BT goes faster! But at what cost?

So BT have finally decided to up their speed. However, the cost of their new BT Broadband Accelerator, part of its Home IT Support Service, is £90 a month. On the one hand, for a consumer such as myself I don't know if it is worth it at the moment. The minimum increase in speed is o.5Mbps and this increase can come about through optimizing your PC, checking the wiring, plugging the modem into the master plug and even by fixing faulty wiring or other household electrical applicances. But it's still too much for me, living with 3 flatmates in a 400-year-old cottage. Primarily because when you have 4 people downloading at the same time it will affect your connection and secondly because no amount of rewiring will help with the electrics in a house as old as mine.

On the other hand, if you run an office out of your house, this could cut out the IT man. If your livelihood depends on being online at any given time and using high speeds to get things done quickly, then it is worth having a technician come over and help you figure out how to make your broadband run faster. In fact, it might even lower your business costs, as faulty wiring and appliances or malfunctioning lights might be using up unnecessary amounts of power. In that case the £90 price is not out of the question. BT are also to launch a product called iPlate, which will supposedly boost broadband speeds and comes to £10, a much more realistic purchase for a consumer such as myself.

This all sounds great, but I have raise the issue of BT's competitors. Because if you check out average speeds, you will notice that BT is not at the top of that list. Not by a longshot...

BT goes faster! But at what cost?

So BT have finally decided to up their speed. However, the cost of their new BT Broadband Accelerator, part of its Home IT Support Service, is £90 a month. On the one hand, for a consumer such as myself I don't know if it is worth it at the moment. The minimum increase in speed is o.5Mbps and this increase can come about through optimizing your PC, checking the wiring, plugging the modem into the master plug and even by fixing faulty wiring or other household electrical applicances. But it's still too much for me, living with 3 flatmates in a 400-year-old cottage. Primarily because when you have 4 people downloading at the same time it will affect your connection and secondly because no amount of rewiring will help with the electrics in a house as old as mine.

On the other hand, if you run an office out of your house, this could cut out the IT man. If your livelihood depends on being online at any given time and using high speeds to get things done quickly, then it is worth having a technician come over and help you figure out how to make your broadband run faster. In fact, it might even lower your business costs, as faulty wiring and appliances or malfunctioning lights might be using up unnecessary amounts of power. In that case the £90 price is not out of the question. BT are also to launch a product called iPlate, which will supposedly boost broadband speeds and comes to £10, a much more realistic purchase for a consumer such as myself.

This all sounds great, but I have raise the issue of BT's competitors. Because if you check out average speeds, you will notice that BT is not at the top of that list. Not by a longshot...

Apple drops price of iPhone 3G

There is no doubt that the iPhone and the 3G version are two of the most sleek and beautiful mobile phone devices, although they do a lot more than just function as telephones. So in order to try and tempt some custom away from Nokia and Blackberry, Apple have announced that the new iPhone 3G will be offered to consumers for £100, in its cheapest version with 8Gb of storage. Not a bad deal, as with the new 3G technology Apple claims users will be able to download two times as fast.

However, Nokia and Blackberry are not sitting with their arms crossed and smiles on their faces. Even though Apple only holds 5% of the global smartphone market, the drop in price could bolster iPhone sales when it is launched in 22 countries in July. But it will have to compete with Nokia’s N96 and the Blackberry Thunder. Apple’s hope is that the £100 price tag, which they hope will be the same across most of the countries the phone is released in, will increase their sales and help them catch up.

90,000 Spanish lorry drivers hit the breaks

More than 200 Spanish lorry drivers ground traffic on the borders with France to a halt last night, as they parked their lorries next to the toll booths and proceeded to stop other lorries from passing, in protest to the 20% rise in the price of diesel fuel.

The tens of thousands of lorry drivers on strike are mostly self employed or work from small companies, and they all face the same problem with the soaring price of diesel. Bankruptcy.

The hauliers have found support from others in their trade in France and Portugal. These strikes are threatening the arrival of goods to supermarkets and fuel all over Spain. Since May, protests by lorry drivers, fishermen and taxi drivers in 7 European countries have been reported by the BBC, and if fuel prices do not decrease it could spell many more mass protests throughout Europe.

The soaring diesel prices are due, to a great extent, to the 15% minimum VAT imposed on the fuel. However, the EU has stated that it will avoid cutting fuel taxes in order to deal with the high prices, and instead recommends that national solutions be found in each member state dealing with the problem.

Perhaps it is time to focus on more fuel efficient haulage and fishing vehicles and subsidise the purchase of such vehicles, a trend that should be followed by every company worldwide, as it makes long term financial sense and improves companies’ image as regards to the environment.

