Nokia says iPhone will boost market for high-end mobiles

Nokia is hoping that Apple's highly anticipated iPhone will boost consumer appetite for pricier mobile phones with features such as music and video, the Finnish company's chief financial officer said. Smartphones that let users to surf the Web, take photos, listen to music, watch video and sometimes play games games - in addition to making calls - are often priced above $400, before subsidies by mobile carriers. 'The consumer hasn't had a lot of choice to go out and purchase these kind of higher-end, feature-rich multimedia devices,' Nokia CFO Rick Simonson said at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit. ...more

Nominet to streamline domain renewals

Nominet, the registry for the .uk domains is to change the way in which domain renewals are handled. The plan is to allow both the registrant and the registration agent a 'final chance' to renew before the domain name is released. ...more

Intel takes $600 million hit on Wireless Group

Chip giant is to write down $600 million from its Wireless Communications and Computing Group from its fourth quarter results. The 'goodwill impairment charge', as it is called, is because the company estimates that long term growth is not expected to be as bullish as previously estimated. The write down is despite the fact that Intel has put a huge amount of marketing effort into boosting WiFi this year following the launch of the Centrino technologies in March. ...more

AMD goes power-savvy with new Opterons

With an eye on the power requirements of densely packed data centres, AMD has announced two new low-power AMD Opteron server processors. The Model 1218 HE, 2218 HE and 8218 HE chips - covering the single-, two- and eight-way range of Opterons - work within a 68 watt thermal envelope. Running at 2. ...more

SurfTime is all washed up

BT's unmetered service has failed to attract customers and ISP partners, it emerged yesterday. According to figures released by BT, SurfTime has a mere 200,000 subscribed users, despite the telecom giant spending around ?20 million on promoting the service. Not only does the actual number of users fall well short of BT's projections, but the figures translate into a cost of ?100 per customer - not particularly impressive. ...more