The celebrity was among the first in the UK to get their hands on Apple’s latest gadget, the iPad. . Follow us on twitter at twitter.com .

www.T3.com – The Gadget Website. Fry on Google’s monopoly in the tech world and how he feels about being one of the most influential names in tech.

The first iPad reviews, from tech grand-daddies David Pogue and Walt Mossberg among others, are live. Go read. Don’t have the patience? Shame on you, and TL;DR follows.

Pogue says it’s no laptop replacement, but as a giant iPod touch, it’s a huge success. Mossberg says he enjoys doing most tasks on it much more than on his laptop, and considers it 80% a laptop replacement. Pogue hates the keyboard, Mossberg likes it. Both found the battery life to be exceptional — over the quoted 10 hours in both cases, which surprises me hugely. We talked about the iPad’s potential and competitors in today’s podcast, and the consensus was that, as both reviews stress, the flagship apps are the real indicator of the device class’s potential.

PC Magazine and USA Today also weigh in, and are similarly positive. Among PC Mag’s cons is the fact that earbuds are not included. Really now. Xeni has one over at BoingBoing, and she likes it so much she shot pictures of it with a soft focus filter — my mistake, it’s probably just an iPhone camera.

I notice there are few complaints about the lack of Flash support. That’s something that will emerge in time, I think — when a hundred thousand people start cruising the net and find that quite a few of their favorite sites have a few bits missing. Will they complain or merely shrug? We’ll soon find out. The whole Apple/Flash thing is a powderkeg, of course, so I’m just going to let the consumers decide.

But the best review came from Modern Family where the iPad was a major player in the story.

We’ll have our review as soon as possible. With any luck we’ll be able to throw a few of the newest apps at it as well. And my advice is, as always, to get the thing in your hands if you’re not sure. A quick trip to the Apple Store could save you (or make you part with) quite a lot of money.

And Stephen Fry go one, as well, but he’s nice about it.

[image: Reuters]

By Andrew Liszewski

It might not be as comprehensive, nor is it narrated by Stephen Fry, but Openmoko’s WikiReader could be the closest thing we have to The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy right now. It’s a palm-sized encyclopedia that contains over 3 million English language articles from Wikipedia, available offline.

Thanks to its monochrome touchscreen display that allows you to click on hyperlinks and scroll an article with a finger stroke, the WikiReader will run for months on a set of 2xAAA batteries. And since Wikipedia is constantly being updated, the WikiReader can also be kept up-to-date with quarterly updates that can be downloaded for free from their website, or there’s a $29 yearly subscription plan which provides the updates via microSD cards. $99 available from Amazon today.

[ WikiReader ]

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Microsoft

2009 is suddenly a holiday of racers. If you don’t believe that, consider the trifecta that dropped–or will drop–shortly: Need For Speed: Shift, Dirt 2, and Microsoft’s holiday tentpole Forza Motorsport 3. All of them promise realistic physics, blazing speeds, and tons of customization, but NFS: Shift and Dirt 2 are multiplatform, while Forza Motorsport 3 is an Xbox 360 first-party exclusive. For my money, though, I’ll take Forza 3. After playing all three, the newest Forza has, surprisingly, won me over–not with realism, but with fun.

I say surprisingly because “simulation racers” generally lie in a calcified place among the hearts of the mainstream gamers: the hundreds of factory-immaculate car models and pitch-perfect world racing circuits, along with the endless class licenses and intricate engine tune-ups, can turn most gamers off completely. Right here in the CNET offices, I told a colleague I was playing Forza 3, and that I actually enjoyed it. “Really?” he asked, somewhat disbelieving. It’s assumed that Gran Turismo and Forza will be inaccessible to those who don’t appreciate racers, just like Madden often erects a wall between NFL fans and gamers and the rest of the world.

I am a casual racer, and Forza 3 sucked me in.

Its first success was employing a calm British man to talk to me. Much like LittleBigPlanet, a gentle voice of authority (although in this case, not Stephen Fry) welcomed me, showed me the basic ropes, and told me everything was going to be all right. Rather than worry about detailed car controls and under-the-hood tinkering, a simple press of a few A and B buttons got me right into a season-long circuit of races. The voice tutorials gently tailed off naturally, until I had the ropes completely. Suddenly I realized that I had been playing for several hours, and was itching to complete just one more race challenge to unlock more credits. That’s when I realized that, fundamentally, Forza 3 is a success.
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To his credit Bacon was one of the first BBC radio presenters to realise that Tweeting was fantastic way of interacting with an audience. So he will often use his feed to ask his listeners questions, plug the guests on the show and encourage fellow tweeters to express their opinions.