All posts by Liberty

telecoms

India to sell 3G spectrum in February
India’s forthcoming spectrum auction will likely include some 3G spectrum, the local press reported on Friday, just days after the publication of inflated reserve prices for 800 MHz, 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bandwidth. The country’s defence ministry has agreed to free up 5 MHz of frequencies in the 2.1 GHz band in 17 circles, the Economic Times claimed, citing unnamed sources.
Total Telecom

‘Slight’ jobs slowdown expected in telecoms sector says Manpower
A “slight decline” in jobs hiring is expected in the telecoms sector at the start of 2015, said recruitment firm ManpowerGroup. With an outlook of +4 percent for hiring intentions among telecoms firms, the sector is down one percentage point on the last quarter, said Manpower, as businesses prepare for the year ahead following on from Christmas.
Computer WorldUK

MVNO CEO hits out at proposed consolidation in the UK
BT’s bid to take over either O2 or EE represents a major threat to consumer interests by further stifling market competition, the boss of the Phone Co-op has warned. Vivian Woodell said customers would be left paying higher bills than they needed to if the UK’s mobile network remained in the hands of just a few big players who were also service providers.
Mobile Business

enterprise technology

Ford goes for BlackBerry for its in-car entertainment system
Ford has announced its brand new in-car entertainment system that’ll use BlackBerry’s QNX OS. The car manufacturer is to choose BB’s real-time operating system over Windows, which powers the current in-car device. Drivers will be able to use the Ford Sync 3 via a touch screen or voice recognition, allowing them to control both the vehicle and app so their phone by talking to it.
PCR Online

Microsoft sets the date to take wraps off Windows 10
Microsoft is preparing to unveil Windows 10 to the world at an event on 21 January next year. Reports emerged yesterday suggesting the firm would show off the new OS on that date and Microsoft published a blog last night confirming it. The vendor said: “On Wednesday 21 January we will be holding an event here on Microsoft’s Redmond campus where we will talk about the next chapter of Windows 10.
CRN

Law forces Google to end Spanish news
Google is taking its news service offline in Spain after politicians said that it should pay publishers for using content from their websites. The closure, which will affect everyone who searches for news stories in Spanish publications, will take effect on Tuesday. Many online publishers believe that so-called “aggregator” sites, which collect headlines from news reports or other extracts from publications, should pay royalties.
The Times

media news

78 percent of legacy pay-TV subscribers have TV Everywhere
Nearly eight in ten legacy pay-TV subscribers in the US have access to authenticated TV Everywhere services from most of the major networks. “Today some 74 million households have access to TV Everywhere programmes from the ‘Top 15′ networks that TDG monitors,” said Bill Niemeyer, TDG senior analyst and author of the new 78 percent of TV Everywhere Deployment among Top US Operators and Networks, 2014 report. “This represents a 30 percent increase from October 2013.”
BroadbandTV News

Facebook stops you posting pics drunk
Social networking site Facebook is creating an artificial intelligence tool that will warn people when they are about to do something they might regret. Apparently the tool can detect if you are about to upload an embarrassing photo of yourself or other people. Yann LeCun, who heads the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research lab, and his team are laying the basic groundwork for the tool.
ChannelEye

JCDecaux in 15-year deal with Vodafone to improve phone coverage
The outdoor media owner will fit small cells into its street furniture in consultation with local authorities and planning regulations. Vodafone will install and manage the telecommunications equipment. The cells will be deployed in more than 100,000 pieces of street furniture across the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal, Australia, Qatar, Czech Republic, India, Turkey, Hungary and South Africa.
Campaign Live

telecoms

Telenor, TeliaSonera call truce in Denmark, plan merger
Nordic telecom firms Telenor and TeliaSonera will combine their Danish businesses to boost margins in their toughest market, sending shares in their main rival higher on hopes for an end to cut-throat price competition. Norway’s Telenor and Sweden’s TeliaSonera, which tried to merge more than a decade ago, agreed to put their Danish operations into a 50/50 joint venture. They aim to save 800 million Danish crowns ($133 million) a year, or around a tenth of their combined cost, by 2019.
Reuters

ZTE pens 10-year deal with Euskaltel as it continues European expansion
ZTE has signed a 10-year managed services contract with Spanish operator Euskaltel to upgrade its network and extend its services in the south of Europe. Under the agreement, ZTE will establish a headquarters in Northern Spain’s Basque Country, alongside Esukaltel’s own headquarters in Derio. From there it will provide telco services for subscribers in the country in addition to those in Portugal and other regions of Southern Europe.
European communications

Etisalat to upgrade entire fibre network
UAE-based telecommunication operator Etisalat is set to upgrade its fibre-based internet speeds to 43Mbps for its eLife customers in the country, as part of its 43rd National Day celebrations. The festive give-away from Etisalat includes 43 free OnDemand (VOD) movies and 43 free minutes of local voice calling from landline to mobile phones, said a statement.
Trade Arabia

 
enterprise technology

Cisco opens doors to new smart home platform
Cisco has launched a joint venture with household appliances company Bosch and technology company ABB to build an open software platform for the smart home. The platform, which will be based in Germany once it is given the green light by the country’s antitrust authorities, will be open to service providers and appliance makers.
Mobile Europe

NHS Trust gets more efficient with Vodafone patient mobile platform
District nurses can spend more time with patients thanks to Vodafone deployment which reduces amount of travelling and paperwork. The Trust is working with Vodafone to allow district nurses to update patient records and view daily visiting schedules remotely, reducing the amount of time spent travelling and filing paperwork.
The Independent

Acer CEO tells UK Parliament: “Taiwan will be a leader in IoT”
Acer spoke about Taiwan’s future as a leader in computing at the UK Parliament yesterday, and how it could ‘play a significant role’ in the Internet of Things (IoT) era. Acer’s corporate president and CEO Jason Chen was invited as a guest speaker by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for East Asian Business, which facilitates the development of relations between businesses in East Asia and the UK.
PC Retail

media news

British Airways delivers Christmas ‘Thank-you’ social media campaign
British Airways is to communicate a seasonal ‘thank-you’ message to passengers this Christmas by way of a two-way conversation on social media in which the airline will express its gratitude to customers for choosing the flag carrier. Incorporating a 70-second video clip produced by Cedar the campaign features images sent in by travellers and will be distributed across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google + as well as the airliners in-flight entertainment system.
The Drum

YouTube reveals Christmas ads leaderboard
YouTube has created a Christmas Ads leaderboard aimed at showcasing the most popular seasonal brand ads, according to view count on the video streaming service. Currently, John Lewis’ ‘Monty the Penguin’ advert sits at the top of the chart, with over 18m views. Its closest rival is Sainsbury’s World War One-themed advert, which has had just under 13.5m views so far.
Mobile Marketing Magazine

Facebook video app ads will now auto-play on mobile
Facebook’s introduction of video advertisements has been relatively uncontroversial – at least compared to some other changes the social network has made to its news feed in recent years. Now the latest tweak has been announced in a blog post for developers. “With more and more people uploading, sharing and discovering videos on Facebook, marketers are finding video to be an important asset to drive key business metrics,” explained software engineer Jun Li.
The Guardian

telecoms

Telefonica ready to take part in further Brazil M&A deals
Telefonica, owner of the largest wireless carrier in Brazil, is prepared to take part in further consolidation in the country’s phone-service market as rivals consider combinations. Latin America’s biggest phone-service market is gearing up for more mergers as Oi SA, Brazil’s fourth-biggest wireless carrier, is considering a bid for larger Tim Participacoes. People familiar with the matter said in August that Oi’s adviser Banco BTG Pactual was trying to get Telefonica and America Movil to team up with Oi on a mostly cash offer to acquire Tim from Telecom Italia and break it up.
Bloomberg

Orange CEO Says U.K.’s EE Venture ‘Not Long Term’
Orange SA Thursday said EE, its U.K. mobile joint venture with Deutsche Telekom AG, isn’t sustainable in its current form in the long term, casting fresh doubts over the future of Britain’s biggest wireless operator.
Wall Street Journal

Smartphone data to explode to 17 exabytes annually by 2020
Smartphone traffic will create over 17 exabytes of data by the year 2020, marking an eightfold increase on current levels, according to Ericsson. An exabyte is a thousand million gigabytes. Ericsson made the estimate in its latest Mobility Report, claiming that a spike in mobile subscriptions will spearhead the data explosion. The report estimated that 4G LTE subscriptions will grow from 7.1 billion to 9.5 billion by 2020. The figure means that 90 percent of the world’s population aged six and older will have a mobile device by 2020.
V3

enterprise technology

HSBC launches Paym for business
HSBC has launched Paym capabilities to its business customers this week, enabling them to receive payments using mobile phone numbers. The capability was introduced to the more than 600,000 firms using HSBC’s Business Internet Banking service.
Computer Weekly

Molecular flash memory could store massive data
Novel molecules could help flash memory move beyond its storage limits, allowing for massive amounts of data to be recorded in small spaces, according to European scientists. Metal-oxide clusters that can retain electrical charge and act as RAM could form a new basis for data cells used in flash memory, the researchers from the University of Glasgow’s Schools of Chemistry and Engineering and Rovira i Virgili University in Spain wrote in a letter published in Nature.
ComputerWorldUK

Women ‘belittled, underappreciated and underpaid’ in tech industry
A survey of Guardian readers working in the technology sector has revealed that almost three quarters of women respondents say the industry is sexist, with many more reporting they had been denied promotions and equal pay. Responses from people around the world found a significant disparity in the number of men and women working across the industry, with acute problems at higher career levels suggesting deep cultural and structural change is needed to modernise the industry.
Guardian

media news

Research finds multi-screening now mainstream
To mark World Television Day on Friday, November 21, TV organisations from around Europe have brought together the latest statistics to reveal how TV and social media complement each other. The research found that multi-screening now mainstream. During peaktime viewing in the UK, 74 percent claim to have picked up an internet connected device during TV ad breaks, with very little difference between age groups, social demographics or gender (Craft/Thinkbox ‘Screen Life: TV advertising everywhere’, 2014)
BroadbandTV News

Mobile video to account for 65 percent of wireless traffic by 2019
Global average mobile traffic generated per user per month will expand from 275 megabytes in 3Q 2014 to 1.85 gigabytes in 2019, with video expected to reach 65 percent of this within five years says an ABI Research survey. However before operators rub their hands in expectation of a cash bonanza, the analyst warns that the consumption of mobile telecom services by consumers is no longer proportional to the revenue generated for mobile operators, noting that in many countries, 4G LTE tariff plans have been introduced at the same price points as their 3G tariff plans.

RapidTVNews

Internet access to hit 3 billion worldwide by 2015

More than three billion people will have Internet access by next year, according to a new study. Estimates by eMarketer indicate that 42.4 percent of the global population will be online in 2015, an increase of 6.2 percent compared with this year.
ITProPortal

telecoms

Apple Pay’s next move could be phone-to-phone payments
The launch this week of Apple Pay is giving many people their first taste of NFC payment technology, which allows them to buy things in a store by bringing an iPhone 6 close to a compatible terminal. But the NFC standard also allows payments to be made directly between smartphones. Apple and its competitors, such as Google Wallet, don’t offer support for that part of the standard, but the technology already exists inside many of today’s NFC-equipped phones and could one day allow retailers to accept NFC payment using smartphones.
ComputerWorld UK

Huawei doubles its premium smartphone shipments globally
Huawei said third-quarter smartphone shipments jumped 26 per cent year-on-year, doubling the number of devices it shipped in the high-margin premium market dominated by Samsung and Apple. The Shenzhen-based firm, which is also the world’s second-largest telecoms equipment maker – and the third largest smartphone maker – shipped 16.8m units globally in the quarter ending 30 September, according to Huawei’s filings.
CityAM

China Telecom, Unicom to build content delivery firm
China Telecom Corp and China Unicom Hong Kong could soon jointly invest in a new content delivery network (CDN) company that would speed up Chinese users’ Internet access, a Chinese paper reported on Friday. The proposed firm would be run by China Telecom’s cloud computing subsidiary, according to a 21st Century Business Herald report citing an unnamed senior China Telecom employee. Rumours of a CDN joint venture between the country’s second- and third-largest carriers have existed for more than year.
Business Times Singapore

enterprise technology

Airbnb valued at $13 billion
Online home-rental marketplace Airbnb Inc valuation is set to be valued at $13 billion (8.11 billion pounds), up from its $10 billion valuation in March this year, as it discusses an employee stock sale, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. Airbnb has met with investors to sell employee shares, and the funds from the sale would go to the employees rather than raising any new capital for the company, the report said, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Reuters

MasterCard to offer free Wi-Fi to cardholders visiting Britain
MasterCard will offer its customers free Wi-Fi when travelling abroad as part of its Priceless Cities initiative. Customers can download a mobile app, developed by BSkyB-owned company The Cloud, before travelling, which will allow them to use the more than 22,000 Wi-Fi hotspots available in the UK.
Computer Weekly

Government allocates £3 million to fund online piracy fighting
The government has allocated a further £3 million to fund the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) until 2017, in a move reflecting the growing challenges posed by online piracy and copyright infringement. Announcing the funding, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, Minister for Intellectual Property, said: “This important investment, funded by the Intellectual Property Office, will enable the unit to become truly established.”
V3

media news

BBC America now almost half-owned by US cable company AMC
BBC America has just become much more American, after US cable television broadcaster AMC acquired a 49.9 per cent stake in the business. BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s commercial arm, sold the minority share for $200 million, in a deal which will allow BBC America to cut costs as the same time as gaining access to AMC’s creative team.
Daily Telegraph

Facebook launches Rooms app for anonymous sharing of interests
Facebook has taken the wraps off a new app for iOS called Rooms that brings people together around their interests. A “room” is a feed of photos, videos and text like Facebook or Instagram, but the focus is on a single topic chosen by the person who created it.
USA Today

Groupon unveils merchant self-promotion with ‘Pages’
Groupon has launched more than 7m listings for merchants through a new service called Pages, which aims to transform the site into a resource for ratings, tips and deals for local businesses in the US. Groupon is to use the new pages as a platform to publish more than 20 million validated ratings and tips from real customers that it has already gathered, highlighting the unique aspects of local businesses.
Mobile Marketing

telecoms

Telefonica said to cut about 20 per cent of German jobs after E-Plus
Telefonica SA plans to eliminate about 20 per cent of its workforce in Germany following the completion of its $11 billion takeover of wireless carrier E-Plus this month, a person with knowledge of the matter said. While a final number hasn’t been decided, 20 per cent would be equivalent to more than 1,800 full-time positions, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The cuts will be made over the next four years, the person said.
Bloomberg

Telecom Italia says news of network spin-off unfounded
Shortly after Telecom Italia’s chairman strongly rejected reports that the Italian government was planning to spin off its fixed-line network, the operator issued a statement confirming that the speculation was “wholly without foundation both in terms of the company’s industrial plans, and from a legislative point of view.” According to the report in Italian daily La Repubblica, the government was studying a plan to use its ‘golden power’ veto to force a network separation and sell a 40 percent stake in the resulting company to state-backed holding entity Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP).
TelecomPaper

EE set to launch commercial LTE-A by end of month
Following Vodafone’s carrier aggregation announcement , an EE spokesperson confirmed to Telecoms.com it is also switching on its LTE-A (Cat 6) offering, which should be available in central London by the end of this month. EE’s LTE-A service will be based on carrier aggregation consisting of 2×10 MHz in the 1800 MHz band and 2×10 MHz in the 2.6 GHz band. The service is already live in London’s Tech City, where it has been run as a pilot scheme since late last year. The 2×5 MHz of precious, long-range 800 MHz EE won the 4G auction reserved for rural use and will also host EE’s VoLTE trials, which it still hopes to commence before the end of this year.
Telecoms.com

enterprise technology

Anonymous sharing app Whisper under a cloud over user location data
Anonymous sharing app Whisper has come under a cloud after a newspaper report charged it with tracking the location of its users, including those who have asked not to be followed. Whisper, which is described as a platform to anonymously share “innermost thoughts, secrets, and feelings,” is one of many privacy focused applications that became attractive after revelations last year by former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, that the agency was secretly tracking people online both in the U.S. and abroad.
ComputerworldUK

Disappointing results sink Tata Consultancy Services in Mumbai
Shares in software outsourcer Tata Consultancy Services dropped as much as 8 per cent on Friday morning, following unexpectedly weak quarterly results from India’s largest IT group by revenue. On Thursday, TCS reported net profits of Rs53bn ($855m) in the quarter ending in September, up 14 per cent year-on-year but below the Rs54.7bn forecast by Thomson Reuters.
Financial Times

