Take the People Hub that seamlessly manages your contacts and your social life, or the in-built Office Hub that makes writing Word documents or managing spreadsheets really easy.

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She was, and remained throughout her life, a kind of hub around which people with similar cultural left sympathies gathered.

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And iCloud. 10 years ago they had insight that PC would be hub for your digital life.

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Under the terms of the old agreement, Fortescue was restricted from paying dividends or expanding its operations beyond its Chichester Hub during the 10-year life of the notes.

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And that pair of DVI-D inputs accompanied by DisplayPort, VGA, composite, component, and HDMI 1.3 jack means that this beast is meant for much more than just sourcing spreadsheets and pie charts. 4x USB slots and an integrated 8-in-1 card reader rounds out what's destined to become an all-purpose hub at the center of your digital life.

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It's on ThinkSecret, which means, of course, that we can't verify the information or its source, but now the rumor on top of the pile for things we might see at Macworld in January is that the Mac mini will be given a second life as a Front Row 2.0-bearing digital media hub complete with DVR features.

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But is there life beyond their public-facing function as the corporate mouthpiece and information hub?

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David Weaver, the chief executive of Oceanlinx, one of the firms planning to use the Wave Hub, argues that Britain's liberalised and transparent power markets make life easier for newcomers, although others argue that fluctuating power prices make planning tricky.

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