Shock: Statistics show that the over-60 silver foxes are using the internet, gasp!

silverfoxpic.jpg David Attenborough Katherine Hannaford reports on the latest trend amongst silver foxes, a new-fangled thing called INTERNET BROWSING.

The silver fox, a once-rare breed but now filling our nursing hospitals and granny flats more and more often these days, demanding mushy-peas and the volume cranked up on The Last of The Summer Wine, has shocked the fox-loving community by confirming in a survey with Pipex Internet that not only do they know what the internet is, but they use it.

Obviously the younger generations are trying to stop this epidemic, putting complicated five-letter passwords on their computers and setting the clocks forward two hours to send the silver foxes off to bed earlier and earlier each night, but it is a growing problem in our fox-loving community….

Ofcom survey: overall TV watching down, digital and HD up

tv.pngThe latest Communications Market Report from Ofcom shows that, overall, Britons are watching slightly less TV than last year, down 4% to 3 hours and 36 minutes per day, but that viewers are watching more digital terrestrial, satellite, and high definition content.

Digital TV of some kind is now in four out of five UK households, while for those 450,000 homes who have access to some kind of high definition content, 33% of their viewing time is spent watching it.

Echoing similar studies in the US, it seems that a significant proportion (43%) of those who do have high definition TV are viewing more as a result , particularly premium content such as films and sport.

Are these the 30 most popular blogs in the world today?

top_30_blog_list.gifAccording to one research firm, other blog popularity-ranking services are flawed because they only use one or two measurements to calculate the most popular blogs.

They, on the other hand, use a schmorgasboard of statistics including inbound links from the likes of Yahoo and Google, Alexa (does anyone normal actually use their toolbar?), plus US unique monthly visitor data.

Spotting a fundamental flaw in this already?

Or, in other words, how many of those blogs are not US-based?

High definition discs outsell VHS tapes: is it really a milestone?

dvd.jpgAccording to research from Video Business, the combined sales of Blu-ray and HD DVD high definition discs was greater than that of VHS cassettes sold in the first half of 2007.

Although standard definition DVD sales also slumped by around 5% in the same period, due mainly to a weak bunch of new releases, the dominant disc format is hardly challenged by these findings.

Sales of pre-recorded video tapes are all but non-existent now, with most consumers preferring the greater convenience, features, quality, and smaller form factor of DVDs.

Built to last? Panasonic high definition plasma TVs will last at least 42 years

panasonic_plasma_tv.jpgPanasonic has published a lifespan statistic for its “full” high definition (1080p) plasma TVs: on average they’ll last at least 42 years before the brightness of the display degrades to less than 50%.

That’s based on an average 6.5 hours viewing every single day – or 100,000 hours in total.

Even its 720p high definition plasma TVs will last for 60,000 hours (around 25 years).

It’s an interesting statistic to highlight, in a fast-paced, needed-to-be-replaced-last-week technology culture, and though I don’t know the exact statistic for people replacing their TVs is, I bet it’s closer to 5-10 years than 42.

Londoners love their gadgets, and Brits spent £7.8bn overall

money_bags.gifNew research from GfK shows that Brits spent over £7.8 billion on consumer electronics between May 2006 and April 2007. That equates to an average £311 for each household.

Londoners easily top the pile, spending at least twice as much on gadgets as any other region, with £2.2bn spent, or £431 per household.

Those in the south west of England spent the least, at just £195m, or £245 per household.

Average increase in spending on the previous year was 10.6%, proving that we’re still happily spending more on consumer electronics products than ever before.