Facebook doubles bug bounty for advertising code flaws
Facebook has revealed that researchers who uncover problems in its advertising code will receive double bug bounties, at least until the end of the year. The decision to double the bug bounties for advertising code flaws indicates the importance of advertising to Facebook’s bottom line. The decision was revealed in a blog posting by Collin Greene, a security engineer at Facebook. “Starting today and extending through the end of 2014, all Whitehat bugs in our ads code will receive double bounties,” Greene wrote.
TechWeekEurope

media news

Twitter’s Music Card now plays in its mobile apps
Twitter hit a bum note with its Twitter Music service, but everyone’s favourite 140-character social network is keen as ever to light up users’ timelines with the sound of music after it launched a spiffy new update to its music card. The company already has a card that lets you play tracks in-tweet when you post a link to Soundcloud, but it now supports mobile play — via the official Twitter apps for iOS and Android — and it can be ‘docked’, meaning that your tracks continue to play while you use the mobile apps, or peruse your timeline on the desktop web.
TechCrunch

Amazon expands grocery delivery service to Brooklyn
Amazon.com Inc is expanding its online grocery delivery programme to Brooklyn’s well-heeled Park Slope neighbourhood on Friday, giving the No. 1 U.S. online retailer a foothold in one of the wealthiest and densest markets in the United States. The AmazonFresh programme, which offers same-day or next-day delivery on more than 500,000 items including fresh and frozen groceries, will soon expand to other areas in Brooklyn.
Reuters

Dramatic increase in multitasking during TV viewing
Advanced television entertainment market specialist TiVo has revealed results from its Second Annual TiVo Multitasking and Social TV Survey which indicate a dramatic increase in multitasking during TV viewing: over half of the 856 survey respondents reported multitasking every time or almost every time they watch TV (51 per cent); compared to just over one third (36 per cent) in last year’s survey.
Advanced Television

telecoms

 Vodafone India wins transfer pricing case
Vodafone scored a victory in India on Friday when the Bombay high court ruled it does not have to pay a 32 billion rupee (€412 million) tax bill. The order was issued in December 2013 to Vodafone India Services Private Limited (VIPSL), a Pune-based subsidiary that provides support services to Vodafone’s various operating businesses. It related to transfer pricing – the practice of setting the fees that divisions within the same company, or subsidiaries owned by the same parent, charge one another for goods and services.
Total Telecom

European Commission scraps fixed voice regulation, redefines broadband markets
The European Commission has scrapped all regulation relating to the retail market for access to fixed telephony and the wholesale market for fixed call origination. It has also redefined two wholesale broadband markets. The changes to fixed voice regulation, which come into effect immediately, reflect consumers moving to mobile, VoIP and OTT solutions.
European Communications

Customer growth continues for Telecom Plus
Telecom plus has reported continued growth for the half year to 30 September, with performance in line with expectations for the year. In a trading statement released today, the British utility supplier said its customer and service numbers were up by 13 and 14 per cent, respectively. Second quarter growth followed on from a successful first quarter. For the half year, customer numbers rose by a total of 34,733.
City AM

enterprise technology

Symantec to split into separate storage and security firms
Security vendor Symantec has announced that it is to split into two, following a similar announcement by HP last week. The two new firms will both be publicly traded with one concentrating on security and the other on storage. The security side of business generated revenue of $4.2bn (£2.6bn) in fiscal year 2014, and Symantec says the ongoing business will include: consumer and enterprise endpoint security; endpoint management; encryption; mobile; Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates; user authentication; mail, web and data centre security; data loss prevention; hosted security; and managed security services.
Computing

IT skills shortage pushes Pret to the cloud
Access to the right digital skills is a major challenge for Pret A Manger’s IT department, forcing it to harness third-party cloud platforms to bypass the UK’s skills gap, the company’s tech head has said. Andy Chalklin, director of IT at the retailer, told V3 in an interview at the ServiceNow 2014 NowForum that sourcing the right skills is “probably my number one challenge”. He explained that people with high levels of coding skills would not really consider a retail company as the most obvious place to put their abilities to the test.
V3

Infosys shares bounce ahead of strategy update
Shares in Infosys jumped 6 per cent on Friday as the Indian IT bellwether reported an improvement in margins and a bonus share issue, as investors await guidance from the company’s new chief executive. Vishal Sikka, who took the reins in August, is expected to outline his strategy later today, as the former SAP executive looks to revive the struggling outsourcer with new high-growth software development in areas such as cloud computing and data analytics.
Financial Times

media news

Ofcom updates on ‘White Space’ trials
Ofcom has reported on the status of plans for the introduction of new ‘white space’ wireless technology in the UK – the first country in Europe likely to do so. A number of trials are taking place across the country, with the latest organisations to launch TV trials using the technology to stream live footage of animals to YouTube. This technology uses gaps in radio spectrum that exist in between frequency bands, called white space, to offer new wireless applications that will benefit consumers and businesses.
Advanced Television

Amazon to open physical store in NYC
Amazon is reportedly planning to open its first-ever bricks-and-mortar location in New York City. The e-commerce titan is beavering away at renovating a space at 7 West 34th Street in Manhattan, across from the Empire State Building and a block away from the Macy’s department store’s flagship location. Sources say the site won’t be a traditional retail store as such, in that it won’t be a place where customers go to ring up purchases at cash registers. Instead, it will act as a “mini-warehouse” where customers can pick up online orders, as well as stocking a limited amount of product for same-day delivery within New York.
The Register

Online shopping sees 30 per cent rise between midnight and 6am, study says
Britons are so addicted to shopping that many are glued to their smartphones when most of their neighbours are asleep – buying games consoles, Lego and pillows. A study of tens of thousands of purchases made at John Lewis last year provides a barometer of changing trends and tastes – with the results painting a surprising picture of a nation of peacock dressers who take their lifestyle cues from popular TV shows, films and social media trends.
The Guardian

Nokia and du claim Middle East’s first VoLTE
Nokia Networks and UAE-based telco du claim to have successfully connected the region’s first voice over LTE (VoLTE) call on a commercial network. The implementation of Nokia’s VoLTE solution and professional services on du’s network took just 80 days, which the Finnish vendor claims is the world’s fastest deployment of VoLTE.
Telecoms.com

India Skype ban to start in November
Fixed-line and mobile phone users will no longer be able to use Skype to make domestic calls in India from next month, the Internet telephony specialist announced this week. “As of 10 November 2014, if you are in India, calling from Skype to mobiles and landlines within India will unfortunately no longer be available,” Skype said in a statement.
Total Telecom

AT&T data thief fired after accessing private customer accounts
AT&T has written to a select few subscribers warning that an employee gained access to restricted customer files earlier this year, potentially viewing private information. No possible motivation for the breach has been given. The network has subsequently fired the person in question, and offered those people affected a level of compensation. A copy of the letter has been published online in template form, by the Attorney General of Vermont, which confirms the data breach took place in August this year.
Digital Trends

enterprise technology

Adobe and Microsoft team up to make creative touch software
The Adobe Max conference is currently underway in Los Angeles. What we saw yesterday was an uncharacteristic cosying up between Adobe and Microsoft, as the respective CEOs Shantanu Narayen and Satya Nadella announced collaborative projects. The partnership will see key Adobe creative apps such as Photoshop and Illustrator “designed for use with touch, rather than having touch support grafted onto it,”
Hexus

Hopeful hybrideer Reducio grabs more cash for disk+flash
A late-coming hybrid flash/disk array startup, Reduxio, has acquired $15m in additional funding to build a better box. Three hybrid array companies are going gang-busters. Post-IPO Nimble Storage and pre-IPO Tegile and Tintri are all growing at triple-digit rates, as they tear into the mainstream array suppliers’ customer bases.
The Register

European Commission open investigation into Amazon’s dealings with Luxembourg
EU authorities are taking a hard look at Amazon’s tax affairs in Luxembourg, according to Reuters. The European Commission reportedly believes that Luxembourg’s 2003 tax ruling might be instrumental in allowing Amazon’s local subsidiary Amazon EU Sarl to lower its taxable profit. The in-depth probe is only the latest in the European Commission’s attempts to investigate potential tax issues within its realm in relation to big corporations such as Apple, Starbucks, and Fiat.
The Verge

media news

YouTube makes its move into children’s TV as Netflix and Amazon lurk
YouTube has already emerged as an alternative to broadcast television for children, who are watching Minecraft tutorials, music videos and cartoons online in their tens of millions. Now YouTube appears ready to take a bigger role in funding and curating children’s shows on its service, recruiting a dedicated head of family entertainment and learning to work within its YouTube Originals division.
The Guardian

Natwest launches fairer banking campaign
The TV ad, created by M&C Saatchi and called “goodbye, hello”, features people bidding farewell in a number of situations, such as a couple waving goodbye to bad weather as they leave for somewhere hot. The ad ends with a man chucking away “new customer only” banking offers and then closes with the line, “Goodbye unfair banking. Hello NatWest.”
Campaign Live

Facebook’s WhatsApp acquisition closes with $22bn price tag
Social network Facebook’s acquisition of messaging app WhatsApp is a done deal, costing it $3bn more than originally planned. When first announced earlier this year, Facebook said that WhatsApp would cost it $16bn, plus up to $3bn in stock for the app’s founders. However, on Monday it was revealed via a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the deal is now worth $21.8bn in total, due to the higher value of Facebook stock.
The Inquirer

telecoms

BT’s mobile return could be delayed due to ‘technical issues’
BT might not return to the consumer mobile market until the second half of 2015, after the firm encountered ‘technical issues’. So says The Telegraph, which has heard that BT has been forced to delay its mobile network comeback, originally planned for this year, owing to technical glitches. BT had planned to carry as much voice traffic over WiFi as possible in order to undercut rival networks, making use of its 5.4 million WiFi hotspots across the UK.
The Inquirer

Telecom Italia to buy Metroweb stake
Telecom Italia has given a mandate to CEO Marco Patuano to negotiate the acquisition of a majority stake in Italian fibre optic network provider Metroweb, owned by infrastructure fund F2i, a source close to the matter said.  Approval for talks on a deal which would help Telecom Italia boost investments in faster networks was given at the last board meeting, the source said on Friday. Some analysts have valued Metroweb at around 400 million euros ($505 million).
Reuters

Maroc Telecom launches Unlimited Mobile
Maroc Telecom is expanding its range of rate plans with the introduction of the all-in-one Unlimited Mobile option. It is also enhancing all its individual and capped rate plans with no change in prices. The Unlimited Mobile provides domestic calls to any operator, international calls to certain destinations, text messages, unlimited 3G+ internet, and even free smartphones. It has also added extra hours of call time, permanently and valid for all domestic and international destinations, to the time credited for existing rate plans.
TelecomPaper

enterprise technology

UK financial services firms bouncing back
The UK’s financial services firms saw strong growth in the three months to September, with profits rebounding and hiring on the up. At the same time, though, companies will have to square up to significant regulation challenges and competition from new entrants, according to the 100th CBI/PwC survey of the sector.  Business volumes grew at their fastest rate since 2007 and the momentum is expected to continue into the coming quarter.
FS Tech

Samsung to spend nearly $15 billion on chip plant
Samsung Electronics has announced it plans to spend 15.6 trillion won (about $14.7 billion) to construct a new chip plant in South Korea.  The South Korean electronics giant said construction will begin next year in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, with the plant set to open in 2017, according to multiple news reports.
CNET

Record funding for London tech start-ups
Technology start-ups in London have attracted record levels of investment in the past year, receiving more than a $1bn in funding so far, as venture capitalists bet that Britain’s capital city will produce major digital companies in the future. New research suggests that fledgling tech groups in London have raised $1.021bn from venture capital firms in the first three-quarters of 2014. This is about 30 per cent higher than the $719m raised in 2013, the previous record figure for investment in a full year, and 10 times more than the amount raised in 2010.
Financial Times

media news

New financial chat platform could be bigger than Bloomberg
A new online chat platform aimed at financial firms has already attracted more than half a million user requests, potentially making it bigger than Bloomberg’s messaging service, its chief executive has said. Symphony, which this week unveiled $66m (£41.3m) in funding from Goldman Sachs and 13 other Wall Street institutions, will be offered at no cost for individual users when it launches next year.
Daily Telegraph

Ukraine considers TV strategy
Ukraine is looking into the possibility of significantly simplifying the licensing of TV channels.  Speaking in a working meeting with representatives of the media and government, Yuiy Artemenko, the head of the industry regulator (National Council), added that it is also looking into the possibility of must-carry services, which in future may be restricted to only public or public service broadcasting channels.
BroadbandTV News

‘Transformation’ Day for BSkyB
BSkyB’s shareholders will formally decide today whether to go ahead with the broadcaster’s £5.4 billion acquisition of Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland. There are not likely to be many objectors given that the acquisitions will transform BSkyB into a Europe-wide £22 billion business, and with immense prospects. At the end of the process, BSkyB will control some 20 million subscribers with an expansion target of a huge 97 million new households.
Advanced Television

telecoms

O2, EE & Vodafone to trial carrier billing on the high street
O2, EE and Vodafone have teamed up with mobile payments firm Boku to enable customers to pay for goods using their phones. Boku’s e-Money service could eventually extend to other operators. The service will allow customers to make purchases of any type of product or services. Users only need to enter their mobile number at a merchant’s storefront to pay for physical goods.
IT Pro

EU antitrust regulators scrap Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica probe
EU antitrust regulators closed on Friday an investigation into Deutsche Telekom, Orange SA and Telefonica, saying they had found no evidence the telecoms providers shut out rivals in the Internet contents market. The European Commission raided the companies in July last year on concerns raised by U.S.-based Cogent Communications that the telecoms operators may have abused their market position in deals with Internet companies to deliver content to users.
Reuters

Check the permissions: Android flashlight apps criticised over privacy
A host of Android torch apps come with some strange permissions, including the ability to delete apps, track location, tinker with Bluetooth connectivity, view call details and write additional software to the phone, a security company has warned. Tens of millions of people have downloaded apps like the Super-Bright LED Flashlight or Brightest Flashlight Free without reviewing the permissions. But SnoopWall’s report on permissions sought by the top 10 Android flashlight apps suggests they should take more care when installing.
The Guardian

 
enterprise technology

 
Cyanogen reportedly turned down Google acquisition
Cyanogen, the company tasked with commercialising the custom CyanogenMod Android-based OS, rejected an approach from Google. Google’s SVP of Android, Sundar Pichai was apparently interested in acquiring the company, but Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster rejected his overtures. Instead, McMaster is concentrating on gaining a $1 billion valuation as his company bids for a third round of funding.
Trusted Reviews

UK’s Digital Infrastructure Strategy under spotlight at NextGen14
The Government’s Digital Communications Infrastructure Strategy will be debated at NextGen14 in November. Mark Swarbrick, Project Director Digital Communications Infrastructure Strategy, will discuss the key headlines emerging from this long-awaited DCMS production, with the consultation period for the strategy closing this week.
ITProPortal

Civil Service appoints its first CEO
The Civil Service has appointed its first chief executive, John Manzoni, who has been running the Major Projects Authority within Whitehall for the past eight months. The appointment has a technology focus, with the brief to make Whitehall’s administration “more digital” – one of four tasks outlined by Civil Service head Sir Jeremy Heywood in his report on reform of the service, published yesterday.
Computing

media news

EU Commission clears Facebook’s $19 billion bid for WhatsApp
European Union antitrust regulators approved on Friday a $19 billion offer by Facebook, the world’s most popular social network, for mobile messaging start-up WhatsApp. The landmark deal is the largest in Facebook’s 10-year history and will give it a strong foothold in the fast-growing mobile messaging market, pitting it against telecoms companies.
Reuters

Virgin expands TV Anywhere
Virgin Media has added a further 15 live channels to multiscreen service Virgin TV Anywhere, taking the total number of available channels to 107. The latest additions to Virgin Media’s on the go line-up include news, entertainment, music and gaming channels from around the world, such as Al Jazeera, France 24, ARY News, B4U Music, Ginx and Lahme. The cablenet says a further two major entertainment channels will also join the service next month.
Broadband TV News

How social TV channel ‘joiz’ connects with young audiences
Viewers who ‘check-in’ to shows have their photo broadcast on TV, and a ‘tweet tree’ flowers in real time as the audience posts to Twitter about the programme. joiz, a social TV channel aimed at young people, allows its viewers to engage with video content, including live broadcasts like talk shows, through the media outlet’s website and mobile apps.
journalism.co.uk

telecoms

Indonesia’s Smartfren says exploring network business merger with Bakrie Telecom
Indonesian telecommunication operator PT Smartfren Telecom is in talks with peer PT Bakrie Telecom on a potential merger of their network operations. Smartfren has not reached any binding agreement with Bakrie Telecom and any deal depends on getting the necessary regulatory approval, the company said in a stock exchange filing late on Thursday, in response to a query from the bourse.
Reuters

