They’ve got ’em in Japan. They’ve got ’em in France. They’ve even got ’em down under. And now the UK is getting its own model too. Say hello to Blighty’s first high-definition Blu-ray Disc recorder, courtesy of Panasonic.

Actually, there are three new models: the DMR-BS850, DMR-BS750 and the DMR-XS350 – the latter being a high-definition recorder with DVD archiving in standard def.

First up, the prices:
DMR-XS350 – £699
DMR-BS750 – £899
DMR-BS850 – £999

We know, there’s that whole ‘credit crunch’ thing happening at the moment. But trust us, you’ll like what these things do for you.

For starters, you get freesat+, which means recording, pausing and all the other usual PVR functions for the free-to-air satellite TV service.

When you go to record something on a standard-def channel and there’s a HD alternative, the guide tells you (useful for ITV HD content hidden under the red button or when the Beeb simulcasts something on BBC HD).

There are also two tuners, so you can record two TV channels and still watch a Blu-Ray disc or view something stored on the hard drive. Since the content is stored as the pure bit-stream, there’s no reduction of quality when you burn it to a Blu-Ray disc.

The device can even record in standard definition to a DVD, so you can share content with friends who haven’t made the leap to Blu-Ray yet.

And there are slots to access the content on SD Cards and USB memory drives. Content can even be transferred directly from SD cards to a BD disc or the player’s hard drive, cutting out a PC if you want to burn your holiday snaps.

Since it has an Ethernet networking port, the players also make use of Panasonic’s Viera Cast technology – allowing you to view YouTube content or Picasa photos on your TV screen.

So how much can the 500GB hard drive hold? Well, at the top quality of 14Mbps it can handle around 77 hours of HD content.

However, there are five levels of recording quality, with the lowest being 4Mbps. At this quality the box can hold 240 hours. “Yeah, but it’ll look crap,” we hear you saying. Surprisingly, content stored at this level was very watchable, with only a slight reduction in sharpness and some background colours washed out.

Also, the sound is only 5.1 channels, which doesn’t reach the 7.1 level of Panasonic’s BD-80 player, but will be enough for most current home systems. The DMR-BS850 has slightly better sound connection options, just so you know.

We had a play with an early production model at Panasonic’s new museum/showroom, so what did we think? Overall, despite that price this is a very competent system.

Bundling Freesat recording with a Blu-Ray player /recorder could have resulted in a jack-of-all-trades product, but Panasonic has managed to turn out a catch-all system that looks very professional, yet is still very easy to use.

Social networking website Facebook has reached another important milestone this year, signing in its 200 millionth user, three months after hitting 150 million members landmark.

All this of course is happening during the firm’s fifth birthday and while questions are being asked about its very ability to raise revenue (ed: nobody questions its ability to burn capital though). Over the same roughly the period, Myspace grew to 130 million members worldwide and Linkedin to 38 million users.

In a post on the company’s official blog, Mark Zuckerberg says that “Growing rapidly to 200 million users is a really good start, but we’ve always known that in order for Facebook to help people represent everything that is happening in their world, everyone needs to have a voice”.

With 200 million members, Facebook’s population is now higher than Brazil or Japan and would as a country, be the fifth most populous one, albeit a very cash-poor and debt striken one.

By comparison, Skype is estimated to have around 440 million members although Facebook’s rate of growth, 50 million per quarter, means that it will have reached half a billion as early as 2011.

To mark the milestone, the social networking website has partnered with a dozen or so organisations and charities to help raise monnies for their respective causes. This can be done by sending a gift to a friend on the social network.

Eye strain and RSI seem to be occupational hazards for most professionals these days so LG is riding to the rescue.

The South Korean giants have launched the stylish ‘W53′ series, a line of monitors which claim to “reduce eyestrain during extended use”.

In reality this claim is explained fairly easily through automatic brightness control and it won’t help those of you working in dim light or from a poor position (the top of a monitor should be level with your forehead). Still, every little helps.

LG is doing more than a little with the rest of the W53 series specs too choosing a movie friendly 16:9 aspect ratio, fitting all sizes (18.5in – 27in) with 1920 x 1080 Full HD native resolutions and backing it up with 50,000:1 Digital Fine Contrast (DFC) ratios and 2ms response times. A nifty feature bound to impress your mates is a proximity sensor under the bezel which detects a hand approaching and lights up the control buttons.

As usual LG hasn’t given away any pricing but it has been good enough to date the W53 monitors as landing in May.

That’s the eyes sorted. Fixing the RSI could prove more testing.

Ricoh UK has launched its Green Partnership scheme, aimed at helping customers to do their bit for the environment.

New and existing customers who sign up to the Green Partnership programme will be given resources and additional support by the print giant to enable them to minimise their environmental impact. This forms part of Ricoh’s commitment to promote sustainable practices throughout “The Whole Journey” of the product lifecycle.

The Green Partnership programme comprises:

• Toner bottle collection. All components are recycled by Ricoh at its dedicated Green Centre, with zero waste sent to landfill
• Commitment by Ricoh to plant trees through its Seeds for Africa partnership, as part of an ongoing relationship with the charity.
• A “Think Before You Print” campaign, including booklets, posters and stickers printed on recycled materials to encourage employees to reduce the number of unnecessary print jobs
• Paperless invoicing and meter readings
• Ricoh’s “Green To Do List” that helps organisations become more environmentally responsible

James Deacon, head of CSR at Ricoh, says, “Ricoh has already slashed the environmental impact of its manufacturing and disposal processes. This includes ensuring they are energy efficient at design and manufacturing stages, as well as ensuring every possible component is recycled or reused at our Green Centre when the customer has finished using them. This has reduced our share of the environmental footprint of each machine from 60 per cent to 45 per cent in the last three years – well below that of our competitors.

“Fifty-five per cent of the total environmental impact occurs when the machine is being used by the customer. So, as part of our commitment to reduce the effect of our products throughout ‘The Whole Journey’ – from cradle to grave – we are now equipping our customers with the tools required to minimise their environmental footprint.”

Ricoh is planning to roll out additional offers to Green Partnership customers over the next six months, including software discounts aimed at reducing paper wastage and cut-price recycled paper.

“We’re already seeing a marked change in the number of public and private sector organisations implementing sustainable procurement policies,” adds Deacon. “Many organisations are realising there are also financial benefits to a greener IT policy.”

Scotland winger Rory Lamont is hoping for a return to the Sale Sharks side – and may be helped by the actions of a former Scotland captain.