Want what you see on screen? iPad has an app for that

Watching Drive and feeling a sudden urge to purchase a replica of Ryan Gosling's scorpion jacket ? Viewing Toy Story 3 and suddenly consumed by the desire to own your own Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear ? Well, now there's an app for that.

Developed for the iPad, the eBay app will work with TV guide data to allow users to browse merchandise seen in movies and TV shows and call up similar products available on the online auction site. EBay's Steve Yankovich came up with the idea while Watching the Jack Nicholson/Diane Keaton rom-com Something's Gotta Give and noting a particularly desirable toaster.

While the new app will no doubt prove the latest bugbear for those who rate product placement as one of the most irritating aspects of modern film production, eBay believes it can use the app to generate new revenues through its huge database of modern and antique products. "The reason we're going to own this is that inventory," Yankovich told Bloomberg News . "There are not too many places that sell you a brand new car from a dealer and a classic car from the 1930s."

EBay is hoping to target the 80 percent of tablet and mobile-phone users who use their devices while watching television. A significant proportion of these people browse for information about the things that they're viewing, according to a survey conducted by the Yahoo search engine last year.