Unlike the fat fake Batman who always gets arrested, this vigilante is actually good at his job. Police in the UK say that a man dressed as Batman recently handed over a wanted man to police. After the suspect was in custody, the Batman disappeared. More »
Anyone that calls the UK home will know that Tesco is a retail behemoth and, like many other supermarkets, has turned into a one-stop shop for everything from a pint of milk to the latest video game releases. It’s grown into much more than a store, however, running an MVNO (although it sometimes gets confused about hardware) and the subscription-based video streaming service Blinkbox. Last year, Tesco let its wider digital ambitions be known, acquiring both a music streaming service and an e-book publisher. We’ve now been told these companies are the primordial soup from which its new online content emporiums will spawn later this year, known as Blinkboxmusic and Blinkboxbooks, respectively. And who’ll be responsible for these new ventures? Well, they’re somebodies — Gavin Sathianathan, who was previously Head of Retail (EMEA) at Facebook, will head up the e-book offering, while Mark Bennett, formerly Head of Digital & Cross Channel at rival super-supermarket Sainsbury’s, will run the musical endeavor. Tesco also announced that former Blinkbox exec Scott Deutrom is taking the reins of Clubcard TV, a new ad-supported video streaming service currently being tested. So, what’s next for Tesco, apart from world domination? If industry trends are anything to go by, a mobile OS, most likely.
Filed under: Internet
Via: The Telegraph
Source: Tesco (Blinkbox)
Between Skype, Google Voice, Viber and several smaller players, there are plenty of platform-agnostic services vying to put your voice through their IP (get it?), and now UK carrier O2 is introducing us to its twist on multi-device communication with TU Go. It’s like a marriage of the traditional phone service with the idea of making calls on your laptop, or sending messages from your tablet. An evolution of parent company Telefonica’s similar TU Me apps, the TU Go software spreads your phone number across up to five devices simultaneously. You can make and receive calls / texts and manage your voicemail from compatible kit with a cellular or data connection, with all activity aggregated into one “timeline.” You can’t hook your smartphone up to WiFi, or gab away on another device to avoid eating into your plan’s allowance, though — all usage is treated as if it originated from your phone. TU Go is now available to all O2 customers on a monthly contract, and if you want your whole house to ring at once, head to the link below to find apps for iOS, Android, and a beta for Windows 7 (note: it really is 7-specific, and won’t run in Windows 8).
Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, Software, Mobile
Source: O2
British Sky Broadcasting Group otherwise known as BSkyB has announced that it will purchase Telefonica’s fixed-line business within the UK. That fixed-line business covers both broadband and telephony businesses. The purchase will cost BSkyB $303 million (£200million) and the deal was announced early today.
The deal isn’t complete just yet and is subject to regulatory clearance. The two companies expect the deal to close in April. If the deal receives regulatory approvals Telefonica UK customers will be moved from existing O2 and BE broadband and will become Sky customers.
The deal will make Sky the UK’s second largest Internet provider putting it behind BT and ahead of Virgin Media in size. The deal breaks down to £180 million for Telefonica’s broadband business. An additional £20 million will be granted conditionally. The condition for that extra money is the “successful delivery completion of the customer migration process.”
According to reports, Telefonica’s broadband fixed line service has seen its customer base shrinking. The company peaked at 671,000 customers and then declined to its current 560,000 customer range. Many companies within the UK are keen to acquire other firms so this isn’t likely to be the only consolidation in the UK market for telecommunications this year.
[via Gigaom]
BSkyB spends $303 million on Telefonica UK fixed line business is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Sky already supplies fixed phone line and broadband on top of its TV services in the UK, but it’s just announced it’ll be gaining a few more customers. The company has shaken hands with Telefonica UK to purchase the latter’s broadband and phone line business provided by the consumer-facing O2 and BE brands. As you would imagine, big bucks will change hands: Sky plans to fork over £180 million (around $273 million) right off the bat, and will write a cheque for up to a further £20 million (circa $30 million) “dependent upon the successful delivery and completion of the customer migration process by Telefonica UK.” Regulators will need to give the deal the thumbs up before it’s official, but if and when that happens, Sky will become the second biggest ISP in the UK after adding over 500,000 new customers to its books. Should everything progress as planned, the buyout will be completed by the end of April, which gives Rupert Murdoch just enough time to carry out the vault extension he’ll need.
