BOOK OF THE FUTURE

'Broken Britain': Why are we so convinced things are getting worse?

2009-11-07T06:08:00.005Z

Hard though it may be to believe, by most metrics, things are getting better in Britain. Maybe not year on year, but certainly decade after decade, crime is falling, poverty is falling, education is improving. There are blips and blots on this record: sometimes for a period society becomes less equal rather than more; rates of pay may not balance as fast as we might like; we still have recessions, as we all know.

Yet it seems the majority of us remain convinced that the world is falling apart. Phrases like 'Broken Britain' get bandied around by politicians and the media and we believe them. What happened to our pride and optimism to make us accept such negativity so readily?

It's hard not to blame the media. In a survey about the NHS a few years back people were asked about their general impression of the NHS, and reported that it was in a terrible state. Asked about their own specific experience, they largely raved about it. Having been told repeatedly that the NHS was failing, they convinced themselves that their experience must be the exception.

The same seems to happen with crime: fewer and fewer of us are victims of crime in reality, yet we are convinced, often without specific examples, that things are getting worse. Why? In my opinion it is in part because reporting has improved: less crime feels like more.

But I think it is a little lazy to blame the press. Are we so incapable of looking at our own experience, and more importantly, engaging with our own communities, to develop our own impression? If we did we would more easily recognise the gap between the theoretical 'Broken Britain' and what seems to me to be a country moving slowly, falteringly, but consistently, up.

My hope is that our increasing switch to community communication and user generated content online might spur us to rely less on the national media. As digital media becomes ever more about the local, it might even get us talking to our neighbours. There may be such a thing as society after all...

Flashback on BBC Radio Manchester: 2008

2009-09-24T13:29:00.007+01:00

Second Flashback year of the day on BBC Radio Manchester this afternoon at 4:25 is 2008. Listen live on 95.1FM, or via the iPlayer if you're outside the Manchester area. I'll be talking about the technology stories of 1979, and 2008 - details of the latter below:

Blu Ray defeated HD DVD, with the HD DVD consortium surrendering on the 19th February.

The Tesla EV1 Roadster became available to the public. This Lotus-based electric car redefined what was possible, with an electronically-limited top speed of 125mph and a 0-60 time under 4 seconds. A seven seat hatchback model is launching in 2011 and I want one.

The Large Hadron Collider went live, and then went off again nine days later following an electrical fault. The fault caused six tonnes of liquid helium to be released and the force from this gas flooding into a vacuum caused 10-ton magnets to shear from their mountings. It will restart in November this year and contrary to popular belief, the world will not end.

The Global Seed Vault in Svalbard opened, a gigantic repository for plant samples that will enable us to jumpstart nature in the wake of an ecological disaster.

23andme began offering genome scanning on a retail basis. For $399 and a sample of your spit you can find out about your risk from genetic diseases, and your ancestry.

The first bionic eyes were implanted into two blind patients at the Moorlands Eye Hospital in London. They can now see light and dark using a camera mounted on a pair of glasses that sends a signal back to an implant at the back of the eye.

The SpaceX Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed space launch vehicle to reach orbit. Last month it was used to deliver the RazakSat, a Malaysian imaging satellite.

Flashback on BBC Radio Manchester: 1979

2009-09-24T10:26:00.006+01:00

It's Flashback time again on BBC Radio Manchester, with two years I haven't posted about before: 1979 and 2008. Listen live at 4:25 this afternoon on 95.1FM if you're in the Manchester area, or on iPlayer if you're not.

First up, the tech stories of 1979:

VisiCalc was launched, the first spreadsheet program for PCs. Accountants rejoiced, or at least the more progressive ones (like my dad) did.

The rise of the robots began: an industrial robot at a Ford car plant in Michigan killed Robert Williams, resulting in a $10 million dollar lawsuit.

Hayes introduced what was to become the industry standard in modems for the next twenty years, enabling dial-up internet access for the masses.

Atari introduced the arcade version of Asteroids.

CompuServe launched the first commercial email service.

The Post Office launched Prestel, a predecessor to the internet using proprietary systems to provide access to 160,000 pages of information via telephone, computers, and TV sets. Content included news, train times, stock market prices and even early e-commerce for travel reservations. Early systems were expensive but it soon switched to per-usage billing.

Lib Dems: Too sensible to be elected?

