Downtime

Printing cookies

2013-05-22T16:05:19Z

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.

Throatwobbler Mangrove

2013-05-22T15:35:07Z

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"

Facebook outs Fergie's successor

2013-05-09T13:58:32Z

David Moyes, Manager of Everton Football Club. Everton Played Club America after FC Dallas beat Colorado (Major League Soccer) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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...

Facebook loses its head over violent videos

2013-05-03T10:03:46Z

Image via CrunchBase

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.

Shurely Shome Mishtake ?

2013-05-03T09:22:46Z

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 !

Tapping out your memories: Bowie's influence on the development of computer storage technology

2013-05-02T15:04:29Z

Bill Goodwin, fresh from Bowie's retrospective at the V&A Museum, considers one of the twentieth century's greatest musicians influence on computer storage technology.

David Bowie's contribution to the computer storage industry has often been under-

Español: David Bowie sobre el escenario del festival "Rock in Chile", realizado en el Estadio Nacional de Chile, 27 de septiembre de 1990. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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.

IBM makes the smallest movie ever and casts atoms as the lead

2013-05-01T14:29:50Z

Researchers at IBM used a scanning tunneling microscope to move the thousands of carbon monoxide molecules - two atoms stacked on top of each other - in order to make a film about a boy and his atom.

The ability to move atoms is part of IBM's research into atomic memory, which could lead to the next generation of data storage.

The movie's stars had to be magnified over 100 million times in order to be seen.

Not surprinsingly, the short film has gained a Guinnes World Record for the world's smallest stop-motion film

I'm only happy when it rains

2013-04-29T14:16:17Z

English: The A968 at Watlee on a very wet day Driving rain and gale force winds - not driving weather. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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!

A case of mistweeted identity

2013-04-26T10:39:45Z

When the immediacy of Twitter clashes with the "passion" (other words are available) of sports fans, there's a recipe for delightful mix-ups. In January 2011, American Ashley Kerekes (@theashes) was bemused to find herself on the receiving end of a lot of banter between English and Australian cricket fans and to this day her Twitter profile still carries the memorable lament "I'm not a freaking cricket match!" On 14 April, Olympic cyclist Chris Hoy tweeted "I guess Chris Foy's having a shocker again today", a reference to him regularly being mistaken for the Premier League referee who is very unpopular in certain parts of north London.

But, the new kid on the sudden Twitter celebrity block is 52-year-old Indian IT consultant, Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad (@rvp) who found himself bombarded with messages when Robin van Persie scored a hat-trick to secure the league title for Manchester United on 22 April. Prasad's attempts to clear the confusion did not slow the messages, but his witty responses have made him a Twitter sensation in his own right. However, with van Persie due to return to his old club Arsenal this weekend - and anticipating a hostile welcome - Prasad might want to be sure his phone and tablet batteries are fully-charged. It might be a busy day for him.

Tetris to treat lazy eye

2013-04-24T12:28:30Z

Canadian doctors have discovered that playing the video game Tetris, can be used to treat lazy eye.

In an experiment

Tetris (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

with 18 adults, it was found to be a more effective treatment than the traditional patching of the good eye to make the weak eye work harder.

The study found that the puzzle, where players have to match the different coloured tiles in order to clear a row, could relieve children from going through the trauma of wearing an eye patch.

Computer Weekly journalist, Jennifer Scott, who spent most of her childhood* playing Tetris, said that while her lazy eye wasn't cured by the game, her eye could have been a lot worse if the hours of dedication to the sport weren't put in during her youth.

*and still plays the game to this day

When I think about you I touch my... iPhone app

2013-04-23T12:05:41Z

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...

We are girl gamers, scout's honour!

2013-04-18T13:16:07Z

English: A Super Nintendo (SNES or Super NES) video game console, shown with standard controller. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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...

Londoners turn to gadgets in bed

2013-04-18T13:06:01Z

Activities in bed have never been limited to sleeping, but research has revealed that a growing number of Londoners are turning to gadgets.

Infosecurity Europe polled 1,000 Londoners and found that 29% are using smartphones and mobile computers to check emails or catch up on work while in bed.

Some 15% admitted to being at it with their computers at the same time as their partners were doing the same, and 75% of those who work in bed admit to spending more than 30 minutes a day at it.

That means they are spending three and half hours a week on work while in bed, and 22% spend more than two hours a day at it, amounting to an extra 14 hours a week.

Nearly a third admitted that the first thing they do in the morning is check their smartphones for messages. Kissing partners was top of the list for a mere 6% of those polled.

Claire Sellick, event director for Infosecurity Europe said the survey highlights the dependence on technology, therefore it is increasingly important that data on these devices is protected.

Amazon says Welsh is too small for Kindle

2013-04-18T10:42:53Z

Amazon has got a cheek. Not supporting the Welsh language on the Kindle. Admittedly most Welsh people can't even be arsed to learn the language, but the Welsh do seem to be victimised.

I mean Welsh cricketers are expected to play for England, Welsh football teams have to play in the English league, Charles in the Welsh Prince, the weather is shit and now Kindle won't support Welsh.

Don't get me wrong I love whales.

Amazon has no justification for this belittling of a nation. In contrast Apple would have every reason to ban Welsh from iTunes.

And is Wi-Fi a stairway to heaven?

2013-04-08T10:47:35Z

English: St. John the Evangelist, Church of England, Knotty Ash (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The key communication device between a worshipper and their God, or so I have been led to believe, is prayer or perhaps the odd ritual sacrifice. But it seems that even organised religion wants to catch up with the times and use some technological advancements to up their game.

St John's Church in Mickleover, Derbyshire, has done a deal with The Cloud - owned by Rupert Murdoch's BskyB so make your own conclusion who they did the deal with... - to hook up the house of worship for the modern age e.g. with Wi-Fi.

The Cloud has provided the Church with a slew of tablets and using the wireless connectivity can now provide the Church service in full over the devices, letting those struggling to see the small fonts commonly used in The Bible or hymn books to enlarge them and follow along with the service much more easily.

"First we saw the Pope tweeting and now this service via Wi-Fi at St John's - perhaps the church can teach others a few things about keeping up with modern technology," claimed Vince Russell, managing director of The Cloud.

Well, they may not believe in gay marriage or women as bishops, but at least the Church of England has some technological nous hey?