Would You Do Business With This British Businessman?

August 25th, 2009 UK Chinook choppers languish after software errorLONDON — A British newspaper says eight high-tech military helicopters have been out of service for eight years because defense officials tried to save money by installing homemade software in the aircraft. The Times of London reported Tuesday that the eight Chinook Mk3s cost 259 million pounds but have been in storage since they were delivered to Britain in 2001.

April 24th, 2005 Reuters reports that some joker sold Indian Prime Minister's house on Ebay to an American business man! And I thought selling the Brooklyn bridge was a myth! The businessman forked out 35 million rupees ($802,600) for the house that was up for sale on a Web site as a "huge sprawling mansion in the heart of Lutyen's Delhi with 24x7 running water and electricity", the ‘Hindustan Times’ said. He soon received the title deed for the house and arrived in the Indian capital late in March to take possession of the house for an office he planned to set up only to discover he had been cheated.

May 17th, 2006 IT failures are a leading threat to businesses worldwide, and British companies have been found particularly ill-prepared at handling them. According to a survey from Mercury Interactive Corporation, a third of UK companies are handling IT risks in an uncoordinated fashion.

October 8th, 2009 LONDON - A series of online competitions are being planned in Britain with the objective of converting would be computer hackers into cyber security "top guns". Competition organizers said that they are hoping to emulate a similar scheme that is on in the United States.

May 6th, 2009 Compuware sells software line to British companyDETROIT — Business software and services provider Compuware Corp. says it's selling an applications testing software line to Britain's Micro Focus International PLC for $80 million.

April 21st, 2008 Here is a LinkedIn invitation I received from Elvis Ata (elvisata2001@yahoo.cn): Elvis Ata requested to add you as a connection on LinkedIn: Angsuman, DEAREST ONE PERMIT ME TO INFORM YOU OF MY DESIRE OF GOING INTO BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU.FOR THIS SIMPLE AND SINCERE BUSINESS. I AM ELVIS ATA THE ONLY CHILD OF LATE MR THOMAS ATA, MY FATHER WAS A VERY WEALTHY COCOA MERCHANT IN BOUAKE COTE DIVOIRE, BEFORE HE WAS SHOT BY THE REBELS ON ONE OF THEIR OUTING TO DISCUSS ON A BUSINESS.

August 25th, 2009 UK says illegal downloaders may lose Web accessLONDON — People who repeatedly download copyright-protected films and music could have their Internet connection cut off under proposed laws the British government unveiled Tuesday to tackle illegal file-sharing. Treasury Minister Stephen Timms said that previous plans, which would only have restricted users' broadband speed, did not go far enough.

November 7th, 2005 Under the UK's Computer Misuse Act, denial of service attack isn't apparently a crime. A British teenager has been recently cleared of launching a denial-of-service attack against his former employer.

June 24th, 2009 UK retailer Habitat sorry for Iran tags on Twitter LONDON — British homewares retailer Habitat apologized on Wednesday after ads for the store appeared on Twitter tagged with words linked to the Iranian election crisis. Some Twitter users became angry after the upmarket store's messages turned up in searches for topics such as "Iran" and "Mousavi," the name of Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

June 15th, 2009 Virgin Media and Universal launch music serviceLONDON — Virgin Media, the cable TV operator owned by entrepreneur Richard Branson, launched a new kind of music download subscription service Monday with Universal, the world's largest music company. The service, described by the companies as a world first, will allow Virgin Media's broadband customers in Britain to stream and download as many songs and albums as they like from Universal's catalog for a fee.

July 21st, 2009 UK court rejects suit on Google search resultsLONDON — A British judge has ruled that Google cannot be held responsible for defamatory words that appear in results on the popular Internet search engine. Justice David Eady said that Google is not a publisher because searches are carried out entirely by computers and the search engine does not choose the terms itself.

August 16th, 2005 For mission-critical applications, the process of automating business policies, procedures, and business logic is often better managed by leveraging a Business Rule Engine. Using business rules can help you develop more agile applications with shorter time-to-market.

December 14th, 2005 In a significant move IBM decided to shutdown its UDDI business and test registry, one of the earliest available. I would be very interested to know the real reason behind the shutdown.

July 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI - Investment in information technology (IT) by airlines the worldover this year is likely to be the lowest since 2002, says SITA, an air transport communication provider. The 2009 Airline IT Trends Survey report by SITA and Airline Business magazine released Wednesday in Cannes, France, has forecast that spend on IT and telecommunications is likely to be just 1.7 percent of airline revenue.

July 14th, 2009 LONDON - Internet road mapping service Google Street View is now starting to cover areas like Stonehenge, which are far away from driving routes. Rickshaw-style tricycles, carrying 3-D cameras, will be used to film several popular off-road spots, including Loch Ness and the Angel of the North, reports the Telegraph.