Portuguese language Googled into Brazilian

Globalization has seemingly a rather twisted influence on languages. It all started from online chat-rooms where expressions of thoughts and emotions transformed into cute or devilish yellow round smilies. Since then, day by day words started losing vital vowels and consonants while new incomprehensible vocabulary emerging through mobile texting. Ok, yeah! Now you tell us, like we didn’t know.

What’s new though are the new consonants European Portuguese will be phasing in the next six years - k, w, y. Apparently the Portuguese parliament voted last week for adapting its national language to the more popular Brazilian Portuguese dialect. It seems that 80% of the world’s 230 million Portuguese speakers prefer to cut themselves some slack with confusing hyphens and silent consonants found affluent in the 2000 years old Romance language.

Although globalization plays an apparent role it isn’t the only influence; it is for the rapidly developing former colony and the influence of the Internet that made the choice to go “Brazilian” unavoidable. And that’s merely due as much to Brazil being the 5th most populous country, as to being a much stronger state in terms of culture and economy; on top of all that the fact that Brazilians outnumber Portuguese on the web by a staggering six to one. Since this disparity is set to widen in the close future and given the importance of the Internet as a medium of global intelligence and business, the adaptation was an one-way solution.

Well, it might be true that normally a European colonial power is expected to endorse their language version as the correct one when confronted on the matter by a colony. That's what makes it so remarkable though, this time happening the other way around. Obscure as it may sound, it was only 33,000 Portuguese who signed a petition protesting against it leaving politicians no choice but to decide that the new standardised language is to be taught in schools across Portugal, Brazil and even former Portuguese colonies like Angola and Mozambique.

Great, isn’t it?

Napster Store vs Apple Store - Great MP3 Battle

Los Angeles based Napster Inc. steps in an unexpected challenge with Apple. The digital music department spearheads this courageous attempt to contest in the stream of digital music by launching an MP3 download database two days ago.

The Napster store accommodates a huge, very elaborate selection of MP3 tracks with no digital rights management software for 50p each or £5 for most complete albums.

What Napster simply intended to do, and quite honestly it hit bulls eye there, was to create a comprehensive music portal, where music lovers will be engaged to the necessary level to create a sort of music synergy. And on top of everything else the MP3 tracks will be compatible with every sort of MP3 player.

Very admirable attempt from Napster indeed, but will it be adequate to face Apple Store?

Iron Man vs Iron Man

As a dedicated 27-year-old teenager I must admit I still love comic book movies, especially when they top the quality of X-MEN II or Fantastic Four - The Rise of the Silver Surfer. I was looking a couple of weeks ago online for reviews about the indeed very entertaining Iron Man from Marvel.

That's when I came across a great paradox, a huge dilemma reflecting in perfect form all those tiny, little things that make people’s views so different upon the same subject.

After reading foolish reviews of shallow people who had minimum know-how about movies, I decided to try good old Microsoft but by accident, instead of launching the uk.msn.com – I launched the American version. Well, since I am here wouldn’t harm me to take a look what reviewers have to say about the movie I anticipated from across the Atlantic Ocean, I thought. The rating was almost 5 out of 5 stars, a grade which was elaborated extensively and quite convincingly on the article followed.

Content and even more excited about the upcoming Iron Man and thought to check the British msn as well. To my astonished disappointment I came across a tiny little description, a humiliating review regarding the movie as a disgrace for the brilliant trailer and with comments that it shouldn’t have been released in full length.

USA msn: http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=2076905&mp=cr
UK msn: http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/movies/specials/summer-blockbusters/article.aspx?cp-documentid=8194674

Here I provide both links so you know what’s going on, and please someone help me, should I go and watch it or just download it after sometime?

Youtube Insulting Clips Raise Concern

Youtube and inevitably Google have been caught up in one more controversy over anti-Semitic videos circulating onsite. The Central Council of Jews in Germany took the case to the court to persuade the video-sharing site to permanently eradicate similar context. Claims that Google is to be held liable for “aiding and abetting racial hatred and discrimination” might be on the exaggeration side, nevertheless in Germany, incitement to racial hatred crosses the legal red line. Echoes of last year’s report in which it was stated that, among other racist works, Internet viewers could watch a Nazi propaganda clip called Jud Suess on YouTube, have not faded away yet. While the paradox still stands that Jud Suess is a powerful weapon against racism offering compelling video testimony about that particularly insane mix of evil and absurdity that characterized the Third Reich, nevertheless righteous are the concerns about Youtube context.

On another instance last month, the National Society for Epilepsy (NSE) were not so radical from their side and curbed to a warning for dozens of clips of people having seizures, some viewed by more than 70,000 people. Hundreds more show people pretending to have seizures in an unintelligible mockery of people suffering the syndrome.

