Britain is turning into a nation of technophiles as increasing
numbers watch television over the internet and shun landline
connections in favour of devices known as dongles that link laptops
to the world wide web.

Consumers spent 429 minutes, or more than seven hours a day, watching
television, listening to radio, surfing the internet and making fixed-
line and mobile calls in 2007, compared with 423 minutes in 2002.

The figures refer to home rather than office activity and imply we
have become a society of multi-taskers, often doing two things at
once, such as watching television and talking on the phone.

The figures suggest much of this additional time is spent on the
internet and on mobile phones. Internet usage quadrupled between 2002
and 2007, with people spending 24 minutes a day web surfing last year.

Ofcom found 17 per cent of households with broadband watched
television over the internet at the start of 2008, compared with 9
per cent last year.

The big consumer innovation this year is the mobile dongle: a user-
friendly modem enabling wireless connections to the internet to be
made from laptops. About 133,000 dongles were sold in June, compared
with 69,000 in February.

[Extract from Financial Times report, August 14th 2008:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/35ac4d50-696a-11dd-91bd-0000779fd18c.html]

Dongles are surprisingly cheap by the way, her eis what they look
like and cost...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/external-search?tag=sunflowerheal-21&keyword\
=dongle+laptop