Is the Gphone on the way?

An article in The Times today reports blog chatter that Google is about to launch a $100, internet-enabled handset with a touch screen, which will include Google’s VoIP package Google Talk.

Called the Gphone, the handset’s existence could be announced as early as next week, with a launch price of only $100.

Google has refused to comment.

Read the article in The Times.

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder

Free sports channels for Virgin Media TV customers this weekend

Virgin Media is giving away three Setanta Sports channels – Setanta Sports 1 and 2 and Setanta Golf - free of charge this weekend, to all its three million TV customers. That means ticketless footie fans will be able to watch Manchester United play Sunderland – plus live coverage of Scottish champions Celtic playing St Mirren in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League. There is also top European action with live coverage of matches from Germany, France and Portugal.

Virgin Media TV customers will have access to Setanta Sports 1, 2 and Setanta Golf all day Saturday and Sunday for no extra charge. Medium and Large TV pack customers would usually pay £8 a month for access to the Setanta bundle of channels.

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder

Be Broadband introduces 8Mb Be Value broadband package

Superfast broadband provider Be, known for its home and business broadband packages with speeds of up to 24Mb, has replaced its Be Lite broadband package with Be Value.

Be Value only offers speeds of up to 8Mb, and is £14 a month – the same as the now-defunct up to 24Mb package Be Lite. However Be Value does offer unlimited downloads (subject to a fair use policy).

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder

Broadband connections in UK continue to grow says ONS

The internet Connectivity report for June 2007 from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that UK internet users are continuing to move over to broadband, with 86.1% of all internet connections in June being via broadband, up from 83.6% in March this year. In June only 13.9% of internet connections were dial up.

Additionally, 47% of all internet users have broadband speeds of 2Mb or over.

It is thought that increased competition and the wide availability of broadband in the UK has fueled its growth.

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder

TV heading for its “iPod moment”

The Telegraph reports that Vint Cerf, Vice President of Google, is predicting the end of TV as we know it – as it reaches its “iPod moment” and users start simply downloading only those programmes they want to watch, to view at a time convenient to them.

He said: “You’re still going to need live television for certain things – like news, sporting events and emergencies – but increasingly it is going to be almost like the iPod, where you download content to look at later.”

According to Cerf, the predicted broadband traffic jams as users switch to downloading TV programmes won’t be a major problem – and he likened the gloomy predictions to those made two decades ago about the likely snarl-ups as millions of people started using the web.

Read the Telegraph article here.

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder

BT signs up Paypal for BT Tradespace

BT has teamed up with Paypal to allow BT Tradespace users to buy and sell products and services directly within the online community.

BT Tradespace is a marketplace for small businesses – it is free to sign up for a basic tradespace, and it provides an ideal way to promote a business. Each BT Tradespace member can add product and service offers, blogs, photos, podcasts, contact information, and maps – and join communities.

Now BT Tradespace users will be able to add transactional capabilities to their individual Tradespaces. This will allow individuals and businesses to send and receive payments securely wherever they are in the world, turning their virtual shop front into a powerful sales tool. Free to set up and with no listing fee, merchants will only pay transaction fees on completed sales.

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder

Virgin Media offers broadband for under £5 a month

The broadband and entertainment company Virgin Media has announced a limited-time very low price broadband offer – their cable broadband Size M package, which has speeds up to 2Mb, is now only £4.50 a month. There is a catch – you have to take a Virgin Media phone package with the broadband to take advantage of this deal.

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder

Virgin Media CEO leaves with immediate effect

Virgin Media CEO Steve Burch has left the company with immediate effect for personal and family reasons.

Burch joined the broadband, TV, phone and mobile group in January 2006 and saw it through the mergers with cable companies NTL and Telewest and the acquisition of Virgin Mobile.

Virgin Media COO Neil Berkett is taking on the role of acting CEO.

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder

Home networking still too complex

An article on the BBC News website today about the difficulties many people will face setting up home networks to make the most of photos, video etc. Van Baker, a research vice-president at Gartner, calls the difficulties people face in setting up a home network simply and easily “the elephant in the room”.

Gartner researches what it calls the Hype Cycle which looks at new technology as it emerges, then becomes cheaper and accessible, to whether it actually proves its usefulness – and then on, in some cases, to what it calls the trough of disillusionment when ordinary home users come up against problems that stop them using the technology the way they want to (for example, files that don’t work on all platforms, or restrictive digital rights).

Despite technologies such as wifi becoming much common among ordinary users as they get used to the benefits, Baker still feels that we’re a way off from easy-to-use home networking technology where you buy it, plug it in and it just works.

Read the BBC article here.

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder

Skype back to normal

Skype says that its peer to peer calling service is now back to normal after their recent problems which left users unable to make or receive calls. On their blog http://heartbeat.skype.com they say that it was caused by a restart of users’ computers who were rebooting after receiving a Windows update.

By Sarah at UK Broadband Finder