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Link: CultofMac One of the drawbacks of the cheaper, WiFi-only iPad 2 is that it doesn’t have GPS — so it can’t run any of those beautiful fullscreen navigation apps. GPS is limited to the more expensive 3G iPad models. But if you own a GPS-enabled iPhone, you’re in luck. The WiFi-only iPad 2 inherits … Continue reading “WiFi iPad gets GPS through iPhone Personal Hotspot”
Link: CultofMac
One of the drawbacks of the cheaper, WiFi-only iPad 2 is that it doesn’t have GPS — so it can’t run any of those beautiful fullscreen navigation apps.
GPS is limited to the more expensive 3G iPad models. But if you own a GPS-enabled iPhone, you’re in luck. The WiFi-only iPad 2 inherits GPS functionality when it’s tethered to an iPhone.
This makes me happy.
As Twitter are being dicks at the moment, I’ve revived my account at identi.ca. http://identi.ca/cimota Related posts: Top 3 issues… Great design creates new data. People Pay More For Design iPad Adventures in TwitterLand
As Twitter are being dicks at the moment, I’ve revived my account at identi.ca.
The first time I heard of “Ginger”, the device that was to become the Segway, was through some Apple-fan web site which proclaimed that Steve Jobs said that, “some day, people will build cities around this”. From one point of view, he’s right. One day the streets, businesses and your home will have ramp access … Continue reading “some day people will build cities around this”
The first time I heard of “Ginger”, the device that was to become the Segway, was through some Apple-fan web site which proclaimed that Steve Jobs said that, “some day, people will build cities around this”.
From one point of view, he’s right. One day the streets, businesses and your home will have ramp access for you to use Ginger; but we should already be there in light of the disabled. Now, a transcript of Jobs meeting with Dean Kamen (with Jeff Bezos) paints a different picture. What’s kinda weird is that earlier this year, I met John Doerr.
But I digress.
The thing that I loved about the Segway was the thing I loved about the Sinclair C5, the Ford Ka and the New Bus for London.
These are transportation devices that were built for tomorrow. They polarise – you either love them or hate them (or ridicule them) but you can barely ignore them. (The New Bus for London was designed and is manufactured here in Northern Ireland by Wrightbus).
I think it’s important to consider what we build and always build for tomorrow. Create things that polarise opinions.
Consider that the Segway is illegal on both the footpaths and the public highway in the UK. It’s evident to me that we still build our cities around the width of Roman chariot wheels. How progressive.
You can listen to the audio for last nights RSA event with HRH Duke of Edinburgh and Sir David Attenborough now. Forward to 32 minutes in for a classic. One of the great difficulties of the WWF was, it had a very good story so it raised an enormous amount of money. And then suddenly … Continue reading “Anecdotes about the WWF #RSA”
You can listen to the audio for last nights RSA event with HRH Duke of Edinburgh and Sir David Attenborough now.
Forward to 32 minutes in for a classic.
One of the great difficulties of the WWF was, it had a very good story so it raised an enormous amount of money. And then suddenly we thought, what about some projects? Well, the money was coming in much faster than we could turn out the projects. So we built it up…why aren’t we spending the money, wait-a-minute we can’t produce the projects. And we started throwing money at projects and people said “What are you doing with the money”, so we had to discover some means of tracing what was going on and making sure that people didn’t walk off with it because aid programmes, as you probably know, the money very seldom gets to the people who need it. So, I remember, we made a rule that we were not going to give any money to any projects, if they needed jeeps or landrovers or radios or whatever, we’d pay for that, we’d pay for people, their wages, but we would not give them any money to spend, and that worked quite well.
I got hold of a brilliant chief accountant and I said “How can we follow the way this money is being spent” and he said, “well, do you want to do it a hundred percent because it would be very very expensive.” And I thought well, yes, probably true, we’ve got to admit that there’s going to be leakage somewhere. It was quite interesting – because you don’t want to spend two hundred pounds or two thousand pounds chasing five bob, you know, it’s going in the wrong direction, and that’s what happens in the civil service.
Now go back and listen to the whole thing or watch the video:
Twitter was abuzz with the news of a Tsunami hitting Japan after a powerful earthquake off the coast of Japan. One thing I noticed was the number of people asking why there were so many earthquakes recently and was this evidence of something bigger, more sinister. There were a few instances of “#2012” out there … Continue reading “#2012 – The End of the World earthquakes – it’s coming and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Twitter was abuzz with the news of a Tsunami hitting Japan after a powerful earthquake off the coast of Japan. One thing I noticed was the number of people asking why there were so many earthquakes recently and was this evidence of something bigger, more sinister. There were a few instances of “#2012” out there as well – as if the Mayan doom prophecy could be more than a few shamen shaking sticks at the sky.