“Footage of people having seizures which has been posted on the website YouTube is like a modern equivalent of the Victorian freak show”. Dr Sallie Baxendale, consultant neuropsychologist with the NSE continued: "In the original freak shows you couldn't have epilepsy because you couldn't have it on cue but on a video you can watch it whenever you want. They have got very graphic titles like 'never ending seizure'. Those are the one that have got the most hits.

A YouTube spokesman in an attempt to answer claimed: "YouTube has clear policies that prohibit inappropriate content on the site. Our community understands the rules and polices the site for inappropriate material. When users feel content is inappropriate they can flag it and our staff then review it as quickly as possible to see if it violates our Terms of Use. If users repeatedly break these rules we disable their accounts."

Have you ever encountered something insulting on a personal basis on Youtube?

Coffee Republic offers wi-fi Internet free

Coffee lovers who fancy surfing and working online from the comfort of a big coffee shop armchair have one more reason to be happy. Indulging themselves in the bitter sweet taste and fragrance of their Arabica or Columbia variety cappuccino while getting free wi-fi Internet access has already start happening at Coffee Republic cafes.

Coffee Republic pioneered the market as the first UK coffee chain to provide free wi-fi to its customers and this is actually happening since beginning fo May 2008.

The company obviously isn’t doing that out of their good heart. They aim to increase traffic and sales targeting mobile workers, business people and students. The business plan is actually based on a recent survey of 1,000 business people which revealed that 24% of them would be utilizing wi-fi hotspots to work remotely from a coffee shop at least one day per week.

The system implemented will be retained simplistic; the customers making a purchase at Coffee Republic will be offered a free wi-fi voucher giving them a login code to access the store's hotspot from any wi-fi-enabled laptop, mobile phone or PDA.Very simple isn’t it?

Actually two of the trials in Reading and Weybridge led to a noticeable increase in footfall, how do you think it would influence your coffee habits?

Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee quit

Lee Kun-hee was South Korea's most influential businessman and chairman of Samsung until few days ago when he was forced to announce his resignation as chairman of Samsung while the powerful conglomerate still shakes from charges of massive tax evasion.

The 66-year-old Lee spearheaded South Korea's most powerful family-run company for 20 years while incorporating in his figure the country's ultra-secretive management structures. Many actually believe the same structures are personified by Lee, a man once considered untouchable because of his close ties to successive governments in Seoul.

Nevertheless, many regarded the apology for to his shocked compatriots as a rare show of accountability and welcomed Lee Kun-hee’s the resignation. Others though, voiced concern that his downfall would not only damage the conglomerate's reputation but hold back attempts by South Korea's new president to repair the battered economy.

Let’s not forget Samsung group, having interests in consumer electronics, shipbuilding and construction, accounts for as much as 20% of South Korea's exports. The Republic of Samsung as called by many, has more than 250,000 employees, and its annual revenues of $160bn (£81bn) are around the size of Singapore's gross domestic product.

I don't get, why tax invade when making this silly ammounts of money?

Phorm threatens ISP privacy

It was about time for those poor conspiracy theorists to raise their voice again over a new treacherous threat spawned to doom humanity once more. Well, maybe the arrival of an online advert system called Phorm isn’t perceived so dramatically by the entire 6.7 billion people on planet earth, nevertheless it has created a sensation.

Basically, web users consider Phorm’s applications as a possible privacy invasion in regards to creating targeted ads by identifying surfing habits. What it actually does is using your private browsing history, including your web page list, as an advertisement tool, a commodity to be brokered to advertisers. Not surprisingly, the 3 first UK ISP providers Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk refrained from announcing the ongoing tests conducting on Phorm.

Phorm’s directors and spokespeople came around to their critics well-studied, flashing back corporate privacy claims audited by Privacy International before Ernst & Young’s authorization. For the new technolgy, maintaining your IP address isn’t so important, so nothing illegal here; important though is a unique-number cookie planted on your browser. It’s a rather dynamic process utilizing “distillation” techniques and not memorizing or phishing, therefore not illegal.

Ok, considering everything went well so far on the secret plan, so Phorm has created an intelligent profile, not directly yours but your web activity’s which then bargains; by now its target market should be dead obvious… it is actually the market of online Ltds thirsty to taste the big cherry pie shared exclusively by the only big web three…

Lets see how interesting it will turn out to be, any first thoughts?

Yahoo pie share increase over Google

Yahoo! Inc. board of directors meet a couple of days ago to reconsider Microsoft Corp.'s $44.6 billion bid. Although analysts and shareholders see the takeover as the most likely outcome, Yahoo's CEO Jerry Yang is still "on the pull" for an alternate bidder or a bulkier bid, ignoring Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer's threat for a proxy fight in less than two weeks. Yahoo's procrastination giving into Microsoft's offer temptation is fairly confusing for the market's realists; it is common ground that Microsoft remains the most motivated and best capitalized choice for Yahoo as a Yahoo-AOL merger wouldn't provide Yahoo's shareholders equivalent to Microsoft's bid value.

