Who needs real people to read out the Web news bulletins? asks David McManus.

Reading stuff on the Web is all very well and good, but when you want the latest news in a hurry, scanning lines of text can be a bit of a chore. What we want from the Net is something more akin to television, where we can simply sit back, put our feet up and watch a newsreader do all the hard work.

Wouldn't you just know it, such a service is now available in the shapely form of Anna Nova, a newsreader with a difference she's not real.

It may seem that some of the presenters on our TVs are a little less than natural, but Anna really is made from pixels rather than flesh although she was modelled on a Channel 5 newsreader (so at least nobody will recognise her).

The latest news is currently being read at www.annanova.com and it's certainly worth a look. Natural human speech has always proved hard to replicate authentically, but the makers of Anna have done a pretty impressive job of it. Truthfully, you would have to have heard very few real people speaking to be completely fooled by her synthetic voice, but at least it doesn't grate like the automated telephone receptions we are so often forced to listen to. I can hear Kirsty Young and her colleagues shaking in their boots. As more and more of us spend their computing time at more than one PC (one at home and one at work being the most likely example), certain software, like schedule managers and 'to do' lists, become less than useful as you discover that the telephone number you are sure you entered into your contacts was actually on your other computer. This is a scenario I have faced on countless occasions. The use of a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) can alleviate the problem if you synchronise your device between both of your machines, but if you want access to large files between two or more computers, you either need to be sharing a network or forever copying things to and from a removable disk hardly a good use of your time.

However, www.murl.com could be the answer for many people who share their time between two or more computers. With services such as single access to any number of web-based e-mail accounts, the ability to store your bookmarks or favourites on-line (which therefore makes them accessible from anywhere) and the promise of web-based diary managers that can be shared among others and even a file upload area, this is one site that could be a regular stopover for many power users. The service is still in the construction stage, but visitors can sign up for notification of its impending availability. My name is already on the list!

The one major drawback of mobile computing is that as soon as you remove your laptop from its power source, the battery drains quicker than the Duracell bunny running a marathon. Good news, then, from Intel this week they have managed to develop a powerful chip that consumes an insanely low 1 watt of power. Look out for laptops that only need charging once in a blue moon.