Virgin Media revives interest in TalkTalk, Google One hits 100 million subscribers
Ding, ding.. round two. News reports claim that Virgin Media (VMO2) has allegedly revived its interest in a takeover of budget broadband ISP TalkTalk. But this time they’re reportedly focusing much more specifically upon the internet provider’s consumer division. The long-established internet and phone provider – home to almost 4 million UK broadband customers (2.4m on FTTC/P) – is currently still trying to deal with the pressure from its existing debt pile, which involves selling off parts of their business (here and here). ISPreview
Vodafone has paid out more than $1bn in fees to advisers over the last two decades amid ambitious empire-building followed by a costly retreat. The British telecoms giant has spent huge sums on bankers and lawyers as part of long-running turnaround efforts, with data from Dealogic revealing that “in excess” of a billion dollars has been spent on advisors since 2000. The figures show the scale of dealmaking at Vodafone, which has failed to boost the company’s share price beyond what it was around 30 years ago. Telegraph
If your phone gets wet, what’s the first thing you do? Grab a huge bag of rice, pour it into a bowl and bury your phone somewhere in the middle, right? Yep, us too. But apparently, it’s an absolute no-no. In fact, Apple have now warned iPhone users not to do this. Most people follow this advice because rice absorbs water, and getting rid of the water that’s stuck in your phone – as quickly as possible – is key. But according to Apple, it’s not the best course of action. “Don’t put your iPhone in a bag of rice,” Apple warned. “Doing so could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone.” Unilad
Male dependency on dating apps — now the leading way couples meet — has markedly increased, with a smaller number of men today willing to approach a woman they don’t know in public. In the early days of Tinder, in 2014, the gender split was 60 per cent male, 40 per cent female. Today, 70 per cent of users are male and 30 per cent female, with the latter still meeting a larger proportion of men via work, friends or on nights out. As a result, women of average to high levels of attractiveness are typically inundated with matches, whereas the Tinder experience of the average man is a decidedly more desert-like experience. Standard
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced Friday that his company has logged 100 million subscriptions to Google One, its all-in-one subscription service that opens up additional storage for free services like Gmail, Drive, and Photos, as well as access to more features. Hitting the milestone highlights the company’s efforts to move people away from its free plans, such as discontinuing unlimited Google Drive storage for photos. Google’s YouTube Premium service took nine years to get there, but it, too, recently hit 100 million subscribers,
Realizing the Apple Vision Pro headset’s “ideal form” could take four successive generations of the device, some people in Apple’s Vision Products Group believe. That’s according to well-connected Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman.
Writing in his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says the feeling amongst some of the team working on Apple’s headset is that there is much work to do before the device can be considered refined enough for customers to use on a day-to-day basis. While it’s not clear what Apple’s development team consider to be the device’s “ideal form,” it’s easy enough to take cues from some early adopters, whose issues with the first-generation device have extended to both the hardware and the software. MacRumors