2009-09-23T20:14:00.001+01:00

You have to feel a little sorry for the Liberal Democrats. And if, like me, you consider them the party that most closely represents your own beliefs, you also have to feel a little frustrated by them.

I feel sorry for them because, as a marketer, there’s nothing harder to promote than the middle ground. Common sense just isn’t sexy. Being practical rarely attracts fanatical support.

Yet it is the pragmatism that appeals to me. Unlike Simon Jenkins, writing in today’s Guardian, I don’t want a radically liberal party, unlikely to ever get elected but with sufficient clout to drag the political debate in their direction. Sure I’d like to see a little more vehement rejection of the current incumbents’ more authoritarian tendencies, but I couldn’t comfortably vote for a party that pursued the liberal principle to its fundamentalist extremes. I don’t want ID cards, but I also don’t believe in wholly abolishing regulatory controls on finance, business practice, or health and safety.

To me the fusion of the Liberals and the SDP created a party of reason and balance, rather than the one without principle described and decried by Jenkins. In both manifesto and behaviour, the Liberal Democrats have consistently appeared to me to be the most genuinely progressive party on show. It is the greenest party other than the Greens; the one that recognises the need for a state that is more than a safety net, while acknowledging that the books need to balance; the one willing to set tax levels to pay for its policies while aiming to maintain a business environment that encourages growth and investment. It is the party that seems to have the most detailed policies based on its members’ beliefs, not on the current headlines from the most influential papers.

And this is where the frustration comes. Because while practicality may not be the most promotable characteristic, it’s a far from impossible brief. There are threads that could be pulled together to create an overarching vision for the party; some imagery that could be used to explain what the party stands for - a common question, even from the politically aware. Throughout the coverage of the current conference, I’ve heard nothing from the key figures about what the party stands for, yet for me this is the biggest challenge they have to overcome in attracting votes from their potential supporters.

Without this vision, the party makes for easy pickings from the other parties’ more astute political operators. Cameron’s ‘cigarette paper’ jibe was picked up and ably wielded by Eric Pickles, the Conservative party chairman, in an interview on Radio 4. Chris Huhne responding was made to sound petty and childish by comparison with his barbs about the Tories’ European associations. He would have been much better using the time to talk more about the Liberals’ policies and how they differentiate the party from the big two.

With a wishy-washy Tory party straying from its safe ground in a bid to bolster its ageing support base, and a Labour government staggering along after the damage sustained during the years in power, there is a great opportunity for the Liberals in the next election. But my fear is that, without radical change, the party’s practical message will fail to connect with the voting public.

Car lover not planet hater

2009-09-23T17:51:00.001+01:00

I love cars. I love their complexity, their style, their power and their function. I was lucky enough to have a car from a young age: while I was still learning to drive my parents very kindly bought me a slightly dilapidated 1970 Volkswagen Beetle, which I proceeded to clean up and respray (following the application of copious quantities of filler), and fit with a series of ever-more Heath Robinson-esque stereo arrangements.

This fabulous transport became the group taxi for my friends for the next few years, and took me down to Cardiff and up to Manchester, as well as on more prosaic lunchtime trips to the nearest drivethru McDonalds. I think the fact that it also allowed me to ferry my younger sister from place to place encouraged my parents’ generosity, but I was no less grateful for that. It was an incredible thing to have that degree of freedom at such a young age.

I’m not sure I truly appreciated the freedom a car brings until a few years later. After University I went without a car for a few years, following the sad, quiet collapse of the Beetle’s engine/bodywork/chassis/suspension, and the passing on of my next car, a hand-me-down Metro Mayfair that had belonged to my Grandma. While I didn’t have a car I coped fine, getting the train to work and everywhere else. But after working for a few years I decided I wanted a car again – as much, I confess, out of sheer consumerism as a real need. I set my heart on a BMW 3-series coupe.

What a revelation. I started driving out to a local watersports lake just outside the centre of Reading where I was living at the time. It was only miles from my house but it was totally inaccessible by public transport and the cost of a taxi would have been prohibitive. Having the car enabled me to participate in a sport that was otherwise closed to me, and through which I met a great new set of friends. The car also made me more valuable at work: with it I could travel to client meetings without the help of a (usually more senior) colleague, which meant that I was let off the leash to handle more client contact on my own. Once I had the car again, giving it up would have meant giving up my major social activity, and becoming reliant on colleagues again at work. There was no going back.

