According to a study carried out by Markess International, the majority of local authorities should have initiated an open data process between now and 2017, French IT news site Le Monde Informatique reports. This type of project forms a springboard for digital transformation. While local government reform is is redrawing the local authority map, digital […]
Although Linus Torvalds, the originator of the Linux kernel, announced his initial work on the kernel on 25th August 1991, it was not until 5th October 1991 that Linus actually released his code: Linux kernel 0.01. With this October anniversary in mind, it’s worth taking a bit of time to review what’s changed to the […]
Matthias Kirschner and Alessandro Rubini are the new President and Vice-President respectively of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). They were elected last week in Bucharest during FSFE’s General Assembly, while Reinhard Müller was re-elected as Financial Officer. They will serve FSFE in those capacities for the next 2 years. Matthias Kirschner has been an […]
Ooh aargh me hearties! Besides being International Talk Like a Pirate Day (hat tip: Rich), 19th September 2015 is also a date for the diaries of people advocating free and open source software; it’s Software Freedom Day 2015. The idea of Software Freedom Day (SFD) is for everyone without a vested interest in proprietary software […]
Last weekend saw the staging of BarnCamp 2015 (in which Bristol Wireless’ volunteers have been involved since its inception. Ed.). Running from Friday 19th June to Sunday 21st, BarnCamp was as usual a low-cost rural DIY skillsharing event open to everyone, including UK activists, campaigners, people involved in social and community groups and anybody else […]
Barncamp is a low-cost, rural DIY skills sharing event open to everyone, including UK activists, campaigners, people involved in social and community groups, and anybody else with an interest in technology and how to subvert it to put it to good use. All skill levels are welcome and the organisers promise that workshops are not […]
The village of Claverton, a couple of miles south of Bath, was not best pleased when residents discovered they were to be bypassed by the £2 bn. scheme to provide the rural UK with superfast broadband. They decided to do something about it, according to yesterday’s Western Daily Press. What they decided to do was […]
UK residents can hardly fail to have noticed that a general election is taking place next Thursday, 7th May. As is usual with elections, the record of the previous administration, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, the UK’s first peacetime coalition since that of January 1919 to October 1922, is coming under intense scrutiny from all quarters. […]
The small village of Adderley sits just inside north Shropshire, barely a mile from the Cheshire border. Nothing has really changed there for years (the chief scribe grew up nearby. Ed.). And for the last 6 years, residents have been frustrated by slow local broadband speeds. However, there’s now been one major change. Saturday’s Shropshire […]
Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES has announced that its Astra Connect for Communities solution will be used in a UK government-funded market test pilot (MTP) project to assess which technologies and commercial models are best suited to provide superfast broadband (download speeds of at least 24 Mbps. Ed.) to the final 5% of UK households that […]
At Prime Minister’s questions today, David Cameron (he’s a prime minister impersonator, isn’t he? Ed. 😉 ) informed MPs that the ability to access wifi was vital for rail travellers and promised investment of £50mn. to provide more wifi on the railway from 2017, today’s Western Daily Press reports. The investment in wifi the PM […]
Today’s Stoke Sentinel reports that faster internet speeds can be expected today in parts of Staffordshire. However, the Sentinel’s piece does not mention any expected connection speeds. 🙁 The localities concerned are parts of Kidsgrove, Werrington, Stone and Blackshaw Moor, which have been connected to the fibre network following a link-up between Staffordshire County Council […]
The first joint venture between Bristol City Council and the University of Bristol has been announced (press release). In a move to combine University research and advanced technology with council owned infrastructure, the company will develop an innovative high-performance, high-speed network in Bristol. The company, known as Bristol Is Open, will be established by the […]
In December 2010, 7 months after it assumed power, the UK’s coalition government issued a document (PDF) entitled Britain’s Superfast Broadband Future. In that document’s introduction, the then Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt and Minister for Culture Communications & the Creative Industries Ed Vaizey stated: Broadband is one of our top priorities. We took office earlier […]
Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph reports that Ofcom is to make more frequencies available for mobile broadband. This will result in faster and cheaper mobile data services and will benefit those in rural areas in particular. The 700 MHz frequency band that is currently used by digital terrestrial TV services and wireless microphones will be opened up […]
Libraries in North Somerset are taking part in national ‘Get Online Week‘ next week between 13th and 17th October, according to a council press release. Get Online Week is now in its eighth year and this national campaign aims to inspire people to get online and see what the internet can do for them. At […]
Rural broadband is a really hot issue in South Gloucestershire (news passim), so much so that two local political parties – the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives – are currently vying in the local press as to who provided the biggest gains to residents. Yesterday, S. Gloucestershire Liberal Democrats claimed in the Bristol Post that Liberal […]
Local news site Bristol 24/7 carried a post today on the Super Connected Cities’ broadband connection vouchers scheme. The scheme covers 22 UK towns and cities, including Bristol Under the scheme, companies, sole traders and charities can apply for up £3,000 to gain access to high speed broadband. However, author Rob Buckland omitted one small […]
The Bristol Post is not renowned locally for its in-depth coverage of technology, let alone such exotic areas as crytocurrencies, but today proved an exception as it reported on the fortunes of Bristol’s only Bitcoin cash machine, which is located in Superfoods in St Stephen’s Street (review here) in the centre. SatoshiPoint, the machine’s owners […]
Close on the heels of complaints of poor connectivity in London’s Silicon Roundabout area (news passim) and the roll-out of ‘superfast’ broadband in Wiltshire being described as a ‘scam‘ (news passim), comes more criticism of the UK’s lousy connectivity from closer to home – Thornbury and Yate, the parliamentary constituency of Liberal Democrat MP Steve […]