Top Twenty Stories

TalkTalk's YouView: Why no Wi-Fi?

That's no way to penetrate Virgin Media, Sky punters

Better late than never has been a popular analyst response to the UK’s YouView hybrid connected TV platform, and it could equally well apply to the TalkTalk TV service re-launched on the back of that, just as BT Vision has been. It has got some things right, such as bundling the service free with broadband, and allowing …
Wikipedia boss Jimmy Wales marries Kate Garvey

Tony Blair tips up at wedding in London

Our congratulations to Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, who married Kate Garvey in London yesterday. Among the guests were former Prime Minister Tony Blair and wife Cherie, and A-list politicians drawn from the new Labour elite, including former Cabinet secretaries Lord Mandelson, David Miliband and James Purnell. …
Man the floodgates! David Cameron takes to Twitter

Are you sure about this, Prime Minister?

Prime Minister David Cameron opened for business on Twitter yesterday (6 October) with his first message: I'm starting Conference with this new Twitter feed about my role as Conservative Leader. I promise there won't be "too many tweets..." It looks like he'll need a full-time Twitter secretary to deal with the barrage he …
Microsoft puts Patch Tuesday on a diet, fixes Office flaw

Just one critical vuln in light update

Microsoft is planning a light October edition of its regular Patch Tuesday updates next week that focuses on Office flaws and features just one critical patch. The critical bulletin features a vulnerability in Microsoft Office 2003, 2007, and 2010 as well as Word Viewer and Microsoft Office Web Apps. Office for Mac is not …
Nokia pumps up Lumia browsing with Xpress

It's paradigm-busting, really it is

Nokia's server-side compression platform is now open to Lumia users, in beta at least, providing a 75 per cent reduction in traffic, SkyDrive integration as well as an entirely new browsing paradigm. Xpress has been available for the Asha series of handsets for a while, interpreting web pages in the cloud and delivering only …
'X Factor for tech is going to be OUTTA THIS WORLD'

QuoTW Plus: 'While we're improving Maps, you can try our rivals'

This was the week when the unexpected and the completely incredible happened all at once - Apple apologised for its craptastic Maps app in iOS 6. Yes, following relentless fruit-bashing, with even the most foaming-mouthed fanatic fanbois justifiably ticked off at the rather glaring inaccuracies in the firm's new satnav-like …
Chinese Nitol botnet host back up after Microsoft settles lawsuit

Owner agrees to chuck nasties down the sinkhole

Microsoft has reached a settlement with the Chinese site linked to the Nitol DDoS botnet. The emerging Nitol botnet was hosted by the 3322.org domain. In order to stem the threat, Microsoft filed a suit to take control of the 70,000 malicious subdomains hosted on 3322.org, gaining control of the domain in mid September. …
WTF is... NFC

Feature Not For Consumers?

Near Field Communications (NFC) has been around for almost a decade, but only recently become a smartphone feature because, simply, no one knows what it's for. Not that NFC is short of applications, but its broad utility makes it hard to pin its ideal usage model down. When Nokia, Philips and Sony first proposed the short- …
WTF is... VoLTE

Feature Why voice calls on 4G may be pants (at first)

How are the UK's mobile network operators going to handle voice calls when they switch on their 4G LTE networks? Possibly not very well. LTE is a purely IP network, so ordinary phone calls need to carried using voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology. That ought to be straightforward: VoIP has been around for years, the principles are …
Amazon UK: We're hiring 3,000 Xmas temps? Make that 10,000

Army of Bezos' little helpers is looking swell

Amazon UK has tripled the number of temp box packers it will hire in the Christmas run-up: 10,000 short-term packaging jobs will now be created at the company's UK shipment centres. Amazon has eight so-called fulfilment centres in Rugeley, Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes, Doncaster, Peterborough, Dunfermline, Inverclyde and …
Haynes Build Your Own Computer book review

Manual upgrade

As a journalist, engineer and car nut enthusiast, I can easily find myself spending hours upon hours poring over technical documents and workshop manuals, among them tomes published by Haynes. This time, however, I’m looking at something less mechanical and more digital: the latest in Haynes’ Build Your Own Computer series, …
iPhone 5 has 'laser keyboard, holographic images'

Fox out-foxed by fanboi video

US television station Fox 5 New York has aired a report in which it claims the iPhone 5 comes equipped with a laser keyboard and holographic projector. The claims appear in a news report, since posted to YouTube, in which reporter Lidia Curanaj meets fanbois queueing outside a New York Apple store. That part of the segment …
New iPod nano and touch: Lightning strikes again

Video returns to the nano, the A5 chip comes to the touch

It must be tough to be an iPod engineer and have to wait though an hour of iPhone love before your creations are even mentioned at an Apple product-rollout event. But maybe you can console yourself with the old adage of "saving the best for last" – and the two new iPods, if not the best kit that Apple has to offer, are …
Ubuntu 12.10: More to Um Bongo Linux than Amazon ads

Review But as of Beta 2, y'all better get used to web apps

A second beta of Ubuntu 12.10 has arrived and its biggest feature has proved its most controversial: the integration of Amazon.com search results on your desktop. A new Lens in the Unity Dash will poll Amazon to find results relevant to your search terms. And yes, if you click the link and buy the item Ubuntu-maker Canonical …
Assange movie portrays leaker as teen rebel

Review Telemovie says hacker martyr's infant escape from cult sparked activism

A car passes through a foggy forest. In the back seat, memories wash through a floppy-haired teenaged boy's mind. He recalls another night drive, one on which his mother spirited him away before a stepfather could despatch him to live on a creepy cult's hidden commune. Years later the family emerges from the same car and …
Google, Microsoft spar to be tech's also-ran behind King Apple

Ads giant nicked Windows 8 biz's 2nd-place spot, but not for long

On Monday, for the first time ever, Google pushed past Microsoft to become the world's second-most valuable tech firm. Now it has fallen back to the number three spot, but with a difference of just over $1bn in market cap between the two, it may be just a matter of time before the Chocolate Factory grabs second place from …
Skype touts FREE* Wi-Fi across the UK

* If enough small biz cough up a tenner a month

For a tenner a month Skype will let a business share its Wi-Fi network with Skype customers, but the biz will get window stickers and porn filtering too, so what's not to love? Online voice-chat outfit Skype and partner Wicoms will provide a free Wi-Fi access point to plug into a broadband connection, and a website to monitor …
Nook pulls on backpack, heads for Europe and flings with foreigners

Barnes & Noble deals with Dixons, Sainsburys and even Waitrose

There are a lot of Nooks in the US, maybe 10 million, maybe more, no one is quite certain as the company only releases revenues, which are up at around $192m a quarter for the Nook, not unit numbers. But at an average purchase price of $200 including media, that‘s about 4 million devices a year, since in first launched. But all …
Everything Everywhere's 4G: Why I'm sitting this one out

Comment Can't get 3G working, can't lug a briefcase of batteries with me

According to phone network Everything Everywhere, super-fast mobile broadband 4G is "the communications equivalent of the change the jet engine made over steam". Some members of the Her Majesty's finest press corps agree. "A customer buying a new mobile phone tomorrow would be hard pressed not to find a reason to join the …
HMRC becomes first gov tentacle to buy cloud through G-Cloud

Your taxes at work, collecting your taxes

HMRC has become the first government department to sign a cloud contract through the G-Cloud, the government's online IT services catalogue. Yesterday HMRC signed the contract with Skyscape Cloud to migrate all the tax collectors' data to the cloud over the next six months. It's one of the biggest contracts to be awarded …

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