Unbundled local loops to pass 28 million by 2010 - report

The UK may be making headway when it comes to local loop unbundling (LLU), but its lead is likely to be swiftly followed by its Western European counterparts, according to research published today by telecoms, IT and media analyst Analysys. Last month, BT Openreach announced that LLU had passed the one million milestone. That momentum looks set to be mirrored elsewhere as the number of unbundled local loops in Western Europe grows massively from 10. ...more

World Wide Web doubles in three years

The Internet continues to blossom as millions of new sites come on line each month. Netcraft says that within the last month some 3.1 million sites have been added to the Internet and that the Web has doubled in size over the last three years: growing from 40 million in April 2003 to more than 80 million today. ...more

First lunar eclipse of 2001

You may be interested to know that one Japanese Web site is broadcasting live a lunar eclipse. On 9 January at around 9pm GMT, the live-eclipse.org site will feature the first lunar eclipse of 2001 and if you are lucky you might just see the moon turn a shocking shade of red. ...more

BT promises HD for all

BT's launch of BT Vision raised a few questions as to how the company, which now has content to its arsenal, is to position itself against Sky, which now offers Internet access. We caught up with Richard Griffiths, Director of Technology Strategy and Development at BT Vision, to talk us through how this battle of the behemoths is going to be fought, particularly when it comes to HD. Sky's HD ambitions are already well-known, but BT Vision has HD among its roll call of services. ...more

Security industry fingered over biometric zeal

The IT industry has invested so much in biometrics as the solution for authenticating identity that it is refusing to acknowledge its failings, claimed a security professional. Giving evidence recently to the House of Lords' Security Science and Technology Committee in an investigation into personal Internet security, Adam Laurie - director of secure hosting data centre The Bunker and independent security researcher - said that the trend to silo personal information into a single database and then rely on biometric authentication to secure it is a risky strategy. 'One of the main things that concerns me the most - the reliance on biometrics . ...more