Update: If you’re worried this transaction will impact anything you’re currently signed up to, you can probably rest easy. O2 has tweeted one of our editors to report “there will be no material change to a customer’s broadband service and no fundamental contract change.”
Via: GigaOM
No matter which provider you plump for, the UK’s fiber broadband roll-out won’t connect many under-served rural communities. Annoyed at the snub, residents of Frilford and Frilford Heath teamed up with infrastructure business Gigaclear to do something about it — with startling results. The company’s fiber broadband service promises a whopping 1,000Mbps, putting it in the same leagues as Google’s Kansas-based internet experiment. While it’ll set locals back £195 ($295) to reach that top speed, it’s far better than having no choice at all.
Filed under: Networking
US-born mobile payment methods like PayPal Here and Square haven’t had much traction in Europe, due in no small part to the continent’s frequent reliance on chip-and-PIN credit cards over North America’s (slowly outgoing) magnetic stripes. PayPal is getting around that technical barrier through the most direct method possible — replacing the reader altogether. PayPal Here’s UK deployment swaps out the triangular US reader for a considerably bulkier Bluetooth peripheral that takes the newer payment method. Other elements will be familiar to anyone who’s used Here on an Android or iOS device in another country, minus the obligatory changes in currency. PayPal is partnering with a handful of UK businesses before launching Here on a wider scale in the summer — not soon enough for some, but it might save a few Brits from scrounging through their wallets just to buy some ice cream.
Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Tablets
Via: TechCrunch
Source: PayPal
In Sky’s latest bid (after getting Sony and Warner on the hook) to corner premium viewing content in the UK before rivals including Lovefilm and Netflix get traction, it has announced an extension to its 24-year agreement with Disney. Beyond guaranteeing Disney — which means Lucasfilm, of course — Pixar and Marvel flicks will be on Sky (plus Sky Go, and 3D movies on Sky 3D) a year before any other service, it’s also creating a new Sky Movies Disney Channel in its lineup that launches March 28th. In order to reach those not with the typical TV package, the deal also brings Disney’s movies to Sky’s Now TV internet video service for users with a monthly movie pass. We’re sure 24 years ago, such deals didn’t cover so many devices or avenues of access but snagging exclusives to gain a market advantage has stayed exactly the same.
Filed under: HD
Source: Sky
UK regulator Ofcom has revealed the winners of its 4G spectrum auction after more than 50 rounds of bidding: EE, Hutchison 3G (Three), BT subsidiary Niche Spectrum Ventures, Telefonica (O2) and Vodafone. It wasn’t all good news however, as the agency revealed the auction only roped in £2.4 billion pounds, less than the £3.5 billion it had anticipated. Left on the outside looking in? MLL Telecom and HKT Company. Interestingly enough it was Vodafone — headed by CEO Vittorio Colao who famously suggested only “technofreaks” were into 4G speed — that spent the most.
The idea is to spread high speed wireless across “almost the whole” UK population by 2017 at the latest, and the auction’s intent was to create more competition in the space. Telefonica UK specifically is required to provide indoor reception to at least 98 percent of the population by then, as a condition of its bid. As seen above, the available 250MHz of spectrum was auctioned off in two separate bands, 800MHz (ideal for expanded coverage and freed up by the digital TV transition) and 2.6GHz more suited to high speed data connections. So what’s next? You guessed it — another round of bidding, to determine where in each band the winners spectrum lies, before services roll out in spring or summer of this year. Hit the source link to check out the full results for yourself and prepare for the 5G battle, expected to commence sometime after 2018.
Source: Ofcom
When EE activated its LTE network part-way through its fourth-quarter, there was an assumption speed-hungry Brits would storm the company’s numerous stores to get at that super-fast mobile data. The reality, however, seems to indicate that it takes more than a Kevin Bacon commercial to send the homeland into a frenzy. The company’s financial results show that the network only added 201,000 customers between October and December 31st — 49,000 fewer than in Q3 and 112,000 fewer than signed up in the same period in 2011. EE also isn’t breaking out figures for how many of its existing customers made the change — so for now we’ll have to assume that the UK isn’t as sweet on the guy from Footloose as Olaf Swanee had hoped.
Filed under: Cellphones
Source: EE
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