China Mobile taking steps to cut smartphone subsidies
China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier, is taking steps toward eliminating $2 billion in smartphone subsidies, almost doubling the costs of some devices such as Apple’s iPhone 5s. China Mobile is revising the wireless packages available for devices sold at stores including the one in its Beijing headquarters building. The cost for an iPhone 5s with 16 gigabytes of storage and using the most-expensive data plan would increase by 94 per cent over two years. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus aren’t approved for official sale in China yet.
Bloomberg

Vodafone in 5G research deal with Dresden
Vodafone has agreed a partnership to develop next generation mobile technologies, based around so-called 5G, with Dresden University of Technology. The partnership will see Dresden join a fleet of universities already working with the operator on research efforts, including University of Surrey, King’s College London and Carnegie Mellon University in the US.
CityAM

enterprise technology

 
HP designs world’s first Software Defined Networking App Store
HP has launched the first ever Software Defined Networking application store to allow developers to offer products to more customers than ever before. The store is split up into four categories that all offer something very different. HP Circle is where apps built and tested by HP can be found whereas the Premium Circle contains apps that are top sellers and jointly tested by both HP and its partners. The Partner Circle includes apps that have been self-tested by HP partners and reviewed by HP, and the Community Circle offers open-access and community-supported apps to demonstrate open source apps.
ITProPortal

Crimtrac Acorn system could enable cybercrime reporting by mouse click
Reporting cybercrime could become as easy as clicking a mouse, under a government program to be unveiled soon. The national police information agency, Crimtrac, is putting the final touches to the scheme known as the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (Acorn). Cybercrime is said to affect about 5.4m Australians each year, at a cost of $1bn. Criminals are becoming more sophisticated and using global networks.
The Guardian

Toyota cuts order processing time from five days to 24 hours
Toyota GB decreased order processing time from five days to 24 hours after deploying an automated workflow system from Perceptive Software. The car manufacturers’ Dealership Centre Network is better equipped to deal with order surges throughout the year from its 180 dealerships across the UK since deploying the workflow and document manager, Toyota said. Peak times, including March and September when new registration numbers are issued, can cause delays in order processing and potentially risk Toyota GB’s service level agreement.
ComputerWorldUK

media news

Netflix streaming volume up 350 per cent
According to new research from The Diffusion Group (TDG), Netflix streaming has increased 350 per cent during the last 10 quarters. growing from two billion hours in Q4-11 to seven billion hours as of Q2-14. The study, Netflix 2014 – Domestic Dominance, International Escalation, presents TDG’s latest analysis of Netflix and examines subscriber growth and hours streamed, and offers domestic forecasts for both through 2022. The report also discusses Netflix’s new frontier, international service introductions.
Digital TV Europe

Smartphone viewers TV’s New ‘Holy Grail’
The number of consumers using tablets to watch TV and movies has sky-rocketed in recent years and many consumers bought tablets for the first time last year, according to a new annual consumer survey by Altman Vilandrie & Company. The strategy consulting group notes that in August, critics scoffed at comments by Apple CEO Tim Cook that tepid iPad sales were “speed bump”. However, the survey shows that tablets are more popular than ever: Tablet ownership increased to 50 per cent from 40 per cent in 2013 and the percentage of all consumers watching TV or movies on tablets weekly jumped to 26 per cent from 17 per cent last year.
Advanced Television

Restaurant mobile sites are slow and out-dated, says report
Research into US restaurant brands’ mobile sites has shown that the majority are slow to load and aren’t taking advantage of the most up to date technology and practices in mobile web design. The report by online marketing firm The Search Agency studied the top 50 restaurant and catering sites, and found that only 32 per cent of sites analysed made use of responsive web design (RWD) and those that did took over a minute to load, on average.
Mobile Marketing

telecoms

Orange offers to buy Jazztel for Eur 3.4 billion
Orange has launched an offer to acquire Spanish broadband operator Jazztel in a bid to compete with its two main rivals Telefonica and Vodafone. The agreement, which values Jazztel at EUR 3.4 billion, follows months of rumours that Orange had intensified its search for acquisition targets in Spain to avoid being left out of the country’s telecoms market consolidation. The French operator made an offer for 100 percent of Jazztel shares at EUR 13 per share in cash, which Orange said was 34 percent more than Jazztel’s average closing price in the last 30 days.
Telecompaper

Greece gets three bids in mobile phone spectrum sale
Greece has received three bids for the sale of mobile phone frequencies aimed at upgrading telecom services in the country, the telecoms regulator said on Tuesday, Greece’s biggest telecoms operator OTE, Vodafone and Wind Hellas submitted offers to buy mobile radio frequency rights within the 800 and 2,600 MHz band, telecoms regulator EETT said in a statement. The deadline for offers expired on Monday.
Reuters

ZTE and E-Plus deploy IMS network for upcoming VOLTE service
ZTE and German operator E-Plus are planning to launch a commercial VoLTE service, after jointly deploying a core IMS network infrastructure.
The service has been in testing for some time although the operator refused to reveal when VoLTE would go live to its customers.
Mobile Europe

enterprise technology

 
Kindle security flaw leaves Amazon account details vulnerable
A security flaw in Amazon’s Kindle software could allow hackers to access your Amazon account details. Benjamin Daniel Musser, a security researcher, discovered the issue, which arises when downloading e-books from websites other than Amazon itself.
ITProPortal

Facebook, Google and Twitter launch open-source TODO sharing group
Facebook, Google and Twitter are among a group of heavyweight tech companies to launch a new open-source sharing group called TODO. TODO – which stands for “talk openly, develop openly” – has been formed to try and make it easier for large web companies to tackle the challenges that occur around issues with software and programs.
V3

Oracle slurps another storage upstart: Front Porch Digital joins Ellison’s crew
The ceaseless hoovering up of small companies and startups by business behemoths has seen Oracle buy Front Porch Digital. Why did Larry Ellison latch on to this outfit? Front Porch Digital (FPD) is a content storage management (CSM) business. Its software products sit in a server between a media network on the one hand and a storage resource storing files, such as videos, in online and archive media, on the other.
The Register

media news

HarperCollins is now using digital watermarks to stop Ebook piracy
Pirating ebooks is a breeze. Their file sizes are so small that it usually takes all of 60 seconds between a Google search and having the book on your Kindle. Now, publishers have hit upon a solution that they hope will trip up pirates: an invisible, traceable watermark on every ebook sold.
Gizmodo

Financial Times overhauls design for first time in nearly a decade
The Financial Times has launched its first newspaper redesigns in seven years in a refresh designed to pull its print product more closely within the FT’s digital ecosystem.
The Drum

Developers won’t have access to NFC chip on the iPhone 6
Apple has finally added near field communications (NFC) technology to its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus handsets, but developers won’t have access to it yet. Apple has confirmed to Cult of Mac that the NFC chip inside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus is, at present, “only for use with Apple Pay,” meaning developers won’t be able to add NFC functionality to their iOS apps.
The Inquirer

telecoms

Telecom leaders protest EU network traffic regulations
Vodafone and Telefonica have used a technology conference in Spain to call for the EU to focus less on new rules for phone companies and more on Facebook and Google to reduce their dominance. The carriers are battling so-called network neutrality proposals, championed by internet companies, that they say will hurt business and discourage new products such as driverless cars. The proposals are meant to prevent carriers from blocking access to some websites or slowing web traffic.
Irish Examiner

Phones 4u loses key Vodafone contract in 2015
High street mobile retailer Phones 4u saw the value of its debt, listed on the Irish stock exchange, plummet over 50 percentage points yesterday after Vodafone announced it would not renew its contract with the group. Vodafone, which accounted for 27 per cent of Phones 4u’s contract sales and 16 per cent of its pay as you go sales during the year to 31 July to a total of £212m in sales, said it would stop selling through Phones 4u when its contract expires in February 2015.
City AM

Telecom Italia postpones sale of Telecom Argentina stake to September 25
Telecom Italia, Italy’s biggest telecoms group, said on Tuesday it was extending to September 25 the deadline for completing the sale of its stake in Telecom Argentina to investment fund Fintech. In November, Telecom Italia agreed to sell its entire stake in Telecom Argentina to Fintech for $960 million (578.84 million pounds). The deal, whose terms remain unchanged, is still awaiting regulatory approval.
Reuters

enterprise technology
Raspberry Pi gets improved browser based on WebKit with HTML 5 support
The low-cost Raspberry Pi computer has been given a boost with the addition of its own browser tool, designed to be more capable than the basic browsers included with the standard operating system build for the device.
V3

Royal Mail delivers parcels API to ease tracking systems integration for e-retailers
Royal Mail has launched a new parcel shipping and tracking platform to enable e-retailers to improve integration between their IT systems and Royal Mail’s software. The new Shipping and Tracking application programming interface (API) is available to all Royal Mail business account customers.
ComputerWorld UK

G-Cloud still a mystery to many UK public sector employees
Exactly two thirds of UK civil servants have no knowledge whatsoever of the UK Government G-Cloud procurement programme with the obvious advantages of the service still failing to reach public sector workers. A survey by the managed data service provider Six Degrees Group [6DG] found that 66 per cent of UK civil service workers have no background knowledge on the programme even though it has now been in place for well over two years.
ITProPortal

media news

Manchester United lead Twitter’s most tweeted #deadlineday Premier League signings
Twitter has revealed the names of the top five signings to be tweeted on the micro blogging service as the transfer window closes, with Radamel Falcao’s £20m loan move to Manchester United topping the bill.
The Drum

BBC revisits the Computer Literacy Project
The BBC has re-entered the realm of computing education, some 30 years after its last major initiative, with the provision of programming content designed for children as young as five.
Bit-Tech

YouTube’s new fan funding feature lets you donate to your favourite channel owners
YouTube is strongly rumuored to be launching a subscription-based music service soon, but the Google-owned video site has quietly introduced a new (and far lower-key) payment service that lets viewers send donations to YouTube channel owners.
The Next Web

telecoms

EE 4G coverage reaches three-quarters of the UK
EE has claimed its 4G service now reaches three-quarters of the UK, after it added another 13 new towns to its network. The 75 per cent coverage of the UK covers 263 major towns and 2,500 villages, EE said. From Thursday, residents in several more areas, including David Cameron’s constituency of Witney will be able to access 4G as well.
V3

Telefónica makes improved bid for Vivendi’s GVT as Telecom Italia joins the fray
Telefónica has improved its bid for Brazilian fixed-line operator GVT as Telecom Italia entered the fray for the Vivendi-owned company for the first time. The Spanish company said its new binding offer was worth €7.45 billion, up from the €6.7 billion deal it put on the table earlier this month.
European Communications

ZTE to deliver LTE in Slovakia
Slovak operator SWAN on Thursday signed up Chinese vendor ZTE to deliver a nationwide LTE project. The deal includes the exclusive construction of a core CS/PS (circuit-switched/packet-switched) network, and a GSM/LTE and VAS network, involving over 1,100 dual-mode base stations. A greenfield operator, SWAN was granted the fourth wireless operator license in Slovakia in January 2014 and plans to build out the more than 1,100 GSM and LTE base stations within three years.
Telecoms.com

enterprise technology

Google finally simplifies seeing who’s online in hangouts for gmail
The point of any chat system is to make it easier to communicate with others. This is something that Google Hangouts has singularly failed at, for one reason. Rather than making it obvious which of your contacts are online, it has – up until now – displayed a chronological list of the conversations you have held with people. This is about to change. Rolling out over the next few days, is an update which will see your online contact move to the top of your chat buddy list.
ITProPortal

1,500 fake apps kicked off Windows Store
Microsoft has cleaned up the apps in its Windows and Windows Phone Stores, following criticism the platform had become “a cesspool of scams”. The problem of scam apps on the Windows Store was brought to light by How-To Geek earlier this month. The website pointed out there were fake apps for genuine services such as VLC or iTunes that would cost the user money but not deliver what was promised, and that Microsoft would get a cut of whatever was charged.
PCPRO

FBI, Secret Service studying ‘scope’ of reported bank cyber-attacks
A U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman said Wednesday the agency is working with the Secret Service to determine the “scope” of reported cyber-attacks against several financial institutions. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Russian hackers struck JPMorgan Chase and another bank earlier this month. A subsequent report in the New York Times said the attacks hit JPMorgan Chase and four other U.S. financial institutions.
TechWorld

media news

Twitter launches learning hub for agencies
Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG), WPP and Omnicom have been the first to pilot the online resource, called Twitter Flight School. The hub will teach agencies how to develop high-impact marketing campaigns for their clients, help them maximise their content on Twitter, as well as promote messages at the right time to their target audience. Twitter has also tailored the content and created bite-size modules to address different agency roles and functions, including senior leadership, account planning and campaign management.
Brand Republic

Samsung UHD TVs get Amazon and Netflix on demand services
Samsung has announced its bringing Amazon and Netflix’s ultra-high definition (UHD) on demand services to Europe. The Korean company is expanding its UHD offering ahead of the IFA trade show, which kicks off in Berlin next week. Amazon’s UHD service will launch globally on Samsung’s 4K TVs in October. Netflix’s UHD platform, which has been available in the U.S. since March, is also being added. The move means 4K streaming is at last gaining traction.
Trusted Reviews

World Cup helps STV reach 35 per cent pre-tax profit growth to £8.4m
STV has recorded a 35 per cent growth in pre-tax profits at £8.4m following improved advertising and digital revenue during the first six months of 2014. The Scottish commercial broadcaster released its half year results, which revealed a 7 per cent year-on-year growth in revenue at £54.7m and an operating profit increase of 20 per cent at £9.8m.
The Drum

telecoms

EE accused of silencing customer gripes on social media pages
EE has dismissed claims that its social media staff are attempting to hush fair criticism levelled at the mobile operator on sites such as Facebook. A company spokesman told The Register that it was wrong for subscribers to claim that they were being silenced by EE just for posting complaints about the network online.
The Register

T-Mobile pushes paid data plans, makes room for bigger families
T-Mobile would really like more people to pay for tablet data, and is sweetening the deal for those who do. While T-Mobile is still including 200MB of tablet data with any Simple Choice smartphone plan, for an extra $10 per month users can add a tablet data plan equal to what they get on their phones.
PC Advisor

Wireless Broadband Alliance welcomes 14 new members
The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), the industry association focused on driving the next generation Wi-Fi experience, today announced that 14 new members have joined its efforts to unite the ecosystem and progress the development of Carrier Wi-Fi throughout the world.
Total Telecom

 
enterprise technology

Square is raising $200 million at a $6 billion valuation
Mobile payments app Square is reported to be raising new investment at a valuation of $6 billion. CNBC reports that the Jack Dorsey-led company is seeking to gain around $200 million in funding, with part of that amount coming from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation.
Business Insider

South Korean data breach results in 220m records stolen
Personal details, relating to half of South Korea’s population, have been stolen by hackers, including full names, account names, passwords and resident registration numbers.
ITPro

DDoS attack downs Twitch on news of Amazon acquisition
Just hours after Amazon announced a $970m deal to acquire Twitch, the live video platform for gamers was taken offline temporarily by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. Twitch is the latest in a string of online gaming platforms to be hit by DDoS attacks that have been linked to several groups, including Lizzard Squad, jihadist group Islamic State, and Anonymous.
Computer Weekly

media news

Philips TVs first to declare love for Spotify Connect, TP Vision first manufacturer to include it
TP Vision has announced ahead of the IFA consumer electronics trade show in Berlin that its Philips TVs powered by Android will feature Spotify Connect support. It claims to be the first manufacturer to bring the service to Smart TVs, so users can stream music wirelessly to their sets from Spotify running on their tablets and smartphones.
Pocket-Lint

Snapchat joins Uber & AirBnB with $10bn plus valuation
Self-destruct messaging service Snapchat has been valued at a whopping $10bn by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byer, following their $20m investment in the firm. According to the Wall Street Journal this sky high valuation elevates the fledgling service to the taxi hire service Uber and AirBnB, the rooms to let business, both of which have recently joined the $10bn plus club.
The Drum

European online video revs, subs set to soar to 2020
A report from Digital TV Research is predicting a boom for the online TV and video markets over the next five years. The European Online TV & Video report forecasts that overall online TV and video revenues over fixed broadband networks will reach $12.872 billion in 2020, up from the $4.804 billion expected by the end of 2014
Rapid TV News

telecoms

EE UK make 4G mobile broadband roaming possible in 14 new countries
Customers of UK mobile operator EE (4GEE) will be pleased to learn that they’ll now be able to benefit from “superfast” 4G (LTE) based Mobile Broadband connectivity when roaming around across an additional 14 new global destinations. The operator first allowed 4G roaming outside of the UK in Spain and France during March 2014 and their plan is to make this service available to “all major destinations” by the end of 2014.
ISPreview

