Entschuldigung Sie, Bitte?

I love technology. I remember when I was little - about the age of 8 or 9 - and my school announced that it would have a Computer Room from next year. The excitement swept through the assembled prepubescent masses, and you could see a wry smile grow on the faces of all the geeks; they knew their time had come. Sure enough, the following academic year found an old, unused classroom being converted to a full-spec IT Lab, with about 10 computers, various Acorns - BBC Model As and Bs. One even had a 5-inch floppy drive, back when floppies were floppy. Back when there were floppies. That was 1981.

A few of the boys at school soon found themselves with Spectrums, ZX81s, later Commodore 64s. The school had even set a small, secure cupboard-room aside for those lads with their own computers - at a later point in history, this very same room featured heavily in the Handcross Crow Massacre of 1982, which I won't go into here. For now, it contains computers, and no birds.

My parents, in their wisdom, had asked my school which computer it would recommend - far be it for them to ask me, myself, or go and actually look in a shop or magazine - and so I ended up with a BBC. Of course, this meant that I was the only person I knew with a BBC, apart from school IT Labs. My parents clearly saw my computer as an educational tool, rather than a timewasting exercise, which at the age of eleven was an unfortunate misjudgement. Those who had BBCs, whether their own or via regular use at school, tended towards the programming end of using computers. Most other people used them as games machines. I wanted to play games. I didn't want to be a geeky programmer.

Swapping games with my friends was impossible. Nobody had the same system as me, so it was useless - I had to entice people to play games on my machine at home, which was kinda tricky, as you may recall that the BBC was not over-blessed in the games department. The best game - allegedly - was Elite, which I found all but unplayable. Chuckie Egg, Jet Set Willy, Q-Bert - these were my stalwarts. And for two years, I survived in a rather lonely computer world.

Around 1986, my Dad was sent on a PC course through his work. Needless to say, the course came with a computer, which took up residence at home. It looked pretty much like what we still see today: tower, monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer. It ran on DOS - no Windows just yet, not in our house, anyway - and while my Dad effed and blinded at the infernal machine, I played large amounts of DigDug. Finally, something approaching a usable computer - with easily accessed applications, games and so on - was in the household. It was, of course, far more powerful than any gaming console or consumer computer available - and so my friends started taking an interest in the raw processing power contained within the hallowed walls of home.

And then, I turned 14, and stopped liking computers, and started liking girls, and beer, and other fine things that require minimum effort. That's not to say I don't put effort into my female relationships or my drinking of beer, but I hope you see what I mean. Late teenage years took over and I forgot about computers until I returned from my year out in Australia and went to university.

It was clear very soon that hand-written essays and work were not accepted, and so the computer room became the hive of any actual university effort. I realised then that, while work should be good and consistent, it helps enormously if that work - the process, the research, the references, your conclusions - are all arranged in one, easy to find, digital location. And, the circle complete, I returned to being obsessed with computers. However, where before it had been for games and general arsing about, now it was about work. It was a work machine. It was my friend.

As a kid, I always wanted the latest gadgets. I was at boarding school through a bizarre set of circumstances, but was very much not of the "same stuff" as most of my peers there. We are talking proper rich people. The sons and daughters of politicians, international businessmen of standing, diplomats, armed services personnel. I was surrounded by kids who "just got" everything they wanted, and I was insanely jealous of their conspicuous consumption. Here was me with my Star Wars figures and my Lego, while over there, snooty Watkinson-Hempleton and toffy-nosed Smythe Snr are starting their own games arcade. I felt like I had Luddite toys. So - real. Not virtual enough.

And so, when I was able to have these things, which was when I was working, I went a bit kerazy. I am a fully-fledged gadget-freak, computer-freak, audio and video freak. I would list all the personal electronic items that I own and love, but I feel it would look like showing off. But all major classes of product are covered, from PCs to laptops, mp3 players, stills and video cameras, PDAs, PMPs, and so on. No wonder I'm in debt.

Why write about this now? Well, in the course of my pursuing matters technical, I am pleased to see that a chess Grand Master has been beaten (again) by a supercomputer. I've watched the activity of Blue Gene, Tera-10, Thunderbird and Columbia, Hydra (which beat Michael Adams), Deep Blue (which beat Gary Kasparov - the big man then took revenge by defeating Deep Junior)...but the point is, artificial intelligence is getting there, and I'm enjoying watching man and machine jockey for superiority.

But - and it's a big but - today, another human has failed to beat a machine. World chess champion Vladimir Kramnik took the supercomputer on for a six-game match in Bonn, Germany. The computer won by four points to two, the last game taking 47 moves and nearly five hours. Eventually, the machine won two games, and drew four. All wonderful for the machine, whose name is Deep Fritz, which I think sounds rather like a German porn actor, but there you have it.

It's not the first time these two have met: back in 2002, Kramnik held Deep Fritz to a draw in eight games. Since then, the software has been updated, and is now capable of calculating millions of positions every second. Today, it was clearly out for revenge, which raises some interesting questions.

In October this year, Mr K defeated the big Eastern Bloc processor, Bulgaria's Veselin Topalov. This made Kramnik the undisputed world chess champion for the first time since 1993 (do you have to beat a supercomputer to be undisputed?). This no doubt swelled his confidence enormously for his rematch with Fritz. However, Fritz saw him coming, and Fritz had been working on his technique. And Fritz doesn't like a smart arse.

So, how long before they take over and kill us all?