People forget that the Earth is old and massive. For most people it is the oldest and most massive thing they will ever come into contact with. And because of those qualities, people forget that the Earth is also a type of machine with a motor and a lifespan. And it’s part of a universe which, though young, is entirely more massive, more ancient and therefore almost as unfathomable.
We have to remember that modern civilisation, the observation and recording of the human species only really began a few thousand years ago and the further we go back, the fewer the records we have.
The Earth does not notice when we produce greenhouse gases or when we mine for ore or oil. It has no feelings about whether we should save the Arabian Oryx or the Yellow-tailed Woolly Monkey from extinction. It doesn’t bat an eyelid when our economic situation is dire or equally when organisms started to produce oxygen as a by-product about 3 billion years ago and created a toxic event which massacred billions of organisms. It didn’t even notice that the iPad 2 went on sale today.
The Earth exists as a small machine in a vast void, filled with other machines. By our best estimates, it’s about 4.5 billion years old and it doesn’t react to anything smaller than an impact from a body nearly as massive as itself (one of the the prevalent theories of how we have a massive moon).
When starting my car in the morning, I am used to the shudder it makes when I start moving. I’m taking it to the mechanics on Monday because of a loss of power when I hit over 3000 revs. My car is a machine. I’m using this as a simile because, as I mentioned, the Earth is a machine. Instead of a fuel intake it has heat from the sun, pressure from it’s own gravity and these feed an engine made up of a molten core of metal and rock.
Our land masses float upon the molten core like ice floats upon the water and the broken edges of the plates rub against each other. And when they do, earthquakes are the result.
Humans are arrogant enough to believe that the Earth-machine has any real agenda towards humanity. That it measures the passage of time in months or years and not in millennia. Our recorded civilisation is the briefest moment in the lifespan of our young planet and every earthquake could essentially be similar to the shudder of my car as it starts off. And that shudder, which on my car lasts about two seconds, could last a comparable amount of time relative to the lifespan of the planet – probably about 10,000 years (maybe more – I’m not a cosmologist) – longer than our recorded history.
So, in essence, the recent spate of earthquakes should be measured on a global scale with millennia-long timescales. We have virtually no data from 1000 years ago never mind longer periods. We have no datasets to compare to see whether this is a global catastrophe or just a shudder in the morning. The datasets on Wikipedia for the Largest Earthquakes By Magnitude covers from 1575AD to 2011AD and the Deadliest Earthquakes on Record covers from 525AD to 2010AD.
So, calm the hell down. It’s not the end of the world. It might, due to a “loss of power over 3000 revs”-type event, mean the loss of millions of lives or the end of our oil-based civilisation – but that’s a different thing altogether.
And if you’ve not watched Wonders of the Solar System or started watching the follow-up Wonders of the Universe – both presented by Professor Brian Cox, then maybe you should start.
It has been nearly a year since I first came in close contact with the original iPad. It blew my mind, and since then, it has become a daily accompaniment. I create content on my MacBook Air, but I spend a lot of time consuming content and media on the device. In fact, if I … Continue reading “Where are the apps we’ve been waiting for?”
It has been nearly a year since I first came in close contact with the original iPad. It blew my mind, and since then, it has become a daily accompaniment. I create content on my MacBook Air, but I spend a lot of time consuming content and media on the device. In fact, if I had to guess, I use my iPad as much as I use my notebook computer.
…
However, if iPad, the device, is more magical, the applications (apps) for the device are anything but. For nearly a year, I’ve been waiting (and waiting) for experiences befitting the device and its hardware capabilities. – OM Malik, GigaOm
I concur. I’m still waiting for the amazing experiences that we think we deserve when we tote around such amazing hardware. And if that goes for iPad, then it goes double (or maybe tenfold) for Android, WebOS and anything else out there.
We do have time, however. The mouse went from humble beginnings in academic and commercial research in the 60s to initial release with the Macintosh in 1984 and it’s still probably the major input metaphor for computers in existence. We have been poking at our computer screens with a single fingertip, the mouse cursor, for over two decades. While we all like the look of the future with multi-touch (and from the Kinect, zero-touch) interfaces, we still await the apps which will fulfil this promise to us. New touch-based methods to consume old style media ain’t a big deal.
We want mobile-optimised hyper-local-aware software, designed for touch and equipped with contextual understanding and social-network awareness so we can get the most personalised experience.
And this is the low bar.
If we can think of apps that can fill this criteria in minutes, imagine what we could do if we were in that business, if our job was to not only talk about the next big thing but be part of the team creating it.
As I mentioned here, I was in London last week. While there I spent time with with Mary McKenna (Chair of the Digital Circle Steering Group and Co-Founder/Owner of Learning Pool from Derry) and Ryan Adams (BBC Project Manager in their Media/Online arm and also on the Digital Circle Steering Group). So, to get to … Continue reading “London, City of the Future”
As I mentioned here, I was in London last week. While there I spent time with with Mary McKenna (Chair of the Digital Circle Steering Group and Co-Founder/Owner of Learning Pool from Derry) and Ryan Adams (BBC Project Manager in their Media/Online arm and also on the Digital Circle Steering Group).
