Vista Roundup

I've not had much time to review all the post Vista launch stories, so thank goodness for those nice people over at ZDNet who have done a good roundup of the reaction and what's been said.

One of the more predictable reactions has come from The Green Party, who have criticised the carbon footprint and impact on lower socio-economic groups and businesses of the new OS:

"Vista requires more expensive and energy-hungry hardware, passing the cost on to consumers and the environment. This will also further exclude the poor from the latest technology, and impose burdensome costs on small and medium businesses who will be forced to enter another expensive upgrade cycle."

The security industry has started to get stuck into Microsoft over Vista, with Kaspersky being one of the most vocal commentators. They are criticising the warning mechanism of UAC (User Access Control):

Kaspersky says that users will be forced to either blindly ignore the warning and thus allow the action to be performed, or disable the feature to stop themselves going "crazy".

Full analysis can be found at Kaspersky's site.

Accenture has views very much to the contrary, although the last sentence of the snippet below from the ZDNet article may be quite telling:

"We believe the focus that Microsoft has placed on Vista Security — from core OS changes, such as Windows Service Hardening through features such as BitLocker and the changes to user interface security — will contribute to a more secure product," said Stuart Okin, Accenture's UK head of Infrastructure. Okin previously worked for Microsoft as its chief security officer for the UK.

Other interesting piece is that comment is starting to grow about Microsoft's attempts to kill off the JPEG and replace it with a format of its own. If 15% of PCs are to be on Vista by year end, we'll soon know how successful they've been.

Other comment from The Register and The Guardian.

iPlayer approved by BBC Trust

The BBC trust has approved the plans of the Beeb to offer on demand servies via its proposed iPlayer tool:

"Our view is that the BBC’s new on-demand services are likely to deliver significant public value, and should be allowed to proceed, but subject to certain conditions in order to reduce the potential negative market impact," said Diane Coyle, BBC Trustee and chair of the public value test steering group.

However, some significant changes have been ordered to the plans that will effectively block some of the more popular programs such as Top Gear and Eastenders from being shown via the iPlayer.

Audio Books and Podcasts were also banned.

Death to the floppy disk

It's come to the end of an era, with those Internet dinosaurs such as myself having a little tear in their eye as the floppy disk ceases to be sold by PC World.

"The floppy disk looks increasingly quaint and simply isn't able to compete," said Bryan Magrath, commercial director of PC World.

It's still used in many films, so hopefully Hollywood won't quite give up the ghost yet.

For those of you who have been around in this game as long as I have, you'll even remember the tape drive from the days of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum or, in my case, the Commodore 64 - but this move just reminds us how much storage technology has moved on.

No doubt the CD will take a while to phase out ...

Top 5 have 82% of UK subscribers

Another story from ThinkBroadband.com - the top 5 ISPs now have 82% of the UK market, given the mergers of NTL and Telewest / Carphone Warehouse and AOL / BT and Plusnet. This will definitely consolidate more, but the big players are clearly emerging.

Broadband provider Market share
BT Retail inc. Plusnet 24.6%
Virgin Media, ntl:Telewest, Virgin 24.6%
Carphone Warehouse, AOL and Talk Talk 14.9%
Tiscali inc. HomeChoice 10.3%
Orange 7.6%
Pipex, inc Bulldog, F2S, Nildram 4.4%
Tesco 1%
Others 12.7%

MPs pressure Sky / ITV deal

Encouraging to see that MPs are finally starting to challenge Rupert Murdoch's strangehold over much of the UK media. A Guardian story reports that they are giving Trade and Industry secretary Alistair Darling pressure over doing something about Sky's acquisition of a stake in ITV:

John Grogan, the Labour MP behind the early day motion, said it would be "remarkable" if there were no inquiry following the Office of Fair Trading's finding earlier this month that Sky's move might have given it a "material influence" over ITV.

Let's see how things develop.

Downloading on the up

A survey from moneysupermarket.com has shown the increased usage of Internet amongst mainstream consumers.

The numbers are quite impressive:

"We are a nation of download addicts, with over half the population (55 per cent) spending an average 172 hours (or more than seven solid days) of leisure time per year downloading from the internet."

The traditional position of porn as the main target of the downloading is clearly waning if you believe the research.

Opt genres downloaded (from the same research)

1. 69% - Music (at least one tune)
2. 60% - Software updates
3. 50% - Freeware / shareware
4. 41% (women) / 34% (men) - Games
5. 20% - Adult Content

8% of employees also apparently download their porn at work ... scary.

Better the devil you know

ThinkBroadband.com has published an article about broadband switching as driven by the likes of uSwitch.com - who clearly have a vested interest in as much switching as possible:

"Alas while their recent survey which has surfaced on Web User and other locations emphasises the potential cost savings it does little to warn people about the consequences."

Some of the consuequences they cover include the fact that you need to pay an additional £11 per month to BT for line rental if you're moving from Cable and performance for the likes of gamers.

Their best advice in the article is to not make decisions based just on cost:

"So we would urge people when using any comparison tool including those on our own site, to not just rely on them, but spend time talking to friends and reading comments others have made online."

More Vista stories

You're going to get dead bored of Vista stories this week, from Bill Gates doing a launch webcast tonight through to the official launch tomorrow. A roundup of today's stories includes:

BBC : Microsoft to launch Vista Hard Sell

Ovum Research suggesting that 15% of PCs will be on Vista by the end of the year - over 100,000,000 worldwide!

Mentions that Microsoft have peldged to continue support for XP until 2011. David Mitchell from Ovum suggests that there is almost a fashion element to the Vista launch:

"Part of the appetite is 'something new for something new's sake'," said Mr Mitchell.

ZDNet: Bill Gates to grace London with his presence

Reports that Bill will be in the UK for the launch, seemingly though by co-incidence as he needs to attend the "Microsoft Government Leaders' Conference" in Scotland. Interesting way to get confirmation that there is actually a Microsoft Government.

News.com - Buying Vista? Get a guarantee

Heeds a valuable consumer warning that just because a PC is marked as being Vista ready, that not all applications will necessarily work on it.

To their credit, Microsoft themselves even admit this:

"Just because a machine came back Vista-positive, I am not ready to make the assumption that all the features of Vista will run on this machine," said Michael Cherry, lead analyst for Windows and Mobile at Directions on Microsoft.

Which is definitely something you need to bear in mind. Cherry's advice:

"If it says (a PC) will run Vista, you still want to think about which features are important, and in talking to a vendor, you want to get an assurance that the unit (you are buying) will, in fact, accomplish those things you want."

