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Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivered his Building Britain's Digital Future speech in London today, outlining how the UK is preparing itself for a digital future.

One of his biggest proposals focused on the freeing up of government-held data to the public, something which he hopes will "break down the walled garden of government" and "provide greater transparency on the workings of Whitehall."

One way he hopes to do this is by offering more information for free on the data.gov.uk, including transport information, ordnance survey details and creating what he calls "a domesday book for the 21st century."

"Public transport timetables and real-time running information is currently owned by the operating companies," says Brown.

"But we will work to free it up - and from today we will make it a condition of future franchises that this data will be made freely available."

He continued: "I can confirm that from 1 April, we will be making a substantial package of information held by ordnance survey freely available to the public, without restrictions on re-use.

"And I can also tell you today that in the autumn the Government will publish online an inventory of all non-personal datasets held by departments and arms-length bodies - a "domesday book" for the 21st century."

Freedom of information

The digital domesday book will be managed by the National Archives and is said to be the first time that the general public will be able to access information on departmental data which includes: size, source, format, content, timeliness, cost and quality.

The unleashing of all this data sounds like a call to arms for website creators and mobile phone app manufacturers as it will all be able to be used for free.

This is good news for those who used to get free up-to-date train information from My Rail Lite on the iPhone, only for the app to be culled in favour of the paid-for National Rail Enquiries version.

By making this data available for free to anyone, app manufacturers will effectively be able to use this information however they choose.

Another day, another survey. This time one that says we Brits waste £52 billion on gadgets that they cannot operate every year.

Somewhat ironically, the survey was commissioned by Sky HD.

UK consumers spend an average of £3,065 each year on electronics, but Sky HD has highlighted a major gap between spending and usage.

Idle functionality

The nationwide poll of 3,000 people revealed that over half the functions on Brits' high-tech gadgets are left idle.

The gadget gap figure of £52 billion was calculated by the average annual spend divided by the average number of unused features and multiplied by the number of households in the UK.

An amazing (and worrying) 47 per cent of those surveyed were unaware that an HD TV needs to be connected to an HD source to get a high def picture.

Two per cent of those surveyed also believed you needed to be born with HD Ready eyesight to view high def TV and movies!

The least tech-savvy city in the UK was Glasgow, with Glaswegians using just 42 per cent of the functions available on their gadgets.

Wolverhampton was the most tech-savvy city in the UK, with residents using almost 80 per cent of their gadgets' abilities.

63 per cent of women read the instruction manuals for their kit compared with just 54 per cent of men.

This week saw CES 2010 taking place in Las Vegas, where we got our hands on a whole load of shiny new kit that will be heading to our stores this year.

Read on for our most-read CES coverage this week.

Top five news stories

Nividia's Tegra demo wows CES

In what rates as one of CES's most compelling keynotes, Jen-Hsun Huang Co-founder and President of Nvidia drew rapturous applause from wowed tech watchers with his demonstration of the Tegra mobile chip. The processor is intended to give portable devices the power of desktops yet, in Huang's words, "only sip power". He described the chip's creation as: "the greatest undertaking since our foundation."

Stand back: Panasonic unveils the world's largest Full HD 3D TV

While the 3D TVs shown at CES in 2009 were very much in the prototype stages, this year should see the arrival of 3D TVs we can actually buy. Panasonic is keen to be at the forefront of the 3D revival and its stand at this year's CES is dominated by the technology. So what better way to shout about your 3D prowess than by developing the world's largest Full HD 3D plasma display?

3D-capable Sony Bravia LX900 heads 'Monolithic' TV range

Sony turned heads at its CES 2010 press conference by showing off its new Bravia LX900, HX900, NX800 and EX700 HD TV models for 2010. An undoubted star of the show is Sony's new 'Signature' range and the feature-packed Bravia LX900. Available in 40-inch, 52-inch and 60-inch sizes, this 1080p, net-connected, edge-lit LED 3D TV is an early adopter's dream.