Unfortunately the BMW was neither the cheapest car to run, nor the most environmentally friendly. A few months after moving to Manchester I sold it and bought a rather more eco-friendly turbo diesel.

I can’t imagine not having a car now, especially with the arrival of a baby. I know people can and do manage, but our whole society is built around individual transport to specific destinations. I could say I wish that it weren’t the case, and certainly I would like public transport to provide a more viable alternative. But the honest reality is that I like the freedom and individuality that the car offers. The ability to go exactly where I want in a manner and environment that I have defined.

So does that make me a bad person? I don’t think it does. The things I love about the car do not make it a bad thing. I’m not wedded to the petrol engine: I’d love there to be a real and environmentally friendly alternative. I know a lot of the carbon footprint of a car is laid down in its manufacture rather than its use, but again this is a challenge that can be addressed, if not totally overcome. I don’t think it is the car per se that is the problem: it is just today’s cars.

Likewise I don’t think being a car lover necessarily makes you a planet hater. The environmental impact will always be a factor in my future choice of cars and I think anyone for whom it’s not should rightly be pilloried (that means you in your Chelsea tractor). Wherever it is most practical I will continue to use public transport (I’m sat in Euston station typing this).

But I will continue to love cars, and I confess, will dream of driving a V8 monster when I’m chugging along in my somewhat more eco-friendly diesel.

Fun and Games: The history of the console

2009-09-17T17:29:00.002+01:00

Just been down to the BBC studios and not for Flashback as usual - I was too slow confirming my availability with the producers so they replaced me this week. Instead I recorded a short interview about the history of computer games for a show going out tomorrow might at 10pm - 95.1FM in the Manchester area or nationwide on iPlayer.

Being more of a tech generalist than a games specialist I did a bit of digging around in advance and came across the great site at: http://www.thegameconsole.com/. The copy tells you enough to see how the technology has changed and the pictures provide a great history of the style of gaming technology over the last 30 years. Check out the wood veneer!

The point I made on the radio was that for all the advances in the technology, the mechanics of gameplay have remained largely the same. What sucks us in and keeps us playing is the thrill of the chase, the fear, the competition, and that is still achieved through very similar constructs to the first games: Wii Tennis is only a more sophisticated Pong; Portal a graphical Granny's Garden; Crysis a super-slick Beach-head. Great graphics, intuitive interfaces and awesome sound might mean we need a little less imagination to immerse ourselves in the action, but the fundamentals of a great game are the same today as they were in 1972 when the Magnavox Odyssey, the first console, hit the shelves.

High-Speed Rail

2009-08-26T12:06:00.001+01:00

Just been interviewed by Real Radio about the newly announced high-speed rail link between London and Glasgow. I haven't expanded my remit to cover transport now – just a random collaring at Piccadilly station. Good topic for a quick blog entry though, while I ride the standard speed train down to London.

Do we need a high speed rail link? My natural inclination is to say 'yes, of course'. It's cool new(ish) tech; it will make me more time-efficient; it cuts the arguments for the more carbon-intense options of flying and driving. But I find I'm not without concerns.

At £34bn, it's not going to be cheap, and somehow that cost will inevitably be transferred to the traveler. Now that I have other people booking trains for me (in advance), I'm finding the costs a little less oppressive, but the trade-off is the lack of flexibility. The nature of work travel means that sometimes it is hard to predict when you will want to travel, but the price of open off peak tickets is absolutely prohibitive. I can already foresee a situation where I know the train could get me home in an hour, but I have to wait three hours for the next train my ticket allows me to take.

Higher speed also doesn't fix the main problem with trains: they get you to where the tracks end, not where you want to go. Even if it only takes an hour to get into London, I would still choose to drive to meetings around the south east because of the cost and complexity of getting to smaller stations, and then from the stations to the meetings themselves. Without a car it takes huge amounts of time and money – neither of which I or most people can afford in a working day.

Despite all this though, on balance I am in favour of the new link. On occasions it will be very useful, and, I hope, the price might not be too painful.

This blogger is on paternity leave...

2009-08-06T07:41:00.004+01:00

It has been a hectic few weeks. And Digital, the main business with which I am involved (as shareholder and 'strategy director') is rising rocket-ship fast, and has been consuming all the time I could spare to keep it flying on course. Since 'launch' at the start of June we have added three full time staff to supplement the support we have from our close colleagues at new parent company And Partners. The latest achievement for the company has been appearing on the 5 Live breakfast show with Nicky Campbell this morning to comment on ITV's results.

