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December 10th, 2009 by Lisa Francis

Daily News: 10/12

Computing.co.uk – Wales gets £44m supercomputing institute
The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills has announced a new £44m high-performance computing institute for Wales.

IT PRO – One in ten bring own laptop to the office

One in ten employees are bringing their own laptop to work, according to a survey from Gartner. The analyst firm expects that number to climb to 14 per cent by the middle of next year – although the UK is expected to be slower taking up the system compared to German and US counterparts.

IT PRO – Emerging markets to push mobile internet users past billion mark

Growth in emerging markets will help push the number of mobile devices accessing the internet to break one billion by 2013, according to IDC.

The Guardian – All phone lines to be taxed at £6 a year to pay for fast broadband

The government is pressing ahead with controversial plans to levy a £6 a year tax on all phone lines in Britain in order to fund the introduction of next generation broadband networks, Alistair Darling, the chancellor, confirmed today.

Computerworld UK – Europe has North-South digital divide, says report

A gaping geographical digital divide is emerging in the EU, with countries in the south such as Greece, Bulgaria and Romania being left behind by more technology savvy northern countries like Holland and Sweden, according to new research.

CBR – BT, Cisco launch new unified communication service

BT and Cisco have strengthened their collaboration by a breakthrough in unified communications (UC), with the launch of a cloud based IPT offering from BT’s Onevoice UCC portfolio. Together, the two companies are launching a scalable, business-grade, global hosted IP Telephony service, which reportedly allows businesses to reduce upfront investment costs.

Computer Weekly – Dell increases Twitter sales
Dell has sold $6.5m worth of equipment by using microblogging website Twitter. This represents a late surge because in June this year the company said it had made $3m of sales on Twitter over the previous two years.

April 9th, 2009 by Nick Bishop

A YMCA shaped recession

Evidence that footballers don’t make good comedians came during the European Championship of 1996. England players Alan Shearer, Gareth Southgate and others decided to incorporate song titles into their interviews. The longer England remained in the tournament the braver and more outlandish the players became. Gareth Southgate talked of no “careless whispers”, Alan Shearer of no “dancing on the ceiling”. Clearly you had to be in on the joke.

Like footballers, the City’s gurus aren’t known for comedy. But they too seem to be sharing an in-joke. Hilariously this resolves around the shape of the recession. Alistair Darling [best not described as a guru] kicked things off with his predictions of a ‘V’ shaped recession. Sir Martin Sorrell decided the recession would be ‘L’ shaped. And someone else mention ‘W’. Nothing funny about an L, V or W.

ymca

Things, however, have just started to get a little silly. The recovery will look like “an inverted square root sign”, Martin Soros told Reuters. Proof that Sorrell, Soros and friends are making fun at our expense will arrive next week when Warren Buffett declares the recession to be ‘S’ shaped or, if he’s feeling really wild, like a squiggly snake.