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By Will Sturgeon, 28 September 2000 09:15

NEWS The race to be the next e-envoy seems to have taken a turn with the Times reporting that current e-minister Patricia Hewitt is in line for the post - which may be upgraded to a cabinet position by the time she takes up the reins. One of the jobs waiting for the next e-envoy is to mend the digital divide splitting the UK. The Times reports that BT's high-speed internet offering will bypass 40 per cent of the UK's population and create a technology gulf between the bright new future of ADSL and the slower, soon to be outdated technologies in place until now... The Telegraph brings further mention of the UK's incumbent telco with news that Microsoft is urging Telewest and NTL to unite in their fight against BT. A merger between the two cable companies would certainly create a company strong enough to take on BT and seems a viable way of bringing to an end BT's unappreciated grip on the UK market. However, Microsoft it must be said, seems an unlikely source of advice on attacking anti-competitive business models. The software giant's part to play in all of this rests on invested interests in both NTL and Telewest - in which it holds a three per cent and 25 per cent stake respectively. As such its share of any new company formed from the two would be considerable. Despite this, in an unpopularity contest between the two companies, Microsoft's advances may find an appreciative audience in a UK sector dissatisfied with BT... Finally, the Guardian brings us news of mergers of a more interpersonal nature with news that one in 10 women using the internet have made love to a man they first met online in the workplace. The women, surveyed at newwomanonline.co.uk, spent an average of 102 minutes a day chatting online or emailing potential lovers - with Londoners apparently the most likely to swap motherboard for headboard...