It’s been an exciting week. On Tuesday morning I met with Leo Galway, John Girvin, Conor McCluskey, Darin Smyth and Christian McGilloway regarding the formation of a local ‘games development cluster’. Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea and so now we’re looking for a good brand to help identify the cluster. This … Continue reading “So, about that game company…”
It’s been an exciting week.
On Tuesday morning I met with Leo Galway, John Girvin, Conor McCluskey, Darin Smyth and Christian McGilloway regarding the formation of a local ‘games development cluster’. Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea and so now we’re looking for a good brand to help identify the cluster.
This coming week (Thursday 25th March) I’ve organised an event with Belfast Metropolitan College called “INGAGE” which stands for “Innovation in Gaming in Education”. We’ve got an engaging calendar planned out for the day.
During the academic year 2009-2010, Belfast Metropolitan College, supported by Digital Circle and the Department of Employment and Learning, introduced a new extracurricular games development ‘club’ for students taking the games design courses at the college.
This event will serve to highlight the work undertaken by the students in the ‘l33t Creations’ club as well as highlight some work being done by other creatives in the games industry in Northern Ireland.
AGENDA
10.00 am
Arrival / Registration
10.30 am
BMC Welcome Trevor Smyth
10.40 am
Welcome & Overview of Project
Darin Smyth / Christian McGilloway
11.00 am
Guest Speaker Greg Maguire
Q & A
12.00 pm
Demos
Lunch
1.00 pm
Guest Speakers
Straandlooper
Mark Cullen
Brendan McGoran
2.00 pm
Closing remarks – Reid Lynas
Attendance is free and refreshments will be provided. Local companies wishing to network are welcome. But you have to RSVP!
I’ve spent this evening documenting the Touch Events which will need to be plugged into Unity3D. It’s my job to document the UI, then to write the story and do the research.
I’m still trying to think of a name for the games company (though I have some ideas) and I’m putting together a team of people who can actually manage to pull this together. I provide the ideas – it’s others who will provide the implementation in many ways.
I spent this morning in the company of academia, industry and government as a ConnectED event. ConnectED is a fund used to create opportunities of collaboration between the colleges and universities. The aim was to try to foster some collaboration potential between the groups. I took some notes from our table (one of 5 tables … Continue reading “ConnectED event, QUB.”
I spent this morning in the company of academia, industry and government as a ConnectED event. ConnectED is a fund used to create opportunities of collaboration between the colleges and universities. The aim was to try to foster some collaboration potential between the groups. I took some notes from our table (one of 5 tables I think) and was volunteered to present at the end of it. The felt-tip shows the main points.
There will be a further event to help foster this but the real wins for me were to get in touch with folk in QUB in the Knowledge Transfer Centre as well as some contacts within SARC.
There was a lot of consensus that there needs to be (at least one) hub for the creative industries (including software and digital media) in the North of Ireland. This is kinda what we’re trying to do with StartVI but without the large funds that ConnectED can provide.
It was startling how little interaction there is between industry and academia in truth – even the difficulties voiced by academia in getting productive student placements within industry. We need to work on that – not necessarily to change courses but to foster understanding. It is not the role of education to prepare an individual for work in a company but rather to educate them to be able to work in any company. And there is an onus on the students to make themselves indispensable to the businesses with whom they are placed. There is significant culture clash between academia and industry – whether it’s the timing of the academic year, the pressure of deadlines or the appreciation of impact on a business that a single student can make, positive or negative.
For our part, StartVI intends to take on a lot of placement students. And if they make themselves indispensable, then they’ll get work from the startups. If not, there’s always a McJob.
Only a small percentage of people think of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace when they think of computers. Babbage conceived of a mechanical computer and Lovelace became the first programmer. Both were extraordinarily gifted mathematicians and their work underlies the modern world of computing. (In their time, a computer was actually the “operator of the … Continue reading “The Third Generation of Personal Computers”
Only a small percentage of people think of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace when they think of computers. Babbage conceived of a mechanical computer and Lovelace became the first programmer. Both were extraordinarily gifted mathematicians and their work underlies the modern world of computing. (In their time, a computer was actually the “operator of the computer”).
Of course, the first difference engine was composed of around 25,000 parts, weighed fifteen tons (13,600 kg), and stood 8 ft (2.4 m) high. (Reference: Wikipedia). The march of progress would quickly change computers from being massive mechanical machines into massive electronic machines; they’d still fill rooms and no-one would really want one for the home.
Computers are not like this any more.
A few decades later and computers were still heavy, complex, static machines and no-one would really want one in their home. It took a serendipitous meeting in an equally serendipitous place to create the first personal computers. This generation had screens, keyboards and it would be possible (and even desirable) to have one at home.
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But computers were still complex, still businessy and still a little stuffy. There were limits to what could be achieved with that generation and no-one seemed to be up to the challenge of making computers even better. We were stuck in the Bronze Age of computing. It took another set of serendipitous circumstances. A decade later and there was another breakthrough, another generation was born.
Now computers were ‘friendlier’, a new paradigm had been invented and everyone copied it. The only problem was that as everyone copied they neglected to innovate and computers didn’t change. We were stuck again as the variations seemed to be more about adding different varieties of eye candy. One thing became certain – the newer graphic user interfaces made computers easier to understand, made it easier for non-technical individuals to grasp computing concepts. However – we were stuck in this Silver Age for twenty five years. Whether you used a Mac, the derivative Windows or Linux (which modelled almost all of it’s user interface elements on Windows or the Mac), you were using an interface which was first released to the public in 1984.
