The Weekly Round-Up: 30.05.08

Recently, silicon.com reported that take-up of broadband in rural communities had overtaken that in urban areas for the first time.

Little did we expect the outpouring of rural scorn that would result.

After all, what reason did the editorial team, surveying central London from the top of Silicon Towers (although not with one of these) have to doubt the claim? After all, the statement was in clear black and white in an Ofcom statement.

Ofcom said that people, often forced against their will to live outside the sprawling grey cities of the UK, had at last gained a modicum of decency on the personal technology front. Finally, people surrounded by swathes of green space and clean air, with unfettered access to village fetes and enough room in their back garden to grow vast quantities of organic vegetables now had fast internet access, too. Happy days!

And yet, it transpires that Ofcom's bold statements about rural broadband are roughly as accurate as the Round-Up's feeble attempts at representing life in the countryside - at least according to one enraged rural association.

William Worsley, the alliterative but disappointingly single-barrelled-named deputy director of the Country Land & Business Association, said the claim "beggars belief".

"It beggars belief!" he reiterated, and the Round-Up imagines him throwing down his well-thumbed copy of Butter Churns Weekly and picking up the gauntlet laid down by the SE1-dwelling denizens of everyone's favourite communications services regulator.

Worsley holds no truck with the regulator's claim, having clearly read the same press release as the Round-Up. Equally likely, he may have read it on Ofcom's website, which despite being admirably fast-loading, looks as if it were designed by a delegation of 12-year-old girls with a compulsive need to use pink at every conceivable opportunity.

"A local loop for local people!" Worsley might have cried, had that actually been the motto of the Country Land & Business Association, which it isn't, more's the pity.

The Country Land & Business Association, or CLA for those who like their acronyms, isn't impressed.

The Round-Up has no idea why they dropped the 'B' for business.

But the association has released a statement in which it suggested the report "fails to take into account that broadband connections often do not deliver the high speeds advertised, and also that many rural businesses cannot get broadband at all because they are too far from their local telephone exchange".

Worsley added tetchily: "We are worried that anyone reading coverage of the Ofcom report will get a distorted view of the true picture. Everything is not rosy with broadband in the countryside, despite Ofcom's wanton optimism."

Ah, 'wanton optimism' - the Round-Up hasn't felt that for many a hoary year. The bottom line is that while it's broadband it's not terribly broad.

Ofcom has responded and it sounds a teeny bit defensive. A spokesperson denied suggestions that it was moving the goalposts and said: "All we stated was that rural households now have overtaken urban homes when it comes to broadband take-up, ending this particular geographical divide."

Promptly moving the goalposts, the spokesperson added: "That is not to say that other divides will not appear in the future - differences in broadband speeds between urban and rural areas, for example."

The spokesperson said: "However, it is entirely appropriate to report, with firm statistical evidence, that 59 per cent of rural households now have broadband, compared with 57 per cent of urban households, which is a significant turnaround."

Glad we sorted that one out, then.

Great news - Microsoft has reinvented the computer. Yes, again.

The software giant, while still pushing Vista at disinterested consumers and corporates, has been talking up the next version of Windows, the imaginatively titled Windows 7.

And you know what? It's going to change the face of computing as we know it.

Vista was panned by many because its system requirements were so onerous many users faced a hardware upgrade just to get the whizzy features running.

So: once bitten, twice shy?

Far from it. For the next upgrade, in addition to updating your PC to a newer model you'll also have to reach deep into your pockets to buy a new monitor too, for Windows 7's USP - at least if you listen to the noise from Redmond's big boys - is going to be its touch-sensitive interface.

Touchscreen is the future of the computer according to Bill Gates and who's the Round-Up to argue?

Chairman Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer this week showed off new Windows features based on software it calls "multi-touch".

Again, rushing in where angels wouldn't think of treading without some sturdy Kevlar armour and a team of steely-eyed Sherpas, the ever-ebullient Ballmer said the new operating system is due out in late 2009.

The Microsoft chiefs were showing off the technology at the Wall Street Journal's three-day D: All Things Digital conference, an annual gathering of the computer industry elite taking place north of San Diego.

They predicted that the ability to use touch to give users fingertip control of their screens could help revolutionise how computer desktops and mobile phones are controlled and would be an alternative to existing mouse, keyboard and pen-based user controls.

It’s also fantastic news for people who sell screen cleaning kits who will shortly be retiring to opulent lifestyles beyond their wildest dreams.

Employing an impressive number of commas, Gates said: "We are at an interesting juncture where almost all of the interaction is with the computer and mouse, today, and, over the years to come, the role of speech, vision, ink, all of those will become huge."

Hm, voice recognition again, the tech dream that never dies.

The company has made a number of statements in the field of touchscreen devices recently. First, there's the Surface computer a touch-sensitive interface built into a device that looks like a mini pool table covered in plastic.

Basically, users manipulate the interface elements with fingertips while crouched over its surface. It's sure to keep chiropractors on the gravy train for life.

Then there's the TouchWall technology where the entire wall becomes a screen. Yes, it's a very cool idea but, dude, it’s a freaking wall.

You may wonder what this will cost you and quite rightly so. Well the Surface table goes for about $10,000 and the TouchWall? Well, best not ask really. The company has also been bigging up Tablet PCs, which have clearly enjoyed phenomenal commercial success in recent times.

But we stand on the threshold of a new digital dawn. Although, perhaps with Apple, Samsung and many other mobile device makers working on touchscreen phones and Gartner predicting that by 2012 around half of us will be ditching laptops in favour of souped-up mobile devices it takes a brave brace of fellows to tout computers built into large pieces of furniture and supporting walls as the future of computing.

Oh brave new world that has such people in it...

That Jerry Yang has got a bloody nerve, hasn’t he?

The Yahoo! CEO, who rejected the $47bn takeover bid from Microsoft as being too low, now seems to regret playing hard to get.

Yang said on Wednesday a potential deal with Microsoft has tremendous power but the software giant appears no longer interested in a full merger.

"We did not walk away from that proposal. Microsoft did," he said this week. Whatever happened, Microsoft folded in the corporate game of multibillion poker and went home.

Ballmer himself said at the same conference: "It became clear there was a difference between the bid and ask."

That's the thing about poker, if you bluff you better be prepared to live with the consequences. Microsoft folded and Yang was left staring at a pretty lame hand.

Last week, a source familiar with the latest round of discussions said Microsoft has proposed buying Yahoo!'s search business and taking a minority stake in the web pioneer but has stopped short of reinitiating full merger negotiations.

As part of such a deal, Yahoo! would sell its Asian assets including significant minority stakes in Yahoo! Japan and China's Alibaba Group, while Microsoft would buy a chunk of what remains of the company, the source said. What's left of Yahoo! after that is anyone's guess. So it's become a kind of car boot sale.

As for Ballmer, he added during his interview: "We reserve the right to rebid for the company if we choose to."

Hell yes.

And finally - a race through the best of the rest this week. Is it just the free food and lava lamps that make Google the best place to work in the UK?

Impress your friends - tell them exactly what a QR code is and why they should care (read our cheat sheet and find out the answers to both).

And find out the latest twists and turns to the NHS IT mega-project.

Feeling funny? Maybe it was something you ate. If not, maybe you should have a go at the caption competition.