Downtime

A bar in Sao Paulo in Brazil has come up with a special glass that only stands upright when placed on a mobile phone.

This is an attempt to encourage people to put their working day behind them and relax when they are in the bar.

Insurance companies will have a field day rejecting claims. What were you doing with your mobile before the liquid damage? "I was using it to hold my beer up obviously."

With Brazil the next stage for the Olympic Games and World Cup insurance companies will put a premium of those attending.

At least one downtime contributor won't drop his phone in his pint again.

Images of how humans will look in 100,000 years' time have been produced by artist Nickolay Lamm and Computational Genomics PhD Dr. Alan Kwan.

According to Mashable, Lamm's interpretations of future humans will have larger foreheads and eyes to facilitate a larger brain to store information.

Lamm suggests that within 20,000 years we will be wearing a Communications Lens (update of Google Glass) in our eyes which will produce a yellow ring around our iris, and hence making us look like aliens.

He also suggests that within 60,000 years we will have bone-conduction devices implanted above our ears to work with the Google Lens.

And there's me thinking that within the next ten years babies would be born and have a smartphone-style microchip instantly implanted so the world's governments can have full access to our thoughts and actions. 

The last thing many of us would want to spend our day staring at is a scuttling cockroach. However, neuroscientist Greg Gage is hoping his contraption will make the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh do just that.

Gage has created a 'backpack' which can be fitted onto one of the little critters* and, through using electricity, can control the movements of the bug. Also, rather than just a standard remote, the directions are all given to the beast over a smartphone.

There is some method to his madness. The technology is already being used for treating Parkinson's disease and further studies like this could unlock some more secrets as to how the brain and electric pulses interact.

But really we are just thinking of keeping a stash of the backpacks in case we ever get invade with cockroaches at the Downtime offices. That will show the nasty little buggars...

*no cockroaches have been hurt during this experiment as they are under anesthetic... mores the pity  

There is nothing quite like that feeling of waking up hungover on a Sunday morning and knowing just a few clicks away is the saving grace to quell any Jagermeister side effects - hot stuffed crust pizza delivered to your door.

The only problem comes with the knock on the door. Then reality hits that you have to show someone from the outside world just how dreadful you look, so awful in fact you have considered on many occasions keeping a paper bag on the key rack for such an occasion.

Well fear not fellow booze hounds! Purveyors of ultimate greasy pizza Domino's have come up with a cunning scheme using their technological nous; a pizza delivery drone named the DomiCopter! The takeaway company released a video this week of the bot in action, flying across the skies to give you the carbs and calories much needed after a night on the town.

Sound unnecessary? Perhaps. But if you had seen the state of some of us at Computer Weekly after a session in The George, you would be thinking those delivery guys were bloody lucky to not have to confront our ugly mugs.   

Brian May has been fighting against badger culls across the UK and making us fall in love with the furry creatures, but techies beware; they are after your broadband!

BT has had to stop work on its fibre roll-out in Easingwold, Yorkshire, after it discovered several badger sets where it had planned to lay its cables.

This means 450 homes who were expecting to get their hands on superfast internet speeds will have to wait whilst BT calls in a specialist badger consultant - yes, that is a real job - to let them know if the sets are in use or whether the badgers have packed up their mash potato and moved on.

If BT had ploughed on they would have faced a fine of up to £5,000 and up to six months' imprisonment for each "sett interference."

Perhaps they could do a deal with the badgers and give them some free Wi-Fi? They are an internet sensation after all...

This is what every gadget-loving foodie needs in their kitchen - an iSpoon.

Only the Olympics was a more in demand live programme on iPlayer than the funeral of former PM Maggie Thatcher.

There were 986,000 requests for the programme, with most of them people watching the day's events on a live stream.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of her there must be a reason for this popularity. Downtime thinks its appeal is down to it having something for everyone. A significant portion of the audience were enthralled by a state funeral while the rest wanted to make sure she was really dead.

The days of the internet café seem a somewhat distant memory as now we all pile into the nearest coffee chain with our own devices and merely leech off of the Wi-Fi. However, at least we still have the choice...

Residents in the US state of Ohio have been told by the local law enforcers there will be no more internet cafes and a full scale ban is set to be unleashed. Why? Because they believe the venues are a front for gambling!

Turns out when people stopped needing the venues, owners looked into making their money other ways. A gambling license could prove costly, so instead they began offering free goes on games if you purchased airtime on their PCs, circumventing regulators and attracting a hip and happening - ok, elderly and bored - crowd.

Now these secret dens are set to be shut down by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty, who said he was "determined to end the exploitation."

So, if you ever end up in Ohio, stick to the Starbucks and the casinos - there ain't no one stop shop any more...

