Digital-Lifestyles

UK

  • Sky Probed Over ITV Share Holding

    Sky Probed Over ITV Share HoldingThe UK Department of Trade and Industry has referred Rupert Murdoch’s Sky purchase of nearly 18% share holding in major UK broadcaster ITV.

    In the words of Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, “My decision reflects consideration of the reports I have received from both the Office of Fair Trading and Ofcom and of other representations I have received about this matter.”

    This action won’t be unexpected at Sky, Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading recommended this back on 27 April this year.

    Sky has released the following statementSky notes today’s announcement by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. We look forward to engaging with the Competition Commission as the ongoing regulatory process enters its next phase.Translation: Bring it on.

  • Optiarc BD-M100A: Blu-ray Burner First From Sony NEC

    Optiarc BD-M100A: Blu-ray Burner First From Sony NECOptiarc, the product of the joined Sony and NEC’s optical storage divisions, has released the BD-M100A, their first Blu-ray Burner.

    It burns single and dual layer BD-R and BD-RE Blu-ray discs, giving a storage capacity of up to 35Gb and 50 Gb respectively. It also supports BD-ROM and BD-AV discs.
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  • VoIP On PSP Offered By BT And Sony

    BT And Sony Offer VoIP on PSPSony and BT have just signed a four year deal to extend the function of the Sony PSP to have it act as a Wi-Fi video and voice ‘softphone’.

    We’ve been digging a bit as the initial information offered by BT was sketchy to say the least.
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  • EMI Agrees Terra Firma £3.2bn Takeover

    EMI Agrees Terra Firma £3.2bn TakeoverBritish private equity firm Terra Firma looks to have fought off heavyweight rivals – including the mighty Warner Music – to put in a winning offer for the ailing EMI music group.

    The deal values the music group at just over £3.2 billion (including debt), and is set to see off other hopeful suitors including US investment firms Cerberus, One Equity Partners and Fortress, all of whom had been granted given access to EMI’s books in preparation for finalising their bids.
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  • Sky+ Subscription Charge Ending

    Sky+ Subscription Charge EndingSky has made the decision to scrap the subscription charge for the Sky+ PVR service starting 1 July 2007.

    Since its inception in 2001, Sky has been charging users of the Sky+ service £10 per month to keep using it, this includes receiving the EPG information, required to drive the service.
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  • Sky TV Looks Set To Sign Distribution Deal With Tiscali: Virgin Media Would Suffer

    Sky TV Looks Set To Sign Distribution Deal With Tiscali: Virgin Media Would SufferMurdoch’s Sky TV looks set to surprise industry pundits and mightily miff Virgin with a sneaky agreement with Internet television/ broadband ISP group Tiscali.

    According to an article in The Times today, Tiscali have been slurping coffee and dunking biscuits with the BSkyB boys, and look set to get jiggy with a deal to let Tiscali deliver the TV channels pulled from Virgin’s service recently.
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  • British Visa Data Blunder: Why The Government Shouldn’t Have Your Data

    The UK Government has been exposed to a very embarrassing technology related problem – revealing the personal details, and travel plans, of people hoping to visit the UK from India.

    A schoolboy programming error on the VFS-UK application site, which exposed the application data details, simply by changing the reference number in the URL, was first discovered by Sanjib Mitra.
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  • Xbox Soundtracks Competition: UK Bedroom Musicians Awake!

    Xbox Soundtracks Competition: UK Bedroom Musicians Awake!Life as a bedroom DJ or budding band member has taken a number of twists over the last few years. After ages of playing to themselves (or in some cases, with themselves), they now find that the world wants to know them.

    Microsoft are casting their large net out to pickup up some music skillz, which they’ll use to fit specially composed tunes to Xbox 360 game trailers.

    Entering sounds like a cinch. Simply grab a trailer or two from the site (there’s twelve available), apply your musical talents to it and re-upload it.
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  • BT Shout “We’re Number One” In Broadband

    BT Shout We are Number One In BroadbandBT are rather pleased with themselves today as they’ve gained the number one position, as Britain’s most popular broadband retailer.

    They now got 3.66m broadband customers which, in their words “leapfrogs” them over Virgin Media (NTL/ Telewest as was).

    BT are of course running a reduced price scheme for the first six months of sign up – as are Virgin Media. The big difference between the two offers is the entry price – BT £8.95/month and VM £14.99. We would suggest that this has had a major impact in achieving BT’s current number one position (as well as buying PlusNet a short while back).

    We’ve just a little, quick maths on the number of BT’s subscribers.

    There’s healthy cash flows for BT in this game. Even taking the customers to be on the lowest package, they’ll be clawing in £66m _per month_. This rises to £91m if people are on the highest package.

    On a yearly basis that’s broadband subscriptions earning for BT of between £792m and 1.092 Billion a year! Don’t forget you also _have_ to have a phone line with them to have their broadband, so extra earning there.

    Not a bad little business broadband has turned out to be for them really. Makes you wonder why they were so reluctant to get going back in the late ’90’s/early 2000’s.

  • Tivo Swivel Search Launched: Content Beyond The Box

    Tivo Swivel Search Launched: Content Beyond The BoxTivo have released a new search function that searches over not only the content on the box or that provided by the broadcaster subscribed to, but stretches beyond this to encompass relevant results from the TiVoCast service and Amazon Unbox™ on TiVo.
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