Much has been written on rising household bills following recent price hikes by the major energy suppliers. Less discussed is the altogether happier situation in the world of broadband. A quick search online informs me that a standalone broadband package can now be grabbed for just £2.99 per month excluding line rental. This means connecting to the World Wide Web could cost you about the same as a latte from your local Starbucks. Broadband prices halved from 2008 to 2010 according to the ICT Price Basket, and since then have dropped even… Read the rest...

The online world has launched a blackout fest to voice its very strong view against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), which some industry insiders said somewhat resembled our own pride and joy – the DEA (Digital Economy Act). Websites such as Wikipedia, WordPress, PostSecret, Internet Archive and Reddit have all gone dark (quite literally) today in a bid for the US lawmakers to think long and hard before giving the legislation the green light. Meanwhile the Motion Picture Association of America was not impressed with the actions the websites have taken… Read the rest...

This Monday seemed to have a lot of news about fighting piracy and jailing the copyright infringement facilitators. Yes, it was a mouth-full. First of all Rupert Murdoch went on a Twitter rage saying that Google was in favour of piracy and that its search results were full of “plain stealing”. Another piece of news was that the mastermind behind TVShack has been sent to jail for five years for continuing to provide links for people to view content illegally. Very intense Monday indeed. But… Read the rest...

Imagine this: you go to your local supermarket, you get eggs, milk, bananas, bread and navigate towards the cashiers. But having scanned all the items, you realise that, oh heavens, you forgot your wallet. BUT there is no need to worry, as you can always pay with your smartphone. Phew. This is Visa’s (among other credit card and banking giants) ideal world. Sounds great, eh? Nevertheless, I am so very tempted to list things which can go wrong with the aforementioned scenario. Forgive me, I am merely human. 1. I personally am more likely… Read the rest...

The future is near – and it already brings the following broadband enabled devices such as laptops, tablet computers, TVs, home phones, smartphones, game consoles, mp3 players, electronic books and of course cars. What else can we connect to the world wide web? How about kitchen appliances such as the humble coffee maker: why not integrate Google and voice commands into the device so when you say you want French coffee – it googles how to prepare that, tells you the recipe and if you like it, all you have… Read the rest...