3 mobile sees traffic rocket sevenfold thanks to USB broadband adaptors

It’s the future. It’s definitely the future. One little USB dongle that’s your broadband connection wherever you go. No hotspot fee rip-offs, no internet separation anxieties, no worries.

And this attainable futuristic dream has resulted in a traffic bonanza for 3, with its newly cheaper USB broadband adaptor making web traffic on its network rocket by seven times in the last six months alone. Here, look, it’s so happy it’s made a graph about it:

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“Sometimes the core network has been running at 102 per cent of capacity, at other times…

Europe votes "no" to internet bans for file sharers. We are saved!

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The EU has just voted against the idea of banning file-sharers from using the internet, in a rare victory for the right-thinking common man.

Any possible plan to criminalise file-sharing was rejected by EU members, along with the concept of axing the web connections of those caught Bittorrenting the entire output of Hollywood overnight. It’s OK. You’re not going to get done for it any more…

"Energy Saving Day was worth the effort" says the man who came up with the idea of Energy Saving Day

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Matt Prescott, who’s Energy Saving Day actually saw a rise in energy consumption at the end of it, said it was still worth his effort as it helped raise awareness of the causes and led to energy companies simplifying their home insulation schemes. Awesome.

Even though E-Day clearly raised zero awareness with consumers, as everyone happily boiled more water than strictly necessary and left the oven on to keep the kitchen warm…

Four HD channels will arrive in time for the 2012 Olympics, says airwave police Ofcom

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The slow, painful, expensive trek toward free-to-air HD TV channels took another tiny little baby step forward today, with wireless data chiefs Ofcom declaring that we’ll definitely have HD TV through our telly aerials by 2012.

Previously Ofcom and the major broadcasters signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding” stating that they were all well up for it in principle – now it’s 100% definitely happening. No more massively expensive Sky HD subscription required!

A total of four HD…

Brit bloggers love Apple, BBC, Google, and M&S

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British bloggers like nothing better than writing about technology and web companies, but also hold a special place for Marks & Spencer, according to a recent month-long study of 100 random bloggers — “Blogs and Brands: A Study of the British Blogosphere”.

In top place, with bloggers babbling about iPods and Macs, came Apple, followed by the BBC in second, Google in third, Facebook in fourth, Nintendo in fifth, M&S and Microsoft in joint sixth, Adobe, Sony, and YouTube in joint seventh, Sky in eighth, Nokia, IKEA, and Tesco in joint ninth, and a whole bunch of others in joint tenth place…

Survey: HD DVD is dead, but did anyone tell the online retailers?

With the HD DVD Promotional Group dissolving, Toshiba abandoning ship, and precious few studios releasing anything on the format any more, you’d have to be totally uninformed and just a little bit stupid to buy an HD DVD player thinking that it was the future.

Enter two fairly benign entities — online retailers and the Great British consumer — which when mixed can be deadly (or at least, good for making expensive mistakes)

Still, surely we can rely on our helpful, informative, reliable, up-to-date online retailers to ensure that visitors to their web site don’t make a stupid purchase they’ll regret as soon as it leaves its cardboard and polystyrene womb?

You’d think…

Here’s a roundup of some key (and not so key) Internet stores, and their current attitude towards HD DVD…

Mobile phones worse than smoking or asbestos, neurosurgeon claims

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A top British neurosurgeon and medical researcher, Dr Vini Khurana, has publicly spoken out about the dangers he sees in the use of mobile phones.

With something of an obsession — he’s published over 30 papers on cell phones and their links to disease — he doesn’t mince his words.

“Mobile phones could have health consequences far greater than asbestos and smoking. There is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours.”…