Digital you've got to dig it all. From music to movies, telephones to television, the world is going digital crazy but it is a situation that does not suit everyone, writes Dave McManus. Many of us have objected to the BBC spending our licence money on digital TV when we have no intention of ever watching it (until there is no alternative, that is).

The MP3 'Revolution' is great news until you fancy listening to them in the car or on your expensive hi-fi and, if you want to show off the hundreds of holiday snaps you took on your digital camera, you either need a very expensive photographic-quality printer or a lap-top computer that travels with you wherever you go still not ideal for passing them around your mates in the pub.

Companies are getting wise to the fact that the digital medium's greatest drawback is its mobility (or lack thereof) and they are falling over themselves to offer us devices designed to get around the problem. A company called Sandisk is to introduce special digital film photo vending kiosks into town centres. You will soon be able to take your photographs stored on flash memory to the kiosks, access the ones you want from the screen and print them off in photo-quality resolution all for the price of standard film development. A fantastic idea, more of which can be read at www.sandisk.com.

Panasonic (www.panasonic.com) has just announced a major drop in the price of their portable DVD players. Probably the 'must have' gadget of the year, these paperback-sized devices allow you to sit on the train and watch your favourite DVD movies on their wonderfully clear screens.

Things of great beauty indeed, and not prohibitively expensive (for the enthusiast, at least) now that prices are dropping well below the 1,000 mark.

The old problem of not being able to listen to MP3s away from a computer was overcome as soon as the medium was invented. There is a vast range of portable MP3s around, all of them tiny and lightweight. The only real problem is their relative lack of storage space. Welcome then, the mind-blowing Nomad from Creative (www.nomadworld.com). This ingenious device is a portable MP3 player that can store 2,000 music tracks that's about 150 albums. Imagine your entire music collection accessible anytime, anywhere.

Thanks to software downloadable from www.zy2000.com, it is even possible to make standard audio CDs from MP3s. You will need access to a CD writer, of course, but MP3 CD Maker supports most of the popular models.

With all these electronic gadgets floating around, 'convergence' is the key. Pocket PCs (www.pocketpc.com) go a long way to giving us access to an array of digital files, but fast forward a couple of years and expect to see single bits of kit that act as telephones, TV, movie and MP3 players, digital photo albums and electronic or audio book readers. Not to mention that all-important Internet connection letting you swap files with your friends and colleagues.

"The future's bright the future's digital," to paraphrase a well-known slogan.