zweckform and Data Becker offer sets of card-creating software and special paper with pre-punched cards. These easy-to-use programs also come with a variety of fonts and graphics.

Munich - Monitors frame our relationship with our computers and a great computer is only as good as its monitor.

That's why it's important to ask yourself: "What do I want to do with this computer" before purchasing, says Jaroslav Smycek of the Hannover Consumer's Center.

Although nearly all flat screen monitors are based on LCD technology, there are differences between the models. "TN Film models are popular. These screens are in the lower end of the price range," says Josef Reitberger of "CHIP," a Munich-based computer magazine.

Washington, Aug 9 : Milliseconds can fill a huge gap between triumph and defeat in the world of Olympic sports. Now, a fluids mechanics professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, has used experimental flow measurement techniques to help American swimmers sharpen their strokes, shave seconds from their lap times to secure a gold in Beijing.

London, August 9 : Japanese researchers have proposed an idea to use stretchy circuits made from rubber and nanotubes to create an “e-skin”, which will be flexible enough to completely cover a robot without limiting its movement.

"Without human skin-like sensitivity, robots cannot be used in everyday life. Imagine the danger if a robot did not recognise when it had accidentally bumped into a young child," New Scientist magazine quoted Takao Someya of the University of Tokyo as saying.

He has already developed a rubbery conductor, that can be stretched by 38 per cent without any drop in its conductivity. 

He says that a net of it was still working after being stretched by 134 per cent, though with a drop in conductivity.