WOULDN'T it be great if you could keep on working while you were enjoying that first slug of hot coffee in the morning?

A new gadget from Lavazza, a big name in the espresso market, allows you to do just that by combining coffee maker with computer.

It's new e-espressopoint is the first coffee machine that can connect you to the Internet.

Boffins at computer company eDevice combined a traditional coffee machine with a small touch-sensitive colour screen and a modem to create a strange hybrid that allows you to access the web while your de-caff comes to the boil.

Ironically, the device actually began as something of a joke.

Yves Abitbol, eDevice European director, said: "Some of our guys asked themselves: "Wouldn't it be great if we could send e-mails while we wait for a cup of coffee?" The result is e-espressopoint."

Even gadget lovers may be struggling to see the point but, according to Monsieur Abitbol, the e-espressopoint is the perfect device for managing your shopping, checking shares or the weather on a coffee break.

I think it's got a long way to go before it takes off.

AND so have 3-G phones, if recent market panic is to be believed. Mobile telecoms companies have gone through a torrid time since Christmas with more and more people wondering if the so-called third generation smart phones could become the biggest techno turkey since Betamax video.

You'll remember how mobile phone conglomerates paid the British Government billions for the rights to a 3-G license.

They did so because everyone thought the public's love affair with mobiles was insatiable. It seems they were wrong.

People are quite prepared to buy a mobile phone for themselves and sales are still booming but there is one pretty hefty catch. They will only buy phones if they are cheap.

And nowadays cheap usually means less than £50.

In the time before pay-as-you-go, this didn't matter because mobile phone service providers could recoup the cash they lost on the handset (even the most basic mobile costs around £150 before subsidy) within months by whacking up the call charges.

This no longer works because canny customers are signing up for "free call time" deals or not using there "pay-as-you-go" contracts often enough.

Even worse is the public apathy towards the refinements likely to be offered by 3-G phones.

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) was supposed to be the big breakthrough that connected mobiles to the Internet. It didn't and, therefore, it bombed.

Phone companies were stunned to find people just didn't want to upgrade their existing handsets to WAP-enabled versions. The prospect of a text based "net lite" on a tiny black and white screen that made a Game Boy look hi-res didn't fill people with desire.

Recently, mobile phone service providers have resorted to giving away WAP handsets in a bid to stimulate a moribund market. They are unlikely to succeed.

The next generation phones won't be cheap. Colour screens, lithium ion batteries and multi-media features cost big bucks. The first handsets could conceivably cost as much as £1,000 each. That's a lot of cash for a buying public conditioned to think of mobiles as a £30 impulse purchase.

The only people who will buy into 3-G are the early adopters, folk who rushed out to buy the Nokia Communicator when it cost a grand, and there aren't enough of them to cover the cost of the 3-G licence.

That's why mobile phone companies wish we'd all start paying a bit more for our handsets and using them a lot more often.

If, in a year's time, the bloke down your car boot sale is selling mobiles for £750 a pop, we'll all know who is to blame.