Apple has been widely commended for its amazing app store, which allows you to download software.

It has resulted in a slew of apps, from the genuinely useful, to the genuinely useless.

However, Unique Automation has really raised the bar for the lazy consumer with its Bathomatic.

As the name suggests, it lets you remotely run a bath, specifying the temperature, and even how full you want it - all from anywhere in the world.

There's even a shower version, so you can switch the shower on in the morning before walking from the bedroom to bathroom - saving valuable seconds in the process, no doubt.

For the truly lazy, it can also control your in wall bathroom TV, which the same firm will install for you.

The app itself is free, but you'll need to install some gadgetry onto your bath. For those interested, there are more details here - if it's not too much effort to click on the link, obviously.

NASA has been the source of some of the most incredible images ever produced thanks to its Hubble Space telescope.

However, astronauts on board the International Space Station have given Hubble a run for its money with this image of a volcanic eruption on earth, released today by the space agency.

It shows the Sarychev Volcano (Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009.

Sarychev Peak is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, and it is located on the northwestern end of Matua Island.

Nasa claims the image is an incredible find for scientists, and should help explain how eruptions and the volcanic ash they spew out impact the environment. For most of us, however, it is just another reminder that some of the most incredible images you'll ever see are actually created by mother nature.

Taking to the stage as one of the Fab Four is every music fan's dream, and a new computer game, the first to be endorsed by The Beatles themselves, promises to allow that.
However, waiting to take the stage in Los Angeles with Paul McCartney's bass slung over my shoulder, the reality is a little different.
First, rather than the Hofner bass played by McCartney, my version is made of plastic, and has buttons rather than strings. And rather than playing to a packed club, I'm actually playing to a gaggle of a few dozen nerds in a tent in the middle of a massive conference hall in LA.
Harmonix, the game's makers, have built a replica of Abbey Road here for the game's launch at
E3, a huge computer games conference.
My backing band, made up of the game's programmers, are also rather more accomplished than me. The four of us all have plastic replicas of the 'real' instruments, which are solidly built and look great. Even the drum kit features the iconic Beatles logo on the front.
As the opening bars of I am the Walrus ring out, a screen in front of me shows which buttons on the bass guitar's neck I need to press to trigger the notes, and also what the words are. As with the real band, upto three people can sing harmonies together. Miss enough notes, and you can be virtually booed off stage - something I thankfully managed to avoid.
It does take a few attempts to get the hang of which buttons to press, but you quickly get upto speed, and thankfully the easy mode is very straightforward. While you play, videos of 'virtual' beatles are on screen, or in some cases, specially commissioned high resolution video animations.
The attention to detail is incredible - between songs, you hear actual chatter from the studio, and you can choose to play in on screen representations of several venues, including Abbey Road, the Cavern club,
and the roof of the Apple Corps building.
For fans of the fab four, its an incredible game, and you really do get a sense of accomplishment when a song goes well. There is an initial embarrassment factor, but as the game makers say. Experts will also find it challenging, as the higher levels demand you play every note the real Beatles would have - and it certainly dispels the myth that Ringo isn't a good drummer.
Overall, this is a worthy game for the Beatles first foray into the digital world. It's a huge amount of fun to play, and Harmonix promises that eventually, every album with be made available to play along to, although only 44 songs will be available at launch.
As a party game for those of us over 30, it's hard to beat.

After Microsoft's press conference here in Los Angleles, one thing is clear - in tinseltown, the cult of celebrity most definitely extends to the computer games world.
The show (and this really was closer to a gig than a press conference), opened with a rash of Beatles and Beatles relatives, with Ringo Starr and Sir Paul McCartney arriving on stage to plug their new game based on the Beatles music. Before them, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison appeared briefly to wave to the crowd (and interestingly, from the other side of the stage - so the two parties never met).
Minutes later pro skateboarder Tony Hawk was on stage, followed by Steven Spielberg, who is apparently a big games player himself.
In a town where image is everything, the lavish, over the top show makes one thing clear - despite the tough economic times, the games industry is growing, and growing quickly. With Microsoft and Nintendo holding their press conferences tomorrow, which are expected to be just as glitzy, it seems that for computer games, at least, the economic good times are beginning to roll again.

Arriving in Los Angeles for E3, the computer games industry's annual conference, it's hard not to feel a little sorry for Sony, who today had basic details of a new version of their PSP games console leaked online.

The games giant is expected to announce the PSP Go!, a smaller version of the PSP which can download games online, at a big even here on tuesday (look out for a first review of it in wednesday's Standard). However, somehow it leaked online, with photos and even videos surfacing. Sony's lawyers have been quick to remove videos from YouTube and other sites, but as soon as they are taken down they pop up elsewhere.

The leak is amazing given the secrecy here in LA. None of the major games firms, all expected to make big announcements this week, are saying a word. Even the normal tactic of showing journalists products under a non disclosure agreement is abandoned for fear details will leak ahead of the planned glitzy press conferences.

But in a world where news can travel online in seconds, Sony's woes are a sobering reminder that it really is virtually impossible to keep a secret online - even with the might of Sony's lawyers behind you, once the genie is out of the bottle, there really is no getting it back in.