News.com - Vista Guide

Really useful guide to lots of things Vista - a good reference point.

The Register - Is Vista ready for you?

A slightly more cynical piece, but still covers an interesting user experience and a good barometer chech on issues that you can experience. Let the buyer beware!

BT rumoured to buy Tiscali UK ?

ISP Review is reporting that an Italian newspaper suggests that BT are in the market for Tiscali UK, even though their parent has again denied that they are up for sale:

"BT is believed to have started informal talks with the investment bank Merrill Lynch to discuss the acquisition, it said."

Is this a large scale move by BT into LLU?

ISP Review is also speculating that the competition authorities would be interested should the deal go through.

Who killed the Webmaster?

Excellent blog post from Jamie Begin, on who killed the webmaster. As one who was one myself, there's a lot here I can relate to.

Jamie speculates the three suspects of being:

1. The march of technology (CSS and XML skills replacing HTML and FTP ones!)
2. The economy (less work since .com bomb)
3. The rise of Web 2.0 (collaboration, UGC)

In my view it's probably more the first and the third, along with marketing people being more interested in using some of the external agencies ahead of internal skilsets such as those of the webmaster, for understandable resource and time to market reasons.

Do I lament the loss of the webmaster? I lament the loss of the cool job title, but things move on - as have I.

Google censoring sensitive information?

Following on from yesterday, 2 Google Maps stories in 2 days as another slashdot contributor has identified that sensitive nuclear locations are blurred within Google Maps (and also Google Earth).

The nuclear locations are appearing as pixelated (example), and I do wonder who has asked for this to be done - are these US Government defined 'sensitive' locations? If so, can we expect the same to happen to Sellafield?

Google have also been busy on the video front in the last couple of days, announcing that contributors to their recently acquired video site YouTube will get a cut of the advertising revenue share for viewings of their clips.

No more details yet on how this will work, but the principle is being put in place (from the same BBC article):

YouTube founder Chad Hurley confirmed to the BBC that his team was working on a revenue-sharing mechanism that would "reward creativity".

Intriguing development in paid for User Generated Content.

Aussies spam Google Maps

Creative folk, those Aussies.

To celebrate Australia Day (along with hammering the Poms at cricket, yet again), Google organised a flyover photo shoot for Google Maps.

The Aussies took advantage, so reports slashdot, with a number of them creating some signs for their dotcom enterprises. Some great photos of this can be seen at theswiftcity.com blog.

BT accused of breaking the GPL

News that BT are being accused of breaking the GNU General Public License (GPL), by using Linux within its Home Hub without publishing the code on their site.

Subsequent pressure has resulted in them uploading some of the Home Hub source code to its website. However, they're still being accused of being in breach of the GPL:

"BT have release a partial copy of the source code on a website. That's not adhering to the terms of the GNU GPL", said Shane Coughlan of the Freedom Task Force.

Not all bundles of joy

The Observer has today done a summary and review of the main bundled services now in the telco space - phone, Internet and, where possible, TV and mobile.

The quote I most agreed with came from James Lloyd, head of broadband at Moneysupermarket.com:

"If your provider has poor customer service, this can affect all the products you have. Also, bundling doesn't necessarily mean you get the best product in each class; sometimes you get a product thrown in that's not very effective."

The last point is well emphasised through lacklustre attempts at products such as BT Vision.

It's not even a real country, anyway

Terrance and Phillip of South Park fame taught us an important principle:

"Blame Canada - It's not even a real country anyway"

They also gave us plenty of other information about the Canadians, such as that they have "beady little eyes, and flapping heads so full of lies". On this basis, how do you trust Canadians?

Clearly you can't, as we have today learned from Hollywood that Canada is the source of at least 50% of the world's pirated movies. Well, if Hollywood says is, it must be true then.

Slashdot's reporting that Hollywood is even considering delaying movie releases north of the border:

"Their problem is that the Canadian Copyright Act, as well as the policies of local police forces, makes it difficult to come down especially hard on perpetrators."

They're probably too busy ensuring that lumberjacks are OK. At least they're not cheese eating surrender monkeys though, huh?

25% of all computers are part of a botnet

Vint Cerf, one of the most respected 'fathers of the Internet' (up there with Tim Berners-Lee, or Sir Tim as he is now known) has stated his belief that as many as 1 in 4 computers is part of a botnet.

Cerf, was speaking at the World Economic Forum this week:

"Cerf told his listeners that approximately 600 million computers are connected to the Internet, and that 150 million of them might be participants in a botnet—nearly all of them unwilling victims."

If true, this is a staggering statistic and shows the challenge that ISPs have to identify, contact and cleanup customers who are affected.

If you look at the latest numbers from ISP Review for the top 10 broadband ISPs in the UK, the challenge on a per ISP basis becomes clear:

Number of broadband subscribers per ISP

No. Name Subscribers
1. BT Retail 3,000,000
2. ntl:Telewest 2,980,400
3. AOL UK 1,523,000
4. Tiscali 1,400,000
5. Orange 986,000
6. TalkTalk (CW) 632,000
7. Pipex 570,000
8. Virgin.net 242,800
9. PlusNet 198,000
10. Kingston 140,851

Adjust this on a per-ISP basis based on Vint's comments, and you see the impact:

Numbers of customers each ISP might have in a botnet

No. Name Customers
1. BT Retail 750,000
2. ntl:Telewest 745,100
3. AOL UK 380,750
4. Tiscali 350,000
5. Orange 246,500
6. TalkTalk (CW) 158,000
7. Pipex 142,500
8. Virgin.net 60,700
9. PlusNet 49,500
10. Kingston 35,212

US college bans use of Wikipedia

Middlebury College in the US has taken a stand against use of Wikipedia by students for their work.

This isn't a high brow, anti-Internet stand. This is one that balances the convenience of the great site that is Wikipedia with its wiki-ness having the inherent tendency to record information that is not necessarily reliable.

“As educators, we are in the business of reducing the dissemination of misinformation,” said Don Wyatt, chair of the department. “Even though Wikipedia may have some value, particularly from the value of leading students to citable sources, it is not itself an appropriate source for citation,” he said.

This is something that Wikipedia themselves realise and are open about, in their Wikipedia entry about Wikipedia - confused yet?

"There has been controversy over Wikipedia's reliability and accuracy, with the site receiving criticism for its susceptibility to vandalism, uneven quality and consistency, systemic bias, and preference for consensus or popularity over credentials. Information is sometimes unconfirmed and questionable, lacking the reliable sources that, in the eyes of most regular contributors, are necessary for an article to be considered of high quality."