Virgin increases broadband charges – again
Virgin Media’s broadband-only customers must pay £1.50 per month more for their service starting from October. Virgin won’t say how many of its 4.5m customers are affected, as it doesn’t strip out those who take broadband alone. But the number is expected to be large as Virgin is unusual in offering broadband without requiring a phoneline. In fact this is something Virgin promotes as a unique advantage, claiming: “We’re the only major provider that let’s you do that”.
Daily Telegraph

LG targets 3G markets with two new affordable Android smartphones
Even though 4G is undoubtedly the better technology for data consumption, in most markets across the globe 3G is still prevalent. The lower cost as well as the broader device selection certainly helps the latter remain attractive to consumers, at least until 4G is as readily available. South Korean maker LG is keen to supply 3G-toting handsets going forward, as it announces the new Android-based L Bello and L Fino smartphones. The two, which are aimed at price-conscious consumers in “growing 3G markets”, are said to pack solid specs, so let us take a look at what they have to offer.
BetaNews

enterprise technology

GCHQ launches ‘Cyber Security Challenge’ to find hacking superheroes
Spy agency GCHQ has launched a “virtual game” to find and recruit talented hackers, calling on players to protect a UK aerospace company from a fictitious group of cyber criminals known as The Flag Day Associates. As part of the game, called Astute Explorer, potential recruits will be asked to search for vulnerabilities in the company’s network and suggest ways to close them before attackers can take advantage.
Huffington Post UK

Google gets one million DMCA piracy takedowns a day
Rights holders are sending Google more than a million copyright takedown notices in the battle against piracy each day.
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), web firms are given so-called “safe harbour” if they take down content that infringes copyright upon request. In Google’s case, rights holders are looking to have links removed from search results.
PCPRO

Big rise in PC sales behind surprise HP revenue increase
Systems giant Hewlett-Packard posted a surprise increase in revenues in its latest quarterly results, which it attributed to an equally surprising increase in PC sales. The company posted revenues of $27.6bn in its third quarter results to the end of July, up by one per cent compared to the same period a year earlier. The company’s operating margins, however, slipped quite substantially in the process.
Computing

media news

Channel 4 invests in Arrow Media, Lightbox, Popkorn and True North
Channel 4 has announced that it has taken a minority stake in a quartet of independent production companies through its £20m growth fund as part of efforts to nurture small and medium-sized creative businesses. Arrow Media, Lightbox, Popkorn and True North will each benefit from this largesse following a selection procedure overseen by the broadcaster to ensure there was clear opportunity for growth and adding value to the wider UK creative sector.
The Drum

McDonald’s plans to release global mobile ordering app and digital music program
McDonald’s is taking on a new strategy to get us to eat more of its artery cloggers — one that involves ramping up its digital efforts. Golden Arches has just hired its first ever U.S. vice president of digital (former Ticketmaster exec Julia Vander Ploeg) and, at the same time, posted a bunch of relevant job opportunities. By the looks of it, the company wants to form a team of professionals under Vander Ploeg to be able to reach its goals, including offering “a variety of digital music and entertainment experiences” (as stated in its posting for a product director for music and entertainment) to its patrons.
Engadget

Sky takes aim at Netflix with recommendations and Smart Series Link
Sky has announced a new recommendation engine, not unlike Netflix uses, that aims to offer up showings based on a viewer’s likes and dislikes. The recommendation engine comes as part of Sky’s latest Electronic Programme Guide update that’s rolling out today and should be on all Sky+ boxes by the winter.
Pocket-lint

telecoms

Vodafone market share hit by 4G prices
Vodafone faces calls to cut its tariffs over concerns it is pricing itself out of the increasingly competitive market for 4G mobile broadband, with BT preparing to pile on more pressure.
Daily Telegraph

Mobile operators ramp up their LTE network plans
Despite the early hype surrounding 5G, there’s plenty of life left in 4G. At the end of last month, there were commercial networks from 318 operators in 111 countries. The total number of commercial LTE networks is expected to be more than 350 by the end of this year.
Telecom TV

AT&T’s 1Gbps rollout rumbles on
AT&T made progress on its high-speed fibre strategy this week, increasing broadband speeds in Austin, Texas to 1 Gbps and sharing plans to upgrade its network in Miami. The U.S. telco commenced its Austin deployment in October 2013 but the peak connection speed of its broadband service – called U-verse with AT&T GigaPower – was limited to 300 Mbps.
Total Telecom

enterprise technology

National Crime Agency calls for public to update security software
The National Crime Agency (NCA) is launching a campaign to make people more aware of the dangers of being online without security software. According to the NHS, 40 per cent of adults don’t install security software on new computers and mobile devices, which increases the risk of cyber criminals accessing their private details.
Computer Weekly

Amazon undercuts Square and PayPal with mPOS launch
Amazon has made its widely anticipated move into the crowded mPOS market, launching its dongle and app-based contender with an aggressive pricing strategy that undercuts both Square and PayPal.
Finextra

Microsoft to support fewer IE versions
Microsoft has started a 17-month campaign to upgrade customers to the newest version of Internet Explorer that their operating systems will support, which should make it simpler for the company to keep the browser secure because it will have fewer versions to deal with.
TechWorld

 
media news

Twitter extends ad offering with promoted video trial
Twitter has launched a beta trial of its Promoted Video ad service, which it claims offers brands an “easy” method to distribute video content and measure its effectiveness.
Marketing

John Lewis to seek ‘romance’ in beacon technology before committing
John Lewis wants to see evidence that beacon technology can be used to prompt emotive, “romantic” responses for customers before it will commit to rolling it out to stores, as its high-street rival House of Fraser has done.
The Drum

UK mobile gamers spending double the global average
A report has found that UK mobile gamers are spending almost double the global average on online game microtransactions. The report focused on carrier billing, which is growing in popularity as more gamers choose the convenience of paying on their mobile phone bill over the traditional payment methods such as credit cards or PayPal.
Mobile Marketing

telecoms

Sprint drops bid for T-Mobile
According to press reports this morning, Sprint has dropped its bid to buy T-Mobile after opposition from regulators who want to keep the number of major US wireless operators at four. It’s not been officially confirmed yet by either side, but the major news outlets appear pretty certain.
Telecom TV

Apple and Samsung call a legal truce outside the US
Lawyers around the world for Apple and Samsung are in mourning today, as the two tech companies announce that they have decided to lay down their litigation pens and work side by side in technological engineering harmony (or maybe not, given the history). The exception, of course, is the United States, where the two companies will continue to sue the pants off each other until the bitter end, whatever that may be.
TechRadar

TFL looking for businesses to sponsor free wifi on buses
Transport for London (TfL) are testing the popularity of free wifi on two London bus routes, in the hope that businesses will sponsor the technology and enable a London-wide rollout. Bus passengers have access to free wifi on London buses as part of a TfL trial that began this morning.
Computer World

enterprise technology

Poorly trained IT workers are ‘gateway for hackers’
UK universities are failing to teach enough computer security skills and are churning out IT graduates who present a “risk to their own organisation”, according to a senior NHS IT manager. Derrick Bates, senior information security officer at North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Some of today’s graduates may have an abstract knowledge of info security, but how many of them could spot a dodgy attachment, run a penetration test or crack a code?”
Daily Telegraph

Osborne vows to make London world’s centre for finance tech
Britain will offer prizes for finance technology innovators in a new bid to become the world’s leading centre for the sector, chancellor George Osborne will say today. The new drive will see UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) market the capital harder around the globe to attract more firms. And the Treasury, Bank of England and law enforcement bodies will get to work on a new framework for digital currencies such as Bitcoin.
City AM

Osborne announces seven university technical colleges
Chancellor George Osborne has announced seven new university technical colleges (UTCs) and four new studio schools, backed by employers to equip young people with the skills needed to secure high-tech jobs in the IT and engineering sectors. The schools will provide 5,000 students aged 14-19 with technical or vocational-based education with curriculums developed by local businesses and universities.
Computer Weekly

media news

Snapchat and WhatsApp dominate photo sharing as Facebook plateaus
Snapchat and WhatsApp are now leading in the photo sharing department, ahead of Facebook and Instagram, according to new research. The study, from the KPCB 2014 Internet Trends report, looks at period of 2005 to 2014. Considering WhatsApp is just 2 years old, the speed of the shift from its new owner Facebook onto the mobile chat app is phenomenal.
NetImperative

Sainsbury’s simplifies digital presence as it shuts down non-food website
Sainsbury’s is shutting down its standalone non-food website and moving its general merchandise produce onto its grocery platform as it aims to simplify its digital presence and make shopping online more similar to the experience customers have in-store.
Marketing Week

Yahoo unveils Fantasy Football app ahead of new season
Yahoo have revealed a free new fantasy football app for Android and iOS, ahead of the 2014-15 season kick off later this month. The app, Yahoo Sport Fantasy Football, connects with Yahoo’s online game, which has been updated with real-time player updates, enhanced social interaction and a player pricing algorithm powered by big data. It has also introduced the Bundesliga and the Italian Series A leagues into its game.
Mobile Marketing

telecoms

Mobile operators win cut to sharp increase in UK licence fees
The UK’s telecoms regulator has reduced the proposed rise in the licence fees levied on mobile phone operators after heavy lobbying by the industry who had warned it would lead to higher bills for customers and hit their ability to invest. Ofcom said on Friday it was now planning to raise the annual licence fee fourfold from £64.5m to £246.8m, a cut of 20 per cent on its initial proposal.
Financial Times

Iliad shares fall after T-Mobile bid is deemed too low
Iliad SA shares slumped the most in almost eight years after the French carrier’s $15 billion bid for a stake in T-Mobile US increased the risk of a bidding battle with another suitor. Deutsche Telekom AG considers the $33-a-share cash offer for a 56.6 percent stake in T-Mobile as not competitive and inferior to a separate bid planned by Sprint Corp, according to a person familiar with the matter. Masayoshi Son, the billionaire whose SoftBank Corp. owns Sprint, is said to be working on an offer of about $40 a share for T-Mobile.
Bloomberg

Threat to sue Zambia’s networks over poor service
Mobile operators allegedly providing ‘poor network services’ are under the spotlight in Zambia again. The Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) has threatened to launch legal action against the country’s mobile operators for issues such as dropped calls and insufficient network coverage. Last year, ZICTA dragged the country’s three mobile operators — MTN, Airtel and Zamtel — to court over alleged poor services.
ITWebAfrica

enterprise technology

Strong quarter proves the UK tech industry is “firing on all cylinders”
The UK technology industry has experienced a strong quarter from April to June 2014 as business activity rises at its fastest pace since 2007. This is according to professional services provider KPMG – its latest KPMG/Markit Tech Monitor UK survey claiming that the improving economy has led to a sustained period of strong growth for tech companies. In turn, this has boosted investment spending place across the sector, with 61 per cent reporting a solid upturn in year-ahead expectations for business activity.
ITProPortal

Google says ‘forgetting’ isn’t easy, as requests mount
Google told European officials that forgetting isn’t easy, especially when details are few and guidelines are murky regarding when personal privacy trumps public interest. The world’s leading Internet search engine said that as of July 18 it had received more than 91,000 requests to delete a combined total of 328,000 links under Europe’s “right to be forgotten” ruling.
Daily Telegraph

Microsoft ordered to hand over European data
Microsoft has lost its latest attempt to protect customer data in its Dublin data centre from seizure by US authorities. Earlier this year, the company was issued with a warrant to hand over a customer’s emails, which were stored in the Irish data centre. Details of the case are sealed, so it’s not known which US crime or government agency issued the warrant, who the target is and even what kind of investigation is involved.
PC Pro

media news

Telefónica Vivo taps Ericsson for TV compression
Telefónica Vivo has chosen Ericsson’s AVP 4000 Encoder Family to provide compression for its TV service in Brazil. The company has also begun trials of a 4K/UltraHD service. With more content available for more video-enabled devices than ever before, maximising video delivery over available bandwidth and multiple networks is vital to the success of current and future consumer TV experiences. That’s prompted network upgrades for more and more video providers.
RapidTVNews

Ted Baker launches responsive eCommerce site
British clothing brand Ted Baker has relaunched its US website with a new focus on responsive design. The new site brings the company’s US web presence in line with the responsive site that was launched in the UK last October. The brand has reported a 48 per cent uplift in eCommerce business in the UK in the first half of 2014, which it attributes to the new site’s improved customer experience.
Mobile Marketing

UK retailers lagging behind in omnichannel
UK retailers are lagging behind their US counterparts when it comes to omnichannel retail, with their “narrow” focus on click and collect holding back ecommerce growth, according to a new report. The report by digital think tank L2 collected data on the sophistication of brands’ omnichannel capabilities, such as store locator services, promotion of in-store events, online pre-ordering and free shipping. They were scored on a scale of zero to 10 depending on the degree to which they encourage online and offline behaviours.
Marketing Week

telecoms

UK consumers benefit from balanced and affordable broadband
The United Kingdom has one of the world’s most aggressively competitive broadband ISP markets and a new report from Point Topic helps to put this into some context by showing how we compare with other major countries and the variance of our tariffs. In terms of entry-level tariffs, we are ranked 7th in the world, albeit behind some odd front runners including Sudan, India and Belarus etc.
ISPreview

HTC may be launching the One M8 for Windows
As if HTC’s naming conventions for its flagships weren’t already awkward enough it looks like it might now be launching a flagship Windows Phone handset with the same name as its Android one. More specifically we might soon be getting an ‘HTC One M8 for Windows,’ which is a bit of a mouthful.
TechRadar UK

Good mobile signal tops young house buyers’ priorities
45 per cent of 18-35 year-olds rank mobile signal as the most important consideration when buying a new property, followed by crime (21 per cent), transport links (18 per cent) and schools (17 per cent). Among buyers aged 55 and over, mobile reception was considered less important, but 26 per cent still rated it as the most crucial factor.
Mobile Marketing Magazine

enterprise technology

Amazon throws its might behind 3D printing revolution
Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has launched the 3D Printed Products store, a marketplace with more than 200 unique print on-demand products, many that can be customised by material, size, styles and colour variations, and personalised with text and image imprints. With Amazon’s muscle, the marketplace can be considered to be one of the largest online places to discover 3D printed products.
ITProPortal

Mozilla appoints Chris Beard as new CEO
Mozilla has installed a fulltime CEO to replace the controversial Brendan Eich, who was ousted earlier this year. Eich’s political views were the source of controversy then and Mozilla was forced to apologise for not considering the views of its users and the community when it hired him. Then, a temporary CEO was appointed, and that was the one time chief marketing officer Chris Beard.
V3

Microsoft faces monopoly investigation in China
A Chinese investigation into Microsoft is probably targeting its “monopoly” of the country’s operating systems market, state media have said, after the US software company became the latest foreign firm to go under Beijing’s scrutiny. Microsoft confirmed in a statement late on Monday that it was under investigation in China, without disclosing details.
The Guardian

media news

Sarah Palin launches subscription based online news service
Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaskan and Republican vice presidential candidate, has launched her own subscription-only news service, which she says that she will oversee personally. The channel bills itself as a “direct connection” between Palin and her supporters, with her own political commentary and the chance for viewers to participate in online chats with Palin.
The Drum

Facebook to separate messaging from main app for all ‘within days’
Facebook is reportedly putting the final nail in the coffin of messaging via its main app. After successfully getting European users to download the new Messenger app in April, the social network will now move all remaining users across within days. “In the next few days, we’re continuing to notify more people that if they want to send and receive Facebook messages, they’ll need to download the Messenger app,” the company said in a statement.
Digital Spy

Puma hails low-key World Cup marketing for ‘excellent’ football sales
Puma has hailed its low-key World Cup push for “exceeding” sales targets for the event as it prepares to unveil its global marketing campaign to reassert its sporting credentials. The German business opted against a marketing blitz in favour of a blend of real-time marketing and the appearance of brand ambassadors such as Mario Balotelli to get cut through during the cluttered World Cup period.
Marketing Week

telecoms

Vodafone suffers slowdown in tough European and African markets
Vodafone fell foul of tough market conditions in the first quarter as a slowdown in Spain and South Africa resulted in another heavy drop in revenue. The world’s second-biggest mobile operator said on Friday the pace of decline in organic service revenue, which strips out items such as handset sales and currency movements, accelerated to 4.2 per cent in the three months to June 30.
Daily Telegraph

Citic Telecom in talks to buy stake in RCom’s subsidiary
China’s Citi Telecom is looking to buyout Reliance Communication ‘s undersea cable subsidiary. The deal, which is in advanced talks to buy for Global Cloud Xchange (formerly Reliance Globalcom), may fetch the Anil Ambani-led telecom company a whopping USD 1 billion. RCOM is likely to sell majority stake in Global Cloud Xchange to Citic, which should start the due diligence for the deal next week.

