Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

When I was reading the Times online today, and after a bit of browsing, I stumbled on this article: an interesting piece about how business is looking slightly more peachy for tech firms in the UK.

It reported that a number of companies were seeing profit rises after a difficult 2009. One company, in particular — Wolfson Microelectronics — reported strong sales over the first few months of the year, and predicted yet more growth as demand for mobile phones and other consumer electronics continues to recover from the murk of the recession.

They also said it had launched nine new products in the first quarter; a list including audio amplifier components for mobiles, and a digital audio hub.

It’s good to see companies like this rising out of the lows of the recession, and continue to create new products.

There was a similar story here, about the battery life of mobile phones. I know my own smartphone is painfully battery-consuming. The little battery bar disappears in an instant, if you actually use the thing, and don’t leave it sleeping in your coat pocket.

Of course, when you’re at work, you can have all sorts of business phone systems at your disposal, and aren’t restricted or limited to using your mobile, but I must admit, I still like to be able to use mine.

And anything that can increase its life length, so I am not forced to switch it off for an hour or so each day in order to use it on the train home, is a welcome invention.

This particular blog will serve as something of an errata, I think.

Yesterday, I was rambling about how there is no point taking out home insurance: I was rambling about how you are not very likely to find a car smashing into your house, or a tree blowing down and spearing your roof. But it seems I have been proven wrong. A couple in West Virginia have had a lump of bridge crash into their home following a demolition, and I would hazard a guess that they would be quite happy to have their home insurance.

And then I moved on to the development of technology, where I probably should have provided a few more links for you in case you wanted to read up on the latest news and reviews of some of the incredible technology that’s at our fingertips, or just read up on smart phones in general.

And lastly, there is a good website here, if you have an old phone and are looking to get rid of it: mobile phone buyers like this one are only too happy to help you help the environment, and it couldn’t be more easy.

Anyway, that should round everything out nicely.

It has just occurred to me that I have been babbling on about my own internet woes, when all around the country there are people who can’t even access the internet. This article over at the Guardian website shows how there is a plan in place in the UK to introduce a tax on phone lines, which will apparently allow greater internet access in the countryside. Obviously there will be split opinions. There will be those who have their fast internet, and don’t know the troubles of trying to use it in the country. There will be those who just don’t want to pay even more money for no immediate benefit to themselves

But then you notice that it’s only £6 a year. It’s not very much really. And if it can help with places that don’t yet have internet access, or help increase the speed of slow internet access, or help with sustaining a connection that has a habit of disconnecting for no good reason – then is it not worth it? In the past, I’ve lived in the middle of nowhere – and the internet out there can be infuriating. Frequently, you can go for an entire day without connection, and just as frequently it can cut out for apparently no reason other than that you are living in the countryside, and that’s just what happens.

Now they are saying that half the country will have access to super fast broadband by 2012, which is quite good going, I think. To think that here, now, we’re talking about homes all over the country having 10MB broadband, when, back only five or six years, it was unheard of to have anything near that in homes, is quite staggering.

Day after day, technology advances steadily on. And I find quite incredible. Here in the era of the iPhone, it’s quite easy to lose sight of the fact that, not so long ago, we relied on a wireless for entertainment, and had to spin the dial on a phone. Now in a matter of minutes you can buy BT Synergy business phones, and talk to friends and family from the garden if you want to.

And there are companies out there that cater for all this sort of thing, companies like Brite Telecom, when, fifty years ago the word “internet” didn’t even mean anything.

It’s quite easy to take it all for granted.