The first reading of the bill on a referendum over the Alternative Vote system has been successful with a majority of 59. There are a number of additional steps to take before it will have actually been past and the process of preparing for next years May 5 referendum can begin.

However the reading has revealed there is bitterness between the Conservative and Liberal Democrats. A number of Conservative backbenchers have agreed to vote for the change to the voting system as “a matter of honour” – it was agreed by part of the coalition agreement when coming to power. It is rather disturbing that some MPs are actually against a more democratic voting system. I guess they are likely to be the MPs that are in areas which an AV system would see them lose their seat due to the huge number of votes against them? Or perhaps they are part of the 50 MPs which would lose their seat with the reduction in MPs when parliament shrinks in size.

David Davis raises a concern about the number of people that will turn out for the referendum thinking that it will be a very low turn out to make a major political change in the UK for centuries. However, given that the turn out for the general election was the highest it had been since 2001. Given the number of issues associated with people getting turned away from voting, I think the concern is minimum. The general public want to see change to the political system and trust needs to be rebuilt in the Government to secure a functional country.

References
Yorkshire Post
UKPoliticalInfo
Wikipedia

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Something tells me I missed an article or two, either that or Orange and T-Mobile opted to keep their merger quiet. A few people whom I talk to who usually are up to speed on the mobile phone industry even seem to have not caught on. The merger in May created a new company to oversee the new joint operations between Orange and T-Mobile. By merging, they have formed the largest network in the UK.

Back then, they promised customers that they would later in the year be able to roam across either network. This service will shortly become available. Providing text and voice roaming but 3G will not be initially available as a cross network roaming service. They expect this to be in place in 2011.

Technologically speaking the technology will operate almost the same as international roaming like when your on holiday. Albeit without the expensive phone bill at the end of the month! The company plans to have automatic fail over services available such that customers will automatically jump to whichever network is able to offer the better voice service even during a call with no interruption to general service.

As with any merger of this kind, it will take many years for the process to be completed and established in full. I phoned my answer machine the other day there, and it is still branded as NTL not Virgin Media! The company has however announced that the future will be full of buzzwords such as Best Performance, Best Value and Best Reliability.

References

ShineyShineyTV
Orange
ZDNetUK

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Sky has made a purchase from Virgin Media worth £160Million to get the Virgin TV services. How this has not lead to an OFT investigation of breach of competition rules I do not know. With the sale complete, Sky has managed to secure itself a major monopoly on pay for TV service.

Sky have in the past been in trouble or at least been threatened with being in trouble on a number of occasions. Europe threatened to take legal action against the Premiership Football League unless Sky’s Total Monopoly was broken on the games. The Office of Fair Trading expected to find Sky guilty of breach of anti-competition laws on at least one occasion.

As part of the agreement however, it seems that Virgin customers will soon be able to get access to a wide range of Sky HD channels and the company has assured us that there will be no change to service. How long that remains true is still uncertain.

References
VirginMedia
MediaWeek
The Gaurdian
The Independant

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Gordon Brown freshly out of screwing up the economy and Labour party wants to become a Saint now. It is quite a promotion I’d say.

Freshly criticized by Tony Blair in his memoirs, he is attempting to put away the image of being the evil man that no one wanted and no one could get rid of. He has made announcements to do a number of charitable projects without pay. Of course, given that his salary is huge as it is and his interest payments probably equally high so its not exactly like he’s doing great efforts he can afford to not be paid!

Amongst many accusations, Gordon Brown has been accused most prominently by Tony Blair accusations range from blackmail to having no emotional intelligence. These seem to be entirely accurate accusations given what he looks like.

His activities will be paid for by a number of speaking appointments and the couple will setup a office by the highly original name of : The Office of Gordon Brown and Sarah Brown. Just a testament to the former prime ministers skills as a innovative and creative leader.

Scarily, Gordon Brown accepted a position on the World Wide Web Foundation. This is deeply concerning as untill now I thought only competent people would get involved in organizations like that.

I wonder if his newly setup office will be ran from his home so he can claim expenses against it on his official MP tab ?

References

The Guardian

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The world of quantum physics has been involved in the world of security. However a security breach is possible. Researchers have spent probably a huge portion of their time experimenting on techniques to be able to publish a paper indicating a vulnerability in a Quantum Cryptographic system.

They in essence have shown it is possible to hack into highly encrypted data. The principles of Quantum Physics which are used in quantum cryptography relies upon the Heisenberg principle. whereby looking at the data in essence actually alters its behaviour which could be used to identify a security breach or corruption of data in transit.

The technology of quantum cryptography uses fiber optic in order to transmit data. This being the weakest point in the system. Using laser signals the researchers were able to intercept and confuse the receivers when the signal reached it. Given the nature of fiber optic networking however I am not sure that this is a security risk that is overly likely to occur. Damage caused to fiber optic cables in order to send a laser signal in could corrupt data in its own right, and at the least is likely to have a negative impact on network performance. This would lead to the discovery of the hooked up equipment used for interception.

References
ZDNet
NTNU

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X-Ray scanners at airports could soon be a thing of the past. The new system would look at the skeleton and be able to accurately identify people based on that. At as much as 50 meters away from the scanner also. In an ideal world, this  could make getting through airport security much quicker. As you enter the building, you would be cleared for access through the security gates.

There is some problems with this approach however. Data Security, our government has certainly shown it cannot be trusted with personal information so can we really trust them with a database of people’s skeletons? It could even be said that this would be an invasion of privacy. The system would identify in depth bone issues such as broken bones and fractures, thickness of the bone.

The other issue that is likely to prevent this  kind of system replacing XRay at airport is the fact that the information must already be on record in order to establish if a person is trustworthy of airport access. Conducting a worldwide database of full body scans will be near on impossible. It would be like the DNA Database kept by the police which has aroused many concerns in the past.

Well, I am going to go and buy some shares in the Tin Foil industry.

References
The Register

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