Money Control

TenTel to launch new low-cost, no-ties offer
A Selkirk-based start-up is aiming to disrupt the UK telecoms market by being the first to offer customers same-day telephone and broadband services without holding them to long-term contracts. Set to launch next month, TenTel says it will offer a unique ‘move-in, turn-on’ service with no enforced tie-ins or hidden extras. The new offer will be aimed principally at customers in rented accommodation. Working in partnership with landlords and letting agents, the company will offer them a commission for each line of data they supply and for each of their tenants who signs up for the service.
Mobile Today

enterprise technology

Government pulls £50 million Silicon Roundabout regeneration fund
The Prime Minister’s office has pulled the £50 million that was due to be spent on the regeneration of Old Street’s Silicon Roundabout in East London. No. 10 told Techworld in March that the government was holding the money until City Hall submitted appropriate regeneration plans, but a spokesperson has revealed that the £50 million has been taken off the table. “Given that a permanent solution for the roundabout will be technically difficult and some way off that money has gone back into general expenditure,” he said.
Techworld

New research examines businesses’ handling of digital transformation
Although businesses are making the effort to build digital transformation plans, they are not following through by mapping the customer journey, claims new research. Research and consulting firm Altimeter Group published The 2014 State of Digital Transformation to explore the ways in which digital customers differ from traditional counterparts. The report claims that 88 per cent of participants said their organisation was undergoing a formal transformation effort, but only 25 per cent reported that the digital customer journey was mapped out from start to finish ensuring they are reached at every major touch point.
ITProPortal

China Unicom, Huawei to work on cloud tech
The cloud platform division of China Unicom signed a strategic cooperation agreement on Software Defined Networking (SDN) innovation with local kit vendor Huawei this week. In a joint statement, China Unicom Cloud Data Company and Huawei said they will foster extensive cooperation conducted in the field of SDN, developing SDN controllers, and deploying SDN-based solutions in datacentre networks.
Telecoms.com

media news

Mobile gamers rate ads during gameplay ‘breaks’ as least effective
Research into advertisements shown to mobile gamers has found that ads shown during breaks in gameplay action are the least preferred format. The study, carried out by MediaSpike in partnership with Interpret, found that gameplay break ads were preferred by only 11 per cent of respondents, and were ranked as least preferred by 36 per cent. Even banner ads, usually deemed as ineffective, were more preferred at 29 per cent. In fact, gamers reported they were twice as likely to interact with a banner (21 per cent) compared to gameplay break ads (nine per cent).
Mobile Marketing

Mobile ad spending surges with big shift to smartphone, tablet use
The day that eMarketer predicted that mobile ad spending will surpass newspaper and radio ad revenues in 2014 seemed a particularly good time to catch up with the MassTLC’s (Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council) Mobile Summit in Cambridge, Mass. The eMarketer predictions were carried in the Wall Street Journal. The bottom line as carried in the WSJ contends that mobile ad outlays are projected to jump 83 percent this year to nearly $18 billion as newspapers turn in $17 billion and radio is projected to finish the year at $15.5 billion.
eWeek

Instagram to launch a “one-tap photo messaging” service – Bolt
Instagram is set to launch a new service, Bolt, which seems to be a rival to Snapchat by offering “one-tap picture messaging”. A promotional message introducing the service appeared on the banners of Instagram for some users, but then they tried to click through to the Google Play store, it led to a dead end. This is not the first time such an incident has happened – last month Facebook, which owns Instagram, accidentally released its new app Slightshot too early, and had to delete it from the Apple store.
The Drum

telecoms

Cortana will hit the UK in ‘less than two weeks’
Not even the Halo universe is immune from this tough economic climate, so Cortana has taken a second job as Windows Phone’s voice assistant – though only for people living in the US right now.

But she’s on her way to Britain, and Microsoft has confirmed that the developer preview is less than two weeks away.
Tech Radar

Vodafone strikes fibre share deal with Portugal Telecom to reach 900,000 homes
Telecoms giant Vodafone has announced a 25-year deal between its Portuguese subsidiary and Portugal Telecom to deploy and share fibre networks to 900,000 Portuguese homes.

The agreement comes into effect this December, giving each company the potential to reach an additional 450,000 business and residential customers.
City AM

SK Telecom and Ericsson demonstrate potential 5G technology
South Korea was the inevitable location for the first demonstration of a new ‘Elastic Cell’ technology that allows multiple cells to serve a handset simultaneously, thus improving performance at the cell boundary. This technology is likely to contribute to the eventual 5G standard. The demonstration was the result of collaboration between South Korean operator SK Telecom and infrastructure vendor Ericsson. It involves two-way communication between the handset and its serving cell in order to select other nearby cells that can improve network quality at the cell edge, while also silencing superfluous cells that can cause interference.
Telecoms.com

enterprise technology

HP Autonomy legal case takes religious twist with Vatican deal mystery
HP’s long-running saga over its acquisition of UK software firm Autonomy took another turn over the weekend after evidence relating to a deal supposedly signed with the Vatican came to light. HP has been pursuing legal action against Autonomy for almost two years after it claimed the former management of the company, including CEO Mike Lynch, engaged in improper accounting activities.
V3

Fox eyes European Sky asset sale
21st Century Fox could agree to sell Sky Italia and its 57% stake in Sky Deutschland to BSkyB in the next two weeks. This, reports Reuters, could help it lodge a higher bid for Time Warner. Just last week, 21st Century Fox confirmed it had made a formal proposal to Time Warner in June to combine the two companies, with reports valuing its bid at $80 billion.
Broadband TV News

Edward Snowden asks global hackers to develop anti-surveillance technologies
Fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden has asked hackers across the globe to develop technologies to counter illegal surveillance by government agencies. Addressing a hackers conference known as Hackers On Planet Earth (Hope) via video link from Moscow, Snowden said he intends to devote much of his time to promoting easy-to-use counter-surveillance technologies which allow people to communicate anonymously with a high level of encryption.
IB Times

media news

BBC website and iPlayer hit by major problems
The BBC was hit by gremlins in the works this weekend, with the iPlayer service suffering, and the corporation’s website, too. Some users were confronted with error messages when accessing the SpringWatch and World Cup 2014 sections of the site, and videos were also affected on the website and iPlayer. The latter meant that those trying to view programmes including Russell Howard’s Good News, QI and CBBC were unable to see them, according to a report in the Independent. And the Beeb had to reduce its website to a basic version to keep it running more smoothly – indeed, that’s still the case as we write this story now.
IT Pro Portal

Post Office celebrates Sunday branch opening with #LoveSundays campaign
In a print ad, using the tagline, “Mail. On Sunday,” the brand explains that it is listening to customers’ opinions and changing the business accordingly. The ad states, “We’re now open earlier, and later, and on Sundays. And we’re open in other ways too. We’ve listened to our customers and created new ways of doing things. “We want to make our unrivalled network of over 11,500 branches better than ever. So keep your eyes open. This is just the start.”
Brand Republic

Google to change the way ‘freemium’ apps are listed from September
From September Google will no longer be labelling games with in-app purchases as ‘free’, following criticism from the European Commission.  In addition to confirming the way ‘freemium’ apps – those which are free to download but contain paid-for add-ons – are listed will change the Android-owner has agreed to devise new guidelines for developers to avoid encouraging children with approval prompts added to all apps by default.
The Drum

telecoms

Setanta to launch Irish MVNO this year
Irish sports broadcaster Setanta is in talks with mobile operator 3 about launching an MVNO on its network, it emerged this week. The companies have been holding talks for the past few months and Setanta aims to launch its mobile service by the end of the year, the Irish Times reported, without citing its sources. The MVNO would form part of a service package that Setanta is working on, including TV, phone and mobile broadband, the paper added.
Total Telecom

Silent Circle takes on Skype, mobile telcos with encrypted landline calling
Going up against mobile telecom giants including Skype and Viber, Silent Circle has announced a global encrypted voice calling service on the heels of launching the ‘surveillance-proof’ Blackphone. The company aims to disrupt traditional communication services, whether it be tech firms, telcos or handset makers. The launch of the new service, the Global Encrypted Calling Plan, is likely to be of concern to traditional companies as it is billed as “50 percent less expensive” and, of course, appeals to the security-conscious.
ZDNet

FreedomPop attacks Europe with freemium smartphone plans
FreedomPop isn’t happy selling its free smartphone service only in the U.S., as the company now plans to expand to Europe. It will begin in Belgium, where it wants to test out its new service, TechCrunch reveals. FreedomPop is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that purchases bandwidth from Sprint in the U.S, and then offers users 200 free voice minutes, 500 free text messages and 500MB free of data each month.
Yahoo News

enterprise technology

GDS launches crackdown on fake government websites
The Government Digital Service (GDS) has introduced its Thunderclap campaign, a clampdown on fake government websites. According to GDS, using standard search engines to search for Whitehall services can often lead to unofficial websites that charge for things that should be free or much cheaper. The initiative was launched earlier this week, aiming to use social media to raise awareness about misleading websites and encourage users to always use official channels.
ITProPortal

Google Ventures to invest £58 million in European start-ups
Google is to invest $100 million (£58.4 million) in European tech start-ups, as it expands its capital funding business with a new base in London. Google Ventures was launched in 2009, and has since invested in over 250 portfolio companies in a range of sectors, such healthcare firms Flatiron Health and SynapDx, affordable solar energy business, Clean Power Finance, and controversial taxi app, Uber.
ComputerWorld UK

Amazon launches wearable technology store in UK
Online retail giant Amazon has launched a store devoted to wearable technology in the UK which features more than 100 different wearable devices including activity trackers, smart watches, smart glasses, and wearable cameras. As well as items from established brands such as Sony, Samsung, Garmin, Jawbone and GoPro, the store will feature products from emerging brands.
The Retail Bulletin

media news

Rise of digital devices drives new viewing habits
Adults around the world remain hooked on TV but the consumption habits of content-hungry viewers are changing rapidly, according to global research consultancy TNS. While our love affair with television endures, TV sets alone are no longer enough to satisfy our appetite for content, driving the growth of online media and ‘screen-stacking’ as a result.
BroadbandTV News

ActionX unveils rich media ad unit
App and cross-screen retargeting company ActionX has revealed a series of upgrades to its dynamic creative engine, including the launch of a ‘Mobile Pop-Up Shop’ rich media unit. ActionX’s creative engine already enables companies to enhance the relevance of retargeting campaigns by featuring personalised products and offers based on user behaviour in mobile apps and on web sites. The Mobile Pop-Up Shop banner delivers a new level of personalisation, expanding from a banner to create a full page of personalised offers and merchandise.
Mobile Marketing Magazine

Vevo renews advertising and content deal with Toyota
Vevo, the online music video and entertainment platform, believes it is continuing to take media spend away from traditional broadcasters following a new seven-figure branded content and sponsorship deal with Toyota AYGO. The 12-month campaign will deliver original content programme commissioning and sponsorship throughout the year across Vevo, starting with ‘Lyric Lines’, launched yesterday. A Vevo spokesperson said the new deal confirms the “continuation of big UK TV ad spend moving to Vevo’s web, mobile, tablet and connected TV platform”.
Media Week

telecoms

Nokia makes US acquisition
This is not something the industry has seen for a long time but Nokia Networks on Friday announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire US-based network integration and deployment specialist SAC Wireless for an undisclosed sum. Infrastructure contracts in the US are lucrative and SAC claims a national footprint and “proven performance track record working with major telecom operators.”
Telecoms.com

Huawei gets behind European 5G mobile rollout efforts
Huawei has joined the board of the 5G Infrastructure Association in Europe to help aid the rollout of the next generation mobile technology. Huawei will be represented on the board by Dr David Soldani of the Huawei European Research Centre. The 5G Infrastructure Association represents the interests of the 5G Public and Private Partnership (5G-PPP), a €1.4 billion (£1.14 billion) joint initiative between the European ICT industry and the European Commission. 5G-PPP aims to deliver “ubiquitous super-fast mobile connectivity” across Europe and elsewhere.
ComputerWorldUK

Telecom NZ completes acquisition of Appserve

Telecom New Zealand has completed the acquisition of cloud-based services provider Appserve. Both firms had signed a conditional agreement for the acquisition on 18 June. The acquisition is in line with Telecom’s growth strategy, which focuses on investments in data, mobility and cloud services. The acquisition, which was valued at NZD 17 million, will further expands Telecom’s portfolio of cloud services.
TelecomPaper

enterprise technology

UK government says web filtering needs work
An official government response to a Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) study into online filtering has agreed that while it can be useful it is not as good as it could be. The government response follows a DCMS report from March that looked at child safety online and the means of shutting off child abuse and similar illegal content.
The government said that a lot of work has been done in this area and that a lot of it is successful, however it added that filtering itself is not as accurate as it could be and exists within a system that needs work.
V3

UK cloud adoption swells by 61 per cent in four years
Some 78 per cent of UK organisations have formally adopted at least one cloud-based service, giving cloud a mainstream deployment status, an annual cloud research has found. UK cloud adoption has grown by 61.5 per cent since 2010 when the annual study began. The Vanson Bourne annual study, conducted in June 2014 on behalf of cloud industry body CIF, found a 15 per cent growth in cloud adoption over the previous research in September 2013. The industry body estimates the annual growth rate will be 20 per cent by the end of September 2014.
Computer Weekly

Home office breaks up supplier “oligopoly” with G-Cloud adoption
The Home Office has revealed that it is intending to cut costs and size of IT contracts by turning to the G-Cloud procurement framework. Currently, the Department’s two largest technology contracts are with Atos and Fujitsu – which expire in 2016 and they will not be renewed. By turning to G-Cloud, the Home Office is supporting a wider government drive to break up the “oligopoly” of large suppliers dominating public sector work with large, locked-in contracts.
ITProPortal

media news

Google continues to dominate UK ad spend
Google remains the UK’s leading digital ad publisher by a wide margin, taking in roughly 40 per cent of UK digital ad spend, new figures from eMarketer reveal. Combining both search and display ad revenue, the search giant is expected to receive £2.9bn in ad revenue in 2014, a 16 per cent increase on 2013.
Mobile Marketing

IPTV subscriptions top 100 million
Global IPTV subscriber numbers topped 100 million for the first time in the first quarter of this year, according to new stats by research firm Point Topic.
The firm said there were 4.6m new IPTV subscriptions during the Q1 2014 period, taking the total number of subscriptions to 100.9m.
Digital TV Europe

Social media increasingly influencing TV viewing
Findings from the latest YouView study census into national television habits for 2014 suggest that social media interaction with Facebook and Twitter are influencing TV viewing habits but risk ruining shows.
The survey found that social media has had a huge impact on our TV tastes with around one in seven viewers now getting TV recommendations directly from it [Facebook (12 per cent) and Twitter (6 per cent)].
Advanced Television

telecoms

iPhone 6 release date may be later than originally thought
We’re fairly confident that the iPhone 6 will launch in September, but the exact date in September remains under wraps. Previously September 19 was rumoured, but a new rumour points to September 25 for the launch, following an announcement on September 15.
TechRadar

Bill Gates asks telecoms standards boffins to define future of money
Two-and-a-half billion adults in the world don’t have bank accounts, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation thinks it’s got the answer: deliver financial services to mobile phones. And the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) agrees: late in June, it established a focus group to look at Digital Financial Services, saying standardisation is the key to making such services affordable.
The Register

UK could fall behind Ireland as Vodafone rollout 1Gbps FTTB broadband
According to ComReg, the Irish telecoms regulator, 43% of fixed broadband customers in Ireland receive sub-10Mbps speeds. But all that could change after Vodafone teamed up in a 50:50 Joint Venture with state-owned electricity firm ESB to splash €450m (£358m) on a nationwide roll-out of 1000Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Building (FTTB) technology. We can only hope they do the same here.
ISPreview

enterprise technology

Department of Health bids to make sharing patient data safer
The Department of Health (DoH) has opened up a consultation with the intention to create new safeguards around information sharing within the organisation. The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health, Dr Dan Poulter, said that the department wants to establish clear rules around the use of data that could potentially identify individuals circulated by accredited safe havens (ASHs) and the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).
Computing

NSA spying program deemed “effective” by US privacy board
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) has said the NSA’s cyber-spying program has been effective in enhancing the country’s security but has raised some worrying privacy concerns. Following leaks by Edward Snowden that revealed many of the NSA’s methods for acquiring information about people, the PCLOB said in a report that the way it goes about collecting information could push it into “constitutional unreasonableness”, before airing concerns that citizens may be subjected to unnecessary tracking.
ITPRO

Physical location of data will become irrelevant by 2020, says Gartner
The physical location of corporate data will become irrelevant by 2020, replaced by a combination of other criteria, according to a Gartner report. Gartner said the location of where companies store data will become “increasingly irrelevant” in the post-Prism era, and will be determined by a combination of legal, political and logical considerations.
Computer Weekly

media news

Twitter struggles to match growth hopes as mobile powers Facebook surge
Twitter will double its UK revenues this year to almost £100m, while Facebook is expected to enjoy a 40 per cent boost to nearly £570m, according to a new forecast. However, Twitter will fall well short of early forecasts of £180m in UK revenues for 2015, as growth fails to match high investor expectations.
The Guardian

