microsoft treasure hunt opens then closes

It really is an infectious way to rediscover the great outdoors for all ages - and lots of maths and geography is learned on the way. If you strike it lucky, the idea is that you take the gift it contains away and leave something for the next visitor.

Both worked very well in the local fields ( The GPS units will take you within striking distance (3-5 metres) of the treatures, then it's up to you to search around, with riddles and clues often provided on the web to help you at this stage. For those seriously hooked, the more highly specificed devices like the eTrex Legend Cx (£299 inc VAT) looks like a neat mobile phone and even shows you your position on a detailed OS map as you walk. The display shows caches as closed chests that get opened when you find them.

A number of dedicated handheld GPS devices are available, including the rugged Garmin GPS 60 (£159 inc VAT) which provides clear display and allows you to add points of interest as you go. There are over 15,000 caches to choose from in the UK and is a good place to start. First you find the coordinates of a cache (a hidden treasure store) in your area and type them into a handheld GPS receiver. GPS will become a feature on most portable devices, including phones and PDAs, and will open up a new world of delights, particularly if we take to the great outdoors on foot and discover the joys of geocaching - essentially 'treasure hunting for all ages'. Next year could be the year of personal GPS, the hardware and software that tells you where you are in the world. This Christmas might be a good time to focus on our transformation into more active communicators. Now we are all potential broadcasters (some families may even tune into seasonal podcasts from far-flung offspring this Christmas), and Wikipedia is the reference book of choice where we can all contribute to the corpus - and it's available free online. Not so long ago only the Queen gave a Christmas broadcast and Encarta was the only girl in town when it came to digital encyclopedias.

Microsoft treasure hunt opens then closes