Egg ditches current account plans

Internet bank Egg said yesterday that it would suspend plans for a current account until the market is more favourable. The company, founded and majority-owned by the Prudential, is famous for its Internet credit card, but is running shy of introducing a current account after reporting losses of ?155m in 2000. According to reports in The Guardian, Egg believes the market is too conservative for an Internet-based current account. ...more

Jeeves receives his marching orders

Jeeves, the virtual butler and instantly recognisable face of the Ask Jeeves search engine, has been handed his e-P45. In a rebranding exercise the search engine will be known simply as Ask.com. ...more

Now iPod is five

Five years ago today Apple unveiled a handheld device that was to revolutionise the music market and take the company from the fringe of the computing arena to the centre of the previously non-existent digital media market. Not that anyone predicted any of this when the first iPod was unveiled by Steve Jobs on 23 October 2001. Many observers scoffed at Apple's 'breakthrough digital device', describing it as 'lame', 'overpriced' and one of the 'Top Five Worst Tech Gifts' for Christmas 2001. ...more

Firefox growth is checked

The growth in popularity of Firefox appears to have been checked for the time being. For the first time since its November 2004 release, the Web browser's share of total Internet usage fell. Figures from NetApplications show that the proportion of Web surfers using the browser dipped by around 0. ...more

EU reaches compromise on mobile roaming charges

Telecoms operators may get a summer reprieve, worth hundreds of millions of euros in revenue this year, under a compromise proposal on mobile phone roaming charges put forward by EU lawmakers on Thursday. The final compromise, backed by all factions in the European Parliament, would give the telecoms industry three months' grace before EU-wide caps on charges for cross-border mobile calls are automatically put in place, lawmakers said. The European Union legislature has been working out details of regulation with the executive European Commission and member states, but they failed to reach agreement in two days of talks and a vote scheduled for next week has been delayed. ...more