LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. online video and DVD rental company Netflix launched in Britain and Ireland on Monday, taking on BSkyB’s premium drama and movies offerings and prompting Amazon-owned rival Lovefilm to offer a new cut-price service.

In its first expansion outside the Americas, which the company has already said will push it into a loss this year, Netflix said its prices and instant access to a broad range of online entertainment would attract new customers.

Lovefilm, which has 2 million customers in its core British market, immediately announced Lovefilm Instant — an internet streaming-only offer to undercut Netflix — as an alternative to its current offer that combines streaming and DVD rental by post.

Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings told Reuters in an interview that BSkyB would be its main competition.

“Lovefilm is not the enemy. When you talk about big entertainment businesses, Sky Atlantic and Sky Movies are huge, and our advantage is we are much lower priced than the Sky packages and it is all on demand, click and watch,” he said.

Netflix is currently trying to recover from the roughest patch in its history after alienating U.S. customers with a 60 percent price hike in the third quarter in an attempt to cover the increasing costs of buying TV and film content.

Co-founded by Hastings in 1997, Netflix created the U.S. market for DVD rental by post but has suffered more recently as it shifts to lower-margin instant online delivery.

LONDON/SYDNEY, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Technology and design admirers flocked to Apple stores worldwide on Thursday to express their sorrow at the death of Steve Jobs, the visionary who transformed the daily lives of millions.

The Apple co-founder who inspired the Macintosh computer, iPod, iPhone and iPad died on Wednesday at the age of 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He stepped down as Apple chief executive in August.

Flags outside Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, flew at half mast as mourners gathered on a nearby lawn, where fans left flowers and a man played the bagpipes.

In New York City, an impromptu memorial made from fliers featuring pictures of Jobs was erected outside a 24-hour Apple store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, with fans snapping photos of it on their iPhones.

“As soon as I heard the news, I came out to this Apple store to pay my respects,” said business professor Gary Hamel. “I saw tears in some people’s eyes.”

Grieving fans all over the world left flowers, notes and apples with a bite taken out, just like the Apple logo – instantly recognisable despite being one of the few top brand logos that does not feature the company’s name.

Many said their lives had been transformed by Apple.

BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) – Microsoft’s deep collaboration with Nokia will help rival phone makers, not threaten them, the software giant’s president of mobile told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Many analysts believe that smartphone makers such as Samsung, HTC or Sony Ericsson will now embrace Google’s Android platform more deeply, fearing they can no longer compete with Nokia on Windows Phone.

But Andy Lees said the vote of confidence from Nokia, which sold 100 million smartphones last year, would encourage software developers to create applications for Windows Phone, benefiting all cell phone makers using the platform.

“Having them really betting on Windows Phone as the future of their smartphone business is a big statement in terms of the potential for volume and the total ecosystem,” Lees told Reuters Television at the Mobile World Congress fair in Barcelona.

“If you’re a developer… would you develop to Windows Phone? Before you might have said: ‘I’m not sure, because what’s the ultimate volume going to be?,” he said.

“Well, now the largest phone maker and also a whole set of other OEMS (original equipment makers) are already betting on the platform.”

Attracting developer attention is crucial for the success of any smartphone. Apple’s iPhone was a design hit in 2007 but the App Store where users could buy small software programs to personalize their iPhones cemented its position.

BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) – Microsoft’s deep collaboration with Nokia will help rival phone makers, not threaten them, the software giant’s president of mobile told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Many analysts believe that smartphone makers such as Samsung, HTC or Sony Ericsson will now embrace Google’s Android platform more deeply, fearing they can no longer compete with Nokia on Windows Phone.

But Andy Lees said the vote of confidence from Nokia, which sold 100 million smartphones last year, would encourage software developers to create applications for Windows Phone, benefiting all cell phone makers using the platform.

“Having them really betting on Windows Phone as the future of their smartphone business is a big statement in terms of the potential for volume and the total ecosystem,” Lees told Reuters Television at the Mobile World Congress fair in Barcelona.

“If you’re a developer… would you develop to Windows Phone? Before you might have said: ‘I’m not sure, because what’s the ultimate volume going to be?,” he said.

“Well, now the largest phone maker and also a whole set of other OEMS (original equipment makers) are already betting on the platform.”

Attracting developer attention is crucial for the success of any smartphone. Apple’s iPhone was a design hit in 2007 but the App Store where users could buy small software programs to personalize their iPhones cemented its position.

BARCELONA, Spain Feb 14 (Reuters) – BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) is not alone in facing demands from governments for access to its data services, and it is just a normal part of the business, co-chief executive Jim Balsillie said.

RIM has attracted attention over the past year for disputes with a number of countries in the Gulf Arab region and most recently in India, as governments seek to monitor its encrypted email and messaging services for security reasons.

