John Lewell

Microsoft’s online service MSN UK Thursday announced it will offer free access beginning June 8, powered by British Telecom. The move comes after the user statistics declined from a published figure of 150,000 UK users on January 20 to 125,000 in early April. “We have been assessing this and watching the dynamics of the market. […]

e centre UK, the UK authority on standards and practices in electronic trade, warmly welcomed the Trade and Industry Committee’s report “Building Confidence in Electronic Commerce: The Government’s Proposals,” published Wednesday. The report was strongly critical of proposed legislation that still contained controversial key escrow and key recovery provisions. Managing Director Alan Boxer said he […]

The House of Commons Trade and Industry Committee Wednesday severely criticised the forthcoming Electronic Commerce Bill, saying that the focus on key escrow has been “a blind alley” that has damaged the UK’s reputation for e-commerce. Now that the hardline policy on key escrow has been dropped, the Committee in its report has even questioned […]

Online shopping site Wowya.com Tuesday announced is expanding to Europe, where it will attempt to cater to the tastes of nearly 400 million European consumers. Operated by The Millennium Network, of Calgary, Alberta, the Wowya.com mall is being split into Canadian, American and European malls, while adding such well-known stores as Dell Computer and Barnes […]

Using technology supplied by Nortel Networks, BT’s Spanish subsidiary is planning to build the world’s largest Internet telephony and multimedia network. BT will make a multi-million investment in Spain to support the venture. “BT is committed to help grow the Spanish communications market. We have already invested more than US$640 million in our various fixed, […]

The Penguin Group has launched PenguinClassics.com, a major source of information about literary classics that will carry interviews, research, discussion, and readers’ and teachers’ guides. The publisher, a subsidiary of Pearson plc and owner of such famous imprints as Viking, G.P. Putnam’s Sons and Signet, says it is exploring potential alliances with e-commerce and distribution […]

Israel-based Harmonic Data Systems, a subsidiary of Harmonic Inc., says that Europe Online Networks will use its CyberStream system to power an “Internet in the Sky” satellite service. Europe Online has chosen the CyberStream TRX 100 Data Gateway for managing the service, and has also certified other CyberStream products such as modems and routers for […]

The world’s first Virtual Reality (VR) conference will be held in Brussels, Belgium, July 5-7, 1999. It is expected to be a sell-out and similar events may be held in both the United States and Japan, said organisers VR World Congress. The new event will cover VR systems, products and services, with demonstrations, applications, case […]

The UK’s 24 Hour Museum, the first cyberspace venture to get government recognition as a national museum, has survived an onslaught of visitors during its first 24 hours online. However, the launch has not been entirely without problems. “The ‘wrinkles’ are still being ironed out,” admitted Jennie Bond of the Campaign for Museums, to uk.internet.com. […]

An American magazine specialising in security issues has published the list of MI6 agents which was released on a Web site — then removed — earlier this week. The list is now generally available, and indeed hard to avoid for anyone looking in the appropriate Usenet newsgroups. The British Foreign Office, which was aware of […]

BT says it will provide subscription-free Internet access across Europe for users of the Sega Dreamcast games console. The new games machine, coming in September, will connect via a TV set to BT’s network of European partners on a pay-as-you-go basis. “One of our key objectives is to enable more and more people to get […]

Freeserve, the UK’s leading free service ISP, has put $15 million into GlobalNet Financial.com (GLBN), the operator of UK-iNvest.com and a leading provider of MicroCap news and information on the Internet. With the investment Freeserve gets an option to increase its stake in GLBN to 19.9 percent. “We believe a closer relationship with Freeserve will […]