UK schools see tablet usage rise
The use of tablets in UK schools is rising, claims the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA). BESA is a trade association that represents over 300 educational suppliers in Britain, including manufacturers and distributors of ICT hardware and digital equipment to the education market.
ITProPortal

Ad industry joins scheme to put creative industries at heart of economic growth
The advertising industry has signed up to a new government initiative to put the creative industries at the heart of economic growth and support young talent. The Create UK scheme was unveiled yesterday (2 July) by Business Secretary Vince Cable, Culture Secretary Sajid Javid and Facebook’s EMEA boss Nicola Mendelsohn. The aim is to double the value of exports from the creative industries to £31bn by 2020 in areas including advertising, gaming, film and animation.
Marketing Week

telecoms

FTC broadsides T-Mobile over “bogus charges”
The FTC alleges that T-Mobile received anywhere from 35 to 40 per cent of the total amount mis-charged to consumers for subscriptions for content such as flirting tips, horoscope information or celebrity gossip that typically cost $9.99 per month. According to the FTC’s complaint, T-Mobile in some cases continued to bill its customers for these services offered by scammers years after becoming aware of signs that the charges were fraudulent.
Telecoms.com

Orange drops French telecoms deal-making plans
Orange has ditched plans to take part in any tie-ups in the French telecoms market, the former monopoly said on Wednesday. Orange said in May it was examining what role it could play in such deal-making, and sources told Reuters that it had held informal talks with third-place mobile operator Bouygues Telecom.
Reuters

Gigaclear target 50,000 UK rural homes for one Fbps FTTP broadband by 2015
Rural-focused fibre optic (FTTP) broadband ISP Gigaclear has secured private investment worth £7.75 million to help fund the next phase of its growth and a roll-out of 1000 Mbps (Megabits per second) capable Internet access into more areas, which could reach 15,000 premises by the end of 2015 and go much further in the future.
ISP review

enterprise technology

PayPal freezes, then restores account of crowdfunded secure email startup
A secure email startup that has raised more than $328,000 on crowdfunding website Indiegogo saw its PayPal account frozen, then restored this week. Swiss company ProtonMail has been raising money for its encrypted email service since 17 June, having far exceeded its initial goal of $100,000. PayPal is one of the main ways backers can pledge to its campaign.
The Guardian

Government and OU deliver cyber security course
The UK government and the Open University (OU) have partnered to deliver an online cyber security course. Natalie Black, the deputy director of cyber defence at the Cabinet Office, introduced the education programme at the opening tour of Bletchley Park yesterday. According to Black, the aim is to introduce 200,000 people to subject and educate them.
ITProPortal

New 42m Government fund for British tech entrepreneurs
The Technology Strategy Board, the UK’s innovation agency – has revealed its ‘Delivery Plan’ for 2014-15 which outlines £42m for digital technologies. The plan outlines the Board’s priorities to ‘develop and nurture the very best of British entrepreneurial talent’.
Tech City News

media news

Mobile advertising to overtake print
A report, from eMarketer, indicates that mobile ad spending in the UK continues to show significant growth and is expected to rise 96 per cent this year to just over £2 billion ($3.16 billion), up from more than £1.03 billion ($1.61 billion) in 2013.
Netimperative

Facebook faces ICO questions over ‘social experiment’
Facebook is being investigated by the Information Commissioner’s Office over its social study on users, to see whether it has broken UK data protection laws. According to a report in the FT, the ICO is probing the experiment, but said it is too early to tell whether the social network has potentially broken any laws.
Marketing

Google acquires music streaming service Songza
Online search giant Google has acquired streaming music service Songza as it attempts to ramp up its fledgling online music service. Songza creates “expert-curated” music playlists intended to match users’ activities and tastes and the four-year-old service is expected to remain unchanged following the acquisition.
London Evening Standard

telecoms

Vodafone sells out of Fiji
Vodafone said Tuesday that it has struck an agreement to sell its entire 49 per cent shareholding in Vodafone Fiji to the Fiji National Provident Fund for a cash consideration of FJ$160m (£51m). The move takes Fiji National Provident’s indirect stake in the company to around 79 per cent. In Fiji, Vodafone competed against the only other mobile licensee, Digicel. But the company said that it expects to continue to have a presence in Fiji through a partner market agreement.
Telecoms.com

Microsoft seizes 22 No-IP domains in malware crackdown
Microsoft has filed a civil case, naming two foreign nationals from Kuwait and Algeria as the masterminds behind a concerted scheme to infect millions of computers with Bladabindi and Jenxcus families of malware. Detailed in a company blog post, the move marks one of the company’s most audacious efforts, its tenth to date, to disrupt what it says is one of the most prolific conduits between hackers and their victims.
Tech Radar Pro

Metronet in £45 million buyouy
The management team of Metronet has led a £45m secondary management buyout of the business, backed by ISIS Equity Partners. Manchester based Metronet (UK) is a business only Internet Service Provider that combines innovative wireless technology with traditional fibre to deliver connectivity solutions from leased lines to complex, multi-site networks across the UK. The company now boasts over 1200 customers from SMEs, to blue chip organisations such as Manchester City Council, Arqiva, ao.com, Autotrader.
Comms Business

enterprise technology

HP settles Autonomy dispute litigation with shareholders
HP has confirmed it has reached an agreement to settle shareholder litigation resulting from its 2011 takeover of software firm Autonomy, but warned that the settlement is still subject to court approval.

The global IT giant issued a statement confirming that it and the lawyers for the plaintiffs in three shareholder lawsuits have now reached an agreement that will bring their action against HP to a close.
V3

Hacker raid on energy companies for secrets raises sabotage fears
In yet more evidence of the rising tide of cyber espionage, criminals have gained access to vital systems across potentially hundreds of European energy companies using a sophisticated three-pronged campaign of hacking — potentially allowing them to disrupt energy supplies across the region. The wide-ranging attacks were organised by a group working out of eastern Europe — likely state-sponsored — seem to have focused on espionage, however the intrusions also gave the attackers the ability “to mount sabotage operations against their victims”, according to Symantec.
ZDNet

IBM aims for carbon nanotube transistors around 2020
IBM has announced that it expects to have commercialised its carbon nanotube transistor technology in the early 2020s, thanks to a new design that would allow the transistors to be built on silicon wafers using similar techniques to existing chip manufacturing plants. The semiconductor industry has been working hard for the last few decades on following Moore’s Law, the observation by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip tends to double roughly every eighteen months. In recent years, following that trend has become increasingly complex: the ever-shrinking size of the components and the distance between them makes manufacturing difficult, while interference between components must be corrected and designed out.
Bit-tech

media news

Google loses US appeal over Street View data collection
The US Supreme Court has rejected Google’s appeal that it has no privacy case to answer over its Street View data collection programme and the internet giant will now face legal action. Back in 2010, Google publicly apologised for accidentally collecting personal data through open WiFi networks while running its Street View programme. The Street View vehicles collected personal data when they drove past the houses of people with unencrypted WiFi networks.
Computer Weekly

BBC board wary of security projects, says info security manager
Asking the BBC’s board to approve new information security projects is usually met with a swift “No”, because data accessibility is seen as a bigger priority, according to the broadcaster’s information security manager, Annamaria Cooper. Speaking at Computing’s Enterprise Security and Risk Management 2014 today, Cooper revealed that while there is a good board “understanding”, there are cultural hurdles at the BBC that always need to be overcome in order to “hook” approval.
Computing

Ericsson unveils crowdsourcing platform to encourage cities to get networked
Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson has launched a crowdsourcing platform to map ICT-related initiatives in cities in Northern Europe and Central Asia. The Get Your City Networked project, which includes 22 countries, aims to collect up-to-date and locally relevant information about the cities that will then serve as a tool for the company to explore further opportunities to get people and businesses connected.
The Drum

telecoms

EE bring 4G mobile broadband to 73 per cent of UK
EE has deployed its “superfast” 4G (LTE) based Mobile Broadband network to another 14 large towns (total of 229 large towns / cities and more than 2,500 villages / small towns), which raises its overall network coverage to 73 per cent of the United Kingdom (population). But they’ll need to go a lot faster to hit the 98 per cent target. The new service officially goes live today in Mansfield, Swinton, Jarrow, Kirkby, Wishaw, Ilkeston, Castleford, Walton-On-Thames, Totton, Carrickfergus, Newton Abbot, Wimborne Minster, Ramsbottom and Dumbarton. ISPreview.co.uk notes that such locations are only considered official 4GEE towns once “at least 80 per cent of the area is covered“.
ISPreview

Ofcom rules that BT’s Openreach broadband infrastructure must ‘be repaired in two days’
Ofcom has ruled that Openreach must increase the speed of its broadband and telephone repairs and installations from 1^st July. Ofcom has introduced new performance standards for the infrastructure company, which dictate “the majority of phone and broadband faults have to be repaired within two working days, while most customers requiring a new line must receive an appointment within 12 working days.” In addition, according to Ofcom, BT Openreach must “make clear the timeframe in which it is currently completing any remaining repairs or installations, to provide reassurance to consumers about how long the work is likely to take”.
Cable.co.uk

Vodafone to win EU approval for deal
Vodafone is set to gain unconditional EU approval for its 7.2-billion-euro ($9.79 billion) bid for Spain’s largest cable operator Ono as regulators do not have competition concerns, three people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The deal is part of a wave of consolidation in the telecoms industry and is the British firm’s third acquisition of a European fixed-broadband asset in two years. Telecoms providers say more mergers are necessary to offset falling revenues and to secure the funds to upgrade infrastructure for fast-speed broadband.
Business World

enterprise technology

NETGEAR announces powerful Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band WiFi router
Buying bargain-priced routers results in poor performance and dropped connections. Nothing is worse than having to unplug your router to reset it each week. Now however, NETGEAR releases a router that makes me consider upgrading – the Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router. “The new Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router (R8000) is the first tri-band WiFi router available for purchase incorporating the powerful new Broadcom 5G WiFi XStream platform. With six high-performance antennas and three network bands, one 2.4GHz and two 5GHz, the Nighthawk X6 delivers the industry’s fastest combined WiFi speed, up to 3.2 Gbps (1300+1300+600 Mbps). It balances the network load to ensure the best WiFi performance for each device and deliver the maximum wireless range available today”, says NETGEAR.
IT Pro Portal

Oculus to acquire the company that designed the Xbox 360 controller
Oculus VR isn’t sitting idle under Facebook’s wing — the virtual reality company announced Tuesday it has acquired Carbon Design. The design firm works on medical and consumer products, including some very recognizable ones — Carbon worked on the Xbox 360 gamepad. Peter Bristol, Carbon’s creative director, says virtual reality has finally arrived. “From a design and engineering perspective, building the products that finally deliver consumer virtual reality is one of the most interesting and challenging problem sets ever,” he said in an announcement. Carbon will be working from its design studio in Seattle; Oculus is based in Irvine, California, and has an R&D team in Redmond, Washington. According to Oculus’ release, the two companies have been working on “multiple unannounced projects” for close to a year. Oculus has yet to announce a release date for the first consumer version of its virtual reality headset.
Mashable

Invisible Wi-Fi revealed through light graffiti
The ghost out of the machine? In a project he is calling “Digital Ethereal”, artist and researcher Luis Hernan at the University of Newcastle in the UK has rendered the invisible visible — revealing in red, yellow, green and blue the Wi-Fi signal strength in the world around him. He has called his device the Kirlian Device — named for Russian inventor Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, who discovered Kirlian photography, a technique for photographing electrical discharges, usually invisible to the naked eye. But his project has something of the spiritual about it.
C Net

media news

UK app developers predicted to add £4bn to economy this year
British companies building apps for smartphones and tablets are forecast to generate £4bn in revenues this year, with the UK benefiting more than any other European economy from the billions consumers spend on their phones. Over a third of the revenues generated by all 28 European member states come from the UK, with 8,000 companies directly involved in app development, employing 380,000 people, according to research commissioned by Google to launch its global I/O conference for app and software developers. Britain is home to King Digital Entertainment – which makes the blockbuster smartphone game Candy Crush Saga – the BBC and developers such as Mubaloo, which creates apps for other organisations including the Met Office, BP and computing group Hewlett-Packard, makers of some of the most widely used apps on the planet.
Guardian

Online news overtakes newspapers for the first time in UK history
Online news consumption has overtaken newspapers in the UK for the first time showing the fastest growth of any method out there according to Ofcom’s latest survey. Ofcom’s News Consumption in the UK report found that 41 per cent of the population access news on apps and websites whereas just 40 per cent use newspapers to find out what is going on. Consuming news online was the fastest growing of any medium as it increased from just 32 per cent in 2013 and much of this is down to younger people between the ages of 16 and 24 driving change. 60 per cent in that age group consumed news in this way during 2014 and that is up from 44 per cent last year, with 45 per cent calling websites and apps the most important source of news around.
IT Pro Portal

Pinterest comes to Android Wear and tells you about nearby pins
On Wednesday, Google made a whole load of interesting and exciting new announcements at its I/O developer conference. But what excited and interested us the must? Well, it had to be the closer look and added features of its new operating system built entirely for wearables, Android Wear. Google has already announced a bunch of interesting partnerships with popular apps, and as obsessed Pinterest fiends big fans of Pinterest, we were delighted to see it’ll be one of the first apps to come to your wrist.
Shiny Shiny

Telefonica opens network to get EU nod for E-Plus deal
Telefonica Deutschland said it had agreed a deal with small rival Drillisch as part of its efforts to obtain regulatory clearance for its 8.6 billion euro ($117 billion) takeover of KPN’s German business, E-Plus. The German unit of Spain’s Telefonica said on Wednesday it would grant Drillisch access to a fifth of the combined network of Telefonica and E-Plus.
Reuters

Agilent to support China Mobile’s 5G endeavours
Test and measurement firm Agilent Technologies has announced an agreement to collaborate with China Mobile Communications Research Institute (CMRI) on the development of 5G wireless. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding in Beijing, under which Agilent will actively support the research and development programs on 5G, led by CMRI, and provide test and measurement solutions for next-generation 5G wireless communication systems.
Telecoms.com

Europe slashes data roaming rates
Data roaming costs within the EU are set to drop dramatically from 1 July as rules governing what operators can charge customers kick in. The price of using one megabyte of data will decrease from 45 cents to 20 cents, making it cheaper to use maps, watch videos, check mails and update social networks while travelling across the EU, the European Commission said.
IT Pro

enterprise technology

European software companies continue to outgrow the market
European software vendors have generally enjoyed a relatively good year and have responded well to recessionary pressures. In 2013, the last full year for which accounts are available, revenues for the top 500 European ISVs increased by 13.04 per cent to $137.8 billion.
Comms Dealer

Banks to open customer data for current account comparison
Bank customers will soon be able to download their current account data and compare against other providers using online tools, following a public and private sector agreement. Six major banks – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Nationwide – will allow access to a year’s worth of account data in a single file, delivered in an industry standard format.
ComputerWorld UK

US may extent some privacy rights to Europeans
The U.S. government has said it may extent certain privacy rights to European citizens that only U.S. citizens currently enjoy. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday that the U.S. intended to “take legislative action in order to provide for judicial redress for Europeans who do not live in the U.S.,” according to a welcoming statement by EU justice chief Viviane Reding. As Reding said, this could remove a major blocker in data protection negotiations between the U.S. and the European Union.
Gigaom

media news

Facebook’s Oculus eyes consumer virtual reality device with acquisition
Oculus, the virtual reality Technology company owned by Facebook, has bought the product design firm best known for creating the Xbox 360 controller as it aims to take its VR device into the mainstream.
City AM

Netflix starts making movies: The Batters Bastards of Baseball trailer
Netflix has already reshaped the TV landscape thanks to House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, and now the on-demand giant is taking its first steps into feature films. The Battered Bastards of Baseball, a documentary from Chapman Way and Maclain Way, tells the incredible true story of actor Bing Russell’s (father of Kurt Russell) Minor League Baseball team the Portland Mavericks.
Digital Spy

World Cup boosts Tinder use in Brazil by 50pc
Tinder has experienced a 50 per cent increase in downloads and use in Brazil fuelled by amorous tourists as the country hosts the World Cup. The dating app, which was launched 18 months ago, has more than 10 million users across the world. Behind the US and UK, Brazil is Tinder’s third-largest user base.
The Daily Telegraph

telecoms

EE broadband is now available to everyone, not just EE mobile users
If you’ve fancied yourself some of EE’s broadband but don’t use the network, it’s your lucky day – everyone in the UK can now get in on the action. Starting today, EE home and fibre broadband, previously only available to EE mobile customers, is available to all.
TechRadar