Project Natal to be here by Christmas

Calling 2010 "the biggest year in Xbox history" Robbie Bach, President of Entertainment and Devices at Microsoft, announced that Natal would definitely be ready for this Christmas – though he didn't say how much it would cost despite talking up the new technology in the extreme.

Alienware's new netbook can run Crysis

Alienware has just announced a new Nvidia-powered gaming netbook with enough processing power to run high-end PC games such as Crytek's sublime Crysis - still, for many, the benchmark title that sorts the real gaming machines from the try-hards.

Top five in-depth articles

The best gadgets at CES 2010

Back in October 2009, TechRadar put on its felt-edged predicto-hat and tried to guess what would be grabbing the headlines at CES 2010. We called it: New Year gear to get you excited. Our thoughts naturally turned to Microsoft's Project Natal, the Courier Tablet, legions of new Kindle-rivalling e-readers and Full HD 3D TVs. And, as this year's CES has unfolded, we've not been entirely disappointed.

Total recall is coming

For the last 10 years, Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell of Microsoft Research have been scanning and digitising their entire lives: documents, phone calls, files, chat sessions, email, the web pages they read, the TV and radio shows they watched and listened to, where they want, what applications they had open… Over the next 10 years, you're going to do the same, Gemmell told the Storage Visions conference at CES 2010.

Microsoft keynote: it's all about the PC

In the opening CES keynote this year, CEO Steve Ballmer and Entertainment and Devices president Robbie Bach repeated the "three screens plus the cloud" story that Microsoft has been pitching for a while, although they concentrated on the PC and TV screens, brushing past Windows Mobile with a demo of the already-launched HTC HD2, the usual vague hint from Ballmer about bringing "the Zune music and video service to other Microsoft platforms" and the promise of announcements at Mobile World Congress next month.

Asus innovates at CES 2010

The PC market might be recovering, but the 25% average market growth in the third quarter of last year means only one thing to Asus CEO Jonney Shih: a great comparison for the 56% that Asus delivered. "We are well on our way to our goal to be one of the top three portable PC vendors by 2011," Shih promises. And the secret isn't just selling lots of netbooks: "the key to this level of leadership and performance is the Asus innovation".

Intel: wireless tech needs to get better, faster

During his keynote at CES Intel's CEO Paul Otellini said that while computing was evolving and becoming about more than the PC, connectivity was key to this change. "Smartphones truly embody personal computing," Otellini said. "Wireless connectivity is critical and 3G is great, but it's not fast enough. 4G technologies like WiMAX are needed to deliver on the promise and potential of these new devices."

Top five hands-on reviews

Hands on: Lenovo Skylight review

At a packed CES press conference, Lenovo took the wraps off Skylight – a new 10.6-inch ARM-based netbook device running Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip. The tiny 800g notebook really is a marvel, with a good-feeling keyboard that belies its size, HDMI connector and a 10-hour battery life. We had been expecting the device to be launched, but what we weren't expecting was the use of a new, proprietary Linux-based OS. Indeed, previous Snapdragon-based netbook prototypes that we've seen were running Google's Android.

Hands on: Motorola Backflip review

CES isn't usually the place for major mobile phone announcements, but Motorola has announced its third Android handset here. After the Cliq and the Droid comes the Backflip which, as you'll see from our snaps, includes a foldover reverse flip QWERTY keyboard. The Backflip will be coming to Europe after its launch in the US.

Hands on: Sony Dash review

Sony's Dash is one of the devices that has most impressed us at this year's CES. The so-called "personal application viewer" is a nifty little internet-enabled device which packs a 7-inch touch screen and an accelerometer. There's also a USB port for connecting devices, as well as a headphone jack.

Hands on: T-Mobile Vega Android tablet review

Away from the CES 2010 show floor, T-Mobile gave us a sneak peek at a product that will be coming later in the year: an ultra-thin 15" Android touch screen tablet codenamed Vega. This isn't just another Android device for the sake of doing something that isn't a PC or a tablet to take advantage of the hype about whatever Apple might or might not launch; while it's got a web browser and it will play YouTube videos and work with BBC iPlayer, the main application is a shared family calendar for getting everyone organised.

