With computing becoming increasingly cloud-based, it no longer seems necessary to download or store music. As network connectivity becomes pervasive, the possibility of having every piece of commercially available music at our fingertips, instantly playable via our next-generation portable music players, mobile phones and Wi-Fi home entertainment systems comes closer. So will downloading digital music to an iPod soon seem as archaic as taping the Top 40 on to a C90..?

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“I’ve always loved flying,” says Stuart Ross, a commercial airline pilot for whom flying a 767 to the Mediterranean and back a couple of times a week just isn’t enough of a thrill. “A lot of my colleagues get involved in restoring old fighter planes and things like that,” he says, “but I thought, sod it, let’s go for something a bit different.” So Ross retreated to the bottom of his garden in Horsham, West Sussex, and spent four years and the best part of £100,000 building a rocketbelt – a Buck Rogers-style flying backpack that can shoot the wearer 1,000 feet into the air at 60mph. With testing of this most sought-after of gadgets nearing completion, Ross is preparing to take his rocketbelt on the road…

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Who’d be a property developer nowadays? The answer: people who develop online properties – rather than physical ones – by snapping up undeveloped sites in a practice known as website flipping. The principle is exactly the same as that of property development: flippers fix up the underdeveloped sites and sell them for a profit. As with property development, it’s all about adding value. In property, adding value may mean converting a loft. Online, it means increasing visitor traffic and improving website revenue…

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