Dive and ride Technology

1. Cressi-Sub Rondine pro star fins It’s probably the oldest bit of kit in the history of diving, but getting the contradictions in a fin resolved is still a problem for diving companies. The tip has to be just flexible enough, while the connecting area around the foot can’t bend. Cressi’s revolutionary new closed-foot fin uses a special hi-tech polymer to make it very light and the blade sports a differentiated thickness.

2. Panasonic Toughbook The new Toughbook CF-18 can be used as either a standard laptop or as a Tablet PC. The robust design of this mobile computer means it protects your data from impact, moisture, water and dust, and as it weighs only 2kg, it’s highly mobile. You can get data onto the hard drive with the keyboard or PDA-style handwriting-to-text conversion, meaning you can take notes and sketch diagrams. It also has speech recognition software and a transflective LCD screen, which delivers extraordinary brightness, even on the Persian Gulf, by automatically balancing sunlight and system backlight. Originally designed with the military and oil industry in mind, it means there’s nowhere you can’t work on that novel you keep meaning to write.

3. Siemens m75With its eye firmly on the beach/mountain market, Siemens used CeBIT, Hannover’s spring tech fair, to launch its splash-, shock- and dust-resistant phone, the M75. In the past, such phones have traded functionality for fortitude, but the M75 boasts pretty much all of the features your average high-street phone can claim, including an MP3 player and camera.

4. Seavision Transvision 2000 mask Florida-based company SeaVision is rapidly making a name for itself with a range of masks where the lenses receive most attention. These magenta lenses filter out blue wavelengths in the water, allowing your eyes to see red, yellow, orange and violet colours. There are also low light filtering lenses for those who like to venture deeper. The mask comes with optional purge valve and snorkel.

5. Suunto D9 wrist computer Suunto’s new top-of-the-range titanium wrist computer boasts the dimensions of a large watch and uses a radio transmitter to switch air mixtures. The watch can prompt for stops, and includes a compass and stopwatch. Plus, the audible alarms are very discreet, meaning old scuba hands won’t scoff at you. All this conspired to earn the Suunto the Technology of the Year award from Diver magazine.

6. Olympus Mju 410 and PT-016 waterproof casingThe Mju 410 set the standard for underwater digital cameras last year, picking up almost every diving tech award available. Compact and weatherproof, with a tough-wearing aluminium frame, it offers still and moving images, plus an editing function. The waterproof casing allows the camera to be taken down to depths of 40m, which is way beyond what you’ll need for any holiday scuba trip.

7. Cressi-Sub Comanche Speargun Europe’s oldest diving equipment manufacturer hasn’t rested on its laurels, and the Comanche is the result of the company’s constant fine-tuning. Anti-corrosion aluminium tubes eliminate any bending of the barrel, even on the long models. Extremely modern thermoplastics make up the handgrip and the lightness allows for some precision firing. If 007 had had one of these, Thunderball would have been over a lot quicker.