Hands on: Lenovo Lephone review

At its press conference this afternoon, Lenovo announced the LePhone – initially intended for the Chinese market. Like Lenovo's other big announcement, the Skylight netbook, it runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor. Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing introduced the handset by saying he believed the "Lephone is the best device in this category." The handset is a looker, with an 800×400 pixel screen and a proprietary Linux-based OS.

The arrival of Sky's HD electronic programming guide this year was welcomed by many in the HD community, but was it really that much of an overhaul?

Sure, much was made of the debut of Sky's mini TV feature, episode stacking and search options, and the makeover did reveal how much difference a tweak here and a brush up there can do to making an EPG work for you rather than against you.

But what Sky has achieved is piecemeal compared to what could be winging its way to your televisions some time in the near future.

TechRadar was lucky enough to peer behind the curtain of NDS – a UK-based company which is looking to change the face of TV menu systems as we know it. Award winning and with an R&D department that's bursting at the seams with innovation, NDS may not be well known to consumers, but it delivers technology behind the scenes to the broadcast world which make most of the UK's set-top boxes tick.

Guided by Jonathon Beavon, Director of Marketing at NDS, and Kevin Murray, Systems Architect – New Initiative – for the 3D side of things, here's six EPG solutions, which may well herald how we view TV in the future…

The iPhone 3G EPG

• What is it? An EPG on your iPhone
• Why is it cool? It allows your TV to be completely EPG free, and turns the iPhone into the ultimate remote control

TechRadar: Why would we use this application?

Jonathon Beavon: Using this app, you can actually see what's on even though there isn't actually an EPG on the screen, so you are not annoying the others around you.

We have got all the channels, and you can see all the programmes that are on for today. There are things like synopsis, so you can see what's on the channel. And then you get the option of whether you want to record the programme, much like your Sky EPG. You have the option to record once, for example. Once you do that, it's recorded to the PVR.

TR: Is there any extra functionality?

JB: You also get web apps to go alongside the channel information. In this case we have info from Metacritic. Obviously, if as an operator you wanted to use this content, you would have to get permission from the website.

It's extra content from the web, in addition to stuff that's on the platform. It's treating the iPhone like a remote control, but at the same time you don't have to go on to your laptop to find out other information about the programmes.

You can use it both through 3G and Wi-Fi and theoretically do it remotely without being in the room. But we already have applications that fulfil the record anywhere role. We have a lot of control of the software that runs on the software box; some other applications haven't got this access.

TR: When will we see this app in the App Store?

JB: We are currently showing this application to operators and asking them if this is something that you would want to do. They might have something already and we can show them how to improve it.

Recommendation app

• What is it? A complex recommendations system which offers up content you may like
• Why is it cool? It's one of the better ways to find new shows and movies on your EPG

JB: We can show whatever content is on the channel and for every piece of content we have an, 'if you like this you may also like this'.

What the consumer sees is an image with the options available to them. At the bottom is a synopsis with why it is recommended, reviews and even user reviews along a tab.

For this we use a variety of engine plug-ins, as some are great at analysing movie content and plot structure, others are better at half-hour British TV shows and so on. They all take different approaches, so we have an API to connect to the relevant ones.

The consumer would see this content launched through a green button. So if you like this, then you could choose these movies to watch after.

TR: How would we get this content?

JB: You would probably see it automatically at the end credits of a movie or a show, like you would with 'press the red button'. For these recommendation engines it is like a face to the back-end technology which they use.

Inventive advertising

• What is it? New ways advertisers can use an EPG
• Why is it cool? You'll never stop advertising on TVs, so you may as well see it in a more inventive way

JB: Interestingly, consumers are skipping less than they thought they were. Advertisers obviously want to make their adverts more relevant, so this is where the idea of substituting adverts comes in.

