Pegasus Global Holdings, a US defence firm, is planning to spend $200 million over the next three years building a ‘ghost-town’. 

The new town will be built in New Mexico, USA, and will include roads, buildings, phone, power and water lines, as well as a transportation highway.

The aim of the city is to test new technological infrastructure, including unmanned vehicles, wireless technology and intelligent transportation systems.

The facility will stretch over 20 square miles of desert and will be comparable to a mid-sized US city. 

Universities and technological companies will be able to pay a fee to use the facility to test out their own inventions. 

The new facility is expected to create over 3,500 jobs in the area, something that is currently high on the American political agenda.

The project is currently undergoing a feasibility study and is expected to be completed by 2014.

Jamie Stokes is Marketing Assistant at Total Ltd – a business to business service provider, delivering genuine solutions across all core telecommunication services, based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Total Ltd is a business that brings together and unifies all the component parts. For up to the minute business telecommunications news, please view the Total Ltd blog

A symbol of Britain, the red telephone box, celebrates its 75th birthday this year.

As much a beacon of Britannia as the red post box and the red double-decker bus, the red telephone box was originally a lifesaver for those who did not have a personal landline telephone.

Introduced in 1936 to commerate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V, the K6 telephone box became known as the “Jubilee Kiosk” and was designed by English architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

The “Jubilee Kiosk” model became the first telephone box to be introduced across the country and were given to every town or village with a post office.

Due to this, more than 8,000 new boxes were installed in 1936 and by the end of production in 1968 there were nearly 70,000 in Britain.

It is understood that there are now 11,000 traditional red telephone boxes across the UK, some of which have been converted to art galleries, public libraries, exhibitions and art galleries through BT’s Adopt a Kiosk scheme.

However, with the smartphone industry showing no signs of slowing, it appears that the red telephone box is set to become a British relic confined to places of historical and architectural interest, museums and auctions.

Jamie Stokes is Marketing Assistant at Total Ltd – a business to business service provider, delivering genuine solutions across all core telecommunication services, based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Total Ltd is a business that brings together and unifies all the component parts. For up to the minute business telecommunications news, please view the Total Ltd blog

From 2012, people in the UK will need to dial the area code for local phone calls.

This move has been announced by telecoms regulator, Ofcom, in a bid to generate spare numbers in areas where there are few.

It is understood that the following towns look set to benefit from the change by 2016:

• Bournemouth
• Brighton
• Aberdeen
• Milton Keynes
• Bradford
• Cambridge

At the moment, there is no need for landline users to dial an area code when making a local call in the UK.

Ofcom recently reported that an audit of phone number use revealed that more than 69 million unused landline numbers were made available to the telecoms regulator by communications providers.

When the change is introduced, Ofcom will bring in numbers where the first digit following the area code will be 0 or 1.

Jamie Stokes is Marketing Assistant at Total Ltd – a business to business service provider, delivering genuine solutions across all core telecommunication services, based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Total Ltd is a business that brings together and unifies all the component parts. For up to the minute business telecommunications news, please view the Total Ltd blog

IBM has created the world’s first microprocessor that is close to replicating the how the human brain works. 

The computer chip, titled the SyNAPSE system, is able to modify itself when new information is given to it. 

The team at IBM is attempting to create a chip that is able to mimic the human mind through emotions, sensations and cognitions. 

IBM is creating computer systems that work differently to the ones that are currently in use today. These systems, called cognitive computers, remember and learn from experiences just as the human brain does. 

The company’s long-term aim is to create a chip with 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses which is able to run on just 1 kilowatt of electricity. 

A speaker for the company suggested that someday soon these chips could be used in traffic control systems to monitor, listen, smell and check for unsafe conditions on our roads. 

IBM has been awarded £12.7 million by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Jamie Stokes is Marketing Assistant at Total Ltd – a business to business service provider, delivering genuine solutions across all core telecommunication services, based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Total Ltd is a business that brings together and unifies all the component parts. For up to the minute business telecommunications news, please view the Total Ltd blog