Originally I was meant to be talking about the new Ofcom report, but I'm always happy to be flexible for an opportunity like that. Apart from getting cut off while calling ITV Digital a 'poor concept, poorly executed' (will have to listen again on iPlayer to find out how much of that was heard), I think it went pretty well. Though I may change my mind when I hear it back... Be interested in your feedback.

Anyway, marvellous though all that is, it pales into insignificance when set against the other big development in my life. On Monday morning at 5:02, my daughter Isabelle was born. To quote one of the other fathers from our NCT class: "Fatherhood. Blimey." The las three days have been utterly mind blowing; fantastic, exhilirating and exhausting all at once. So I will be on paternity leave for the rest of this week and next, working intermittently as required.

If I find time I'd like to add an update about the new Toy Cupboard, but if you don't hear from me for a while, you will know why. This blogger is on paternity leave, and loving every minuted of it.

Babylon 5 and the problem with futurology

2009-07-12T11:29:00.002+01:00

I've been watching Babylon 5 for the last couple of weeks. One of those sci-fi shows I never got into when it was on originally, but felt that I ought to know better.

The special effects are definitely of their time (early 90s), the sets are cheap, the scripts less than subtle and the acting occasionally hammy. But the consistent plot arc over the series is fantastic and highly addictive.

As with most sci-fi though, what's really intriguing is the technology and the culture. This was a series that was made less than 20 years ago, yet it seems as out of touch with modern reality as the earliest Star Trek series.

For example, newspapers are customised but still delivered on paper via voice controlled vending machines. Computers have voice-activated interfaces yet take hours to process complex data queries. Work still largely takes place on paper forms.

It just shows how hard it is to forecast the fast-paced development of technology, and how quickly our culture adapts to new norms.

Flashback on BBC Radio Manchester: 1991

2009-07-02T08:49:00.002+01:00

Over at the BBC this afternoon for Flashback with Becky Want, talking about the gadgets of years past. Listen live around Manchester on 95.1FM, or on the iPlayer if you're more digitally inclined.

Today's years are 1991 and 2002. The latter year I've already posted some notes on previously, so here's a few points on 1991 - not the most exciting year in technology...

The World Wide Web went live, which is clearly huge, but I believe much of the work on it including its specification, was completed the previous year.
Trevor Baylis introduced the wind-up radio, inspired by stories that safe sex messages weren't reaching rural parts of Africa because of the lack of mains power and the price of batteries. Baylis is the archetypal potting shed inventor, an eccentric ex-stuntman with a creative mind, and I think he probably did much to kickstart enthusiasm for inventing stuff in the UK.
IBM exited the type-writer business as PCs made the devices increasingly obsolete.
The first phones appeared on passenger planes that could make calls from anywhere in the skies. Weird to think that was almost two decades ago, when soon we'll have mobile phones working on flights.

100 years earlier there was a much more important gadget arriving on the scene. One that makes even the Web look unimportant (well, almost). The electric kettle first appeared in 1891.

Blog Evolution

2009-06-25T09:16:00.003+01:00

Still not getting as much time as I would like to blog, but I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. However that light may be eclipsed by the impending arrival of my first kid...

In the meantime however I am switching the comments system for this blog over to Disqus. Seems to be the way to go these days, and since I'm considering an actual push to achieve greater readership on this blog (and a forthcoming work blog) I think I need to be prepared! Also a good chance to experiment with a platform we may be recommending to clients.

Digital Britain: Investing in the transport network

2009-06-17T15:32:00.000+01:00

Popped down to the BBC this morning to talk with Alan Beswick about the Digital Britain report, unveiled yesterday. The papers have been full of news about the 'tax' to pay for the future of the UK's broadband infrastructure. The government has proposed a 50p per month levy on all copper lines to go towards a next generation fund for 'superfast' broadband - i.e. fibre to the home (FTTH).

Personally I'm all for this. Think of the internet as a transport mechanism, the successor to the motorway and the train line rather than an evolution of the phone. It performs the same functions: connecting people to their places of work and leisure, carrying products from the vendor to the consumer. Looking back, who would baulk at a small levy to pay for the trains or the motorways? (Apart from environmentalists with the latter)

The only problem for me with this report, is its lack of ambition. 2Mbps by 2012 is a noble target for universal access, but the risk is that it sets the bar a little low. Alongside this I would have liked to see a little more detail about what the stretch target should be for FTTH. This is a point I made in the consultation process for the report through the response from the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce's IT Committee (which I helped to draft).

