Physical media such as CD and DVD is very slowly but surely being replaced by digital formats. Whether it’s streaming or downloads, physical is the past, digital is the present and future. As if to prove that, Linn Products is ceasing manufacture of all CD players, instead concentrating on its hard drive-based streaming players. Surely the first of many companies to take this decision.

City-wide Wi-Fi networks which offer wireless Internet connectivity for free to all residents who want it have pretty much failed to succeed across the United States so far. However, Swindon, a large town in England, is about to get a mesh Wi-Fi network built, and the plans and technology could be rolled out to other towns and cities across the U.K.

Email is currently one of the key elements of the Internet. And sending and receiving email is usually one of the first things we learn to do when going online for the first time. But its life could be coming to an end with new research predicting the demise of email within a decade. Its killers? Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and instant messaging apps such as Skype and MSN Live Messenger.

Twitter is a massively popular social networking and micro-blogging site that has gained an inordinate amount of headlines and copy over the past year or so. But what is the nature of Twitter? Is it for people to converse and share ideas, or is it for companies to try and connect with their customers and ultimately sell stuff? Stephen Fry, unsurprisingly, has an opinion on the matter.

Bullying has been around for generations and will likely remain a problem for generations to come. The problem is it evolves over time, with playground bullying first moving to mobile phones and email before seizing its chance to be inflicted via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But there are ways to prevent it and to stop yourself becoming a victim of abuse.

Black Friday is almost upon us yet again, and the one day of the year when bargain hunting is regarded as a national pastime needs to be taken seriously or you’re likely to come away empty-handed. Here is a short guide of how to bag a bargain on Black Friday.

Here we go again. Another week, another country threatening to take legal action against Google for its Street View service. Although it’s pretty clear by now that Street View is legal and doesn’t inhibit the right to privacy, Google continues to get it in the neck from each new country it adds to the line-up of countries on show. The latest to throw its toy out the pram is Switzerland.

Google first announced its Chrome OS operating system in July. Many people were very interested to see what Google could do to enter the already crowded OS market. Those people may now not have to wait much longer as there are rumors that Google Chrome OS is to “launch within a week.”

Far from being the overweight nerds living in their parents’ basement, it turns out that tech geeks, including bloggers and social network users, are valuable members of society. No, really.

Facebook has often played a part in getting people into trouble. But this is the first time that it’s been used to get someone out of trouble. It seems Facebook status updates are admissible as alibis.

It’s a sad fact of life that as we get older our ability to learn new skills and retain information lessens. Which explains why a five-year-old child can pretty much rebuild a PC while their grandparents have trouble finding the on/off button. Believe it or not, Linux could be the answer to the elderly’s prayers thanks to a new PC called SimplicITy.

Carbon emissions and carbon footprints have been in the news a lot over the past few years. But while politicians and celebrities have taken up the cause of reducing these, it hasn’t really affected the individual, the ordinary man and woman on the street, yet. But the issue could soon be personalized in a very real way thanks to individual carbon rationing.

Five years ago today, on November 9, 2004, Mozilla launched Firefox 1.0 and the Web browser has never looked back. In that five years Firefox has grown from an open source product for nerds and geeks to a mainstream product with 330 million users worldwide and a 20-25 percent market share. So, what does the future hold for Firefox?

We all have gadgets; some which we use on a daily basis, and some which we buy, mess about with for a week or two, and then abandon due to the novelty value disappearing. But how men and women approach the use of gadgets, especially when first bought, differs greatly. Men will assume they know best while women will study the instruction manual and take their time over a new toy.

Almost 20 years ago now, Gordon Murray conceived of and designed the McLaren F1 supercar. Only 106 were ever produced and it is one of the fastest production cars in the world, reaching a speed of 391 km/h (243 mph) in 1998. What has Gordon Murray done since production of the McLaren F1 ended in 1998? Why, he’s gone all green of course, and is preparing to unleash his T.27 electric car on the world over the next few years.

Music piracy is a huge part of the Internet and, whether you think it’s a major problem as the record labels would have us believe or not, most countries are looking to crack down on it. A new survey suggests that Spotify reduces people’s reliance on illegal downloading of music. So, is streaming the future? Not only for music but for other forms of entertainment as well?

Is the CrunchPad, that low-cost Web tablet for the masses conceived by TechCrunch, dead in the water, destined to be vaporware always threatening to make an appearance but never making it out of development? Or is mortally wounded, crippled by rising hardware costs? Or are we just being overly melodramatic and not trusting that Michael Arrington has everything in hand?