I’ve just received a piece of market analysis that’s proclaiming that sales of digital photo frames are set to explode in the back end of 2007. How depressing is that?

Is it just me who finds these things a pitiful waste of technology? Or, more to the point, technology simply butting in where it isn’t welcome? For decade upon decade, to my knowledge, people seem to have had few problems with mounting a printed photo in a half decent frame and sticking it on their mantelpiece. It worked, it was simple, and everyone was happy.

Then technology stuck its oar in, and as a result, people the world over will be receiving these insipid gadgets as gifts this year. So we’re basically all expected to load our images onto a flash card, buy some good batteries (scrub that: lots of good batteries), and have a mini-Powerpoint presentation going on the fireplace now? Give me a break.

Apart from the environmental concerns here, of adding a power supply to something that ten years ago few would even considering needing one for, these things simply aren’t much cop are they? Once the novelty has gone and you deal with the reality of having a flashing screen on your fireplace, the temptation surely must be to relocate it a foot or two down.

But I’m curious. I appreciate lots of people have, and will receive, digital photo frames as gifts. Yet I’ve never been into the home of a single person who uses one day to day. Is it me, or is the digital photo frame the most unused, pointless gadget of the modern generation?

Hilariously, my train journey home last night, which was otherwise going perfectly to plan, was delayed one stop from home. It’s smashing when that happens, as there’s nothing like being a couple of steps from the end of the journey and having the rug ceremoniously pulled from underneath you.

The reason for the delay? Because some tit of a man, having not heeded the on-train announcement that we’d arrived at a station, took ages to get his stuff together and watched in horror as the automatic doors slung shut. You can imagine what went through his brain: what can I do? How can I get the doors back open? I can’t possibly do the logical thing and wait for the next station before battling a heavily computerised train with its automatic doors, can I?

Actually, I’m being kind. None of these thoughts seemingly flashed through his head. Instead, he pulled the emergency lever, which triggered the doors, and he was able to go and meet who he had to meet on time. Phew.

The rest of us in said train, of course, were then delayed fifteen minutes, entertained  by a carnival of alarms going on, beeps from the internal phone system, a raging train manager and a couple of announcements over the PA that effectively told us off for what the guy before had done.

All because, effectively, someone was given the opportunity to push a button. That, for me, is the biggest problem with the modern day technological world. Whether it’s your other half with the remote control or the emergency controls of a train, the problem with buttons is people are oh-so-tempted to press them. There seems to be a mindset in some people that it’s their eternal right to press them, whereas the more logical and kind thing to do would be to cut their fingers off and flush them down the toilet.

The train, naturally, then got caught up in extra traffic that added a further five or ten minutes to the journey. And the after-effects in this case of one person activating controls they shouldn’t was a grumbling train manager, and a whole lot of people who had to wait, because one person couldn’t.

Not that I’m angry about it, of course. It’s just a good job I don’t watch Corrie…

So this is when the console battle finally starts to get interesting.

In spite of the swathes of hype over the Wii and the Xbox 360, the new generation console war isn’t really - Nintendo aside - in the mass market space yet, with pricing still reflecting the premium status of the machines.

But that may be about to change. Sony’s confirmation of a $100 price cut on the Playstation 3 in the States sets off phase two of the battle, and we’re at the point where the real numbers start to come through. It’s a price cut that Sony both couldn’t afford and couldn’t afford not to make, but at least it means this Christmas - even with a 360 price cut expected - will be a better indicator of where the chips will eventually lie come the end of each machine’s lifespan. 100 million PS2 made it out over the course of its (ongoing) lifespan, and thus far the 5-10m sales of individual machines at the moment have to be taken as opening skirmishes, and little more.

The likelhood is though that the PS3 is still two price cuts away from being mass market, not one, and as a result Sony are continuing to surrender a valuable commodity in this particular battle - time. Will $100 be enough to stem the tide? Probably not. And it’ll be interesting to see what they do in the UK, what with at least one High Street store still brazenly selling the PS3 for under £400 anyway.

The one to watch is, still, the Wii. More and more pundits are creeping out of the woodwork and suggesting that now is as good as it gets for Nintendo’s baby. But, surely, only a fool would bet against it having one hell of a Christmas…