It's a small gripe though: the report acknowledges that a lot of the drive towards FTTH is unlikely to come from massive investment from BT, and is more likely to be driven on a regional basis - good news for groups like our own Manchester Digital Development Agency, currently rolling out fibre in north Manchester. The phone line levy should provide them with a pot to keep pushing the rollout forward.

In all it's great to see the government taking a holistic view of the digital economy in the UK. If the only thing the papers can find to gripe about is a £6/year 'tax', then the report's authors should consider it a job well done.

Flashback: The top gadgets and tech stories of 1978

2009-06-15T16:23:00.002+01:00

It has been an unbelievably hectic few weeks with the sale of my company (The Lever) to the mighty And Partners, and the formation of our new business under the And brand: And Digital. Have still found time for the occasional radio spot though, last week joining Becky Want on BBC Radio Manchester to talk about the tech stories of 1978.

Obviously 1978 was a fantastic year for the technology industry... I was born! But seriously, here are the big stories of the year:

Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston created VisiCalc, the first visual spreadsheet system for personal computers. For such an apparently dull application it became a huge driving force for the sales of PCs and today people use spreadsheets for everything.

Epson introduced the first dot-matrix printer to be a big success with home users. Its flexibility meant that dot-matrix printers quickly replaced those that could only print whole letters in the style of a typewriter.

The first spam e-mail was sent by Gary Thuerk, then an employee at Digital (which became part of Compaq, which became part of HP). He used it to advertise the new DECSYSTEM-2020 on ARPAnet, the predecessor to the Internet.

The 5.25-inch floppy disk became an industry standard.

The first worm virus was developed by John Shoch and Jon Hupp at Xerox PARC - the incredible place that I am now thinking should be a world heritage site, or perhaps be named as the eighth wonder thanks to its incredible role in the history of computing.

Korea Semiconductor was renamed Samsung Semiconductors - now one of the global giants of consumer electronics.

NEC (Nippon Electricity Company) introduced the 'Voice Data Input Terminal' - the first computer with a voice interface. It could recognise a library of 120 different words spoken in groups of up to five.

Twitter Clients and Adobe Air for Ubuntu Netbook Remix

2009-05-18T21:41:00.002+01:00

I confess I've gone from a convert to a zealot in 24 hours. Ubuntu Netbook Remix is cool.

OK, cool might be taking it a little far, but it is far and away the best option I've seen for a powerful, lightweight OS for netbooks. Latest evidence? Twitter clients.

More specifically, the ease with which you can install Adobe Air, the platform on which so many Twitter clients are based. Here are some modified instructions taken from Sizlopedia:

Download Adobe Air to your Home directory from http://get.adobe.com/air/

Open the terminal and run the following commands:

chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

then

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Wait a while – it will look like it's not doing anything for a bit. Eventually though, the Adobe Air installer will appear and take you through the process.

Once you have Air installed, you can add sorts of cool apps, including the popular Twitter client, Twhirl. I've tried all the others and I'm fast coming to see what everyone's been raving about. Just download the file from the website, open up the appropriate directory, and double-click on it to install. It's that simple.

Now you can tweet to your heart's content.

CCTV Call Awakens Freedom Fears

2009-05-18T11:02:00.002+01:00

Two years ago I wrote about CCTV. We are the most watched nation on earth, and my concern was that the police/government might try to automate the monitoring of CCTV images with some kind of computer system. I don't have too much of a problem with isolated cameras, monitored by human beings: you can argue (rightly or wrongly) that they have a preventative effect on crime and at worst provide evidence after the fact.

Link all the cameras together and apply some form of intelligence though, and a single person or agency can begin to monitor people's lives in great detail. That for me is an invasion of privacy, the downsides of which overwhelm any security arguments.

At a conference last week the director of information for the Association of Chief Police Officers reported that officers are being overwhelmed by the volume of CCTV data available. One of his major concerns was that officers cannot track a car in real time using Automatic Number Plate Recognition.

This for me sounds very much like the top of a long and greasy slope. At the bottom of that slope is automatic facial recognition and real-time tracking of people.

Sure I can see the security benefits. But do they outweigh the risks?