So, I’m obviously angling that the iPad is the third generation of Personal Computer, that it ushers in a new Golden Age of computing. And I really believe this. Apple tried it back in the 90s with the Newton – and if you don’t think the Newton was insanely great then you obviously never used one.
It’s true the iPad removes most of the OS from the end user. But is this a bad thing?
If you’re like me you spend a lot of time with the operating system of a computer. I can always find something to fiddle with, something to pay attention to with just the basic OS. With the iPhone (and by extension, the iPad), I can’t do too much other than flick between screens. This is not a bad thing. It’s going to be all about the software.
While there’s a lot of attention on the iPhone towards apps like WeightBot – apps which do one simple thing really well – we’re going to see a whole plethora of new apps which do one complex thing really well on the iPad. We have seen Pages, Numbers, Keynote on iPad and it’s only a matter of time before we see apps like Soulver, Coda, OmniGraffle and even iMovie.
We’ll only see one thing at a time on the screen and again, that’s no bad thing. We can concentrate on the task at hand. (Yes, I believe Apple is going to give us the ability to run certain AppStore-authorised third-party background processes soon so we can run location apps, Spotify and other ‘essentials’) but it will be a task oriented computer. And if Apple released a version of Xcode for iPad, would there be the same debate?
This is amazing. HTML5. No Flash. No Java. Works on iPhone. Related posts: ePubs and iBooks and whether we care about the EULA. Ugh. More Flash. Do not read. Flash: a legacy technology Amazing ePubs
Today was the first day I can say that the winter is behind us. This is the Northwest sky over Bangor, from Ballyholme. Using Gawker to take a single frame every 10 seconds which is then played back at 24 frames a second. This is the same kit used to capture The VI Paint Party. … Continue reading “Sunday Sky”
Today was the first day I can say that the winter is behind us.
This is the Northwest sky over Bangor, from Ballyholme. Using Gawker to take a single frame every 10 seconds which is then played back at 24 frames a second.
From Malcolm Moore in the Telegraph. At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple. … Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. “In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records … Continue reading “Tech journos decrying Apple’s ‘child labor’ scandal miss bigger picture.”
At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple.
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Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. “In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment,” Apple said, in an annual report on its suppliers.
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In its report, Apple revealed the sweatshop conditions inside the factories it uses. Apple admitted that at least 55 of the 102 factories that produce its goods were ignoring Apple’s rule that staff cannot work more than 60 hours a week.
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Apple also said that one of its factories had repeatedly falsified its records in order to conceal the fact that it was using child labour and working its staff endlessly.
“When we investigated, we uncovered records and conducted worker interviews that revealed excessive working hours and seven days of continuous work,” Apple said, adding that it had terminated all contracts with the factory.
Apple’s taking a lot of flak in the media for this from journalists, pundits and ‘bloggers’ who obviously are not seeing the bigger picture. Writers who are guffawing and retweeting these misleading headlines to the frenzied joy of their advertising managers who love to get an Apple headline in. Apple voluntarily undertakes these supplier reviews. They dutifully apply Western standards of working practise to their suppliers, regardless of region, with regards to employment laws, minimum wage and local standards of holidays and benefits. Re-read the areas I put in bold from the Telegraph article. Are they the actions of a company which is trying to hide it’s association with offending suppliers?
Which other Western tech companies are using those suppliers and why are they not being named and shamed? Why was it left to Apple to be the whistle-blower for these suppliers when they are used by dozens of tech companies around the world?
From the comments in that article:
According to the Wikipedia article, Foxconn – the people actually using child labour in the story – also make PC motherboards for Dell, HP, AMD, and Intel. They make Wii’s, XBox 360’s, and PS3’s. They make cell phones for Nokia and Motorola. They make the Amazon Kindle.
My guess is that Apple is the only one that draws headlines. My guess is that it’s another example of the poor quality of tech journalism in the world. My guess is that finding out who else uses these suppliers would be ‘work’.
My Sunday was spent sweeping the floors, painting the walls and lifting rubbish for the further preparation of the “StartVI” (pronounced Start 6) virtual incubator opening in Belfast ‘real soon now’. See more, including the list of contributors at http://startvi.com Related posts: Start-Up Nation Virtual Notes This explains a lot. Coworking Microsupport
My Sunday was spent sweeping the floors, painting the walls and lifting rubbish for the further preparation of the “StartVI” (pronounced Start 6) virtual incubator opening in Belfast ‘real soon now’.
Back in my network engineer days at Nortel, uptime was something that was seen as vitally important. With the growth of the business pre-dotcomBUST, the production lines and the servers managing them needed to be up and serving 24×7. 24x7x365 was a very hard thing to measure, never mind achieve in pre-2000 information systems. In … Continue reading “Devotion to Duty”
XKCD: Devotion to Duty
Back in my network engineer days at Nortel, uptime was something that was seen as vitally important. With the growth of the business pre-dotcomBUST, the production lines and the servers managing them needed to be up and serving 24×7.
24x7x365 was a very hard thing to measure, never mind achieve in pre-2000 information systems. In the end my overseers and bosses had to reconcile the need for maintenance and upgrades with the 24x7x365 myth and the uptime was achieved though we were able to maintain a very reasonable schedule – so reasonable in fact that the business was able to celebrate when we relinquished some of our regular maintenance windows.
But the message was clear, uptime was the most important metric.
Cool. Thanks to whomever it was who nominated me. Related posts: A little bit of appreciation goes a long way Irish Blog Awards ’09 – Nominated! Irish Blog Awards Irish Blog Awards ’09
