Silicon Valley elite honour Jobs

Silicon Valley nobility paid tribute to revered Apple co-founder Steve Jobs yesterday, at a private memorial service held under tight security at Stanford University, reveals AFP.

Security teams from Apple and Stanford, along with local police officers, cordoned off the main quad on campus, only granting access to those with invitations to the private event.

Guests were directed to the university chapel for the service. Candles lined a path leading from the church to a museum, where a soiree in honour of the man behind iPhones, iPods, iPads, and Macintosh computers was to be held later on.

Xhead = EU eyes £8bn broadband roll-out

The European Commission is set to propose investing almost EUR9.2 billion (£8 billion) in a massive roll-out of super-fast broadband infrastructure and services across the European Union (EU), writes the BBC.

The plan is partly aimed at stimulating further investment in rural broadband. It is hoped the initiative will also help to create a single market for digital public services.

The commission has already set targets for improving the speed of home Internet connections across the region.

Microsoft is wrapping up the last regulatory approvals, and has formally added Skype as a new division within the company, closing the deal that cost Redmond $8.5 billion, reveals The Register.

The last regulatory hurdles to the deal cleared in Europe last week (the US okayed the deal in June), and Redmond has already trimmed a layer of senior management from the company prior to its full integration.

Skype CEO Tony Bates survived the cull, and will take on the new role of president of the Skype division at Redmond, and stressed that the first step for the division is to reach over a billion users.

Nearly two-thirds of BlackBerry customers are considering switching to an iPhone because of the recent widespread outages affecting the popular business smartphones, according to new research from shopping comparison Web site Kelkoo, says V3.co.uk.

The firm interviewed more than 1 000 BlackBerry customers and found that 19% are thinking about moving to another manufacturer, while 42% will think about changing when they next change their handset.

About 62% said they'd opt for an iPhone above all other brands as a replacement.