However right-minded they might appear, you can't just hand powers over to a government and trust they will always be used responsibly. Look at the current government's record: rendition; torture; infiltration of protest groups; heavy-handed control of demonstrations; RIPA.

We live in a very safe, democratic society, but at the fringes our rights to privacy and freedom of expression are definitely being eroded. We all ought to be aware of further changes. You never know how future governments might use the powers we give them today.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix: Winner

2009-05-17T15:57:00.002+01:00

This morning I finally got around to testing out the Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my little Acer AspireOne. I'm writing this blog post on it now, and though I've had limited time for testing, so far I am really impressed.

For one thing, the Vodafone Mobile Broadband dongle just works: plug and play. That is a big plus point.

The whole interface is a massive improvement over the default too. A lot of thought has gone into creating a lightweight but attractive platform for small, low-power devices. Well done Canonical and all involved in the development effort.

If you want to try it out, you just need to download the IMG file from here and write it to a 1GB flash drive. I found that to be simpler on a Windows machine using Win32 Image Writer, though I'd appreciate anyone offering a guide to doing it in Linpus – the default Acer operating system.

Before you do anything else, I'd recommend backing your whole system up. Macles has kindly made that very straightforward: find instructions and software downloads on his/her blog.

Only downside I've found is that the WiFi switch no longer works. I can cope with that though.

Flashback: The top gadgets of 1989 on BBC Radio Manchester

2009-05-11T08:54:00.005+01:00

Last week was so manic that I didn't get a chance to post these updates. If you want to, you can still listen to the show - Becky Want's Flashback from Thursday with me talking about the gadgets of 1989 and 2007 will be available on the iPlayer until Thursday this week.

Anyway, here's some more information about the stories we discussed from that year, and some that didn't make it:

Before touchscreens took off, we had pen-based computers, the first of which was introduced by GriD Systems Corporation this year. The device's inventor, Jeff Hawkins, went on to found Palm Computing and later Handspring, the companies responsible for bringing handheld computers to the mainstream. Look out for the Palm Pre when it appears later this year - could be a serious contender for the iPhone's crown.

Also in portable computing in 1989, the first 'portable' Apple Mac was introduced. It weighed over 16 pounds and cost more than $6000. The critics loved it but very few people bought it. Compare it to a modern netbook, such as the Acer AspireOne, which has a processor a thousand times as fast, and weighs less than one eighth as much.

"Ding, ding ding ding, ding ding ding, ding ding ding, ding ding ding, ding ding, ding ding ding ding." Recognise the theme tune? In 1989 Nintendo introduced the GameBoy and households across the nation rang out to the theme tune of Tetris. I have very fond memories of kicking everyone's butt at the two-player version on long school trips. Did that make me cool?

Megalomaniacs everywhere rejoiced: SimCity was introduced, spawning one of the longest-running and most popular game franchises in the world.

Ever ahead, Japan started HDTV broadcasts, though they were only analogue with limited programming.

Deep Thought became the first computer to beat a master human chess player when it defeats David Levy, who had been winning matches against computers since 1968. However, later in the year Gary Kasparov defeated Deep Thought over a two-game match. Conclusion: computers were clever in '89 but far from infallible.

Now, I also talked about the web in this year, specifically the invention of HTML and HTTP by Tim Berners Lee at CERN in Switzerland, now home to the Large Hadron Collider. I realise posting this that I also put that in 1990, last time I was on. Truth seems to be that he defined the ideas in '89 but built the first server and client software in '90. So they're kind of both right. But I think I'll stick with '90 in the future, since that was the year his invention became tangible.

I also referenced the GameBoy in 1990, although this was the year it was launched in Europe, so this time I'm going to stick with 1989, when it was launched in the US and Japan. In future I will try and be more careful with my dates!

Popular fiction makes science no less scary

2009-04-29T14:13:00.003+01:00

I thought it was just me on a sci-fi kick at the moment. I've been re-running Primeval and Stargate, and getting back into the Marvel Digital Comics after a short break. Yes, if ever you doubted it, I am a serious geek.

But I feel in good company: the newspapers are full of Star Trek, Wolverine is opening at the cinema tonight, and Heroes continues to pull in the viewers on TV. Sci-Fi is mainstream once again.

So why is it that people - and particularly journalists - remain terrified of science and technology, and the people who use them?