Downtime has nothing against eating healthily in principle - in principle - it's just that all the things that taste so good rarely seem to be calorie-light or good for the arteries. And, as an office-dweller, Downtime is all too familiar with the chain effect caused when the person next to you starts eating something deliciously tempting.

So, good news comes from the 3D printing front. Jeffrey Lipton, a doctoral candidate at Cornell University, predicts that in the future the technology may be used to create tailor-made food for the user and perhaps even calibrated to the number of calories you burn over the day.

Cornell University's Fab@Home lab printed what Lipton calls "data-driven cookies," where 3D printers were used to print two cookies that each accounted for 10% of their respective caloric deficits. The cookies were the same size but composed of different ingredients, based on nutritional specifics.

Resisting making a clever quip about cookies in technology (because we can't think of one), Downtime looks forward to the days of rustling up some experimental snacks without ever needing to leave our screens again.

The twitterverse has whipped itself up into a Hyacinth Bucket storm of indignation after the creator of the Graphics Interchange Format or 'GIF' protested that his invention is actually pronounced 'Jif'. Despite the, err, evident 'guh' sound in the first word of the acronym.

Inventor, Steve Wilhite, said: "The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations," He said "They are wrong. It is a soft 'G,' pronounced 'jif.' End of story."

As a Monty Python fan, Downtime is reminded of the famous pronunciation sketch, where Britain's leading skin specialist, Raymond Luxury-Yacht, insists on an entirely different pronunciation of his name.

Well Mr Steve Wilhite, that might be how your name is spelled but from now on we'll be insisting it's pronounced "Throatwobbler Mangrove"

We have all made the odd social network faux pas. From being it tagged in a picture on a drunken night out you didn't want your family to see through to tweeting negatives about your boss without realising they are following you - at Downtime we have experiences of both... - these online communities are no place to try and keep secrets.

But you would think a company worth £2bn may have a couple of employees at least making sure there are no slip ups to bring embarrassment on the firm? Wouldn't you?

Well, someone has just received their P45 at Manchester United. After Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement at the end of the season from the soon to be Premiership champions yesterday, speculation has been rife as to who would take over.

From rumours of a return to the UK by 'the special one' through to wishful thinking Alan Pardew would bugger off from Newcastle - there may be a couple of Magpies over here at Downtime too - everyone with an inkling of interest about the beautiful game was awaiting the news.

So, rather than a grand announcement, Manchester United managed to accidentally post the news that David Moyes will take on the position and leave Everton behind on their Facebook page, meaning within minutes the news was all over the web and links being retweeted on Twitter at a rate of knots.

Let that be a lesson to all companies embracing the social media revolution. You may think it is just a job for a wet behind the ears intern but Facebook and Twitter can make news, break news or lead to another member of staff joining the dole queue. Good luck in your next adventure social media guru 187...

Modern Britain is often losing its head over 'political correctness gone mad,' but it seems Facebook has more important bonces to deal with.

Up until this week the social network was allowing videos of decapitations to be posted online, claiming its users had the right to depict the "world in which we live."

However, it has now reversed its decision after the US Family Online Safety Institute complained to the site, claiming the violent videos "crossed a line."

Strangely, Facebook ignored a compliant from a Belfast university student, who reported a video sounding like something straight out of Sons of Anarchy, with two members of a Mexican drug cartel being attacked with a chainsaw.

In response to his submission, the website replied: "We reviewed the video... but found it doesn't violate Facebook's Community Standard on graphic violence, which includes depicting harm to someone or something, threats to the public's safety, or theft and vandalism."

Whoever wrote that email may need their head examining...

Oh well, we are sure you can find plenty of videos elsewhere on the internet if decapitation is your thing. We still stick to live streams of kittens and keynotes here thanks. 

Great minds clearly think alike, when it comes to the politics of information technology.

We been struck by the remarkable similarity between Lord Empey's speech in the House of Lords on the gaps in IT education in the UK on 26th March, and a speech by COO and  consultant, Yva Thakurdas, at the House of Lords six days early, on, er, the gaps in IT education in the UK.

Do you think they might be related ?


Thakurdas

The area provides 48,000 digital economy jobs, more than double the number of 15 years ago at the time of the dot.com boom. Yet its future progress is threatened by a severe skills shortage for the very same reasons as the other small businesses across the UK, namely an under-supply of skilled developers and specialist staff in the UK. These Technology firms blame ill-designed university syllabuses and a lack of understanding at all levels of the education system.



