WWDC Sold Out
Six weeks before the conference started and about the same time since the tickets went on sale.
There are more than 30 folk heading out to WWDC from Northern Ireland in June.
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NHS Innovation Fund announced
The E-Health Insider reports on a new fund for NHS Innovation
Health minister Lord Darzi has unveiled a package of measures to encourage and spread innovation in the NHS.
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The Department of Health is creating a £20m prize fund to encourage people working inside and outside the NHS to combat “the key health issues facing the nation.â€
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It is also creating a £220m fund to distribute money to strategic health authorities to encourage the spread of innovation over the next five years.
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DH information says: “The funds will focus largely on promoting innovation in healthcare delivery, health improvement and patient engagement rather than the development of new medicines or devices, for which funds are already available.â€
While this is very unlikely to result in amazing innovations, there is hope for ‘open standards, open data’ reforms for the NHS. Referring to “Information Technology” and the NHS in the same sentence is a poor joke for UK taxpayers. Projects have uniformly been failures – partially due to lack of experience of massive scale deployments of technology and a dependence on certain proprietary technologies which have scalability issues. Part of the reasons for the failings seem to be the precious need for security of our medical data.
One of the things bothering me about the “security” of NHS data is that it always seems stored in one central location (which is then burned to DVD and left in a taxi somewhere). Pardon me but I’d like to keep my own medical records on a USB dongle on my set of keys so that if something happens to me, it’s easily viewable. It would be an easy and cheap way of storing records. Add a bit of digital rights management (rather than trying to lock away our MP3s) and you’ve got a solution that will please most of the people most of the time. If I lose it, it’s just my records not mine and those of a thousand others. And this solution is used in other countries in Europe. Why are we so scared of it?
This solution isn’t innovative, it’s just sense. It’s not going to need hundreds of millions to implement.
TextHelp for Mac released next month
TextHelp, one of Northern Ireland’s leading “Learning” companies, is about to release it’s latest assistive product, Read&Write 3 Gold for Mac.
The software will assist students with their reading abilities, accuracy of written work and improve their research and revision techniques.
New features of the software include high quality voices designed specifically for Education, a Fact Mapper to help generate ideas, an online Translator, and the software takes the form of a Floating toolbar that integrates with MS Word 2008 and the Safari browser.
Chris Sellars, Dyslexia Technology Consultant states “When working with dyslexic students or explaining how technology can help dyslexics, Texthelp Read&Write has always been well received as its many features give dyslexics a valuable toolbox to help them succeed.”
CEO, Mark McCusker, states “The latest version of Read&Write 3 Gold for Mac brings the popular features of our award-winning software to Apple Mac users. The software is the most user-friendly, yet comprehensive toolbar available to students in the marketplace. We continue to enhance the functionality of our software to provide a greater user experience.”
Hostel Hero – shout out for a great little app!
Jason Morris, an ex-colleague of mine from $BIG_COMPANY, has released his latest app to the iTunes App Store. It’s called Hostel Hero – and pretty much delivers everything I would have wanted for budget accommodation when travelling.
For those of us attending WWDC in June this year, it may prove to be very cost effective as well as useful for the traveller. It works on iPhone and iPod touch and caches data for thousands of hotels and hostels across the world and integrates it with Phone, Email and Google Maps. The caching of the data means it works great for offline viewing – pretty essential for backpackers and travellers not wishing to pay up to £6 a megabyte for data (and I’ve griped about roaming charges before!). You can also book your room from within the app as well as view photos of the accommodation.
Did I mention it’s free?
The app has had some excellent reviews already and has recently joined my arsenal of apps on my iPhone due to my current increase in travel plans. You can view the Press Release, a guided tour and the demo video at the Hostel Hero web site.
Jason is also the man behind PlayTripper – another essential app for the frequent traveller or long-term backpacker. I’m guessing he’s passionate about the subject matter, had the skills and intent and developed something he would use. Perfect formula for a great app.
Over 3G, the downloads are a little slow due to the amount of data involved so it’s clever to use WiFi for those bits – and the download progress bar is misleading – it finished before hitting 1% even on 3G. The UI is also a little plain – using Apple’s standard widgets and it could do with a bit of colour and design I think. The main subject of DevDays last week was the application of design to software where it crosses with User Experience. The table views are also very long due to the amount of countries, cities involved and a side-picker like the Address Book would be a big advantage here. There are no luxury hotels listed – no Marriots or Hiltons – and that I’ll take as a negative rather than a positive – it’s great for the cash-conscious traveller but this could appeal to a wider audience with a bit of buy-in from the big names too. The app is consciously designed for the budget traveller so I guess I’m being picky – it’s still a hundred times better than hitting Google for budget accommodation.
I’d be much more inclined to use this for myself (work travel) rather than use it to book a getaway for me and the wife (leisure travel) – that’s the only caveat I would add. I’d also like a bit more information, maybe some filters, for locations that might be kid-friendly. I know that’s a little bit of an oxymoron for budget travel but when I travel it’s more likely to be with kids. Even just for finding hotels and hostels around Ireland and Northern Ireland – it’s already proved it’s worth to me.
GameDevelopers.ie: Irish Game Development 2.0
www.gamedevelopers.ie is partnering the IDA Ireland to organize the event, Irish Game Development 2.0, on Friday the 15th of May from 6.00pm in the Trinity Science Gallery on Pearse Street in Dublin.
This event will see speakers from PlayFirst and PopCap talking about both the technical and business side of developing casual games for PC and iPhone.
Speaking on the night will be Barry O’Moore, Senior Producer of PlayFirst International Inc (www.playfirst.com), a recent startup in the Guinness Enterprise Centre and a branch of a highly successful US based casual games company. He will be followed by Viktorya Hollings, Senior Director of Mobile Games, and Cathy Orr, European PR Director, of PopCap Games International Ltd (www.popcap.com), the well known and regarded casual games company with offices in Dublin.
The industry speakers will be followed by a ‘show n’ tell’ event where indie, company and individual developers show current projects. This will be accompanied by finger food, wine and soft drinks.
Current confirmed demonstrations:
1. “Porting PlayFirst’s games to iPhone†by Chris Gregan.
2. “Coretex: An indie iPhone game made for under 500 euro” by David Kelly
3. “A demo of Digital Sideburns first iPhone game†by Alan Taylor & David Sims
Sadly the event is already sold out. The event was only posted on the 24th April (Friday) and today is Monday. It sold out in 24 hours. Considering the number of no-shows for DevDays Dublin (400 pre-reg, 170 showed up) I reckon there will be a lot of no-shows on the day.
Colour me frustrated.