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Tag Archives: social change

Marches “broadband” round-up

Welsh Assembly member Russell George, who is chair of the Assembly’s Economy, Infrastructure &Skills Committee, is hosting a Broadband Summit to be held Monday 20th March 2017. Mr George has been a long-term campaigner for improved broadband coverage in North Powys and at the summit community leaders and representatives from across the area will be […]

Malmesbury – fast broadband takes the slow route

Whenever your correspondent visits Malmesbury in Wiltshire, it has an unhurried air. This is in spite of some past events that happened very quickly but added to its history, such as Eilmer, the local 11th century monk at the local abbey who made an early yet unsuccessful attempt at a gliding flight using wings, or […]

Longitude Explorer Prize accepting entries

In the spirit of the 18th Century Longitude Prize – a competition that set the task of determining a ship’s exact location at sea – NESTA‘s Longitude Explorer Prize focuses on how to solve a contemporary challenge using technology. The Longitude Explorer Prize challenges young people to develop innovative, practical solutions that use the Internet […]

Sadiq Khan unveils £7 mn. fund to help young Londoners access tech jobs

Yesterday the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced a £7 mn. programme to arm young Londoners with the skills needed to get jobs in the city’s thriving digital, technology and creative sectors. Called the Digital Talent Programme, the scheme will have a particular focus on boosting the proportion of women in the industry (currently just […]

Stoke to provide residents with cheap broadband

Some 15,000 households in Stoke-on-Trent (population: 251,000) don’t have an internet connection at present, but Stoke-on-Trent City Council wants to change that, according to yesterday’s Sentinel, by offering cut-price broadband deals. The local authority estimates estimates this “digital divide” is costing the Potteries’ poorest families up to £21 mn. per annum and is looking to […]

Swansea to be pilot location for BT’s new G.fast technology

Yesterday’s Wales Online reports that Swansea will be first cities in Britain where residents will be able to enjoy ultra-fast broadband with download speeds of up to 330Mbps, i.e. up to 10 times the UK’s current average download speed. Details are still scant, but “thousands” of Swansea premises will be able to access this new […]

Shropshire to tackle broadband “not-spots”

Broadband “not-spots” across Shropshire will be tackled in a £12 mn. scheme to connect more than 16,000 properties, Saturday’s Shropshire Star reports. Phase 2b of the Connecting Shropshire broadband programme is now being launched with the emphasis on bringing decent broadband to those Salopians who currently don’t have it. Of the 16,000 properties being targeted, […]

Free unlimited wifi at 180 French railway stations

French railway company SNCF has announced that free and unlimited wifi is available at 180 French railway stations and deployment is currently underway at stations in the Ile-de-France region. Wifi access is available in station passenger buildings; this excludes platforms, subways and station forecourts). It will also be available at underground stations in the Ile-de-France […]

Building IoT London: Call for Papers ends in fortnight

German IT news website heise and our old friends The Register are joint sponsors of the Building IoT London event to be held in March 2017. The former reported at the end of last week that software developers doing professional work on the Internet of Things have until 7th October to suggest proposals for presentations […]

Wales: “digital skills are as important as learning to read or write”

The Welsh Government in Cardiff Bay has announced new plans to improve children’s IT skills, today’s Wales Online reports. All aspects of the curriculum for Welsh schoolchildren will include digital skills for the first time this term to prepare pupils better for life, with such skills not being confined solely to information and communications technology […]

Get online at J3

Your ‘umble scribe has today received an email from Kurt James, Neighbourhood Partnership Co-ordinator at Bristol City Council, announcing an event next month in east Bristol. Bristol Libraries is organising a free (as in beer. Ed. 😀 ) digital skills workshop next month in collaboration with the Ashton, Easton and Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Partnership and […]

Protests planned for W3C meeting in Lisbon

Next week, demonstrators will gather at a meeting of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in Lisbon, Portugal to make the same demand as was made at the last major W3C meeting in March: stop streaming companies from inserting DRM into the HTML standard on which the Web is based. The protest is being organised […]

Commission wants to deploy thousands of wifi hotspots

As part of the strategy to create a single European digital market, the European Commission is preparing to invest €120 mn. to promote access to wireless connectivity in public places under the heading of Wifi4EU. According to Le Monde Informatique, this could see up to 6,000 publicly accessible wifi access points deployed, whilst the Commission’s […]

Labour commits to open source

Yesterday the Labour Party’s digital democracy manifesto (PDF) was launched by embattled party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, The Register reports. For ordinary citizens perhaps the most significant feature is its universal service commitment. We will deliver high speed broadband and mobile connectivity for every household, company and organisation in Britain from the inner city neighbourhoods to […]

Caernarfon secures £10K for town centre wi-fi

Caernarfon‘s Business Improvement District (BID) has secured £20,000 of funding for improvements, today’s Daily Post reports. Of this total, some £10,000 “will pay to develop a town wi-fi which would give visitors a chance to get online“. Measured against the town’s population, the wi-fi scheme represents an investment of just over £1 per head.

The People’s Code – Federal Source Code policy released by White House

Two days ago, Tony Scott, the U.S. Chief Information Officer, wrote on the White House blog that the Federal government was releasing the Federal Source Code policy (PDF) to support improved access to custom-developed Federal source code. The policy, which incorporates feedback from the public, requires any new custom-developed source code developed specifically by or […]

Somerset villages get 1 Mbps “broadband”

Residents of the Somerset villages and hamlets of Ashton, Badgworth and Stone and Chapel Allerton are currently enduring “broadband” speeds as low as 1 Mbps. The Weston Mercury reports that the villagers recently held a meeting to discuss the situation and discovered they were eligible to apply for a grant scheme to improve their connectivity. […]

Midlands broadband round-up

First the good news. Yesterday’s Sentinel reports that the north Staffordshire villages of Talke (home of Reginald Mitchell, creator of the Spitfire. Ed.) and Talke Pits will be amongst the next 30 communities to benefit from 200 Mbps ultrafast broadband as part of Virgin Media’s £3 bn. network expansion in the UK. Commenting on the […]

“Superfast” broadband coming to more S. Gloucs. villages

Some 2,000 homes and businesses in South Gloucestershire are set to benefit from an investment of £1.49 mn. in so-called “superfast” broadband up to 2017. The South Gloucestershire villages are likely to benefit from this cash injection include Tytherington, Dyrham, Hinton, Littleton-upon-Severn, Oldbury-on-Severn, Cromhall, Elberton, Codrington and Little Sodbury, although surveys will need to be […]

Telford to apply for EU funding for better business broadband

Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet is set to approve a scheme to apply for European funding to provide better broadband for business, today’s Shropshire Star reports. If the bid is successful, the funding will be used to give eligible businesses grants for fibre optic broadband through the Marches Broadband Grant project. Telford & Wrekin Council […]