John Lister

Microsoft is attempting to boost use of its Media Center tools by offering a sports channel. The programming kicks off with extensive coverage of college basketball's March Madness. The new channel, which goes live this week, will include footage ... from Fox, MSNBC and CBS. There will be no subscription charge or other costs. The footage is only available in the Vista edition and is not compatible with the Windows 7 Beta. (Source: cnet.com ) To launch the channel, Microsoft will be showing replays of those games in the final stages of the NCAA basketball tournament. The event, known as March ... (view more)

A leading consumer group has condemned the high cost of phone-in technical support offered by British technology firms. At least 70% of the firms studied charge more than a standard phone call, with Internet service providers rated as the worst ... offenders. "Which? Computing", a magazine produced by the Consumer Association, looked at 45 firms in the country to test the price and response time of their telephone support. It found that 32 firms only offer phone support through numbers which cost more than a standard call, with the firms themselves taking a cut of the revenue. Four ... (view more)

A telecommunications firm in Great Britain has received full regulatory permission to build a national fiber-optic network for broadband. It could mean speeds of up to 100 Mbps for those in cities, with rural dwellers left behind. The company ... concerned, British Telecom (BT), was once the monopoly provider of phone services in the country. Today it competes with others, but still controls the phone network itself, meaning phone users must either rent a line from BT or use a cable service. At the moment the fastest cable service belongs to Virgin Cable, which has just launched a premium 50Mbps ... (view more)

It seems the world's most popular social networking site was just moments away from acquiring another -- and few of us ever knew about it. A Facebook executive has revealed that a planned takeover of Twitter only fell apart because of a disagreement ... over stock valuations. Despite the rather miserable economy, Facebook is still looking to buy out other firms and says it could make a billion dollars a year from advertising. Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist who put up some of the money behind Facebook, discussed the deal in a Business Week interview. (Thiel was discussing the business aspects ... (view more)

Microsoft could lose more than $800 million dollars a year in the British market if the country's government sticks to plans to use more open source software. New guidelines say public services should avoid being locked into proprietary products. ... The changes don't mean Windows will be ditched overnight (as is happening in Vietnam ), but instead policy will be that open source software should be used wherever it presents a better value. This could include both Linux-based operating systems and open source applications such as the Microsoft Office-like Open Office. Larger organizations may also ... (view more)

Windows 7 beta testers are disputing whether or not Microsoft's is taking notice of their feedback. The dispute follows a blog post by Steven Sinofsky, the man in charge of engineering Windows 7 . He notes that in one week in January Microsoft ... received data through Windows 7's automatic feedback system every 15 seconds. According to Sinofsky, it's impossible to keep everyone happy. That's partly because there are only so many changes Microsoft can make to the system and still finish it, and partly because in many cases testers often have opposing views about a feature. (Source: msdn.com ) Ina ... (view more)

A new report finds that British politicians are not doing enough to harness the two-way communications offered by the Internet. While most use emails and have a website, few have their own personal blogs or social networking pages. The survey, ... carried out by research group the Hansard Society, questioned 168 of the 646 members of the British parliament, selected as a representative sample. Only 8% of those questioned did not have a website. However, the proportion who engaged in other forms of online communication was generally inversely proportional to the level of interactivity involved. ... (view more)

Internet radio site Last.fm has denied reports that it told the record industry which of its members had listened to a leaked U2 album. The site claims the entire story, published by Techcrunch, was made up. Last week the record industry became ... extremely concerned after U2's forthcoming album appeared on several torrent file sharing sites. While there is no way any users could have acquired the album through Last.fm, the site's statistics suggest that more than 8,000 users have played the unreleased album on their machines. Employees 'Up In Arms' Late on Friday night the tech blogging site ... (view more)

Microsoft has revealed that Windows 7 will include better mobile broadband connection, more and clearer fonts, and improved handwriting recognition. But most analysts are more interested in several updates which will contain absolutely nothing new. ... Starting on Tuesday, Microsoft is releasing up to five updates to the current beta edition of the system. The updates do not contain any new features or fix any problems: that won't come until the next test edition. These updates simply replace files with near-identical copies and are designed to ensure that the Windows Update delivery system is ... (view more)

Several incidents this week have reawakened questions over Apple's policy of screening submissions to its iPhone App store -- including the recent rejection of a highly-anticipated South Park app. There have been repeated claims of inconsistency ... ever since the launch of the store, the only official way to distribute applications for use on the iPhone and iPod touch. An official South Park app, which would have featured streaming clips from the show, was first submitted for review in October. It was finally rejected this week because the content is "potentially offensive". Even if you agree ... (view more)