Check out this story from Sweden for example: Robot attacked Swedish factory worker. I worked in PR, so I understand the desire to create a good story from facts that may not totally fit. But this is a little too much creative licence. As the comments under the story point out, it's not so much a robot attacking a worker, more a worker putting his head in a machine.

Then there's this from the US: Boston College Campus Police: "Using Prompt Commands" May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity. Apparently being competent with the command line is now evidence of evil. It's not just science that is scary, it's those who use it.

This is clearly a small amount of anecdotal evidence. Sadly this is a quick blog post while I should be doing other things, not a doctoral thesis (could be a good topic though...)

So to offer a little balance, there are some positive science stories around in the most unlikely places, including the front page of today's Daily Nail 'Em Up. Whoever would have thought it?

(p.s. the image comes from XKCD.com and is available on a T-shirt - I highly recommend the comic to any geeks out there)

Wind turbine manufacturer shedding 600 jobs: how is this possible?

2009-04-29T13:31:00.004+01:00

Just read that Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas is to shed 600 jobs in the UK.

How is this possible?

Oil prices are high. All but the nuttiest of nutters accept that we need to cut greenhouse gases. And we have a country with some of the most ideal sites for wind power generation.

Surely this industry should be booming, even in the downturn?

It seems not. The NIMBYs are winning with their daft objections. The government has failed to act to speed the planning process. And every British government of the recent past has failed to invest sufficiently in renewables, pumping money into nuclear instead.

Depressing and infuriating at the same time.

Imagine what a better position we would be in now if in '97 Labour had invested in renewable programmes and fast-tracked planning applications. We could have already made a dramatic dent in our reliance on foreign oil and gas, and be years ahead of our commitments on carbon reduction.

Instead, here we are watching jobs go in the one industry that should be entirely recession-proof.

Some people have no thought for the future.

Flashback: The top tech stories of 2006 on BBC Radio Manchester

2009-04-22T14:49:00.003+01:00

Flashback time again, where I talk about gadgets of years past with Becky Want on BBC Radio Manchester. 1990 and 2006 are today's years. Listen live on 95.1 at 4:15pm if you live in the Manchester area, or listen any time via the marvellous iPlayer.

Here's what was happening in technology in 2006:

- MySpace had more than 100 million registered users by 2006, but its popularity soon waned once Facebook opened its doors to the public in September that year. That's right: it was only two and half years ago.

- The HD format war began, with the announcement of Blu-ray at the Consumer Entertainment Show and the release of the first HD DVD player by Toshiba. The war didn't last long.

- Google announced plans to buy YouTube for 1.65 Billion. You Tube was less than a year old...

- Microsoft released its portable Zune media player to widespread apathy. It still hasn't made a dent in Apple's market share for iPod-type devices, or changed the fact that most people still call a portable audio/video player of any brand an 'iPod'.

- Microsoft also released Windows Vista, slowing everyone's machines down to a crawl.

- Electric car company Tesla launched its Roadster, the first truly desirable eco-car. 0-60 in four seconds and a top speed of over 130 mph. All with no noise and no emissions. Engineered by Lotus (be proud Britains) it unfortunately carries a hefty price tag and not a lot of luggage.

- Nintendo launched the Wii, and changed the face of gaming. Where formerly games consoles were about spotty teenage boys (and still somewhat spotty 30-something boys) blowing up aliens, they now appealed to a much wider audience. Wii injuries and interior damage became a regular topic of office conversation.

- The long prophesied eBooks became a more practical reality with the launch of the Sony Reader.

Flashback: The top gadgets of 1990 on BBC Radio Manchester

2009-04-22T12:52:00.004+01:00

Flashback time again, where I talk about gadgets of years past with Becky Want on BBC Radio Manchester. 1990 and 2006 are today's years. Listen live on 95.1 at 4:15pm if you live in the Manchester area, or listen any time via the marvellous iPlayer.

Here's what was happening in technology in 1990:

- Tim Berners-Lee created the world wide web, including the 'protocol' (HTTP), language (HTML) and address system (URL). Working at the European nuclear physics laboratory (CERN) outside Geneva, the 35-year old Brit built the system to overcome his frustration at the poor tracking and sharing of information between scientists.

- The same year, the first commercial internet service provider, The World, went online. Notice the difference between the internet (the system for transporting data) and the web (the data we now know as web pages). The first search engine, Archie, was also released this year, as was a predecessor to the web browser, Gopher, a menu-driven search-and-retrieval tool.

