via cultofmac.com
There's absolutely no way that the new iPhone will look like this (mock-ups are never accurate) but the other rumoured features sound very neat indeed. No word yet on camera or storage, but everything else sounds very cool.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
I haven't read the books but I have now seen the film (this afternoon, at the PictureHouse in Southampton) and it's rather good, definitely worth seeing if you're in the mood for a foreign-language thriller.
Oxford Literary Festival
Just a quick note to say that I saw Ben Goldacre "in concert" in Oxford yesterday afternoon. Most entertaining, particularly when he started ranting about nutritionists and Gillian McKeith for whom, I think it might be reasonable to infer, he doesn't have a lot of time.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Nissan Leaf electric car to be built in UK
Nissan is to build its new electric car - the Leaf - at its Sunderland plant, the Japanese company has announced.
via news.bbc.co.uk
Good news in manufacturing has been pretty thin on the ground in recent years so this confirmation that Nissan will build their new car in Sunderland is most welcome.
DVDs, CD and iTunes
At some point, not too long after DVDs were first released and while video tapes were still widely available, I made the decision that DVD was the way to go and that I wasn't going to buy any more tapes even if that meant waiting longer to own a film. It wasn't a hugely difficult decision because, by the time I made it, it was pretty clear that DVDs had won and that video tapes were on their way out (which, difficult though it might now be to believe, was not certain when they were first released). Something similar must have happened in the late 80s when CDs displaced records but, as I never bought a record (defined now as a crazily inelegant analogue stop-gap on the road to digital dominance) I wasn't really affected. Now the next transition is underway, from physical to non-physical media, and all the components are in place for a complete switch away from the established distribution methods (i.e. CDs and DVDs). It's been building for years, of course; ever since it became possible to download music from the Internet people have been moving away from CDs, so this isn't exactly a new phenomenon and I can't claim any particular insight. In fact, I'm only really mentioning it because, even though CDs and DVDs are still very widely available, I've decided to move entirely to downloaded media (mostly from iTunes but also, occasionally, from Amazon). Why bother, you might ask, particularly as legal downloads (and I don't bother with the other sort) generally cost more than their physical counterparts? Here are my reasons:
1) Ease of use - I can consume downloaded media on my TV, phone or laptop (and, when it becomes available, an iPad) with little effort, which makes life quite a lot easier and a bit more fun
2) Delivery speed - no waiting around for delivery of physical media; everything arrives pretty much as soon as I've bought it
3) Backup - I've got a large capacity (1.5Tb) NAS RAID array to which all my media is regularly and easily backed up; try doing that with a stack of DVDs
4) Absence of physical media - some people like to have things they can hold, like little trophies of capitalism and industry, but I don't; a couple of hard-drives somewhere out of the way is far better than a stack of dusty media in the living room
5) Longevity and maintenance - sooner or later (probably much later) CDs and DVDs are going to warp, age or otherwise become unusable but even if the discs survive indefinitely the hardware will inevitably fail and I wouldn't want to bet on finding replacement disc spinners after 2025. And the downsides? Apart from the cost there really aren't any.
1) Ease of use - I can consume downloaded media on my TV, phone or laptop (and, when it becomes available, an iPad) with little effort, which makes life quite a lot easier and a bit more fun
2) Delivery speed - no waiting around for delivery of physical media; everything arrives pretty much as soon as I've bought it
3) Backup - I've got a large capacity (1.5Tb) NAS RAID array to which all my media is regularly and easily backed up; try doing that with a stack of DVDs
4) Absence of physical media - some people like to have things they can hold, like little trophies of capitalism and industry, but I don't; a couple of hard-drives somewhere out of the way is far better than a stack of dusty media in the living room
5) Longevity and maintenance - sooner or later (probably much later) CDs and DVDs are going to warp, age or otherwise become unusable but even if the discs survive indefinitely the hardware will inevitably fail and I wouldn't want to bet on finding replacement disc spinners after 2025. And the downsides? Apart from the cost there really aren't any.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Android Application Idea
Normally I'd write this up as an iPhone Application Idea but I think
it's actually better suited to Android where it could run as a
background process. Here's the idea. Build a lightweight app that snapshots location (via
GPS) and 3G signal strength every ten seconds or so (possibly varying
sample time according to velocity) and submits the data to a webserver
that collates input from multiple users to build a detailed, high-res,
constantly updated map of 3G signal strength. Superimpose the results
on a Google Map and publish it for the greater good. I haven't checked to see if this is a) possible or b) original, but
I've been thinking about it for a while and I just wanted to get the
idea out there.
it's actually better suited to Android where it could run as a
background process. Here's the idea. Build a lightweight app that snapshots location (via
GPS) and 3G signal strength every ten seconds or so (possibly varying
sample time according to velocity) and submits the data to a webserver
that collates input from multiple users to build a detailed, high-res,
constantly updated map of 3G signal strength. Superimpose the results
on a Google Map and publish it for the greater good. I haven't checked to see if this is a) possible or b) original, but
I've been thinking about it for a while and I just wanted to get the
idea out there.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Lasers lift dirt of ages from artworks
via news.bbc.co.uk
I have no particular interest in art, but using lasers to clean painting and sculptures seems like a really good idea - show those dodgy artists what can be done with a bit of science and maths...
Thursday, March 04, 2010
The Sun's Ghost Boy - Journalists Spoofed?
The Sun have a story on their website (link) about a builder taking a photo of a ghost. Rubbish, of course, and it's obviously a doctored photograph, but they seem to think it's serious.
Going home in the daylight
One of the advantages of leaving the office before dark is watching the sun set over London from the comfort of the train. Very few clouds, blue sky, dreadful photographer.
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