OFT admits it does not have the skilsets to deal with online fraud

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has admitted to the Lords that it can't cope with the online fraud threat, in that it doesn't have the skilsets. While this is a good and honest assessment, is this opening the door to more online fraud in the UK?

"We're not always the most competent in tracking internet and electronic [communications]. We are competent in using our detection skills," said Mike Haley from the OFT.

Vista delays hit Microsoft earnings

Microsoft have reported a 28% drop in their Q2 earnings, largely as a result of delays in the much awaited launch of their new Vista Operating System.

Microsoft are also reporting lower sales expectations for the Xbox gaming console too. According to the BBC story:

"... Chris Liddell (Microsoft's CFO) added that Microsoft expected to offset lowered Xbox sales expectations with better sales of higher-margin premium versions of its Windows operating system."

People download porn and don't want to pay for it

Is the radical assertion that we have learned from this press release by The NPD Group.

They're reporting that in the third quarter of 2006, 8% of households downloaded at least one digital video file from a P2P network, while only 2% of households paid to do the same.

I like the stating-the-obvious quote from their VP:

“While video P2P downloading is less pervasive right now than for music, it is a crucial issue for the film industry to keep track of,” said Russ Crupnick, vice president and senior industry analyst for The NPD Group, “Even though right now the majority of downloaded video content is adult-film content, the amount of intellectual property stolen from mainstream movie studios, networks, and record labels will continue to rise, unless strong and sustained action is taken to prevent piracy.”

Well that taught me a lot.

Walsall to receive advanced fibre network

News from the Walsall Regeneration Company that they're going to be using the digging up of the Midlands town to implement an advanced fibre based network to deliver IP based technologies.

An excellent use of the opportunities that seem to be all too often missed when major building works are underway.

From the quotes in the press release this is clearly being worded around business use, but I'm sure some local consumers could find a use for the bandwidth too:

In what would be a UK first, Walsall Urban Regeneration Company (WRC) is looking to establish a multi million pound pilot project that will catapult the town and the region towards the top of the international business league.

With £500m of physical regeneration underway in Walsall town centre by 2010, WRC has identified the opportunity to embed this revolutionary technology within the fabric of the re-emerging market town and set up a world class research and training centre.

“With a number of transformational projects under way and major improvements to the ring road there is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lay the foundations for fibre optics which will utterly transform the way we do business and how we use technology in the home,” said WRC director Mohammad Nazir.

Cisco security flaws revealed

Given just how much of the backbone of the Internet runs Cisco kit, including much of the UK backbone and many UK ISPs, it's always a bit worrying when they reveal the latest round of security flaws that need to be patched [BBC News story].

Re-assuring that the BBC tell us that:

"Consumers do not need to take any action"

!!

Cisco is at this point not aware of any exploitation of the vulnerabilities.

Which Vista ?

Are you getting as confused as many about which version of Vista is right for you? There's a good guide over at the Guardian on which one you should be buying for your needs.

That's of course unless the answer to the question above is 'Linux' :-)

Elsewhere it's a busy day for Microsoft news.

They're already looking for corporates to take part in the process of development of Vista Service Pack 1, according to a news.com article that ZDNet are quoting:

The software maker has put out a call for businesses that want to be early testers of the software. "Interested customers should contact their Technical Account Manager at Microsoft to get nominated," a Microsoft representative said in an email.

Is anything more guaranteed to get the anti-Microsoft lobby going? It's actually a pragmatic view I believe - they know that they'll be targetted by the underground community, so they're getting the preparations in early for the code that they'll need to develop to counter it. And yes, of course they do need to be writing more secure code.

It's also now been confirmed that Windows OneCare, Microsoft's new Anti Virus (AV) engine, will be shipping at the same time as Vista and be the full international release.

ASA rules against Be

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) have upheld a complaint from NTL and consumers about Be Unlimited (Be) advertising up to 24Mb speeds, with the small print stating that you need to be in the tiny part of the country served by ADSL2+.

The ruling was that the advertisement was misleading, but doesn't state whether they've been told to remove it - suggestions that they are very co-operative in amending adverts when asked by the ASA suggests they will, however.

As LLU becomes more important in the provision of consumer broadband in the UK market, one might speculate that this may be the first of many such rulings if current advertising practices that push speed and price don't change.

NTL preferred 'foreign' stock

Well known US market commentator Jim Cramer has listed NTL (soon to be Virgin Media) as his #5 "foreign" stock to acquire (story at thestreet.com).

Foreign is an interesting word to use - here was me thinking that they were officially based in Delaware and listed on the NASDAQ!

China to overtake the US for Internet usage within 2 years

BBC News is reporting that, if the current annual growth rate of 24% is maintained, China will overtake the US for Internet usage within 2 years.

A state controlled think tank believes that usage may increase even further:

Wang Enhai, a spokesman for the internet centre, told the (China Daily) newspaper: "The growth is now gaining much momentum. We are expecting even faster growth in 2007 and 2008."

What's this Joost all about?

Just found an article from The Guardian last week with a good explanation as to what Joost (previously known as The Venice Project) is all about as a service, re-emphasising the point about the volumes of downloads that using this new service can generate - watch out if your ISP has capping:

"Even with digital compression, it could easily consume a gigabyte per hour."

Sky reaches 1m IP VOD downloads

Sky has reported that there have now been a million downloads via their Sky Anytime service (previously known as Sky by Broadband), with The House of Flying Daggers having been the most popular movie.

The other content they are offering includes some episodes of Sky One programmes such as Lost and sporting events.

Everyone else is now moving into this space, so how long until they reach 2m?

Vista launch madness

With the full retail rollout of Vista due for next week, signs are that a calming influence is settling in on what would otherwise be launch madness.

News.com is reporting that very few US stores are planning to stay open until midnight on the 29th, and that the insanity (which I'd forgotten all about) of the queues for blockes when Windows 95 launched will not be repeated.

Further Vista news includes some issues that ISP customers are having with the ISPs own software, and some cool pics at The Register of the effects of Windows SideShow.

Almost too many other Vista stories to keep up to date with - use the Google News link for it!

Sky broadband really is the limit

A review on TrustedReviews.com is looking less than complimentary about Sky's broadband service, from a customer who migrated from his previous NTL service.

It just re-emphasises to me that it's better the devil you know, and that if you're happy with a service that you should think twice about switching to another because of headline claims.

The last sentence of the review is very telling and does serve as a warning of Caveat emptor:

"If you want an average service and aren’t bothered about reliability or speed, a free or very cheap broadband service will probably suffice. If you want it fast and you want it reliable, then avoid Sky Broadband and its ilk – and go with companies whose main focus is being an Internet Service Provider, rather than just flogging you something that’s an easy way of increasing their bottom line."

