Is Digital Britain to be taxed back to the copper age?

Is Digital Britain to be taxed back to the copper age?

Computer Weekly has spent some time looking into the business rates that affect fibre networks, and has also uncovered plans that could see Wi-Fi hotspots and WiMAX networks having to pay tax backdated to 2005. BT Retail with some 600,000 home routers capable of acting as a hot-spot could face a bill of £29m a year.

Business rates on fibre networks are well known about in the industry, but the affect that these have had on the roll-out of unbundled networks and next generation access are considerable. The tax is charged at 48.5p in the pound, with the value being based on what the HM Revenue and Customs' Valuation Office Agency (VOA) estimates as the operating profit that the network owner could make if the fibre was rented to a third party and the length of the fibre is also taken into account. This means that even if you were in a situation where you had someone willing to put fibre in...

Free Google sat-nav shakes market

Free Google sat-nav shakes market

Shares in sat-nav device companies have fallen substantially after Google unveiled its free live sat-nav for mobiles on Wednesday.

US firm Garmin fell 18% after details of Google Maps Navigation were revealed. Dutch firm TomTom fell 9.5% when markets closed on Thursday.

The Google application promises free real-time, turn-by-turn directions for people to follow on their phones.

The Motorola Droid will be the first mobile phone equipped with the system.

Full story : HERE

Prevent a network own goal

Prevent a network own goal

Following the first ever online only live streaming of the England football team’s 1-0 defeat to Ukraine, Blue Coat’s EMEA Marketing VP Nigel Hawthorn, looks into the implications that live online video streaming events could have on an organisation’s network infrastructure ahead of next summer’s World Cup.

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa promises worldwide coverage like never before, with the BBC's Sport website offering live video streaming of all matches.

Though a small number of matches were shown online in 2006, next year the number of matches available across the web includes all matches that the BBC has the rights to. More importantly, the success of the iPlayer and YouTube has led to an assumption on the part of users that the quality will be good to the desktop.

This concept was fully supported by Director of BBC Sport Roger Mosey, who commented ahead of the World Cup in 2006: 'We know...

Net set for 'language shake-up'

Net set for 'language shake-up'

The internet is on the brink of the "biggest change" to its working "since it was invented 40 years ago", the net regulator Icann has said.

The body said it that it was finalising plans to introduce web addresses using non-Latin characters.

The proposal - initially approved in 2008 - would allow domain names written in Asian, Arabic or other scripts.

The body said if the final plans were approved on 30 October, it would accept the first applications by 16 November.

The first Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) could be up and running by "mid 2010" said the president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).

"Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," said Rod Beckstrom at the opening of Icann's conference in Seoul, South Korea.

"So this change is very much necessary for not only half...

Ubuntu readies the Karmic Koala

What do French gendarmes, Andalucian school children, Wikipedia and San Francisco International airport have in common?

It is not the set up for a tortuous pun. Instead all of them are big users of the free Ubuntu operating system.

The French national police force runs its operations on the open source OS; computer systems supporting Spanish schools have their own version; the online encyclopaedia runs its hundreds of servers on Ubuntu and SFIA's internal computer system is based around it.
Ubuntu is based on Linux - the open source operating system that is maintained, expanded and extended by legions of fans and professional programmers around the world. Thanks to their efforts Ubuntu has become the most popular of all the Linux distributions.

On 29 October, version 9.10 of Ubuntu is released. All versions of the operating system have an alternative alliterative appellation. Ubuntu 9.10 is known as Karmic Koala. Read more...

Conservatives plan to reverse 50p broadband tax

Conservatives plan to reverse 50p broadband tax

The Digital Britain Report introduced a 50 pence per month levy (the so called 'broadband tax') on copper phone lines, which would be used to fund the rollout of next generation broadband to the areas where market forces were not expected to deliver on their own.

In an interview with the Financial Times this morning, Jeremy Hunt, shadow culture secretary said that if the Conservatives win the general election, they would reverse the Digital Britain Bill and are considering changes to how the BBC is structured. This would mean scrapping the proposed 50p per month levy on phone lines which is expected to raise £175m to fund next generation broadband in mostly rural areas.

Full story : HERE

Hackers target Guardian jobs site

Hackers target Guardian jobs site

Computer hackers have targeted the Guardian newspaper's jobs website in a "sophisticated and deliberate" move, the company has said.

The breach put the personal details of some of the site's users at risk, and those who may have been affected have been identified and e-mailed.

The Guardian said it had since been "assured" by the supplier that runs the site that the system was now secure.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police's e-crime unit are investigating.

The Guardian says its jobs site attracts more than two million unique users a month.

The company e-mailed those affected, saying: "You have used the site to make one or more job applications and we believe your personal data, relating to those applications, may have been accessed."

Full article : HERE

Why Microsoft can't afford Windows 7 to fail

Why Microsoft can't afford Windows 7 to fail

On Thursday, Microsoft launches Windows 7, the latest version of its operating system. Its success or failure will determine the future of the world's biggest software company.

When talking about Microsoft, it is useful to remind yourself of the sheer scale of its reach. Windows powers about 90% of the world's computers; by the company's own reckoning more than one billion people use it.

Windows also powers Microsoft. During its last financial year, a $58.4bn (£35.7bn) turnover generated an operating profit of $20.3bn (net profit: $14.6bn). Windows accounted for well over half of that.

For years, critics have claimed that Microsoft's virtual monopoly is about to end.

They say it will be brought down by a resurgent Apple, insurgent open-source rival Linux or a revolution in how we use computers, when the actual computing moves from desktop machines to the "cloud" where software runs...

Data losses in Snow Leopard bug

Data losses in Snow Leopard bug

Users of the new Apple operating system Snow Leopard are experiencing massive data losses when logging into their machines under a guest account.

The problem appears to affect those who had a guest account enabled before upgrading to Snow Leopard.

Users have in some cases lost their entire main profile, including sites, pictures, videos and documents.

The problem, reported by more than 100 users on discussion forums, surfaced shortly after the OS's August release.

The issue follows closely on the heels of vast data losses by the Sidekick handset in the US, whose software was designed by Microsoft subsidiary Danger.


Read More here

PS Thanks to GiddyG for the find!

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 has left the building!

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 has left the building!

At 11:33am pacific time, the Exchange Product Group declared RTM for build 14.00.0639.021. Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 has left the building!

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/10/08/452775.aspx

We have delivered on cost savings for the customer. For example, a customer on Exchange 2010 with 100,000 mailboxes at 1GB will save 59% over Exchange 2003 with smaller mailboxes at 250MB. This is due to our investments to run on cheap storage without sacrificing reliability, due to our industry leading built-in mobile messaging through EAS, disk based backups integrated into the availability infrastructure and reduced help desk costs through self-serve frameworks. And I haven’t even discussed a customer that decides to get rid of their parallel infrastructure for voice mail or archiving which increase...