Triplesourced

Tick, tock, tick, tock...At 5pm GMT Apple fans everywhere will get their yearly dose of the messianic, turtle-necked, presence that is Steve Job's keynote speech at MacWorld . The rumour mill is spinning ferociously, spewing out everything from the launch of Apple into the mobile phone market alongside operator Cingular to the iPod mega – a self assembling, full-size music studio and penthouse that integrates with iTunes (that one might not be so reliable). Other possibilities include a wide-screen iPod and more news on the iTV set-top box as well as the new OS Leopard. Other wild speculation is that Jobs may choose not to tuck his trademark turtle-neck into his jeans this year and ditch the much too white trainers but we are probably entering the realms of fantasy now.

Never mind about buying a virtual island in Second Life – you can have your own real life state cum internet hub for just £500m. Former anti-aircraft platform SeaLand is currently home to an internet firm HavenCo . – which hoped to take advantage of Sealand's offshore status – but now the platform is up for sale. However any new owners should be aware that the sea-bound residence was hit by fire last summer which caused £500,000 of damage. The owners even claim that SeaLand is its own state - free from UK jurisdiction - unfortunately the UK government doesn't quite agree...

ZDNet UK has teamed up with Alienware to offer a fully featured Area-51 m5550 worth £1,300 to one lucky reader.

The competition. to win this prize closes on Tuesday 9th January but there are still plenty of other top gadgets to win.

Jeff Bezos has released the first images of a test flight of his Blue Origin space vehicle. In a video clip of the flight on the
BBC. , the cone shaped pod reaches a height of about 85m (285ft).

Writing on the Blue Origin.site, Bezos said that the group's goal of affordable space flight would be realised slowly and methodically: "Our first objective is developing New Shepard, a vertical take-off, vertical-landing vehicle designed to take a small number of astronauts on a sub-orbital journey into space," he said.