Yahoo's Jerry Yang, fully acknowledging the aftermath of a possible AOL transaction, also forged an agreement this week to run some of Google's advertisements alongside Internet search results. The deal, which will include no more than 3 percent of search queries is only a two week trial and an instant attempt for Yahoo to boost revenue as an independent company.

Yesterday's data may actually indicate a potential increase in Yahoo's Web search, specifically against Google. The good news for Yahoo's board and shareholders came from a study by RBC Capital using data on ad-buying trends showing Yahoo outpacing Google in search advertising spending, ad viewership and click-through rates during the first quarter.Yahoo's first-quarter piece of the search spending pie to 23 percent of the market from historic levels of 18 percent to 19 percent and they are expected to reveal their quarterly results tomorrow.

BT CEO Ben Verwaayen goodbye

BT Group Plc., the world’s first privatised state telecom company, fair wells current CEO Ben Verwaayen. Commenting on the succession, BT Chairman Sir Mike Rake acknowledged Mr. Verwaayen as the one “who transformed BT from being a deeply troubled organisation into a thriving business with global capability and a clear strategy for the future.”

In Ben Verwaayen's rein BT expanded its Global Services division, providing improved network and IT services to international customers in a period the company was struggling with the cross-industry phenomenon of declining call revenues. Mr. Verwaayen heads BT since 2002 and will step down from the board on June 30. In this 6-year period the outgoing CEO protected BT from an upcoming regulator-caused break up by “selling off” its network to its unavoidable rivals. He seized the opportunity to enter the network IT services market and managed to double the group’s share price between 2004 and 2007while on the same time established Openreach in 2005.

Things in BT aren’t so bright lately though. Past six months saw the shares taking a 30% dive trading not far from the 2002 levels. Although BT has 4.3 million users it isn’t used to steep competition from the likes of BskyB and Carphone Warehouse, which developed their own networks affecting BT Wholesale’s line rental income.

Ian Livingston, BT Head or Retail, takes over the command in very sensitive period when BT considers a complex and costly network upgrade. Market analysts, although still a bit concerned since 7 months ago BT welcomed a new chairman, maintain a strong belief in Livingston’s skills. The new CEO is expected to focus on a much expected detailed delivery of BT's new strategy, why don't we give him some time to prove himself?

Internet Stars Wars

The current unprecedented dogfight between software giant Microsoft against search giant Google over Yahoo Inc. is really admirable. It shows perhaps that this is more than just an agressive acquisition attempt as the stakes are very high.

When looking into this from a top level perspective Microsoft and Google are fighting over domination of the web. A deal between Microsoft and Yahoo will give the software company a considerable chunk of the search market, up to 30%. This means that there will be a valid contender in the search field.

Another area that will change the landscape is the domination of the email services market. Microsoft and Yahoo will cover 80% of the free email market. This is really significant in terms of advertising revenue.

But this is not all. There are many more areas where Microsoft can directly compete with Google even taking a shot at it's most popular services.

The online marketing agency community watches from the sidelines and secretly hopes for a deal to bring more competition in the space. Internet users are split, but Microsoft critics (and there are many) do not want to see the company trying to dominate yet another space with it's corporate approach. After all Google is giving out a lot more useful services, adding value. Would Microsoft do the same or would they try to charge for everything in the same way they do for their software?

Competition tends to drive prices down and give more negotiation powers to advertisers.
Given the past of Microsoft is this good news or bad omens?

New Savings Account with WaMu

Washington Mutual, or better known as WaMu, is a USA based bank which recently launched a new online Savings Account aiming to reduce operational costs and maximize customers' benefits.

Wamu includes in its very attractive package free Online Banking backed up by free electronic statements. The suggested interest fee is amongst the most competitive in the U.S. market and stands at 3.25%, while allowing the convenience to customers of starting up an account with as little as $1. WaMu endows its customers with no monthly service charge, when the account is opened and handled through its free online checking. Customers can also link their new online account to an existing active WaMu checking account, as long as checking relationship is maintained.

Although there aren’t any hidden costs, there is a monthly service charge amount of $4.00 which can be easily avoided if the minimum balance is maintained above $300.00 on any given time throughout the month.

Additional features included the potential sign up for an overdraft transfer service and available funds will be conveniently transferred from your linked Online Savings Account to your checking account to prevent overdrafts or other NSF transactions like bounced checks (subject to transaction limits and funds availability). Direct access to funds by ATM can prove very useful, though again transaction limitations do apply to online savings accounts and access is subject to funds availability.

Concluding, WaMu Free Checking™ proves itself as a useful and transparent online service providing customers with the Relationship Interest Rate/APY. The online savings account comes with free bank checks and money orders.

Sponsored