“This is just part of the business,” Balsillie told Reuters Insider in an interview at the Mobile World Congress fair in Barcelona on Monday.

“Every carrier in the world is subject to their domestic laws of local access, and you have to make sure you comply with those,” he said. “Quite frankly, every other tech and telecom company does it around the world.”

RIM has increasingly focused on growing its business in emerging economies as its grip on corporate customers loosens in the face of challenges from more consumer-oriented device makers such as Apple (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research).

“Our performance in those markets continues to grow, and grow very, very fast,” he said.

(Writing by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Will Waterman)

BARCELONA, Spain Feb 14 (Reuters) – BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is not alone in facing demands from governments for access to its data services, and it is just a normal part of the business, co-chief executive Jim Balsillie said.

RIM has attracted attention over the past year for disputes with a number of countries in the Gulf Arab region and most recently in India, as governments seek to monitor its encrypted email and messaging services for security reasons.

“This is just part of the business,” Balsillie told Reuters Insider in an interview at the Mobile World Congress fair in Barcelona on Monday.

“Every carrier in the world is subject to their domestic laws of local access, and you have to make sure you comply with those,” he said. “Quite frankly, every other tech and telecom company does it around the world.”

RIM has increasingly focused on growing its business in emerging economies as its grip on corporate customers loosens in the face of challenges from more consumer-oriented device makers such as Apple (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

“Our performance in those markets continues to grow, and grow very, very fast,” he said.

(Writing by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Will Waterman)

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Microsoft’s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) deep collaboration with Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will help rival phone makers, not threaten them, the software giant’s president of mobile told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Many analysts believe that smartphone makers such as Samsung (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), HTC (2498.TW: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) or Sony Ericsson (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(ERICb.ST: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will now embrace Google’s (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Android platform more deeply, fearing they can no longer compete with Nokia on Windows Phone.

But Andy Lees said the vote of confidence from Nokia, which sold 100 million smartphones last year, would encourage software developers to create applications for Windows Phone, benefiting all cellphone makers using the platform.

“Having them really betting on Windows Phone as the future of their smartphone business is a big statement in terms of the potential for volume and the total ecosystem,” Lees told Reuters Television at the Mobile World Congress fair in Barcelona.

“If you’re a developer… would you develop to Windows Phone? Before you might have said: ‘I’m not sure, because what’s the ultimate volume going to be?,” he said.

“Well, now the largest phone maker and also a whole set of other OEMS (original equipment makers) are already betting on the platform.”

Attracting developer attention is crucial for the success of any smartphone. Apple’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) iPhone was a design hit in 2007 but the App Store where users could buy small software programmes to personalise their iPhones cemented its position.

By Matt Cowan

LONDON, Jan 27 (Reuters Life!) – For a virtually unknown 16-year-old British ukulele player and singer, Misty Miller already boasts an impressive international following.

“The places in the world that know my music? South America, China and Australia,” she says with slight astonishment.

Miller knows this by looking at a “heatmap” generated by a new online tracking tool called Buzzdeck.

Built by the London-based music distributors Artists Without A Label (AWAL), Buzzdeck is an attempt to provide musicians and their managers with a set of insights to help them decide where to target their promotional efforts.

AWAL co-founder Kevin Bacon said Buzzdeck aggregates data from websites such as YouTube, MySpace, Twitter as well as the iTunes music store and companies that track radio plays to present a coherent view of where an artist is gaining traction. Blogs and peer-to-peer networks are also monitored.

“We’re currently tracking about 70 or 80 data feeds from probably 20 to 25 different sources,” says Bacon sitting in an office of London’s RAK studios.

LONDON (Reuters) – Wikipedia’s impact on the world has yet to peak as the open online encyclopedia aims to double its reach, mainly through expansion in developing countries, founder Jimmy Wales told Reuters.

Wikipedia already has about 400 million users and is in the top 10 most popular websites in the world. It aims to reach a billion through international expansion, starting with India, where it plans its first office outside the United States.

“The biggest priority for us is diversifying the contributor base, and we mean that both in English Wikipedia — we want to diversify the kinds of people who are contributing — but also geographically,” Wales said in an interview with Reuters.

Wikipedia has 17 million articles, more than 3.5 million of them in English, which have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site.

“I think our real humanitarian impact will be in the next few years as we bring information to people who haven’t had it,” Wales said, speaking to Reuters at a party in London to celebrate Wikipedia’s 10th birthday this week.

He said that along with increasing the number of languages in which Wikipedia articles are published, increasing speed of access was also a priority.

“One of the problems we have today is that we are sometimes a little bit slow in India and China. The access times are slow because we don’t have enough servers there,” he said.