Vacuum technology firm Edwards is to cut 220 jobs in Sussex as it locates all its manufacturing operations overseas. The move marks a shift in strategy for the Crawley-headquartered company that had previously trumpeted its strong UK manufacturing base, which dates back to 1919.

T-Mobile and Orange are to merge their UK businesses, creating a mobile phone giant with 28.4 million customers. The deal between Orange-owner France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile UK will see a business with sales of 9.4bn euros (US$13.5 billion).

Because "LED TV" implies that displays are comprised totally of LEDs, which is not the case, the Advertising Standards Authority wants Samsung to change its ads in the UK.

Fujitsu Services operation in the UK has announced a rationalisation programme across its workforce, proposing a reduction of up to 1,200 jobs. It currently employs 12,500 people in the UK.

UK firm Spinvox's service aims to convert voice messages into text messages using advanced speech recognition software. But claims to the BBC suggest that the majority of messages have been heard and transcribed by call center staff in South Africa and the Philippines.

The power of technology - such as blogs - meant that the world could no longer be run by "elites", Mr Brown said.

A delegation of Chinese Government officials and technology companies are in the UK this week looking for technology expertise and business partnerships.

The economy contracted at a much sharper pace than initially thought and at its fastest rate in more than 50 years in the first three months of 2009, according to official data.

Mobile phone operator Vodafone has declined to comment on a report that it is considering buying T-Mobile UK.

Compound Semiconductor Technologies (CST) Global, the Scottish foundry company, is to upgrade its manufacturing equipment thanks to new financing.

The pace of decline in the job market eased again in May, a survey has shown, with permanent placements falling at the slowest rate for ten months.

Confidence is beginning to return to UK and mainland European businesses but it has still not reached levels seen in the autumn last year, according to a quarterly business survey released on Tuesday.

Nearly 5,000 firms in England and Wales went into liquidation and a record number of people succumbed to insolvency in the first three months of 2009, as the deepening recession claimed more victims.

UK government funding is needed as the credit crunch threatens a generation of small high-tech companies, a business investment group has warned. The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts said the UK could lose its global standing in areas such as healthcare and biotechnology.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday the upcoming budget will contain environmental measures to aid recovery from recession, including creating thousands of "green" jobs.

Environmental campaigners say they are astonished at the government's decision to suspend a scheme which gave grants to schools, hospitals and other public buildings to switch to renewable energy. Renewable energy experts say it has all been disastrous and could leave the UK at a competitive disadvantage in the future.

LED lamps were compared to other technologies in a recent issue of National Geographic magazine, and LED lighting was also discussed by the UK parliament last week.

Speaking in Egypt, at a summit on the Gaza crisis, Mr Brown said he hoped the move would make it easier for firms and households to obtain credit. What the government wanted was to get "the resumption of lending" he added.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said it believed the minimum wage should not be increased until economic situations had significantly improved.

Bit-tech has learned from several anonymous tipsters that AMD has culled a large portion of its workforce at its UK headquarters in Frimley. Details are light at the moment, but it is said that the sales team has remained relatively unaffected while engineering, marketing and administration have been hit pretty hard.

Orange UK has stopped selling BlackBerry Bold handsets, after concerns were raised over potential software problems with the snazzy-looking device.

The UK's largest fixed wireless access provider, is moving its network to WiMAX, and the EC has announced a decision that should increase the availability of WiMAX spectrum in Europe. On-Communications, which offers fixed wireless services designed to compete with business-quality leased lines, already operates in London, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds and Oxford, and will be using equipment from Airspan for a major rollout of "hundreds" of WiMAX base stations. New installations will use Airspan's MicroMax products...