Archive for November, 2009

The Last 350 Years

Monday, November 30th, 2009
The Royal Society marks it 350th anniversary in 2010 and they’ve decided to mark the occasion by making 60 of it’s most important or interesting papers online for the first time. Their trailblazing website has a fascinating timeline which charts the 350 years – within it you can click to reveal landmark papers and discoveries of those times. These link onto the actual scientific papers.
You can find out about Newton’s theory of  Light and Colour or even read an article about the young Mozart where the subject is whether he is a ‘genuis’ or not. There’s the discovery of DNA, and right up to date a paper about big ideas for dealing with global warming.
It’s a fascinating site it you have a scientific bent – and even if not it provides a rich history of the last three and a half centuries.
The site can be found at:
http://trailblazing.royalsociety.org/

Royal Society_logo

The Royal Society marks it 350th anniversary in 2010 and they’ve decided to mark the occasion by making 60 of it’s most important or interesting papers online for the first time. Their trailblazing website has a fascinating timeline which charts the 350 years – within it you can click to reveal landmark papers and discoveries of those times. These link onto the actual scientific papers.

You can find out about Newton’s theory of  Light and Colour or even read an article about the young Mozart where the subject is whether he is a ‘genuis’ or not. There’s the discovery of DNA, and right up to date a paper about big ideas for dealing with global warming.

It’s a fascinating site it you have a scientific bent – and even if not it provides a rich history of the last three and a half centuries.

The site can be found at:

http://trailblazing.royalsociety.org/

Posted in science | No Comments »

Read All About It

Friday, November 27th, 2009
An amazing device is to go on trial in the Shaftesbury Theatre. Called the AirScript – the device provides subtitles for the given performance in eight languages. It has been designed to work in such as way as to not disturb fellow audience members by consisting of a very low angle of view backlit led display with virtually no glare …. it runs over wifi.
Lines are fed by an operator who knows just when each line should be sent through – they can even ad lib if the actors go off script!
The designers of the device, Cambridge consultants, hope that it will enable more tourists to visit the theatre.
Press release here:
http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/news_pr256.html

airscript_news
An amazing device is to go on trial in the Shaftesbury Theatre. Called the AirScript – the device provides subtitles for the given performance in eight languages. It has been designed to work in such as way as to not disturb fellow audience members by consisting of a very low angle of view backlit led display with virtually no glare …. it runs over wifi.

Lines are fed by an operator who knows just when each line should be sent through – they can even ad lib if the actors go off script!

The designers of the device, Cambridge consultants, hope that it will enable more tourists to visit the theatre.

Press release here:

http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/news_pr256.html

Posted in Technology | No Comments »

At first look at Chrome OS

Friday, November 20th, 2009
At first look at Chrome OS
We got our first look at the new Chrome OS today from Google. The open source Operating System  is a radical new look at what an OS is all about. The idea was to strip things back so far as to make an incredibly compact and fast OS that ran nearly everything via a browser (Google Chrome naturally!) The promises of speed certainly seem to have to come off with boot up taking (allegedly) just 7 seconds.
Google say that the OS will start to appear on Netbooks in time for next Christmas (that’s 2010 – not nine!) and Google are initally working with hardware partners that they already have relationships with allowing them to specify exact hardware requirements (it’s believed that only solid-state drives will be supported to begin with).
The advantages to driving all applications through browser based online offerings is obvious, but one added advantage might be security. Should your netbook be compromised, for whatever reason,   online checks should detect, and even fix, this.
We’re looking forwards to the beta……

09_chrome-os
We got our first look at the new Chrome OS today from Google. The open source Operating System  is a radical new look at what an OS is all about. The idea was to strip things back so far as to make an incredibly compact and fast OS that ran nearly everything via a browser (Google Chrome naturally!) The promises of speed certainly seem to have to come off with boot up taking (allegedly) just 7 seconds.

Google say that the OS will start to appear on Netbooks in time for next Christmas (that’s 2010 – not nine!) and Google are initally working with hardware partners that they already have relationships with allowing them to specify exact hardware requirements (it’s believed that only solid-state drives will be supported to begin with).

The advantages to driving all applications through browser based online offerings is obvious, but one added advantage might be security. Should your netbook be compromised, for whatever reason,   online checks should detect, and even fix, this.

We’re looking forwards to the beta……

More here:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

Posted in Technology | No Comments »

Vincent

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
We’re very excited about the news of the Royal Academy’s upcoming exhibition of Van Gogh. Although probably the most well known of artists, Van Gogh still manages to charm both ‘tea-towel’ art lovers to serious academics. His short life of austerity and misery left us with not only an amazing collection of paintings, but also lesser know, an incredibly rich history of his art through his letters, mostly to his brother.
This exhibition has over 35 of his original letters and 65 paintings. It’s the first large exhibition of the aritst’s work for over 40 years and we’re renewing our Friends membership cards to make sure we don’t have to suffer the inevitably enormous queues!
Find out more here:
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/vangogh/

Untitled-1

We’re very excited about the news of the Royal Academy’s upcoming exhibition of Van Gogh. Although probably the most well known of artists, Van Gogh still manages to charm both ‘tea-towel’ art lovers to serious academics. His short life of austerity and misery left us with not only an amazing collection of paintings, but also lesser know, an incredibly rich history of his art through his letters, mostly to his brother.

This exhibition has over 35 of his original letters and 65 paintings. It’s the first large exhibition of the aritst’s work for over 40 years and we’re renewing our Friends membership cards to make sure we don’t have to suffer the Inevitably enormous queues!

Find out more here:
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/vangogh/

Posted in Arts | No Comments »

Va-Va-Vooooom

Friday, November 6th, 2009
Think bloodhound and you probably think of an ageing detective with big magnifying glass and crooked pipe. How wrong could you be? The bloodhound we’re talking about here is a ‘car’ albeit one with the engine of a euro-fighter typhoon with a rocket strapped to the top. RAF pilot Andy Green (the current land speed record holder) intends to pilot these ‘beast’ to beat his own record. When we say beat, we should probably say smash as he intends to take the speed record to over 1000mph (yes that really is the right number of zeros!)
What we particularly like about the project is that the engine is only on ‘loan’….. perhaps I could borrow it next ?!
Find out more about the project here:
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/ResearchHighlights/Bloodhound/default.htm

BHSSCLogoW200H127
Think bloodhound and you probably think of an ageing detective with big magnifying glass and crooked pipe. How wrong could you be? The bloodhound we’re talking about here is a ‘car’ albeit one with the engine of a euro-fighter typhoon with a rocket strapped to the top. RAF pilot Andy Green (the current land speed record holder) intends to pilot these ‘beast’ to beat his own record. When we say beat, we should probably say smash as he intends to take the speed record to over 1000mph (yes that really is the right number of zeros!)

What we particularly like about the project is that the engine is only on ‘loan’….. perhaps I could borrow it next ?!

Find out more about the project here:

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/ResearchHighlights/Bloodhound/default.htm

Posted in Technology, design | No Comments »