- The GSM standard for mobile phones was defined and soon became accepted across the world. Except for in the US, where, upset that it was a European standard, they decided to plump for the alternative CDMA instead. They're coming around...slowly.

- Nintendo launched the GameBoy in Europe (as usual the US and Japan got it first in 89). Tetris became a global phenomenon. I have fond memories of beating all challengers at two-player Tetris on a school coach-trip.

The 200th Post

2009-04-22T12:41:00.003+01:00

Was just about to post today's Flashback stories when I noticed that this post would be my 200th. Figured that deserved a little story to itself.

Over the last two and a half years I have spouted all sorts of opinions, posted various projects, and reviewed a variety of products. It's testament to the purely self-indulgent nature of this blog that I haven't focused on those topics that attract the most traffic. To date the article that has generated far and away the most hits is about getting mobile broadband working with Linux netbooks: a worthy topic, but not one I think I could write about with any enthusiasm each week.

I will continue to apply the same editorial policy for the next two hundred posts, writing about what interests me but trying to keep it fairly confined to the three key tenets of the site: technology, society and geekery. All with a view to the future, of course.

Thanks for reading.

We're not big or clever

2009-04-20T13:57:00.003+01:00

Just been listening to the Guardian Science Weekly, one of an increasing number of podcasts that have started to take over my free listening hours (alongside In Our Time, Collins & Herring (not for the easily offended), and Adam & Joe). The guest was Christopher Potter, publisher of numerous popular science books and now author of 'You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe'.

I've not read the book yet but the discussion around it was fascinating. Potter talked about examining the known universe from the tiny to the enormous; from the sub-atomic to the galactic. It got me, and the podcast panel, thinking about how little we consider our position in the universe on these scales while we go about our everyday lives.

It could be a recipe for depression, considering how insignificant our lives are on an intergalactic scale. Or it could be a source of inspiration, recognising how much remains to be explored and learned.

Personally, I prefer the latter option.

Latest geek project: USB WiFi booster

2009-04-15T11:14:00.005+01:00

Every now and again, I disappear into my garage and come out with something new. It's usually a splinter, a bruise or a sliced finger. Just occasionally I make something that works.

This is a project I've had in my head for ages but only just got around to building. It is a WiFi collector to allow me to pick up weak WiFi signals from the surrounding area. Considering it's assembled from a folding steamer (£2.50), the remains of a broken desktop clock and a variety of other spare parts from the garage, I'm actually pretty pleased with the end result.

Not only does it look cool (if you're a sci-fi geek) but it works really well. Plugged into my laptop it gathers a whole load of local networks I'd never seen before, and with pretty decent signal strengths as well. Obviously I'm not going to piggyback my neighbours' WiFi when I have my own, but for those few occasions when the broadband goes down, I'm sure they wouldn't mind me borrowing a little spare capacity. (For legal purposes, assume I will be asking their permission...)

Blu-ray: the last of the media-hicans?

2009-04-15T11:01:00.001+01:00

A few months ago I was convinced that Blu-ray would make it to mass acceptance. Today, I'm not so sure. While the PlayStation 3 - the most common Blu-ray player out there - continues to sell well, I'm less convinced that the video-only discs will follow suit.

When the PlayStation 2 launched with the capability to play DVDs, it played a major role in the uptake of DVD in this country. But DVD was a massive improvement over VHS. The gap between Blu-ray and DVD is far less marked, especially on smaller screens and those without digital connectors. With the economy as it is, and DVD prices falling, in the short term I think people will largely continue to choose DVD over Blu-ray when buying films.

That presents a big problem for Blu-ray. DVD had plenty of time to reach wide acceptance. Blu-ray is up against a hard deadline. It needs to reach critical mass before its market is eaten up, not by another format but by something altogether different.

The threat to Blu-ray is not another format, it's a wire. Why would you buy/borrow a disc, when all the HD content you could want is at the end of a broadband connection?

Our puny broadband speeds today mean that downloading HD content takes days: not very spontaneous. But within ten years a large number of us should have very fat pipes into our homes, delivering tens of megabits per second: enough to stream HD content to multiple devices at once.

DVD has had a healthy 14 years of primacy. I don't think Blu-ray will be as long-lived. In fact I think it is likely to be the last major 'shelf' format for media: The Last of the Media-hicans...

Forgive the rubbish film pun. Best I could come up with.