So, to get to London at 9 am, I needed to be up and about at 3 am. It was going to be a long day.
My schedule included the following:
London is one of those cities where everyone seems to be up to something; not necessarily a nefarious thing but everyone seems involved in something to a greater or lesser degree.
This was the first surprise of my visit. I’d considered that Learning Pool was a good name for a company that sold e-learning content. That’s not exactly what I discovered. Learning Pool work with the public sector (and voluntary sector) mainly and the “pool” in their name is their process of pooling all of the content and resources they have developed in co-operation with their public-sector clients and sharing it among the other clients. It really was a bit of a revelation that something so simple and sensible can actually work – ideal for the Age of Austerity. It made me wonder why we don’t do more of this in education (at all levels) and also how it could work well in a private sector environment. Learning Pool recently launched a SME product as well which builds on this: MyLearningPool. The event itself was a gathering of nearly 20 individuals from different councils around London. This group is usually much larger but half-term conspired to make it a lot more intimate.
The enthusiasm of the group was a real eye-opener. Some of these council project managers were encyclopaedic in their knowledge of the product and in the content not only developed for their own region but that of other regions. Considering that Learning Pool works with nearly every council in Great Britain (but oddly none in Northern Ireland), that’s a considerable amount of shared content and knowledge.
I’ve posted about this organisation before so I’ll just include some photos now.
A meeting was planned with Iain Gray, CE of the Technology Strategy Board and his colleague, Paul Mason (Head of Development), regarding the future of Digital Circle and also our interest in pursuing a Technology and Innovation Centre for Digital Media and Software in Northern Ireland.
The meeting was originally scheduled to be in a prison cell office within the BIS building but after reviewing (and the late hour) we retired to the pub to talk.
We covered the _CONNECT social network, created by the TSB to encourage collaboration and open innovation. Everyone agreed on the importance of networks of networks and I took away the action to encourage people to join the TSBs network in order to access their competitions and contacts.
Organised by Dominic Campbell and sponsored by FutureGov, CityCampLDN, it was hosted at The Hub, Kings Cross. There were some great pitches from folk with ideas looking for collaborators. The original pitch was “CityCamp LDN brings together city leaders at all levels from government, business and community organisations to reimagine the way in which technology can help to reshape the future of London.” which sounds like something needed in Belfast.
Later that night, I met up with Ryan and Mary and went to a chinese restaurant in Chinatown. The food was tasty though the ordering process left a lot to be desired.
At about 11 pm, bone-weary I arrived at the hotel and barely made it to my room before falling unconscious.
After breakfast, Mary and I wandered down to the RSA and met with some of the local social entrepreneurs who are Fellows of the RSA. We stayed for about an hour and spoke about both Digital Circle and Learning Pool to the collected group.
The Tuttle Club is named after Harry Tuttle (a renegade air conditioning specialist) from Brazil:
The Tuttle Club is a loose association of people finding a way of working better together both online and off-
There’s no need to sign up – everyone’s welcome at our Friday morning meetups. They run from 10am to midday at the Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton St, London WC1X 9NG.
The last picture is of Lloyd Davis, founder of the Tuttle Club. He’s about to head off across the US as part of his Please Look After This Englishman (PLATE) project. So anyone in the US who wants to help a funny, charismatic do-gooder should probably get in touch.
I finished off the trip to London hoping to catch a meeting with Steve Moore, to talk about some of the BigSociety and BetterSociety ideas we have in the Northern Ireland. Steve is originally from Northern Ireland only timing and short notice conspired against us to prevent us meeting.
I arrived home around 9 pm, exhausted but mind abuzz with ideas and things to do. So I went out and registered a domain for a new social enterprise based around taking small positive actions to an overall better society. But that’s fodder for another blog post.
Stephen Houston (@egeek) contributed this to todays meeting – some things that need to be considered or taught and things that have been lacking in his experience of recent graduates. #ImprovingCodersFromColleges Fundamentals – How does a computer execute your code? – What does the OS do? – Where does your code execute? JS, server side, … Continue reading “#ImprovingCodersFromColleges Fundamentals”
Stephen Houston (@egeek) contributed this to todays meeting – some things that need to be considered or taught and things that have been lacking in his experience of recent graduates.
#ImprovingCodersFromColleges Fundamentals
- How does a computer execute your code?
- What does the OS do?
- Where does your code execute? JS, server side, etc
- Network/Internet, TCP/IP, etc
- How your further your own knowledge, blogs, etc
- Writing your own projects, advantage of doing so for interviews
- Self-starting, own initative
- How are the large sites architected?
