Artificial intelligence, virtual worlds, BT's tunnels and Apple's patents

There has been a lot of future gazing this month on silicon.com, although dreams of chatting to our toasters were dashed once again when the world's greatest artificial intelligences failed the Turing Test.

But you can still dig out your avatar because virtual worlds are set for a second coming according to industry experts. Virtual strip search scanners on the other hand were proving rather less popular with the EU as politicians attacked their use at security check points.

Stories of the month – October 2008

Click on the links below to read the stories everyone is talking about...

Artificial intelligence put to the Turing Test

Virtual worlds set for second coming

'Virtual strip search' scanners slammed by EU

Top 10 strategic techs for 2009

Minority Report: 10 Apple patents to watch

The five products Apple must make

Here come the iPhone competitors

Top 10 green gadgets for your office

Business tech born in Cern's Big Bang lab

BT to sell off 'secret World War II tunnels'

Also in October analysts gave silicon.com the lowdown on the strategic technologies that you can't afford to miss in 2009 and the strangest patents that Apple has tucked up its sleeve.

Even if these never materialise, silicon.com put together its very own wish list of items in need of an Apple makeover, with the products that Apple must make, as well as competitors that the Cupertino club would do well to keep an eye on.

Of course being kind to the environment is just as important as cutting-edge style these days, so silicon.com provided a handy round-up of the top green gadgets for your office.

Somewhere else that scientists have been cooking up cutting edge technology is the Swiss labs of nuclear research laboratory Cern, home of the "Big Bang" Large Hadron Collider experiment. CIO Wolfgang von Rueden told silicon.com about its collaboration with industry.

Ever fancy setting up an underground laboratory of your own? Well now's your chance as BT sells off its secret World War II tunnels beneath the streets of London.