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News
Mr Brown to give internet to the UK for £700
Gordon Brown announced at the Labour Party conference last month a £300 million initiative to ensure that all school-age children have access to the internet.
The 3-D internet
A fully immersive 3-D web has been dreamt about since Neil Stephenson’s 1992 visionary novel, Snow Crash. This month may see that fiction become a reality.
Creating the online lexicon
The man who brought Bebo back from the dead, Michael Birch, has put his well-filled wallet behind the online dictionary wordia.com. The site claims that it will “redefine the dictionary” allowing users to upload their own videos explaining what a word means to them.
Comment
IPTV and Me - A social journey through TV on the internet
It’s in the papers every day that the traditional broadcast TV platform is dying, however what they neglect to mention is that TV viewing is up 2% for the first half of the year according to Thinkbox.tv. What is changing is the meshing landscape. Traditional TV has not fully embraced the internet and IPTV is awash with various sites claiming to be the internet’s comprehensive online TV channel.
Bitesize
A bit fit
Fitbit is a wearable sensor that can track a person’s activity 24 hours a day. Monitoring your heart rate and sleep patterns, the sensor can then send data to the accompanying website for analysis and social networking.
Like the lining
QIO Systems has come up with connected clothing thanks to a remote control woven into the interior of the coat or the strap of a bag, which can be used to control a gadget such as an MP3 player.
Underwater broadband
Norfolk-based Sonar Link claims to offer the fastest underwater data connection available, about five times the speed of the existing 38Kbps offerings.
Calling all cabs
Londoners are leaving nearly 10,000 mobile phones in the back of black cabs every month. Capital dwellers have left an eye-watering 55,843 mobile phones in taxis over the last six months!
The Numbers Page
E-commerce shows no signs of stopping in the UK
So far e-commerce seems relatively immune to the economic downturn. This year UK business-to-consumer internet sales will total £59.8 billion, up more than 28% since 2007 (this includes digital downloads and tickets for travel and events).
Presidential candidates are a hit with the ladies
The race for the White House is heating up and the number of video downloads of the two candidates, by female users, have been published by Nielsen online.
Social networking from around the world
The power of social networking is widespread and seemingly it’s here to stay. A study from comScore reveals social media’s share across the world and analyses the percentage of internet users in each country.