Dodgy Comparisons

A new comparison website (yes, another one) for broadband has launched, calling itself Top 10 Broadband.

It's not very good though, as apparently I can get both NTL and Telewest services (they're actually mutually exclusive, network-wise) and interesting that BT finishes top of all the results, while at the same time advertising on the site.

2007 - The year of the web threat

Sophos are reporting that cyber criminals are to move their activities from e-mail to the Web in 2007 as poor security by particularly US based hosts makes vulnerabilities ripe for the picking.

Full story at BBC News.

A number of interesting stats can be found in the same article:

"Links to websites containing Trojan downloaders account for 51% of infected mail while spyware-infected mail accounts for 42%, according to Sophos.

According to the report, 30% of all malware in now written in China. 17% is designed for the specific purpose of stealing passwords from online gamers, an indication that malware writing exploits country-specific online trends."

Next Generation WiFi edges closer

But 802.11n might not be with us until 2008! No wonder that various vendors decide to second guess it. Will it all end in tears? Some are still getting to grips with earlier Wi-Fi releases!

Uma Thurman to be the face of Virgin Media

Virgin Media, the company that has come out of the rebrand between ntl and Telewest has confirmed to The Independent on Sunday that their public face will be Uma Thurman, her of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill fame, for their upcoming advertising campaigns, at a supposed cost of £20m.

This follows the use by Virgin Mobile (also owned by the new Virgin Media company) of the previously disgraced supermodel Kate Moss for their advertising. They are being understandably bullish:

James Kydd, managing director of Virgin Media marketing, said: "We are thrilled
that Uma will be helping us launch the most exciting and the biggest Virgin
branded company in the world."

There is also some speculation that Sky are about to follow Virgin Media into the quad play space, through launch of a mobile service carried on another operators' network.

What happens if you mispell Google.com

Heartily amusing piece if you need cheering up over at gnucitizen.org. Beware!

Pipex loses 30,000 Bulldog customers

It's been revealed by ZDNet that the acquisition of Bulldog by Pipex has resulted in 30K less customers than Bulldog had when the deal was signed actually being acquired by Pipex.

As we all know Bulldog had continuous technical and customer service problems, but such a loss of customers is a huge impact on a relatively small Broadband ISP such as Pipex.

They'll be happy that it means they have to pay Cable & Wireless less for Bulldog though, as the deal has been reported as being calculated on a per-user basis. All the more that they can spend on cheesy David Hasselhoff commercials then.

Anyone for a Wii workout?

The Nintendo Wii can result in weight loss [news.com story]. Mickey DeLorenzo from Philadelphia, USA has lost 9 pounds through a daily regimen of playing boxing on his new Nintendo Wii, which I can quite believe having experienced an afternoon of 10 pin bowling on one yesterday!

Much more and all the results can be found at WiiNintendo.net, the home of DeLorenzo's blog. While he hasn't heard anything from Nintendo yet, this is great advertising for their product and he should be contacted.

Security vendors now Vista ready

In contrast to when Vista went to OEM release in November (when only McAfee was ready), all major security vendors are now stating that they are Vista ready, reports news.com.

The same story outlines that the security tools from Microsoft that come with the OS - Firewall & Anti Spyware - have got luke warm reviews from some experts, while not seeming to appreciate that most users don't take steps to protect themselves unless the tools are embedded in the OS and the hard work is done for them, or if their ISP provides the tools for them as part of the activation process.

A warning to heed comes from Forrester Research, however:

"There is no doubt that Vista will be Microsoft's most secure operating system. However, most secure is not equivalent to secure," said Natalie Lambert, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Users need to protect themselves."

Google starting to comply with standards?

Are Google starting to comply with standard Web2.0 terminology and refer to tags instead of labels? I remember when they were still folders !

Monkey's back

See the new PG Tips ad with Jonny Vegas and Monkey at YouTube - hopefully we'll have some more soon. So much for ITV Digital !

Google controls more networks than anyone else, while MIT takes a pragmatic view on wireless

An article this week claims that Google controls more network fibre than anyone else on the Internet, as they look to control as much Internet traffic as possible.

Interesting prediction in this article, not sure I'm quite so sceptical though:

"Google will become our phone company, our cable company, our stereo system and our digital video recorder. Soon we won't be able to live without Google, which will have marginalized the ISPs and assumed most of the market capitalization of all the service providers it has undermined -- about $1 trillion in all -- which places today's $500 Google share price about eight times too low."

Speaking of networks, if you're looking for a really interesting read, catchup behind the scenes on MIT's network in an article at Network World.

MIT is planning to switch all 15,000 phones on campus to VoIP in the near future, but also some other information on networks projects and the situation with wireless on campus.

They seem to be taking a practial approach to wireless security and standards too, which is something that a number of large companies should really be learning from:

"Enforce is not a word you can use at MIT. We try to entice people to do the right thing," quotes Network Manager & Security Architect Jeff Schiller.

Amsterdam: Our net is bigger than yours

Amsterdam's Peering Exchange, AMS-IX, is claiming that it is now the world's largest public Internet Exchange (Register story). Some rather impressive stats are quoted by their CTO:

"AMS-IX hit a historical milestone in November when traffic flowing across our infrastructure exceeded 200Gbit/s," said Henk Steenman, the exchange's CTO.

With traffic volumes increasing by ~3% per month, it does show that the market for Dutch porn is as strong as it has ever been. With much of the UK's infrastructure reliant on Telehouse, would be interesting to see the traffic stats on those Telehouse <--> AMX-IX links.

The yearly stats graph at the AMS-IX website show the size of the growth, and are impressive. the only times it hasn't been going up are the annual summertime lull (so, a European and not just a British phenomenon then) and during the festive season.

Ofcom deluge reduces to a trickle

Radio 5 Live is this morning reporting that Ofcom's deluge of complaints about the mind numbing bore that is Big Brother have peaked at 36,000 as the lead offender was chucked off the programme last night with 82% of the vote against her.

I'm sure Ofcom's webmaster has let out a sign of relief, as it means that their website can work again. Their site is now looking far more normal again, so clear that the traffic levels have died away too:

Virgin Media launch to cost £20m

So speculates today's Daily Telegraph. Much of the story seems to re-hash what has already been announced on the knowfirst site.