Starbucks is trialling wireless charging in some of its coffee shops
Starbucks has teamed up with Duracell to begin a nationwide rollout of wireless charging systems for smartphones across the US. The wireless charging mats are currently in a handful of Starbucks coffee shops on the west coast around San Jose and on the east coast around Boston.
Pocket-lint

LG team up with McAfee for G3 security
LG G3 smartphone to come preinstalled with McAfee Mobile Security. LG has teamed up with security software firm McAfee to provide mobile ‘anti-theft’ security on the G3 smartphone – launching next month. The software, which comes preinstalled, will enable users to disable and remotely wipe their handset in the event of it being lost or stolen, using a secure online account.
Mobile News

enterprise technology

 
Microsoft tightens service terms and emphasises privacy
Microsoft has updated its customer service agreements to make them easier to understand and more explicit about privacy. The firm has advised users in a blog post. The message is heavy on ease of use and transparency, but privacy is a hot topic, and it is privacy that Microsoft highlights as its first change.
The Inquirer
TweetDeck fixes glaring XSS vulnerability
Twitter has patched up a security flaw in TweetDeck, an XSS cross-site scripting vulnerability which allowed an attacker to remotely execute Javascript code. And when the vulnerability came to light yesterday, it was certainly used, with many thousands of users being treated to comedy pop-up messages, and forced retweets of the bug.
ITProPortal

 
Computer bug sends €10m worth of medication to the incinerator
A robot responsible for distributing medication to different parts of a French hospital has sent drugs and medical devices worth millions of euros to an incinerator as a result of a computer bug. The malfunction has affected the Centre Hospitalialier Universitaire (CHU) in Rennes for several years but was only revealed following an investigation by local magazine Le Mensuel de Rennes. The management of CHU has admitted that the problem is still ongoing.
IBTimes

media news

Amazon launches its Prime Music streaming service with 1m songs
Amazon is the latest internet giant to enter the streaming music market, debuting its Prime Music service in the US today. It’s being bundled into the existing Amazon Prime subscription service rather than launched as a standalone product. That means customers paying $99 for free shipping, streaming TV and films and Amazon’s “lending library” of e-books will now also be able to access Prime Music’s catalogue of streaming songs.
The Guardian

News-seeking Britons abandon computers for mobiles
Britons are rapidly abandoning computers as their main way to access digital news in favour of updates on smartphones and tablets, a major study of media habits has found. The proportion of consumers who mostly rely on a computer to get news online has fallen by 23 percentage points in the last year to 57pc, a report published today by Oxford University’s Reuters Institute says.
The Daily Telegraph

Kickstarter team up with the Guardian to showcase journalism work
Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has joined forces with the Guardian to publicise a new dedicated journalism category on its website together and highlight key projects. Launching today the functionality will allow journalists to seek financial backing for key projects just as it currently does for those in the technology and film sectors.
The Drum

telecoms

Vodafone Takes on EE: Extends 4G service to new UK towns and cities
UK’s major cellular service provider Vodafone has stated that it will cover more cities in the United Kingdom with its 4G network. The towns and cities that will now be covered by Vodafone’s 4G network are: Reading, Basingstoke, Portsmouth, Southampton and Bournemouth. Vodafone states that with the addition of these cities and towns, approximately one million citizens can look forward to accessing 4G services this summer, for use at home as well as in the office. The company also said that along with home users, approximately 35,000 businesses would also newly gain access to the Vodafone 4G network.
International Business Times

Rise of mobile workers shapes cloud computing landscape

As cloud technologies mature and awareness of their benefits improves, more organisations in the United States and Europe are deploying cloud solutions to reduce IT costs and optimise operations, according to Frost & Sullivan in a new study.US companies are ahead of their European counterparts in terms of cloud uptake due to greater technology exposure as well as better macro-economic conditions.

Comms Dealer

Telefónica selects Amdocs for LATAM quad-play transformation
Amdocs and Telefónica are teaming up to deploy quad-play services in Chile and Peru. The Spanish telco has chosen the American software producers to lead the transformation of telecoms and TV services in the South American markets. By standardising Telefónica’s business support systems (BSS) on Amdocs software, Telefónica subscribers will be able to move seamlessly between all customer interaction channels, whether self-service or agent assisted, via the Web, call centre or at the retail store, across its entire quad-play offering – wireline, wireless, Internet and TV.
Rapid TV News

enterprise technology
Cybercrime losses top $400 billion worldwide, study claims
Computer-related crimes may cause as much as US$400 billion in losses annually, according to a new study that acknowledges the difficulty in estimating damages from such acts, most of which go unreported. The study is the second to come from Intel’s McAfee security unit in partnership with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Tech World

CIOs adjust to enterprise tech as a fashion statement
CIOs reeling from their recent loss of technology purchasing power — as it shifts to the front business lines in marketing, finance, human resources and other departments — will find a hero in Ralph Loura, vice president and CIO at The Clorox Company. In truth, today’s CIOs take their marching orders from line-of-business managers while dealing with rogue enterprise apps and cloud services on a massive scale. In fact, 40 percent of all IT spending is now outside of the traditional IT budget, according to a recent report from CEB. But at an event in San Francisco last week, Loura reminded his peers, “User-led is not the same as user-centric.”
CIO

EzeeCube home cloud makes your photos and videos accessible from anywhere
As our recent Cloud storage comparison guide demonstrated, there are plenty of options for storing your photos and videos with an online storage provider, such as Google or Dropbox. A private, home-based cloud can provide more control, better security and home-integration options, though. EzeeCube is a new home cloud hub that aims to do just that.
GizMag

media news

Instagram expands ads to international users
Instagram is taking its advertising strategy global. The photo-sharing service owned by Facebook announced on Tuesday that it will begin showing in-feed ads to international users “in the coming months,” according to a company spokesperson. Instagram will start with three countries — Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia — but more countries could be added in the future.
Mashable

Sale of ‘X.uk’ to set UK record as web firms shorten addresses
Sale of ‘X.uk’ to set UK record as web firms shortenA major expansion of Britain’s online real estate will create one of the shortest and most expensive web addresses in the world, when x.uk goes on sale for the first time on Tuesday. The four characters are expected by their owner, insurance entrepreneur Simon Burgess, to sell for around £10m, which would be the highest price ever paid for a UK web address.
Telegraph

Sony announces PlayStation TV coming to America this fall
Sony Corp. announced Monday that it’s bringing new installments of the popular video-game franchises “Uncharted” and “LittleBigPlanet” to the PlayStation 4 as it celebrated the 6-month-old game console’s marketplace triumph. Sony also premiered “Abzu,” an undersea odyssey from the creators of the award-winning “Journey” and “Entwined,” a psychedelic 3-D flying game. And it showed new highlights from the steampunk thriller “The Order: 1886” during its annual presentation at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.
Foxnews

telecoms

Britain’s Ofcom proposes further cuts in mobile phone charges
British telecoms regulator Ofcom on Wednesday proposed further cuts in mobile termination rates – the charges operators impose to connect calls across networks – in a move that could lead to cheaper bills for consumers.
Reuters

UK broadband prep fixed line and 4G LTE Internet for London homes
UK Broadband (UKB), the sibling of Hong Kong based telecoms giant PCCW (HKT), is today expected to take another pop at breaking into the consumer Internet access market when it launches a new fixed line and 4G (TD LTE) fixed wireless based broadband service for homes and businesses in London using its 3.5GHz or 3.6GHz radio spectrum bands.
ISPreview

Vodafone moves major R&D hub from Silicon Valley to London
Vodafone is to move its ‘xone’ research and development (R&D) hub from Silicon Valley to London, hoping that UK and European talent can create new products and services for its customers around the world. A team of engineers, architects and designers will build and test device prototypes, develop new applications and services and help Vodafone accelerate the time it takes to get the latest mobile technology into the hands of its consumers.
TechWeek Europe

enterprise technology

 
Hackers are trying to flog stolen eBay logins part deux
We’ve heard this before, of course, but a new source has emerged claiming that eBay login details are for sale on the online underground. As you are no doubt aware, eBay suffered a major security breach towards the end of last month, with attackers compromising the auction site’s database and making off with a wealth of user data including encrypted passwords (initially, eBay didn’t believe any user details had been compromised, and was therefore rather slow to respond).
ITProPortal

Kickstarter now offering a fast track for select projects
Kickstarter is trying to make it easier to get a project started on its crowdfunding site, offering an instant launch option that does away with the need for human approval. The company said on Tuesday that it was easing up on its project posting restrictions — and eliminating some rules entirely — in an effort to give more freedom to the people who use its site to get their projects off the ground.
PC Advisor

Technology could save UK £24bn a year by 2020
Britain could save as much as £24 billion a year by 2020 through a more efficient use of technology within central and local government, according to a new report. In its Technology Manifesto report, published today, leading think tank Policy Exchange urges politicians and policymakers to put technology front and centre of their thinking for the 2015 general election.
Daily Telegraph

media news

YouTube accused of trying to strong-arm indie labels into poor deals
A threat to remove Adele and the Arctic Monkeys from YouTube should be investigated by the European Commission, according to the independent record labels they are signed to. The desperate plea for intervention – supported by the likes of Billy Bragg and Radiohead’s guitarist Ed O’Brien – comes amid an escalating row about the fees that YouTube is prepared to pay artists signed to independents.
The Guardian

Half of customers prefer social media for customer service
Social media is an emerging channel for customer-care assistance, with many consumers preferring to communicate this way, a report by Amdocs shows. 50 per cent of consumers have attempted to contact service providers through social media, but three quarters never received a response, demonstrating a clear need for companies to improve their social media presence.
Mobile Marketing

 
Fans streamed 2.4 billion hours of competitive gaming last year
We’ve known that streaming game video from the likes of Twitch has been popular, but the extent of it hasn’t exactly been clear. Last year 2.4 billion hours were spent watching competitive gaming (eSports) broadcasts online, according to a report from market research firm IHS. Think about this for a second: if there are around 8,766 hours in a year, in 2013 people watched some 273,785 years of League of Legends (LoL), Dota 2 and StarCraft 2 competitions.
Engadget

telecoms

Three can buy O2, EU regulator says
The European Commission has approved Telefonica’s sale of O2 in Ireland to mobile network operator Three, in a deal originally proposed in June. This makes the network the second largest in the country behind Vodafone, but, as ever in these deals, the Hutchison Whampoa-owned Three – which paid €850m for the network – claims ambitious plans to overtake its rival and will invest €300m to build a 4G network. The EU had initially opposed the deal but ceded based on a couple of provisos: Three has commit to provide network capacity and mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) services to two companies, and give them the option to buy spectrum.
The Register

Apple to reveal iOS 8 and iPhone 6 at WWDC
Apple is consistently the subject of rumour when it comes to the next iPhone. No sooner has the latest model been released than speculation surrounding the next appears. The iPhone 6 name appeared before the iPhone 5S even launched, with some reports believing the 5S would be called the 6. This of course turned out not to be the case. Speculation surrounding the naming convention always arises, even though Apple has been consistent for the past few generations. We’d fully expect the next model to be the iPhone 6, but how it would be positioned alongside any iPhone 5C replacement, we can’t be sure – there are certainly some ruminations around two separately-sized devices.
Pocket-Lint

Mexico limits access to content by dominant operators
Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) established that dominant operators in the telecommunications sector may not acquire exclusive transmission rights anywhere in the country on Relevant Audiovisual Content. When such content is exclusively contracted by dominant operators, it allows them to strengthen their position in terms of audience and limits other market participants to compete effectively, the regulator said. The IFT banned dominant operators from buying exclusive rights to broadcast the final stages of the World Cup football tournament and Olympics ceremonies, as well as the exclusive broadcast rights of the Mexican football team’s matches and the key final games of the Mexican football league’s top division. Earlier this year, the IFT declared America Movil and Televisa as dominant in their respective markets.
Telecom Paper

 
enterprise technology

 
Google spending $1 billion on satellites to cover earth in wi-fi
Google plans to spend over $1 billion on a fleet of satellites that will be used to provide internet to parts of the world that currently lack digital connections. According to “people familiar with the project,” Google will use 180 “small, high-capacity satellites” that will orbit the Earth at low altitudes. Led by Greg Wyler, who set up satellite startup O3b Networks Ltd, Google has been on a hiring spree to recruit engineers from satellite company Space Systems/Loral LLC
Wall Street Journal

Windows 7’s growth strides ahead of Windows 8.x
Windows XP users might be able to (sort of) cheat the aging operating system’s end of life, but ultimately the only real way to stay safe is, as Microsoft says, by upgrading to a newer, more modern version of Windows. NetMarketShare’s monthly snapshot of the desktop OS share trend shows users are continuing to slowly migrate away from XP. The OS’s share dropped 1.02 per cent from 26.29 per cent in April to 25.27 per cent in May.
IT Pro Portal

Google Glass: Dyson designed smartglasses 10 years before Google
The technology landscape could look very different if Dyson hadn’t decided to shelve a smartglasses project that had a working prototype more than 10 years before Google’s Glass arrived. The Dyson Halo, known only by its project number N066 until today, was originally developed in 2001 – a set of augmented reality goggles featuring a full-colour 3D heads-up display the kind that’s currently being developed by Google, Epsom and Vuzix.
Guardian

media news

WhatsApp returns to Windows Phone with new features in tow
Windows Phone users worried that Whatsapp’s devs might be enjoying their Facebook money too much to fix the app can now rest easy. Whatsapp is now back on the Windows Phone Store after a couple of weeks’ absence, and it even comes with new features, including chat backgrounds, better privacy settings and the ability to customize notification tones. Its pulled the app from the store after a lot of users reported having serious issues with update 3 for Windows Phone 8 that permanently disabled notifications or caused persistent errors. Just as Microsoft’s Windows Phone guy Joe Belfiore promised on Twitter, though, Whatsapp’s back and ready for more cross-platform messaging.
EnGadget

YouTube still blocked in Turkey despite top court verdict
Popular video-sharing site YouTube remained blocked in Turkey on Sunday despite the country’s top court ruling that the blanket ban contravened the right to free speech. Turkey’s constitutional court ruled Thursday that the ban on YouTube violated individual rights and freedoms, clearing the way for access to the service to be revived following a two-month ban. Transportation Minister Lutfi Elvan, who is also in charge of communications, said the court decision had not yet reached the relevant government agencies.
NDTV

Cost to acquire app purchasers 20 per cent lower on facebook than banners
App users acquired via Facebook make purchases at a rate of nearly 50 per cent higher than those acquired through banner networks, and 12 per cent higher than video ad networks. That’s according to a report from app marketing firm Fiksu which also found that, although Facebook’s CPC (Cost Per Click) is 10.4x higher than banners, the cost to acquire a purchasing user through Facebook ads is 20 per cent lower – and eight per cent lower than video.
Mobile Marketing

telecoms

Bitter war of words erupts between 3 and Vodafone
A war of words, compounded by the threat of legal action, has opened up between 3 Ireland and Vodafone over the European Commission’s decision to grant 3 Ireland permission to buy O2 Ireland in a €780m deal. In an angry reaction to the decision, Vodafone said it was considering legal action here and in Europe, accusing the European Commission of allowing 3 Ireland to take investment shortcuts in the Irish market.
Irish Independent

Huawei Wi-fi breaks through 10 GBPS barrier
Huawei has successfully tested 10GBps Wi-Fi over the 5GHz band and predicts the technology could be commercially available from 2018. The lab test was held in the Chinese vendor’s headquarters in Shenzhen. The speeds are 10 times faster than those commercially available today.
Mobile Europe

Telecom New Zealand to buy last 4G spectrum
Telecom New Zealand, the second-largest mobile operator in New Zealand, has been cleared to buy the final lot of 700 megahertz spectrum. The Commerce Commission approved the sale, saying Telecom’s acquisition was unlikely to substantially lessen competition because the unused block wasn’t placed next to Two Degrees Mobile’s other band-width holdings, meaning the third mobile operator wouldn’t gain much of an edge if it held the extra lot.
NZNewsUK

enterprise technology

 
Portugal Telecom takes over CardMobili’s loyalty service
Digital wallet provider CardMobili has reached an agreement with Portugal Telecom for the network operator to take over management of its mobile consumer loyalty service, MEO CardMobili. The move builds on CardMobili’s track record of service roll outs, encompassing integration into existing mCommerce programmes, such as rewards and loyalty, as well as launches of brand new services.
Mobile Marketing

EMEA server revenue shows signs of recovery
Server sales across EMEA have shown growth for the first time in three years as the declines in the market start to reverse as economic conditions improve. According to the latest Gartner figures EMEA server revenues have grown despite overall shipments falling by 6.1 per cent to 547,900 from the first quarter of 2013 revenue totalled $3.0bn, an increase of 2.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2014.
Microscope