- Scale, how much data do the big guys handle?
- DBs, relational, schema-less, etc
- Agile methods
- Handling requirements
- Professional behaviour and attitude
- Different languages, what are they used for? Advantages/Limitations of each
- Why you need to be a polyglotSoftware skills
- Version control
- Team working
- Emphasise the need to understand projects during placement, how they fit, team dynamics
- Language fundamentals
- Coding standards
- Unit and integration testing
- Code patterns - don't just know, understand
- Multi-threading/concurrency
- Deadlock
- Documenting your code
- Thinking maintenanceLocal Industry
- Who is out there?
- What do they use and what do they need?
- What can they do for you? How will they further your career?
- Your own ideas?
- Your internet profile
- A good interview
I reckon this is a good start. I have toyed with the idea of getting hiring managers (not HR) to contribute to the process by essentially sponsoring spaces which will turn into jobs. So if CompanyX needs 10 enterprise Java guys, then maybe we find training for 20. And if CompanyY needs 5 PHP or Ruby guys, we train 10. We have to remember to not only fill the job pipeline but also to provide training to supply our growing startups.
All in attendance were agreed that software engineering is vocational and not academic and that more could be achieved with training courses and input from industry than with a 3 year degree. And for the most part an honours project is a complete waste of time.
I’ve spoken to Momentum and BMC and I believe we can do this if we have enough support from local industry leaders. It can’t be just the usual suspects – we have to engage with the little companies as well as the big ones. I left with a few actions to go speak to people. In all a very positive meeting.
Very happy to also meet today with @bndouglas, @andyboal and @hamstarr to chat about this subject.
This is supplementary to the Code4Pizza FreeSchool. We need everything working in unison.
This is, to my mind, the best way out of the Age of Austerity.
After the debate the other night on twitter, I proposed the idea of a FreeSchool for extra-curricular programming guidance. I’ve spoken to both Momentum and Belfast Metropolitan College about how they can support this and both seem keen to help industry find the software developers they need. Momentum and the colleges have some experience in … Continue reading “So do we need more/better software developers?: 1 pm, Starbucks Cornmarket, Belfast”
After the debate the other night on twitter, I proposed the idea of a FreeSchool for extra-curricular programming guidance.
I’ve spoken to both Momentum and Belfast Metropolitan College about how they can support this and both seem keen to help industry find the software developers they need. Momentum and the colleges have some experience in this with their Software Professionals Course that ran in previous years, funded by DEL. It was designed to take graduates from non-IT backgrounds and give them the vocational skills (over 6 months) to have a sustainable career in software. This is, in theory, similar to other courses – such as the Rapid Advancement Programme (RAP, originally by BIC Systems) and the Advanced Vocational Training in Information Technology course (AVTIT, originally by the University of Ulster). These courses were popular pre Bubble 1.0 but seem to have fallen by the wayside even though we seem to be heading for a larger (and slightly more sustainable) Bubble 2.0.
We’re meeting at 1 pm today, in Starbucks at Cornmarket, to generally see what level of interest there is in industry lobbying for a renewed commitment to turning non-IT graduates and non-graduates into professional software developers using an industry-focused vocational course.
If you can’t be there, comment!
My friends Rory and Anita at The Creativity Hub are pretty much the nicest people I know. That’s not entirely surprising considering the work they do in creativity and conflict resolution. I know Rory from a few years ago when he was working in the rehabilitation of prisoners (from our unique political ‘situation’) and I … Continue reading “Steal the Future; Change the World”
My friends Rory and Anita at The Creativity Hub are pretty much the nicest people I know. That’s not entirely surprising considering the work they do in creativity and conflict resolution. I know Rory from a few years ago when he was working in the rehabilitation of prisoners (from our unique political ‘situation’) and I was very glad to re-acquaint myself with him not long after the start of this job – both for work and socially.
Rory introduced me to the concept of “Advanced Civilisation” (which he said is also available on the Internet as Beachhead). It’s something I had used for my creative writing but I had not really considered using it for work-related purposes. I do find now that I use it a lot – that imagination figures heavily in how I want to enact change in the world around me. The secret to achieving things lies in the discovery of great people, not in the funding programmes that are available.
This weekend we will complete the proposal document for StartVI year two and we will be looking for 6 great start-up ideas. We have a much more cohesive programme planned for the 2011 intake, more mentors and a better idea of what can be achieved now that we’ve shown it can work.
I’m also proposing the founding of a new co-working, research based technology centre in Belfast. And a solution to improving the quality of software engineering in Northern Ireland – comprising of a industry-tailored education programme and a community focused technology freeschool. Of course I alone am not qualified to do all of this. That’s why I’ve been looking for great people to help change the world; to steal the future; to get there earlier.
All of this to create a hub of 21st Century Enlightenment.