The article seems to suggest a wholesale (ho ho) investment in DSL broadband, wholesaled from another provider - presumably a LLU one:

"Virgin Media, which has spent £5m trying to improve the cable groups' poor customer service, will spend tens of millions of pounds to increase coverage.It will strike a wholesale deal with a telecoms supplier and install its own equipment in some BT exchanges, using phone lines to pipe television pictures to customers' homes."

From the same piece, Enders analyst Ian Watts outlines the challenges that they face:

"Cable networks have many advantages but also a very long history of poor customer service. That is changing but there is a limit to how rapidly progress can be made."

The Telegraph is also featuring a comment piece based on the same story.

Spam deluge during weather storms

The Register is reporting that a huge deluge of Trojan spam has been generated with the storms spreading though Europe (which incidentally blew down part of my front fence!). Looks like it's having a very big impact:

"UK anti-virus firm Sophos reports that the malware accounts for one in every 200 emails it has monitored over the last 12 hours."

I must be missing something, or my ISP has really good worm filtering. All I have got in the last couple of days has been the usual pump and dump stock spam:

AOL speed uplifts

AOL UK (or Carphone Warehouse, who now owns them) have ditched their 'gold' package and doubled the speed of their 'silver' package which tends to suggest a 2-tier strategy:

1. Basic and cheap
2. Fast with lots of additional features, costing more

I suspect that other ISPs might end up using a similar strategy.

Silly political bill on blogging defeated

Good news also from slashdot, an update to the news story from earlier today - bloggers will not be required to register as lobbyists as common sense breaks out on Capitol Hill.

Vista to be legally downloadabale from Jan 30

News from slashdot that Vista is going to be legally downloadabale from the 30th of this month - the same day it will be in the shops. It will be available from the Windows marketplace website - how am I not looking forward to the first round of security flaws and it breaking all kinds of other software :(

Political bloggers forced to list as lobbyists?

Rather concerning news story at news.com suggesting that US regulators are looking to introduce legislation to force bloggers that make money from their blog to list as official lobbyists:

"One section says that certain political bloggers who make or spend $25,000 per quarter and who encourage readers to contact their elected representatives would be forced to register as lobbyists--or face up to 10 years in prison."

I wonder what impact this might have to the constitution rights to free speech.

Ofcom website now down - Big Brother silliness continues

I think that Big Brother is complete and total rubbish and have no time for it at all - however, amazing that complaints about one TV programme have now taken down the Ofcom website.

And now Carphone Warehouse have withdrawn their sponsorship - it's about time this "TV programme" got killed, so hopefully well on the way!

Latest UK ISP numbers

Point Topic have reported updated UK broadband ISP customer numbers. Seem to show that BT and ntl: Telewest are still neck-in-neck.

More information here. They are also reported the latest dialup market split.

Music industry to take on ISPs on piracy

The Guardian is reporting that the music industry is ganging up on the ISPs in their attempt to tackle Internet piracy (largely file sharing over P2P networks).

Armed with the Gowers report, which suggested that ISPs need to come to an agreement with the music industry or face government regulation, the industry is not surprisingly starting with targetting the big boys such as BT, Tiscali and NTL.

Surely the ISP is just acting as the carrier here - why is it any of their problem what an end customer chooses to distribute over their network? The standard position of requiring a court order to divulge customer details is completely appropriate.

LinkedIn profile makeover

If you're a LinkedIn user, you'll appreciate the profile makeover tips that they have published for Guy Kawasaki's profile.

I thought I'd cringe when I saw the headline, but mine's not that far off.

Sky running scared?

TV's not normally my area of interest or comment, but there's some very interesting speculation over at MediaWeek suggesting that Sky are a bit spooked by ntl: Telewest's upcoming re-brand to Virgin Media.

The story suggests that Murdoch is wanting to pull his channels from Cable while at the same time radically cut what he's prepared to pay for Cable's channels.

Is this going be round 2 of Rupert v Richard? (Round 1)

Speaking of Virgin, Mr Branson's mobile arm has reported that take up of mobile TV has been slow with consumers not yet adopting it in significant numbers. Story over at the Guardian.

The death of dialup?

I must be getting on a bit! I remember how excited I was when I first got onto the Internet with my first PAYG dialup account, in the days well before even unmetered dialup.

SimplySwitch are now reporting that broadband access has become cheaper than dialup access, effectively pricing dialup out of the market (Reuters story).

Surprising just how significant the cost differential is:

"Telewest and NTL customers could save almost 60 pounds per year by switching to broadband from dial-up, while those with Tiscali and AOL could save 33 pounds and 12 pounds respectively per annum"

Now dialup might be on its last legs - I can see it becoming just for remote access for broadband users in the future.

Internet TV - more on The Venice Project

Looks like the BBC website might be having some problems this morning, with a few broken images:















Either way, have managed to get through to read more on The Venice Project, as reported here in a previous blog post about the creators of Skype going into broadcast quality Internet TV.

From what their chief exec is saying, this could be promising:

The chief executive, Frederik de Wahl, showing off the service in Joost's London offices, claimed that it provided a different experience from other internet television ventures.

"We are trying to replicate the complete television experience," he explained as he flicked through channels using the Joost interface on a widescreen television.

"It's full-screen, broadcast quality, you've got instant channel flipping, and interactivity - a viewer can come to us and get all their TV needs."

Even though it is only a trial at this stage, the Beeb do rightly point out what content is there for this platform at the moment? One thing we do know about the Internet is that if the technology is there, the content will come.

New Virgin Media site

It's being reported across some forums (including nthell - see post here) that ntl Telewest customers are starting to receive material informing them of what will change with the Virgin Media re-brand.

They've setup a site to inform customers, which can be accessed here.

Pipex for sale?

The Times is reporting that Pipex might be the latest ISP to go up for sale, on top of rumours that Tiscali UK might be available.

They're speculating that £400m could be the asking price, and that they'd bring 570,000 broadband subscribers to any propspective bidder.

Random notes on blogging

Definitely worth a read over at gapingvoid.com.

Some excellent points, if a bit cutting edge! Not sure I agree with the comment that corporate America doesn't like blogs - clueful corporate America such as General Motors like blogs, I don't think stuffy corporate America does though.

Open source worth €2bn a year

A European Union commissioned report has stated that Open source is worth €2bn to the European economy per annum, and has called for an end to use of proprietary software - which reads as a dig towards the big vendors such as Microsoft, who have made a fortune in locking companies and countries into their proprietary products ... with the occasional run-in with EU along the way.

Anything that ensures that the collaborative 'for the better good' way of Open source gets its fair hearing and promoted as much as possible by governments (who are also supposed to be acting for the better good) must be encouraged, and backed up by legislation wherever possible.

