We’ve just had notice that the UK side of Sky’s operation, British Sky Broadcasting Group plc, are raising around $600 million through a private Bond issue.
They’ll be paying 9.5% interest, it will mature in 2018 and they hope it to close on or about 24 November 2008.
The full statement is below.
It’s only been four months that Ashley Highfield has been with Project Kangeroo, the UK independent TV answer to the BBC’s iPlayer, but it’s been reported that he’s leaving – before it’s even publicly launched.
Continue reading Ashley Highfield Jumps Out Of Kangaroo For Microsoft
We’ve been with T-Mobile for well over a decade, first signing up when they were known with One2One.
We’ve always been on yearly contracts, but in recent years had elected not to take them up on their offer of a new handset at the end of the contract, preferring to take a discount instead.
As our contract had recently ran out, we gave them a call seeing what kind of deal we could get for the new G1 (which they have exclusive UK rights to). Here’s how the cheery call went:
Continue reading T-Mobile’s Inexplicably Stupid Upgrading Policy
Finally Sky and Virgin Media are holding hands again following their bust up dating back to Feb 2007.
The overview? Sky will carry some of Virgin’s channels on their service and Virgin will carry some of Sky’s channels – both agreements last until 2011. They’ll both drop the outstanding High Court actions against each other.
Below is the press release from Sky in full …
Continue reading Sky & Virgin Kiss And Make Up: Carry Each Others Channels
This Xmas, despite dire warnings of how everywhere is entering recession, there’s going to be a battle royal between the mobile companies in their attempt to get you to buy a new mobile phone.
O2 has the 3G iPhone, T-Mobile has the G1 Google Android handset and as we let you know back at the begging of October, Vodafone will be bring the Blackberry Storm to the UK.
Today Vodafone have revealed how much you’ll have to pay to have the Storm in your hands.
Continue reading Blackberry Storm: Vodafone Details Call Plans Disclosed
Last night a party was held at Waxy O’Connors of London’s Leicester Square, celebrating the release of the popular Linux variant, Ubuntu 8.10 aka Intrepid Ibex.
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution that is based on the principals of “free” as in beer and speech. It was set-up in Oct 2004 by Mark Shuttleworth so last night was also a 4 year birthday party and he was there to celebrate.
Mark Shuttleworth used to run secure certificate company, Thawte, in South Africa and solid the company to Verisign in the peak of the dotcom boom for around $0.5bn. He moved to London in 2001 and then went on to fly as a cosmonaut to the International Space Station in 2002 (well, you have to spend your cash somehow).
Continue reading Ubuntu 8.10 Release Party With Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth
UPDATED:Ben has been in touch to tell us the first event has sold out (Well done!). There have been expressions of interest in doing more of them, so stay tuned and we’ll keep you informed.
Here’s a quick note to the London software developers out there.
There’s an event this coming in London on Wednesday, 29 October, which is bringing together Developers and Startups – two sets of people who don’t normally socialise with each other, outside work dos.
Continue reading Developer / Startup Match Making In London On Wednesday: Register Quick!
When you hear of the vision behind AMEE — The Avoiding Mass Extinction Engine — you’ll know that this project is both hugely ambitious and is serious about helping us all change the way we lead our everyday lives.
The vision? To aggregate all of the energy consumption data on earth.
It doesn’t stop there. Their intention is that by informing people of their power usage, they can modify their behaviour, thus reducing their energy usage.
Wow.
This is not just hot air and dreams. AMEE have made a very strong start to this already and you may well have used the services without knowing.
Continue reading Gavin Starks AMEE Interview: Monitor The World’s Energy Usage (Podcast)
FOWA or the Future of Web Apps, took place at the Excel in Docklands on the 8-10th of October 2008 with the conference running on Thu/Fri.
FOWA was all about Web 2.0 or maybe even Web 3.0 or maybe that’s Web 4.0? Which ever way, it’s about the future of Web apps. You’ll have noticed that the clue is in the name.
We’re always happy to support legitimate good causes, so it’s great to hear that The Honeypot Charity, that supports vulnerable children and young carers, is running an online auction that runs until 2 November.
Sony Ericsson has adopted them as their charity of choice in the UK & Ireland, so has made over 20 auction items, many of them exclusive and normally money-can’t-buy items, for the auction.