Lord Empey

In London, IT provides 48,000 digital economy jobs, more than double the number of such jobs 15 years ago at the time of the dotcom boom. This progress is under severe threat by a skills shortage, namely an under supply of skilled developers and technicians within the UK, and technology firms blame ill designed university syllabuses and a lack of understanding at all levels of the education system.


Thakurdas

The number of young people studying and choosing careers in IT has correspondingly decreased, and therefore not kept up with growing demand Graduates are becoming less equipped to enter the job market meaningfully in a competitive market, with overseas students often being better qualified;

Lord Empey

The number of young people studying IT has fallen correspondingly with the standard of ICT teaching from school to university over the past15years. Graduates have therefore become ill equipped to enter a competitive jobs market meaningfully, and overseas students are often better qualified.


Fancy that !

David Bowie's contribution to the computer storage industry has often been under-appreciated. But with a major retrospective at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and his first album for a decade, it is time to reassess Bowie's influence on the development storage arrays.

Bowie's  interest in storage began early in his career, with his 1967 debut anticipating the rise of the Massive Array of Idle Disks, some two decades before they become common place in the IT department.

Maid of Bond Street will always remain a landmark work in the history of storage innovation.

For many, Ziggy Stardust is the  apogee of Bowie's storage career.  Who can forget Bowie's prescient call for data deduplication technology  in his 1972 song Five Years. "My brain hurt like a warehouse," Bowie cried, "I had no room to spare. I had to cram so many things to store everything in there."

But to let Ziggy eclipse Bowie's influence on storage would be folly.  Aladdin Sane, inspired by Aladdin Knowledge Systems, has much to teach us.

As Sane, Bowie, took storage to a new level of theatricality. The lightening stripe Flash, which decorated Bowie's schizophrenic alter ego, heralded a new era of hyper-speed data retrieval.

Indeed, Sane, more than any other of Bowie's characters, reminds us of the vital role of  the Storage Area  Network Extension, in our fractured society.

It would be folly to disregard Bowie's Berlin period, when developments in data retrieval technology inspired Bowie to replace glam rock, with a harder techno-sound.

What starker reminder could there be about the dangers of poor disaster recovery planning, in Bowie's prescient song, "Always crashing in the same car"  ? We could indeed be hero's if only we had dual redundant data centres.


Next week we consider Tim Machine's impact on the Server Market.


What are your favourite Bowie storage tracks ? Email  me at wgoodwin@techtarget.com and I will publish the best entries.

Night driving can be an unnerving prospect at the best of times, but add some ominous rain to the mix and it can be quite a scary experience.

The traditional headlights offer some solace but the bulbs bounce off the rain drops, making your view akin to Niagara Falls rather than the road you want to focus on.

Fear not though, as the brains at Intel have been working on new technology to rid your vision of these pesky droplets.

Working with a projector and a camera, the system is able to predict where the rain drops will fall and project an image blotting out the water and showing you the road ahead, rather than the shower - check out the video on CNET.

With a latency of just 13 milliseconds, it is impressive how quickly the system can make these predictions and projections, but it will be much slower before the technology will come to market - Intel predicts it will be in new cars within the next 10 years.

We never thought we would look forward to driving in the rain but bring on the next decade and April showers!

The plight of the long distance lover has continued to improve over the years thanks to technology. From cheaper phone calls, free texts with WhatsApp, long, languishing emails and video conferencing to see your beloved's face, partners separated by deserts, oceans or just the M25 have been able to stay closer more than ever.

But, there is nothing quite like another's touch and so far this is something tech has failed to provide. Until now that is...

Durex Australia has developed a new type of underwear - we didn't say this was romantic, did we? - which links up with a smartphone app. Users are then able to control certain "touch-actuators" sewn into the fabric of the undergarments to, well, ummm, pleasure their partners from miles away.

Sound confusing? Fear not! Durex has even released YouTube videos to give couples a tutorial on how the 'Fundawear' works.

There is one snag though, it seems only Apple users will get to play with one another as the app only runs on iOS at the moment. As if those Apple fanbois don't have enough cool toys to play with... 

Here at Downtime we know tech is not just for boys; there are many girls who love their games, gadgets and GNU too. So it is great to see a US organisation stepping it up a gear to encouraging the next generation of developers from womankind.

The Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles have introduced a new badge to go alongside the first aid or public speaking awards more commonly associated with them - video game development.

They are working with Women in Games International  group to help the scouts create their own games and encourage them to get excited about technology, realising there are jobs out there for women as well as men in the science and tech industries.

We hope the UK Brownies and Guides follow suit. Lord knows one of us used to ditch going along in her youth where she would have to sew patches or learn to work in hospitality to sit at home on her Super Nintendo and play Zelda. She did manage to get a job at Computer Weekly though...