The same report also has some heartening advice for the computer science students of the future, and how they should be taught:

"The report also recommends that technical education should be vendor neutral. Students should be taught skills, not applications, and should be encouraged to participate in open source communities."

Surviving the office cubicle

We're a great fan of office buzzwords on this blog.

Got sent these buzzwords by a colleague, someone who doesn't work in a cubicle!

CUBE FARM. An office filled with cubicles.
PRAIRIE DOGGING. When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see that's going on. (This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)

Distasteful pro-anorexia websites

Have seen some stuff today about websites promoting anorexia ("pro-ana" sites) as a lifestyle, which has got to be truly disturbing. Looks like the red tops have caught onto it - but we need to be careful here about knee jerk reactions.

Banning of any websites becase they're distasteful to someone is a very slippery slope - nobody should argue with banning child abuse sites such as those that the IWF compiles a list of for ISPs but any other type of banning can definitely be seen as censorship and needs to be very carefully considered.

Awaiting the industry view which will no doubt follow.

Sky cuts broadband prices

As reported across the usual sites today. With prices coming down for the mid-speed package to £5 per month (not highlighting the fact that you still have to pay BT £11 for line rental!) it's hotting up. The new See, Seek, Surf package as it is now dubbed will be £26 per month - don't forget to add the BT line rental again.

While rounding up the news sites, silicon.com is reporting analyst comment that over half of new telco ventures are expected to flop as they are poorly conceived:

Martin Gutberlet, Gartner VP, told silicon.com pouring money into new services isn't the only way forward.

He said: "Cost cutting, exploiting your customer base better, investing in customer service and thinking about better services - especially for the business segment - would definitely lead to more and better revenues."

Solution to the HD DVD wars?

LG have announced that they will be supplying a DVD player that is compatible with both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Does it play Betamax though?

Fixed Mobile Convergence

Spotted a blog post about Fixed / Mobile convergence (FMC), which seems to have a relatively realistic view of what is actually going on in this space - not so many of the fanciful claims that some marketeers make.

The view from Kevin Evans in this post is:

"Voda and O2's broadband aspirations are at this stage. Even NTL with Virgin Mobile is merely converged branding at the moment but this will change quickly when they complete the merger and integration. BT by contrast is a real leader in the FMC race. They're at device convergence with Fusion and 21CN will take BT all the way to network convergence.

As FMC becomes vital to survival and everyone "is doing it", I suspect the industry will split with some operators becoming converged network operators selling wholesale and retail telecoms services (this is where BT is headed) while others become more service brands."

In my view convergence is all about the customer and not the technology - a point seemingly wasted on many industry commentators. A customer wants good value and all on one bill as they're too busy to mess around - will Virgin be the first to deliver it?

The power of Google

Just how big Google is as an Internet presence never fails to surprise. It is really, really big.

An example for you - a site previously indexed by Google was removed from their listings due to its owner fighting a losing battle against comment spam (story over at Slashdot).

As a result over 10,000 visitors a day stopped coming to the site (Javalobby) as they couldn't find it when searching. With mass market Internet users browsing via the search engine rather than the old ways of the directly typed URL, the bookmark and the hyperlink from other sites, such a de-listing can be catastrophic for any site.

And with Google counting for anything from 70% to 78% of the search market, it would be fatal not to remain on side with them.

Sealand to be the new home of illegal content?

It's being reported that the Scandinavian file sharing site The Pirate Bay is launching a campaign to buy the small nation of Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea.

This would make the independent country the home of pirated content, otherwise illegal elsewhere - running the world's biggest 'bit torrent tracker'. More on their campaign here. Not the most charitable of causes.

TalkTalk all talk talk ?

Citywire is reporting a comment piece about Charles Dunstone and TalkTalk. In it they are speculating that his reputation for straight talking is starting to wither away as it looks like BT (Openreach to be precise) are not delivering what he needs on LLU:

"But does Dunstone tear into BT and tell them what he thinks of them and bring everything to the ear of the regulator? No.

The straight talking Dunstone has learned his lesson and might now even be able to teach the Foreign Office some diplomacy."

For one of the pioneers of corporate blogging in the UK, one this is for sure - he needs to start updating it or take it down!

OFT and Sky

More on yesterday's story that the OFT is to inquire into Sky's purchase of a stake in ITV.

A story over at the Guardian has some interesting quotes from Virgin group, of which NTL are now a part:

"This is far stronger than anybody could have expected and it is extremely good news for consumers and competition," said a spokesman for Virgin. "You have to be blind and completely deaf to the issues surrounding the media in the UK not to believe Sky bought that stake in order to limit competition in the broadcasting industry."

"I remain convinced that the only logical outcome of this whole process is for Sky to be forced to reduce or sell its stake in ITV."

After all these years, will we finally see someone in authority in the UK stand up to Murdoch? One can only hope so.

OFT to inquire into Sky's ITV stake

AP are reporting that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) are to launch an enquiry into BSkyB's purchase of a 17.9% of ITV, and whether this was a deliberate move to block NTL's interest. Full news story here & press release from OFT can be found here.

All interested parties have until the 25th to comment.

31% of UK companies break anti-spam laws

OUT-LAW.COM (as reported by The Register) is reporting that 31% of UK companies are breaking existing anti-spam laws through sending marketing e-mails to users without consent or an existing customer relationship. Definitely a contentious area, but one where there is much short-term thinking - is it not better for your longer term brand loyalty (and hence customer lifetime value) to be reputable in such practices?

Original news story at OUT-LAW.COM.

How not to get a job

The story was reported in the Metro this week of the web designer with the chip on his shoulder and the (eminently) reasonable and patient recruiter. If you fancy a Friday laugh, have a read of the e-mail trail.

Results update from Carphone Warehouse

The latest results update from Carphone Warehouse is out, and being reported widely across the news sites such as Forbes. Consensus from the analysts seems to be that the broadband signup rate is slipping significantly as they are no longer quoting signup numbers. The poor customer service reports have potentially put more prospective customers off presumably.

Google to host an "open source jam"

Google are hosting an interesting looking code collaboration meeting in their cool London offices - a good example of their different corporate culture. Expect lots of geeks to be present, and pizza to be consumed!

Demon does deal with Cloudmark

Demon is the latest consumer ISP to have realisd that they need to be able to provide the security tools to help their customers secure their PCs, or they'll always be fighting a losing battle.

Demon have announced a deal with Cloudmark, which will supply their subscribers (including some business ones, good move) with anti-phishing, anti-spam and anti-virus tools to get them secure when they're online.

This is the latest in a number of good moves by Cloudmark, who are one to watch in the Internet security market.