Amazon Web Services awarded Bitcoin cloud computing patent
Amazon has been given granted a bitcoin-related cloud computing patent that could soon allow the e-commerce giant to accept digital currencies as payment for its cloud computing services on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The news counters recent claims by Amazon that it is not currently interested in accepting digital currencies, unlike e-commerce rivals such as eBay.
CBR Online

media news

Consumer confidence hits seven-year high
Consumer confidence reached a nine-year high in April as forecasts for UK economic growth continue to provide cheer but brands have been warned that optimism about the strengthening economy is still not being matched by an uplift in people’s own financial circumstances. GFK’s monthly consumer confidence tracker increased three points to 0 in April – the first time it has climbed out of the red since April 2005.
Marketing Week

Instagram asks brands to enter Cannes photography exhibition ‘La Galerie d’Instagram’
Facebook-owned Instagram hopes to celebrate the “world’s best visual imagery” at the “La Galerie d’Instagram” exhibition, which will be a gallery space in Cannes showing a small collection of the winning photos. Instagram will select three winners on the opening day of the festival (15 June) based on the originality, technical execution and subject matter of submissions.
Brand Republic

Netflix box rumour dismissed
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has dismissed the prospect of the Internet entertainment streaming service offering its own connected device as is the case with market rival Amazon Prime Video. During a Q&A session at the Re/code technology conference in Palos Verdes, California, Hastings said that the company feels no need to have its own device for users. “We’re working over 1,000 devices now. There’s no value-add for us to do a device,” he stated.
Advanced Television

telecoms

Brazil approves Virgin Mobile venture with Telefonica
Regulators cleared Virgin Mobile Brazil on Wednesday to market cell phone plans in the country using Telefonica Brazil SA’s mobile network, adding competition in a stagnant telecommunications market. The local unit of Virgin Mobile Latin America, run by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, struck a deal in January to lease capacity from Telefonica and plans to start operations early in 2015, Phil Wallace, co-founder and chairman of the Virgin unit, said in an interview on Wednesday.
Reuters UK

EE mobile broadband users to get business-grade security
EE is to offer business-grade security across its mobile operating systems, in a bid to improve the levels of service provided to its corporate users. The broadband provider is to offer the MobileIron Cloud enterprise mobility management platform to provide simplified security and control of devices, such as tablets and smartphones. With the platform, businesses can configure and selectively manage mobile apps, content and devices, automatically enforce usage policies, and retire mobile devices when they are lost or when an employee leaves the company.
USwitch

More Norfolk UK communities confirmed for BT superfast broadband
The £41m Better Broadband for Norfolk scheme in England, which aims to make BT’s superfast broadband (FTTC/P) network available to 80 per cent of local homes and businesses by the end of 2015, has revealed the next batch of roll-out areas and confirmed that over 50,000 premises have already benefitted.
ISPreview

enterprise technology

Controversial NHS care.data system should be opt in, say GPs
GPs have voted in favour of a system where patients must opt-in to NHS England’s controversial care.data information sharing scheme. According to leading doctors, patient records must only be extracted and added to the system with their “explicit and informed consent.” The General Practitioners Committee (GPC) has said that NHS England must abide by the findings of a pilot of around 100-150 practices that will look at patient awareness of the programme and data quality.
ITProPortal

Microsoft buys French mobile app analytics firm Capptain
Microsoft has purchased a French mobile push notification and analytics company called Capptain in a move to enhance its mobile offerings to businesses. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Capptain offers real-time mobile app analytics and the ability to send push notifications to users based on this data in real time. This allows firms to monitor and more quickly react to customer problems and provide relevant offers and notifications rather than spamming users, according to Capptain.
V3

China-US row over cyber spying boosts mainland tech stocks
The row over cyber spying between the US and China has helped the latter’s technology sector, which had been an unprofitable area for investors. Chinese technology shares have become the stock market’s biggest winners, with their benchmark index rallying 5.5 per cent since 19 May, when the US indicted five military officials from China for spying on American companies, according to Bloomberg. Denying the allegations, China accused the US government of being “deceitful” and employing double standards.
IBTimes

media news

1,932 children investigated over online abuse in past three years, suggests new figures
Each day there are around 20 new cases of online abuse reported, with nearly 2,000 children and 20,000 adults having been investigated over the past three years for comments made on social media sites. New figures, obtained by Sky News under the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that since 2011 an approximate 1,932 children had been investigated and 1,203 charged, formally cautioned, fined or warned over online abuse.
The Drum

Guardian launches redesigned app
The Guardian has revamped its app to offer a cleaner design and more personalised experience for its users, and to integrate its user-generated content platform GuardianWitness for the first time. Building on the success of its existing apps – which have been downloaded by more than 1 million people – the new version is available across all Android and iOS phones and tablets running Android 4 and iOS 7.
The Guardian

Immediate makes £24m raid on ailing Future
Future, the publisher of Total Film, T3 and Gizmodo, is selling its craft and sport portfolios, almost a quarter of its entire business, to Immediate Media for £24 million, subject to shareholder approval. More than 10 of Future’s brands, including the websites Bike Radar and Cycling News and the craft brands Mollie Makes, Simply Crochet and Simply Knitting, will be sold to Immediate, which publishes titles including Radio Times as well as specialist titles.
Brand Republic

telecoms

EU OKs 3 Ireland’s O2 takeover
Irish mobile operator agrees to provide capacity to MVNOs, sell spectrum and maintain network-sharing deal to allay competition concerns. The European Commission on Wednesday gave the go-ahead to 3 Ireland’s proposed takeover of local rival O2 on the proviso that 3 undertakes certain measures to protect competition in the market.
TotalTelecom

Virgin Media customers suffer UK email outage during Google migration
Customers of cable broadband operator Virgin Media have been left without the ability to directly send or receive email (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird etc.) since yesterday afternoon after an unspecified fault caused their servers to fail at just after three pm.
IS Preview

DoCoMo eyes 2016 for commercial NFV deployment
Japanese operator trials virtualised evolved packet core with Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, NEC.
NTT DoCoMo on Tuesday announced that it plans to offer commercial services using virtualised network functions during fiscal 2016. The Japanese mobile operator said it has successfully completed proof-of-concept (PoC) trials of a virtualised evolved packet core (EPC) – an important step in network functions virtualisation (NFV) – in partnership with Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco and NEC.
TotalTelecom

enterprise technology

Google to build its own self-drive cars
Google has revealed that it will build its own self-drive cars. In a blog post, Chris Urmson, director of the Self-Driving Car Project, says the company is planning to build around 100 prototypes with manual controls that will go into testing later this summer. If all goes well, Google then plans to run a small pilot program in California in the next couple of years before moving to full production.
Mobile Marketing

1 in 5 UK workers believe hackers do a worthwhile job
A third of UK professionals are likely to consider risky behaviours that endanger or undermine data protection, a survey has found. The research, commissioned by Courion and conducted by OnePoll, was based on surveying 1000 UK employees who have access to customer data at work. The results suggest a lack of awareness of basic data protection policies and worrying behaviours such as snooping on sensitive personal information and sharing work login details with colleagues.
Information Age

Registry hack enables Windows XP security updates until 2019
Microsoft officially ended its support for Windows XP on 8 April after over 12 years, forcing the hand of a large number of users to switch to a later version of Windows or another OS altogether. However, a sizable portion of XP users are still gambling with their safety but now a registry hack has been discovered which will allow the OS to continue receiving updates.
Hexus

media news
Spotify becomes the latest victim of hackers
Music streaming site Spotify is the latest in a string of technology companies to be targeted by hackers. Spotify said that no financial, password or payment information had been breached but that as a precautionary measure it is asking a portion of its users to re-enter their username and password to log in over the next few days.
The Drum

Billboard launches new singles charts to track Twitter popularity
Billboard have launched two new singles charts, which track a songs’ “up to the minute” popularity on Twitter. Like last year’s move to count YouTube views toward American chart rankings, Billboard’s forward new decision could reinvent the music industry’s definition of a “hit”.
The Guardian

Facebook cracks down on third-party app spam in News Feed
Social network Facebook is looking to reduce the amount of spam cluttering up your timeline, having announced plans to crack down on apps that post without user permission. Facebook said on Wednesday that in a move to curb spam, it will ensure that that third-party apps will post fewer stories on users’ behalf’s, instead promising to prioritise content that its users choose to share. This means that apps such as Instagram and Spotify will no longer tell the world that you’ve liked an image, nor that you’re listening to One Direction.
The Inquirer

telecoms

LG spoils its own surprise by listing metal-clad G3
There are mere hours to go until the LG G3 is officially unveiled, but it seems that LG Netherlands just couldn’t wait that long as it posted a full product page, complete with images, on its website. The listing has since been removed but not before the mistake was noticed and the information revealed to the world. The single most exciting detail to arise from this is that the G3 will apparently have a ‘lightweight metal housing’.
TechRadar

Foxconn to shell out $390 million on 4G player
Apple supplier Foxconn is to buy a stake in Taiwanese mobile telecoms operator Asia Pacific Telecom for T$11.6 billion ($390 million) in a deal that would expand its presence in Taiwan’s fledgling 4G telecoms market. Foxconn would pay T$20 a share for 582.9 million shares in Asia Pacific via a private placement, both companies said in stock exchange filings on Tuesday.
IT Pro

Telstra ‘issue’ hid ADSL availability from rival carriers
The Competitive Carriers Coalition (CCC) has claimed Telstra “discriminate against consumers trying to buy broadband from competitors by incorrectly claiming their telephone lines were unable to provide a service.” The coalition says Telstra applies less stringent tests when its own retail arm seeks access. “As a result, consumers were told they could not get broadband from a competitor, but told they could get it from Telstra,” a CCC spokesentity told The Reg.
The Register

 
enterprise technology

UK anti-piracy police take down largest torrent search engine Torrentz.eu
The internet’s largest torrent search engine, Torrentz.eu, has been taken down in the latest attempt by UK police to curb illegal file sharing. The site’s domain was suspended by the registrar of its domain after a request from the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Police have been sending warning letters to the sites for some time. It made a fresh round of requests last week, including to the registrar of Torrentz.eu, and the site was taken down from this morning.
Independent

Registry hack enables Windows XP security updates
Microsoft officially ended its support for Windows XP on 8 April after over 12 years, forcing the hand of a large number of users to switch to a later version of Windows or another OS all together. However, a sizable portion of XP users are still gambling with their safety but now a registry hack has been discovered which will allow the OS to continue receiving updates. Some organisations, who were unable to migrate their OS onto an updated version before support ended, are still receiving updates from Microsoft by paying the tech giant for the security patches and updates. Meanwhile a simple hack will now make it possible for ‘regular’ XP users to receive Windows XP security updates for the next five years.
Hexus

 
Avast admits 400,000 accounts hit by forum hack
Roughly 400,000 Avast users’ account details have been compromised, following a cyber raid on the security firm’s forums. Avast Software CEO Vince Steckler revealed the breach in a blog post, confirming around 0.2 percent of the firm’s 200 million users’ details were compromised during the attack. The attack occurred over the weekend and forced Avast to shut down its forum. It is currently unclear how the breach occurred, though Steckler said Avast believes the hackers leveraged a vulnerability in third party software being used to host the forum.
V3

media news

John Lewis picks iBeacons, smart home Sonos rival, and 3D planning start-ups as final partners for JLabs incubator scheme
John Lewis has picked five start-ups for its technology incubator scheme JLab following a heavy round of pitching at Canary Wharf-based FinTech accelerator space Level 39 last week. The retailer, which first revealed its plans to ‘invest in the future’ by partnering with technology entrepreneur Stuart Marks to launch the scheme in March, shortlisted 12 companies from the 30 that pitched to its judging panel on 20 May.
The Drum

Thomas Piketty accuses Financial Times of dishonest criticism
Thomas Piketty has accused the Financial Times of ridiculous and dishonest criticism of his economics book on inequality, which has become a publishing sensation. The French economist, whose 577-page tome Capital in the Twenty-First Century has become an unlikely must-read for business leaders and politicians alike, said it was ridiculous to suggest that his central thesis on rising inequality was incorrect.
The Guardian

Electronic ‘nose’ for smartphones keeps spoilt food at bay

According to the World Health Organization, 76 million cases of food-borne illnesses occur each year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths annually. This can be prevented by proper handling of food and ensuring food products are fresh. However, it’s not always that easy to determine whether a food product is already spoilt. Case in point: in the UK alone, seven million tons of food are thrown away each year unnecessarily. However, even some poisonous compounds produced during meat spoilage are actually odourless. This means we humans cannot always rely on our noses to determine if something has already turned bad.

VR-Zone

telecoms

Hutchison said to win EU approval for O2 Irish deal next week
Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. will win European Union approval to take over Telefonica SA (TEF)’s O2 Ireland unit as soon as May 28 after a key EU panel backed the deal, according to two people familiar with the transaction. Officials from the EU’s national competition authorities met this week and gave their support to the European Commission’s plans to approve the deal, said the people who couldn’t be identified because the EU approval process isn’t public. The National regulators’ decision, which isn’t binding, paves the way for the European Commission to grant final approval at its next meeting on Wednesday, the people said.
Bloomberg

YOYO Holdings snags $1.3M for its prepaid Mobile Consumer Survey platform
YOYO Holdings, a rewards platform that targets prepaid mobile phone users in developing economies, has secured $1.3 million in funding from Japanese venture capital firms GREE Ventures, CyberAgent Ventures, and Incubate Fund. Based in Singapore, YOYO Holdings operates a reward platform called Candy which is similar to sites like Swagbucks, but with a twist. Candy users receive SMS texts with a “mission” that may include trivia questions, market research surveys, or in-store promotions. Once they complete a mission, they reply to the message with a code and get a free load, or minutes, on their prepaid mobile.
TechCrunch

Major US carriers unveil VoLTE plans
The evolution of voice continues apace as US carriers Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA reveal plans to launch Voice over LTE, with AT&T expected to follow suit on Friday. Verizon said it will start national rollout of the technology later this year, offering an HD Voice experience, using the AMR-wideband standard, which the company claims to provide the best voice quality available now, and allows for future interoperability with others.
Telecoms.com

enterprise technology

Security now the biggest concern among SMEs

Small-to-medium enterprise (SME) owners have admitted that they feel their businesses are more at risk this year than they were throughout the duration of last year. This is according to research by insurance firm Zurich, which quizzed 513 participants connected with SMEs, as part of its quarterly Zurich SME Risk Index.

ITProPortal

London’s Heron Tower rebranded to Salesforce Tower by San Francisco cloud giant
The iconic Heron Tower in London is set to be renamed Salesforce Tower London as the San Francisco cloud giant continues its push into the UK. The move comes a month after Salesforce announced its intentions to build a new headquarters in San Francisco in a 61-storey skyscraper that’s also been named the Salesforce Tower. The skyscraper, due to be opened in 2017, will be the tallest in San Francisco.
TechWorld

John Lewis runs pitching day for start-ups
John Lewis whittled down the list of 163 applications to its new start-up incubator, JLAB, and invited 30 of the entrepreneurs to co-working space Level 39 in Canary Wharf to pitch their wares. JLAB, which will provide 15 weeks of financial support, office space and business mentoring, will be based several floors above Level 39 in one of the tallest buildings in the UK, One Canada Square. The entrepreneurs had just five minutes each to pitch to the 12 judges, made up of John Lewis directors and other tech leaders. Fifteen of the start-ups were called back to undergo more in-depth grilling by the panel.
ComputerWorldUK

media news

Ebay to step up reassurance after brand perception plummets
The breach occurred between late February and early March, when hackers were able to obtain access to the log-in details of eBay employees, but was only discovered earlier this week. Ebay’s brand has already taken a hit according to YouGov’s BrandIndex. Its buzz score – a measure of the positive and negative things said about a brand – fell by 9.8 points to -0.3 over the past week, a statistically significant decline. That sharp fall caused eBay to drop down a list of 42 online brands from fourth position to 28. Metrics including impression, value and reputation have also fallen.
Marketing Week

Ebay to step up reassurance after brand perception plummets
In the study carried out by Project Sunblock, senior marketing decision makers estimated that bot traffic is costing them between £10-15,000 each year, equivalent to 3,000 video ads on YouTube. However, despite expressing serious concern over the potentially damaging effect of bots, one in five of those surveyed had no method of preventing their brand from falling victim to fraud.
NetImperative

BBC News staff told ‘don’t do anything stupid’ on social media
BBC News staff have been told by bosses: “Don’t do anything stupid” on social media in the wake of the row over a BBC News channel editor posting an anti-UKIP tweet. Mary Hockaday, head of the BBC newsroom, sent an email to journalists on Thursday reminding them of the corporation’s “very clear social media guidance”.
Guardian