Kingfisher free to buy Dixons

The DTI has announced that it is lifting the restrictions placed on Kingfisher plc that had prevented it from taking control of Dixons plc. Following a Monopolies and Mergers Commission report in 1990 the company gave undertakings were given by Kingfisher that it would not make a bid for Dixons. At the time, the company owned the rival Comet electrical retailer. ...more

Kiko gives up in the face of Google

An online calendar company has put itself up for auction on eBay after deciding that it could no longer justify further investment. Kiko has stuck a reserve price of $49,999 on its own head. If it is sold the eventual buyer will own the domain name, Web hosting account and its intellectual property. ...more

Mobile phone operators slash roaming costs

Facing increasing pressure from the European Union, a number of European mobile phone operators in the European Economic Area (EEA) - which includes the EU countries plus others in a free trade bloc - have agreed to slash their roaming charges to subscribers who call from outside their home nations. Seven companies have agreed to cap the average wholesale rates they offer each other for providing roaming services at 45 Euro cents per minute from October 2006 and 36 Euro cents per minute from October 2007, lowering current wholesale rates by around half. Among those companies that have agreed to halve the price of average wholesale roaming tariffs are T-Mobile, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telenor, TeliaSonera and Wind, which between them have some 200 million customers. ...more

BPI records music download boom

Music fans switching to legal music downloads are fuelling a digital sales boom, according to new figures from the UK record industry's trade association, the BPI. The digital music market has grown at a rapid rate, with 5.7 million tracks sold in 2004 compared to virtually zero in 2003 and sales continue to snowball. ...more

Intel's chip to make camera phones cheap

Intel announces a new integrated processor. Designed to ease the manufacturing of today's high-end feature-phones and put them in the bargain buckets of tomorrow, Intel's PXA800F processor combines processing power with dedicated multimedia components on one chip. Code-named Manitoba, the processor is manufactured using Intel's 0. ...more