Are there now any sizeable UK ISPs left who aren't providing tools for their customers, in whatever guise? White-labelled offerings appear to be the most popular and best ones (and can be tightly integrated with the ISPs support offering), but there are also a number of re-seller deals out there.

NTL's ex CEO to leave next week

Media Bulletin are reporting that Simon Duffy, the former CEO of NTL is going to leave next week when his contract runs out. Am sure he needs a rest.

Latest on European Data Retention laws

Is being reported at a number of places, including over at ISP Review.

The story reports that member countries of the EU have until September 2007 to apply the directive - that's only 6 months away, so this is coming up quick. The one part that does need further definition is:

Service providers will be obliged to respond to lawful requests from law enforcement agencies "without undue delay"

BT making more PR claims

About a million VOIP customers - when you go into the small print it seems to be a million who have registered, not actually using. Good PR machine they have there.

Cisco to sue Apple over iPhone

Talk of the forums and the online news sites this morning is that Cisco are intending to sue Apple over their use of the iPhone name for their VOIP service announced earlier this week, which Cisco are claiming is a trademark of theirs.

• CNet news.com story
• BBC story
• Slashdot coverage
  

It's inidicative of the litiguous nature of the US market that Cisco have filed a lawsuit and are then planning to meet Apple to negotiate, as indicated by the BBC story above.

In response, Apple are fanning the flames (from the BBC article):

"We think Cisco's trademark lawsuit is silly," Apple spokesman Alan Hely said. "There are already several companies using the name iPhone for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) products."

This could be an entertaining one to watch from afar. If nothing else, maybe it'll divert Cisco's attention from buying people for a while.

Google is the best place to work

According to Forbes' list of the top 100 - certainly the offices that I've been to are pretty cool. Full comment over at Slashdot.

Web2.0 bubble bursting?

Well, maybe a little exaggerated but the story at the Register shows the fad-ish nature of sites such as MySpace- a few will use them a lot, many will try once and then clear off and some won't try at all.

In the case of MySpace, clearly the 'few' is sufficient to hit critical mass - but with eveyone else wanting to move into this space there's only so much room.

Government to close up to 551 websites

A story at the Register.

I didn't realise there were actually this many .gov.uk websites out there. It makes sense for Whitehall to consolidate these though, to maximise accessibility for the now mass market nature of web users.

They'll be centering around their mega sites like Directgov, which has a story about it also.

A month offline?

Just seen a fellow blogger having to cope with a month offline after BT messed up his service, now back online with Telewest. I really don't think I could cope with a month offline - I mean, I'd need to actually talk to people ! :)

Symantec and Vista

The latest in the round of news stories about Vista is a very interesting piece about Symantec, and the business opportunities that they see in complimenting Vista's in built UAC (User Account Control) technology.

This just goes to show the never ending adaptability of software vendors is, er, never ending.

Apple iPhone launches

Long awaited, and yet inevitable. How much in the UK though?

Do you want a server in your house?

A topical question to ask, given Bill Gates' revealing of Microsoft's digital home strategy this week.

While us technology geeks think it would be quite cool to have home servers (not a Microsoft one here though!), I can't see the mass populus buying into it unless they are quiet, not racked and a lot more user friendly. Much work needs to be done on usability too to get people to adopt.

NSA helped with securing Vista

Interesting Washington Post story being reported on slashdot - that Microsoft got help from the National Security Agency in securing their new Vista operating system. Given the involvement of organised crime in botnets and other security nasties online nowdays, this comes across as a prudent and wise move from Redmond.

One can only hope that they continue to do this in the future.

The importance of good PR on the net

Another Register story has caught my eye, the reporting of some serious e-mail problems over at PlusNet. I can't but help think that a better PR statement could have been provided than the one that has - good PR really comes across well online.

"Bounced email Problem: Problem with email configuration occurred on Friday at 11:15, problem fixed by 15:30 for 90% of customers and remaining done by 16.30. This followed a restore from back-up. Customers were informed of the problem and the subsequent resolution via our website service status tool http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1168015185.htm PlusNet would like to apologise for the inconvenience that this has caused.

Central pipe segments: In July we disabled two 155Mbps BT Central segments after migrating around 20,000 customers to Tiscali's wholesale LLU network which corresponds to a similar amount of bandwidth."

Is this a case of an ISP that has traditionally had a tecchie audience having some growing pains as they become more mass market friendly? I wonder how their new owners (BT) will respond.

Brazilian ISPs blocking YouTube

Probably an inevitable consequence of the court order last week - Brazilian ISPs are now starting to block the entire YouTube site. Story over at el Reg. This really is an over-reaction - sure laws often don't work that well with the net, but can common sense not prevail here?

NTL are part of Telewest

Just had a post about HD flagged up on my Google alerts, and the wording of the original poster made me smile:

"I have recently had a NTL TV Drive installed at home. They are part of Telewest"

Am not sure that's how the SEC would see it :-)

Plutoed - 2006 word of the year

More on jargon as 'Plutoed' is voted word of the year for 2006 by the American Dialect Society.

I prefer the number 2 on their list a "climate canary". Much more colourful conversationally!

Vodafone enters the broadband market

The market really is reaching saturation point with Vodafone now being the latest mobile operator to move into ADSL. They're requiring an 18 month contract and charging £25/month for monthly contract customers, £35/month otherwise.

The story at IT week reporting it backs up the view that we might yet see an unmetered dial-up style consolidation of broadband providers:

Industry analysts are predicting that smaller ISPs will not be able to compete with offerings from the big providers such as BSkyB, BT and Virgin Media boasting triple play (voice, video and data) options.

Current Analysis analyst Sandra O’Boyle said, “We are very close to saturation point in broadband and more consolidation is inevitable."

Problems at Googlemail this morning?

YouTube slowdown

Since the takeover by Google, there's been lots of reports of the YouTube website running slow - more from FileSharing Talk.

It amazes me that people who are non regular users of the site don't grasp why it's got worse - you're going there to view the Saddam video ... hey, so is everyone else!

Interesting article on the ethics of this in today's Observer.

Serious security flaw in Acrobat reader

Is being reported by the BBC. Looks like a particularly nasty one, in that it allows access to the end user's hard drive. Make sure you upgrade to the latest version at the Adobe website.

Channel 4 charges for Big Brother

On their 4od service, it will eventually cost £1 per show for viewing Big Brother. I can't believe that they don't actually pay you to watch this drivel!

Google saves the world from giant Earwig

According to a story over at the Register. The latest in observation from Google Earth users.

