Internet attacks 'targeted Georgian blogger'

Widespread internet attacks that hit services at Google, Facebook and Twitter on Thursday could have been the result of an online assault against a single blogger. According to senior industry figures, the strikes that affected hundreds of millions of web users around the globe on Thursday were part of an attempt to damage just one individual - a controversial Georgian known only as Cyxymu.

Guardian Article

Recession boosts UK telecoms bundle uptake

The uptake of telecoms service bundles has been boosted by the recession as U.K. consumers look to save money without cutting back on usage, according to a new report published by Ofcom. The regulator's latest annual communications market report found that 46% of households were receiving bundled services during the first quarter of 2009, up from 39% a year earlier, and that 47% were more likely to opt for a bundle than they were 12 months ago. Ofcom's survey also revealed that the average monthly spend on telecom services - which includes Internet services, mobile voice and text, and fixed voice services - declined to £65.01 in 2008 from £68.84 per household the previous year. In 2006 the figure stood at £70.09 per household per month.

Total Telecom Article

Microsoft buys Office.com domain

Microsoft has finally managed to buy the Office.com domain - as it continues to move towards the release of its next version of the Office software suite. Although many will be surprised that Microsoft did not already own the Office.com domain, it was in fact owned by a Belgian firm called ContactOffice. However, Ars Technica has discovered that Microsoft has now snapped up the domain for an undisclosed fee - probably to use it for the increasingly cloud focused consumer offering of Office.

Techradar Article

Better broadband for rural Britain: we're so well connected

It's hardly a reverential name for some of the most significant social pioneers in Britain today: "yogurt knitters". But this is how armies of determined campaigners were dismissed when they set about bringing broadband to the countryside. For just as it is probably rather tricky to knit yogurt, so sceptics said it would be impossible to connect outlying areas to the internet. No one accuses them of knitting yogurt now. Instead, they are knitting together far-flung communities by providing villages with customised internet connections. In one village, locals went out with shovels and dug trenches for new fibre-optic cables, enabling every resident to talk to their doctor via video link.

Telegraph Article

The internet's conscientious objectors

If you're reading this, you're part of the internet using majority. But it's not nearly as much of an overwhelming majority as many assume. It's estimated that as many as 17 million people in Britain aged over 15 are not using the internet. Non-users are "becoming less and less likely to want to be engaging with technology such as the internet," says Ellen Helsper, who has been a leading researcher with the Oxford Internet Institute. There is a rise in the number of people saying they are just not interested in being online, "it's not that relevant to my life, I don't see how I would fit it in".

BBC Magazine Article

Kepler spacecraft sees its first exoplanets

The planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has found its first extrasolar planets: three alien worlds that had been previously discovered with ground-based telescopes. The finds confirm that Kepler's instruments are sensitive enough to detect Earth-like planets around sun-like stars - but they might also be unexpectedly sensitive to charged particles in space that can zap circuitry. Kepler launched on 6 March with a simple charge: Stare at a swatch of sky for three and a half years, and look for Earths. The telescope will hunt transiting exoplanets, planets that pass in front of their stars and dim their brightness at regular intervals.

New Scientist Article