Digital Family Values As Europe's largest consumer electronics market, the UK has a strong love affair with technology. So strong in fact that the recent 02 'Digital Families Survey' found that on average UK families would rather cut down on food and utilities than their internet connection.  A nation of gadget obsessives, UK homes now have on average a staggering 2.4 TVs, 1.6 computers, 2.4 games consoles, 3 mobile phones and 2.2 MP3 players. According to the survey just under half of UK families spend a whopping 10 per cent of their annual household budget fuelling their insatiable thirst for technology. That's roughly £3,000 a year! Read the full story»

Electronic book worms One new gadget that's started to worm its way into the homes of UK families is the electronic book reader. After languishing in the dark for the last decade, it finally appears that e-book readers are hitting the headlines for the right reasons. With a new influx of user friendly versions in the shops, including the launch of the new Amazon Kindle DX and its improved screen size, the digital book momentum is truly picking up pace. An e-book revolution... As thousands upon thousands of old and new literary titles are digitised and placed online each week, more and more consumers are looking to the digital world for their reading fix. And importantly it's not just e-readers tapping into the e-book market. Smartphones and Netbooks are also beginning to exploit this opportunity. Read the full story»

Customers, competitors and opportunities Another interesting insight into the world of the UK consumer comes in the form of Deloitte's 'State of the Media Democracy' survey. The survey launched recently, seeks to understand the myriad of ways in which consumers interact with media and entertainment, forecasting how this will change in the future. In the current sea of uncertainty the survey's findings are somewhat of an anchor. From the findings it's clear that TV remains the favourite media source for most, with scheduled programmes still the preferred method for watching the nations favourite shows. However the fact that over 60 per cent of UK consumers now believe their computer is more of an entertainment device than the TV, means that traditional platforms should look over their shoulder at the new kid on the block. Read the full story»

Need for speed Let's now have a look at the achievements of the wireless world. There's little doubt that we increasingly use wireless connectivity to pass media across our PCs, handsets, printers, set-top boxes and cameras. However, as the richness and size of the data we consume increases, the speed of wireless file transfers inevitably decreases. Just as we'd thought we had cleared our homes of the spaghetti like collection of wires linking devices, the increased file size of the data we look to transfer could soon bring about their return as current wireless solutions struggle under the weight. Read the full story»

Intellect teams up with White Digital Media to help launch the online magazine Technology Digital Intellect has linked up with White Digital Media, publishers of ExecDigital magazine, to help launch the next instalment in the White Digital Media portfolio, Technology Digital. The magazine and website will be aimed at executives from across the technology industry and will be an informative and detailed look at individual businesses by continuing their successful corporate profiles features. As part of this Intellect has taken the opportunity to feature a foreword looking at the telecommunications sector, as well as featuring a personal bio on our very own, Stephen Hearnden. As a part of this exciting project, it has been agreed that these corporate profiles will be made available, free of charge, to Intellect members. There are a limited number of opportunities so if you are interested in taking up this offer please contact James Pepper, T 01603 217 544, E j.pepper@whitedm.com Read the full story»