El reg is also reporting a story about a London Tube journey being the most expensive in the world - from Leicester Square to Covent Garden. You can always soften the blow by going to the world's greatest restaurant, Cafe Pacifico, though.

Windows Defender Error Message

On the back of the great experience I had when trying to get a Windows Live ID yesterday, this morning I had the pleasure of a failure of Windows Defender - and you can't beat those customer friendly error messages:

Internet Explorer unprotected for 78% of 2006

Or 284 days, according to a vunet piece, quoting the Washington Post:

"This included at least 98 days in which no software fixes were available to plug browser flaws that were actively being used to steal personal and financial data.

In comparison, Mozilla's Firefox browser had just one nine-day period last year during which a serious security hole went unpatched."

Another good reason to use Firefox? It's not security alone that should draw you to that conclusion - its superior implementation of tabbed browsing, plug-ins, speed of downloading pages, general UI ...

Tiscali talking up IPTV

What a co-incidence, given their purchase of Homechoice ! :)

Tiscali reckon that they can get half a million customers onto it when they relaunch the service later in 2007. Sounds very optimistic to me.

Windows Live ID

Amusing, just got a "Windows LiveID is experiencing registration problems" error when trying to sign an account. Some companies' technology doesn't change!

Direct Connect user charged with illegal filesharing

In Norway - the latest attempt by the copyright holders to tackle file sharing. Full report over at the Register.

Pegasus mail goes bust

Sad day with news that there will be no further development to the pioneering e-mail client software, Pegasus Mail. I must have been around for far too long as I remember when it started in New Zealand and just how revlutionary it was at the time.

Congratulations to David Harris for a job well done. Official posting can be found at the pmail site.

ISPA awards nominees

The nominations are out for this year's ISPA awards - see the press release on their site.

The villains award is always the most fun. I'd vote for the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) myself.

IMs and e-mails that embarrass

Funny feature over at news.com about e-mails and Instant Messages that those who sent must now cringe to read - Bill Gates featuring, naturally.

How to get more out of LinkedIn

I'm a great fan of the LinkedIn website. A good blog post of the top 10 tips to get more out of the site is now being linked to from their home page - have a read of it here.

More on BT's 10m claim

The story from yesterday about BT's claim of 10m broadband punters is well summarised in this graphic from Point Topic's latest research:

Which would suggest to me that BT retail and Cable are neck-in-neck when it comes to consumer ISPs.

US: 2007 the year of quadplay

Some further evidence maybe that the UK is leading the way with Cable moving into quadplay, on a news.com article about the importance of mobile in 2007. Particularly telling is the view of the analysts:

"Depending on how well mobile services are received by cable customers, it could up the ante in the battle between cable and phone companies," said Jim Penhune, an analyst with Strategy Analytics. "It will force the phone companies to readdress the market and get more serious about integrating their own wireless services into their offering."

However, one bill is going to be a key part of the customer experience. Just how quickly can that be done?

Cisco to take on anti spam provider

Interesting news that Cisco has bought IronPort to move into the e-mail security market. IronPort, who run Senderbase, have a clue and some good products - how will Cisco develop them is an interesting question.

Also: news.com story.

More buzzword jargon

The Metro newspaper is reporting a survey from Office Angels, on some more of the most hated jargon. The 4 terms they list as particularly hated from their survey are:

1. Thought grenade - the result of a productive thought shower, an explosively good idea.
2. Let's sunset that - what happens to bad ideas, as in they never happen again.
3. Information touchpoint - workers will no longer attend meetings, these will be on the daily agenda instead.
4. Little 'r' me - requesting a private answer to an e-mail. The little 'r' stands for reply.

Further examples of consultancy buzzwords can be found on previous posts - 1 & 2.

Mobile TV takes off

Or maybe not, depending on your perspective. Interesting article over at The Business about the TV over mobile services that are now starting to be offered in the UK, including the impressive Slingbox based services.

BT plays the PR game

Meanwhile, BT have been busy going on about their impending 10 millionth broadband customer in the UK (silicon.com article / other article). Clever bit of PR that - only around 3m of them are actually their customers for broadband, with the rest using the wholesale / Openreach arm to get their service from other ISPs.

The Metro, the free throwaway paper that you get on the London tube, had a particularly amusing writeup of the same story, mentioning that:

"10 million broadband connections are made on BT's network compared with 3
million on cable providers such as NTL and Cable & Wireless"

Now I've just had a look on their site, but I'm damned if I can find a way to get broadband from Cable & Wireless. However, to be fair that is due to the fact that I can't. Good bit of journalism there!

Venice project and usage allowances

The Venice project, as is being reported by out-law.com, could have an unexpected effect on those whose ISPs have usage allowances. They're being quite open with it in their communications to users, saying that usage of the streaming media application from the men that brought us Kazaa and Skype can meet monthly usage limits in hours.

Not so much of an issue for those whose ISPs are using other traffic management techniques, or none at all though. I shall have to download it and have a play.

Google plugs Gmail exploit

Looks like they've been quick to act! Full story over at el Reg.

Libya to buy 1.2m £100 laptops

Rumoured by the Beeb. Just wait for the first product recall!

Wikipedia outlaws Qatar

Well, not quite. BBC News story.

Highlights the issue over the single points of failure in parts of the Internet, particularly with small providers and small countries. Have first had experience of that myself - with a site I used to run using up most of a whole country's bandwidth and even taking down their international links at one point!

Are Sky running scared?

You decide for yourself - see the story over @ Marketing Week.

Gmail vulnerable to contact list hijacking

As seen in a report linked from Slashdot. More information here.

Microsoft giving Vista laptops to bloggers

Latest development in the Vista story was an unexpected one, as Microsoft reaches out to the often anti-Microsoft blogosphere by giving away free laptops pre-loaded with Vista.

More on the controvery raging can be found at the news.com article.

Like the Vista story, news.com are quoting the New York Times who have also visited Google's new offices in the Big Apple which are a little out of place with one of the older bastions of corporate America. Am sure they're just as cool as their London offices.

Geocaching

Interesting phenomenon pointed out by a colleague, have a read on Wikipedia. I'm off to bury 20p :)

2007 predictions

The various online sites are forecasting what they are expecting in 2007. The one that amused me the most was the BBC piece, which talked to 3 experts who seemed to think that 2007 would be dominated by the web - can't beat analysis like that!

And an early candidate for jargon of the year 2007 can be found in that article, quoting Kathy Johnson from Consort Partners:

The big trend among hot web companies will be the "actualisation of personalisation"

A number of other interesting preview pieces can be found at slashdot.