Say they have bought 30 seconds of airtime on a channel, they may want to advertise half of the products to one household and half to another. So, say you have a household which has children and one that doesn't have children, they can show off the sports car/family car to the family it would be relevant to. They are getting better use out of their 30 seconds this way.

We have a whole infrastructure head end and in the set-top box that allows this advert substitution to happen on live television.

You can have a substitution from the hard-disk drive with no noticeable change to the live stream. When you get to the end of the advert it actually splices back to the live stream once more.

TR: What other advertising have you been working on?

JB: Another piece of space that you may want to sell is the pause space. So when you pause a programme, an advertiser may want a static advert to appear when the programme is paused.

There are issues with this, with programme makers not liking adverts going on the top of their shows. There are certain shows in America, which don't allow their credits to be squeezed to make way for page furniture but again it is something which advertisers are looking at.

On-demand channel branding

• What is it? A way to bring on-demand closer to the look of its TV channel
• Why is it cool? It makes on-demand viewing a more seamless TV experience

JB: The line between live television and on-demand television is becoming more and more blurred, so we are looking at how to help brand on-demand to make it look more like the live TV channels the shows come from.

So, while EPGs at the moment shunt you off to another menu for on-demand and break up the brand of the channel, we have designed menus to move away from the 'now' and 'next' banners and actually use a new interface which shows, say, the brand of Channel 4.

In effect customers shouldn't notice if something is on-demand or not. The interface should make it as easy as possible to watch content, not hamper the user.

3D menu system

• What is it? An EPG for 3D television
• Why is it cool? 3D is the future of TV, and this EPG concept makes it that little bit more accessible

Kevin Murray: When it comes to 3D, what we have been looking at mostly is the graphics.

When you watch TV it is amazing how much of it is graphics – more than most people realise. By making minimum adaption to the graphics, you can make them respond a lot better to 3D. What you usually see with an on-screen graphic is that it is offset, so it looks as if it is pushing away from the screen.

Because we have made a relatively simple change to the underlying graphics, it still works in 3D terms. The graphics for the selection has been moved forward.

We are exploring what you can do with the 3D space to make the EPG easier to use.

TR: What can we expect from a 3D EPG?

KM: With 3D and graphics, you have got some space. But if you put up some logos in the 3D space, it may clash with the 3D which is behind it. It destroys the illusion. Some people can handle it, but for others the 3D illusion just collapses. To stop this from happening what you can do is tilt the logos, making them much easier to see with a stronger 3D presence. So, when dealing with graphics, you don't just have to think about the XY placing but also the depth.

By adding gentle movement to the graphic this aides in the 3D illusion, it gives the person watching it more clues to depth. If you move your head nothing changes in the background, so adding slight movement makes the effect work better – as does the gentle disappearance and appearance of logos and graphics. If things are flat on, they also ruin the illusion, so by adding a slight angle, depth is added.

EPG – Snowflake-style

• What is it? An award-winning design-lead EPG interface
• Why is it cool? Minimal fuss with maximum potential, Snowflake proves that EPG's don't need to be feature-rich to be ultra cool

JB: 'Snowflake' has been designed to deliver a similar look and feel across a variety of platforms – broadcast, mobile phones and so on.

Snowflake's is a minimal overlay on to live TV, and is controlled by a remote with just six buttons. A bit like the iPhone concept we also showed you for Sky, Snowflake can also be controlled by iPhone or iPod touch. The interface can also handle stored photos, music and radio.

TR: So, things like Flickr can be accessed?

JB: Exactly. If you are watching, say Planet Earth, then you will also be able to access photos from the places that are shown on the programme.

Like-wise with travel shows, you will be able to order your holiday through the EPG, or view more details on the places.

If we show you a scene from Lipstick Jungle, you can see that you will be able to order the dress you can see. And if you look at this snowboard scene, if you like the clothes and the equipment, then there can be links to this as well to tell you more.