BBC NEWS | Technology | Spectrum plan threatens radio mic
If you go to any kind of large public event, music-theatre production, even a well done school play or a big church service, chances are that it depends at least in part on radio microphones. For the non-technically minded, radio mics, as a general rule, just work, and everything is fine. For the technical, it’s a bit more complex. Every microphone has to be on its own frequency. There are four frequencies which can be used free of charge by anyone. Rather more frequencies are available for anyone paying an annual license fee, and, for major events, coordinated frequencies are available which guarantee that no-one else is using your frequency at the same time in the same place.
All this is set to change, though, becaus Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator, is planning to sell off these frequencies to the highest bidder, as part of the digital switchover. (more…)
Today is Freedom Sunday, 25 March 2007, the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire, and the focus of a new generation of campaigners against the modern slave trade. It coincides with the release of the film Amazing Grace recounting the life of William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was a politician who became an evangelical Christian and then dedicated his life to a programme of social reforms, the most famous of which — and at the time the most unpopular and controversial — was the abolition of slavery.
Wilberforce stands as a powerful example to both Christians and to politicians. But it was not the example of Wilberforce, but direct contact with human trafficking, which brought me into politics.
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The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) has warned its UK staff that they must have their primary bank account with the firm or face disciplinary action. BBC
One of the funnier jokes in Scott Adam’s Dilbert Books is the suggestion that employees (of particularly poor employers) be forced to only buy that company’s products. Of course, under the Truck Acts forcing emplyees to purchase from the company store has been illegal since 1725.
Royal Bank of Scotland’s decision, therefore, to force employees to have an RBS account to receive their salaries sails perilously close to the wind. Union Amicus is playing its cards close to its chest — which is probably the right thing to do — but a battle is certainly looming. (more…)