Tech.co.uk: All the week's hottest stories

The crazy product bonanza that is the IFA expo in Berlin is only two weeks away. The buzz is beginning to build. But until the announcement blitz begins with the press conferences on the 30th August, we're having to make do with a normal news week.

Luckily though, it's been an interesting one. With news ranging from the dead man who received a $218 trillion phone bill, to the revelation that the Nintendo Wii is set to face yet more stock shortages. Here's a round-up of the week's hottest stories...

Monday

The week started with news that the Nintendo Wii is on the brink of overhauling sales of the Microsoft Xbox 360 to become the biggest selling next-gen console on the market. The Xbox 360 was launched a year before the Wii, but booming Nintendo sales have seen it catch up fast.

Google offers up to 250GB for Gmail accounts When Google introduced its Gmail webmail service in 2004 its impact on competitors like Hotmail and Yahoo was immediate. The-then-1GB offering forced others to rethink their business plans completely and with wind that Hotmail was going to up its storage to 5GB, Google has forged ahead again.

Onkyo launches super HD DVD player in US Japanese home entertainment company Onkyo announced on Monday the launch of its first HD DVD player, the DV-HD805. It's set to become one of the first HD DVD players to take advantage of high-bit-rate audio streaming using HDMI version 1.3a - one to watch out for in the UK sometime soon perhaps?

Man gets $218 trillion phone bill A Malaysian man who received a $218 trillion phone bill for his late father's phone line - with a demand to pay it within 10 days or face prosecution - is preparing to fight any legal action. Most bizarre story of the week? See more stories like this in this week's Weird Tech round-up.

Are you stressed out by email? New research shows that email stress is rising fast. Office workers are becoming increasingly distracted and feel under pressure as the result of ever-more rapidly filling inboxes.

PSP processor throttled by Wi-Fi connection In June, Sony updated the PSP and unlocked the full processing potential of its 333MHz CPU. But now the Japanese company says that if you've got your PSP's Wi-Fi connection enabled, the clock speed of the console returns to its previous setting of 266MHz.

BBC iPlayer growth annoys ISPs Britain's ISPs have expressed their discomfort at the mass-adoption of on-demand TV through the BBC's iPlayer service. The corporation initially said it would be introducing users gradually to the Beta service. However, user numbers are known to be over the 120,000 mark, and ISPs want money out of the BBC to pay for all the bandwidth.

Tuesday

Nokia battery overheating scare Nokia is confronting problems of overheating phone batteries by offering consumers replacements for up to 46 million batteries that could potentially be affected. Quite generous, don't you think?

Producers: MP3s are murdering my music MP3 players and compressed music formats are killing off good music. That's what a group of music producers said on Tuesday. They think that compressing music completely destroys the way it's supposed to sound. What do you think?

Nintendo reveals grand plan for future of Wii Good news for you if you're thinking of buying a Nintendo Wii. The Japanese gaming company said it's going to keep both hardcore and casual gamers happy by developing fun games to please everyone. Lovely jubbly!

Continue reading...

Wednesday

Wii success making component suppliers rich The dominance of Nintendo's Wii in the console market has been well documented as the company rides high on a wave of unprecedented profitability. Electronics companies who supply the electronic components that are used to build the Wii are also enjoying the spoils of success.