As the basis of a popular Internet comic strip about the perils of using copyrighted material in your project, the nightmarish scenario above might not be completely true. But the twin morals are clear; music is expensive, and music industry lawyers have very deep pockets.

A magnetic data disk works similarly, a stylus both reading and writing miniscule peaks and valleys on a solid metal surface (or a plastic one in the case of CD/DVD media), each ‘bump’ representing the ones and zeroes of computer data.

Apple’s long-rumoured tablet, the Google mobile, the rise of ereaders and 3D in the home will be among the technologies vying for your money this year. 2009 saw the continued rise of new movements in the digital sphere and the name of the game will be convergence, with new gadgets that do many more tasks than old generation tools.