Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

Cable broadband has always seemed to be out in front in comparison to ADSL and that gap looks like its going to get even bigger with the latest news that Virgin Media will be offering 100Mbps broadband to its 4.1 million customers. That’s a staggering 24 times faster than what any of its current competitors can offer.

I currently subscribe to their 50Mbps which after a few teething problems getting my network up and running, has been outstanding. At first I didn’t really notice much difference between it and it’s 20Meg service but now it’s running smooth I can’t wait to see the full potential I’ll get when i can upgrade again. In theory at 100Mbps downloading will be lightning quick. 30 seconds for a HD TV programme and 7 and a half minutes for a full HD movie. Not to mention the speed for online gaming.

Company CEO Neil Berkett said: "There is nothing we can't do with our fibre optic cable network, and the upcoming launch of our flagship 100Mbps service will give our customers the ultimate broadband experience.” There’s already talk that Virgin Media are starting to test and pilot 200Mbps in the South West and the Midlands……………BRILLIANT!

It seems despite O2’s successful trial of LTE that we talked about yesterday, its them pesky Scandinavians always beating us to high speed internet(shakes fist). Swedish operator TeliaSonera have said today that they will launch the first 4G network. The company is going to trial it’s service with its users in the Stockholm area of Sweden and the Oslo area of Norway in the early part of 2010 with Finland coming shortly after.

As we said yesterday we’re going to be looking at the end of next year before we get 4G mobiles, TeliaSonera are allowing users to get download speeds up to 100Mbps using a laptop and a new Samsung mobile dongle.

Ericcsson has put the infrastructure together in Sweden whereas the Chinese company Huawei who’ve just done those tests near Slough we spoke of, are setting the Norwegian side up. Still its all good news and for once shows that Britain won’t be lagging too far behind for a change.

We may have touched on the rumours of the French gadget whizz’s next internet tablet but now Archos have officially confirmed the details of the new Archos 5 powered by that wonderful Android.

Packed with loads of features as Archos products always seem to the tablet comes in many memory size varieties from 8 to 32 GB in the super thin Flash memory configurations (with a micro SD (SDHC) card slot) or from 160 to 500 GB in a hard drive version there’ll be one that fits your memory requirements or your pocket limitations. Read on for specs and price.

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We mentioned a few weeks ago about the 3 “MiFi” , the mobile 3G WiFi router that allows you to get an internet connection from anywhere and then connect several devices to said connection and use them how and where you please. Well its been priced up.

It will be offered with 2 plans that you can sign up for.

• Broadband 5GB 1 month – With this you pay an upfront fee of £69.99. With this you get the router and a 1 month contract with 5GB of usage allowance. There will be a £15 a month fee after then to continue your contract.
• Ready to Go – This starts with a £99.99 fee for the router which gives you 3GB data to be used over 3 months. After this you just top up as you do a pay as you go mobile and just top up as and when you need.

Just for some extra info the dongle/router will have a 5 hour battery life and will have a microSD slot. It will work the same way as your home router with a password to protect your signal. You can order online from 17th September and will be available in stores from the 18th.

Soon UK 3G customers of Vodafone will be able to get a whopping 14.4Mbps mobile broadband, making it faster than what most people have on their home broadband. The super fast speeds are being primed after they were trialled in various locations in the UK (London, Liverpool and Birmingham)

Vodafone has said its new service will be available to 80%  of its users whether they be mobile dongles or phones with no extra cost to upgrade to the service. Easy peasy then for you to be viewing sites or your favourite youtube videos even faster than you already were.

Obviously the likelyhood of you getting a 14.4Mbps connection speed will be slim, but it’s claimed an average of 10Mbps will be achievable still a lot faster than current mobile speeds and your average ADSL or Cable Home user. Could this be the end of home broadband, all we need is unlimited usage and it could be the future of broadband.

Mobile broadband dongles seem to be the way forward these days but mobile network 3 have come up with this genius piece of kit for better internet on the go whether it be with a laptop or netbook, but also now handheld gaming or anything that can connect via WiFi.

It has been named MiFi, a portable wireless modem and router, that like a mobile broadband dongle, connects to the 3G broadband network, but allows a number of devices to connect to it and use the connection unlike the one device dongle. So that means you can carry the device in your bag, or pocket(if its big enough) connect your laptop to it and play the latest multiplayer game on your PSP.

“There are millions of Wi-Fi devices out there, but they can only be used in fixed locations. Using Mobile Wi-Fi from 3, consumers can connect to the internet wherever they have a 3 signal, whether at home or on the move. They can download a track onto their iPod touch, or tweet their latest updates to their mates, or both. Either way it’s simple to set-up, without the need for wires.” says Marc Allera 3 UK’s Sales & Marketing Director.

No Definite date or price yet but we’re looking at Christmas.

Michael Arrington, the founder of Silicon Valley blog network TechCrunch has created a touchscreen web tablet called the CrunchPad which according to the New York Times could be released as early as this month.

With a 12-inch touchscreen and only 16mm thick, the CrunchPad promises to give us super fast internet access through its simple browser only OS. The browser will let you do all types of surfing, web based email and with Flash support all your YouTube needs. Its not fully known what powers the CrunchPad yet but it’s believed, like most netbooks will be Atom processor powered.

It is expected to retail in the States for $300 or £190 in the UK.

All four defendants in the Pirate Bay trial have been sentenced to 1 year in jail for “assisting in making copyright content available”

The court decided that the four defendants worked as a team. Damages have been set at 30 million SEK ($3,620,000).

Peter Sunde (co-founder of Pirate Bay) will be appealing the decision so it is not all over yet. He also said that The Pirate Bay will continue as the site itself was not on trial but the four individuals.

via: torrentfreak