The Gadget Show

The Gadget Show is a British television series focusing on technology and is broadcast on Channel 5. Originally, a thirty minute show, it was extended to forty-five minutes, then later to fifty five minutes. The theme tune used is "In the Machine" by Barrie Gledden. Repeats have also aired on the digital channels 5*, Dave (in edited down half-hour versions) and Channel 5's Internet on-demand service Demand 5. In Australia, it is aired on The Lifestyle Channel.

The show previews and reviews the latest gadgets, and broadcasts the latest technology news. The show is aimed at giving the mass consumer an insight into the gadget world and in addition, it aims to give enough information for the more "geeky" or knowledgeable audience, but still making it accessible to the more casual viewer. The show has featured Blu-ray Discs, video cameras, MP3 players, Internet multi media tablets and other technologies. A segment showing viewers how to get the most out of their technology is also often included along with a competition to win anything from £5,000 to £39,000 worth of new gadgets. Each series usually contains a special episode focusing on a particular technology conference or expo. Past conferences include CeBIT and The Next Fest.
Series 5 saw a slight tweak in the format, with the three presenters hosting from a studio base, although a lot of the show still takes place outside of the studio. The studio sections are filmed at The Custard Factory on Gibb Street in Birmingham, England. A recurring theme in the updated format is a regular challenge between Jason and Suzi (and occasionally Jon and / or Ortis), typically set around particular gadget(s) and their testing or use based around it. Another addition is that now the week's main featured gadget(s), typically reviewed by Jon, is given a 'G rating' from one to five. The seventh series, which started on 29 October 2007, saw the programme promoted to a 20:00 start time (previously 19:15), and running increased from forty-five minutes to one hour.
From series 8, there is also a new "Top 5" feature which consists of the Top 5 gadgets in a certain category. At the start of the eleventh series, a new item was introduced, called the "Wall of Fame" where Ortis or Suzi and Jason pick their favourite gadget from a particular category that they think changed the face of modern gadgetry, and then Jon picks the one to win and go up on the wall. There are also several other recurring features (such as aforementioned "Top 5", and 'The Focus Group' - testing products with various groups of people, who vote for their best one) which are featured in episodes on a semi-regular basis.
The show also offers a competition, (answering a multiple choice question, by phone, SMS or postal entry) that gives the winner on some occasions up to 190 prizes.
For 2010, the programme received a rebrand centred on the typeface "Museo". This included refreshed titles and break bumpers.
Also in 2010, the show will be seeing the release of a supporting magazine called 'The Gadget Show Magazine'.
Despite advocating HD content and reviewing high definition television sets, cameras and other devices, the show continues to be produced and broadcast in standard definition. The Gadget Show is upscaled on the Five HD simucast channel. No statement has been made as to when the show will begin broadcasting in native HD format.

During the challenge section of the Gadget Show, the team is sometimes asked to set new Guinness World Records. So far the Gadget Show has set three new records for;

• The fastest speed in a water jet–powered car is 26.8 kmh (16.65 mph) and was achieved by Jason Bradbury (UK) on the set of The Gadget Show at Wattisham Airfield, Ipswich, UK, on 15 March 2010.
• The longest ramp jump performed by a remote controlled model car is 26.18m achieved by an HPI Vorza, controlled by Jason Bradbury (UK) on the set of The Gadget Show in Birmingham, UK, on 25 March 2010.
• The largest game of Tetris measured at 105.79 m² and was played on The Gadget Show in Birmingham, UK on 15 September 2010.
• The heaviest machine moved. A car was lifted over a distance of 40 meters, and was operated by a Brain Control Interface.

PUT THE DATES FOR NEXT YEAR'S SHOW IN YOUR DIARY NOW
11-15 April 2012

The Gadget Show Live 2011 proved a phenomenal success and further established its role as the UK’s leading consumer technology event. Taking place at the NEC Birmingham from 12 to 17 April, the show attracted a record attendance figure of 104,759 in total an incredible 50% increase on 2010.
There was so much going on at this year’s show it would be impossible to list it all here so visit the features section of our website to find out what was on offer >>
Be the first to find out when tickets to the Gadget Show Live 2012 go on sale by.
The show is now sold out!  If you have missed out on this years show then make sure you get the dates for next year in your diary now 11-15 April 2012. 

Gadget

A gadget is a small technological object (such as a device or an appliance) that has a particular function, but is often thought of as a novelty. Gadgets are invariably considered to be more unusually or cleverly designed than normal technological objects at the time of their invention. Gadgets are sometimes also referred to as gizmos.

The origins of the word "gadget" trace back to the 19th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is anecdotal evidence for the use of "gadget" as a placeholder name for a technical item whose precise name one can't remember since the 1850s; with Robert Brown's 1886 book Spunyarn and Spindrift, A sailor boy’s log of a voyage out and home in a China tea-clipper containing the earliest known usage in print^. The etymology of the word is disputed. A widely circulated story holds that the word gadget was "invented" when Gaget, Gauthier & Cie, the company behind the repoussé construction of the Statue of Liberty (1886), made a small-scale version of the monument and named it after their firm; however this contradicts the evidence that the word was already used before in nautical circles, and the fact that it did not become popular, at least in the USA, until after World War I. Other sources cite a derivation from the French gâchette which has been applied to various pieces of a firing mechanism, or the French gagée, a small tool or accessory.
The October 1918 issue of Notes and Queries contains a multi-article entry on the word "gadget" (12 S. iv. 187). H. Tapley-Soper of The City Library, Exeter, writes:

A discussion arose at the Plymouth meeting of the Devonshire Association in 1916 when it was suggested that this word should be recorded in the list of local verbal provincialisms. Several members dissented from its inclusion on the ground that it is in common use throughout the country; and a naval officer who was present said that it has for years been a popular expression in the service for a tool or implement, the exact name of which is unknown or has for the moment been forgotten. I have also frequently heard it applied by motor-cycle friends to the collection of fitments to be seen on motor cycles. 'His handle-bars are smothered in gadgets' refers to such things as speedometers, mirrors, levers, badges, mascots, &c., attached to the steering handles. The 'jigger' or short-rest used in billiards is also often called a 'gadget'; and the name has been applied by local platelayers to the 'gauge' used to test the accuracy of their work. In fact, to borrow from present-day Army slang, 'gadget' is applied to 'any old thing.

The usage of the term in military parlance extended beyond the navy. In the book "Above the Battle" by Vivian Drake, published in 1918 by D. Appleton & Co., of New York and London, being the memoirs of a pilot in the British Royal Flying Corps, there is the following passage: "Our ennui was occasionally relieved by new gadgets -- "gadget" is the Flying Corps slang for invention! Some gadgets were good, some comic and some extraordinary."
By the second half of the twentieth century, the term "gadget" had taken on the connotations of compactness and mobility. In the 1965 essay "The Great Gizmo" (a term used interchangeably with "gadget" throughout the essay), the architectural and design critic Reyner Banham defines the item as:

A characteristic class of US products––perhaps the most characteristic––is a small self-contained unit of high performance in relation to its size and cost, whose function is to transform some undifferentiated set of circumstances to a condition nearer human desires. The minimum of skills is required in its installation and use, and it is independent of any physical or social infrastructure beyond that by which it may be ordered from catalogue and delivered to its prospective user. A class of servants to human needs, these clip-on devices, these portable gadgets, have coloured American thought and action far more deeply––I suspect––than is commonly understood.

Today, the term has gained widespread currency in a variety of industries and activities. It can refer to tools and toys as diverse as "smartphones", GPS navigation devices, key finders, USB toys, and radio controlled cars.

Source: Wikipedia