While browsing recent technology news, I came across Michael Chen, this year's winner of the James Dyson award with his ‘Reactiv’ jacket for night cyclists. The James Dyson award is an annual worldwide technology contest, which aims to encourage young inventors to think more creatively.
Chen’s light-up jacket uses movement sensitive technology originally devised for the Nintendo Wii to make cyclists’ movements clearer to motorists. LEDs are sewn into the back of the jacket, and are controlled by ‘accelerometers’. The lights glow green when the bike is moving at speed, and red as it slows down. When a cyclist indicates, their raised arm flashes amber.
Chen’s design has certainly caught the attention of the journalists, and the Dyson Award is the perfect accolade for the launch of his product. But I can’t help thinking that in many ways, awards like these are little more than well educated guesswork.
This is hardly surprising when you consider how so many great technology businesses arose out of real obscurity.
Everyone knows Microsoft was the invention of a student drop out, HP was born in a shed and the Google guys started off making inkjet printers out of Lego bricks and building a solar powered car. Who can say where the next big idea will stem from?
Technology awards provide a great forum for airing the latest trends and developments. But
often the best ideas come from less predictable sources.
If the Reactiv jacket improves road safety for cyclists, we’ll have the Dyson award to thank. However, when it comes to technological fortune telling I suspect we’re still in the dark.
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Mobile Monday
I am no longer a MoMo virgin, having been to my first
Mobile Monday has become a true brand. Both the industry and the media are recognising that the event organisers are THE experts in the telco space. The latest example is the article by Jemima Kiss, well known blogger and columnist at The Guardian, who covered a recent London MoMo.
It is great to see how big MoMo has grown since its inception in 2000. I first heard of it only a year or so ago. The events have the reputation of being well organised (I agree from what I have seen in
The idea of organising events to discuss issues in the mobile space was first introduced in
The founders of
We’re finding that our clients regard MoMo as an integral element in their communications strategies. If MoMo can maintain the high quality of subject matter and audience its reputation should remain high for several years to come.
Monday, 7 April 2008
A WEEE bit for the environment....
Recycling is a huge topic. Everyone is talking about 'going green', 'recycling', and ‘preserving the planet'. We are all trying to do our bit for the environment both at home and in the office. At GBC, we have been recycling and re-using printer and copier paper for a while now as well as making a conscious effort to switch off PCs, printers, lights and any other equipment which may waste electricity. But what about the disposal of electronic equipment like PCs and printers - do you ever wonder what happens to them when your office decides to get rid of it?
If not disposed of correctly, they end up in a landfill somewhere which has a huge negative effect on the environment. Many studies have shown that old printers contain materials that can make their way into the water system. In turn, this ends up causing a number of different problems for the environment.
A year after the introduction of the WEEE Directive (Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment), the UK now has a nationwide collection and recycling network with 1556 collection sites. Electronic equipment manufacturers as well as retailers are obliged under the regulations to take end-of-life items back or inform consumers of local disposal facilities.
Late last year, on a cold December's day, I visited one of these local disposal and recycling facilities that Toshiba uses, to see for myself how electronic equipment such as printers, copiers and PCs is recycled. To see the recycling in process for yourself, please click here.
Huge corporate printers are shredded into small materials around 100mm in size, before being separated into re-usable materials, such as iron, steel, copper, glass, plastic and aluminium. Most of the material recycled can is sold on or re-used following the process. While vendors such as printer manufacturers are taking the WEEE directly very seriously, UK consumers are also being encouraged to recycle their unwanted electrical and electronic equipment, in a bid to reduce waste going to landfill.
So.. next time you are replacing your mobile phone, home PC, fridge or flat screen TV, consider asking your local authority or retailer on how to do your WEEE bit on recycling.
If not disposed of correctly, they end up in a landfill somewhere which has a huge negative effect on the environment. Many studies have shown that old printers contain materials that can make their way into the water system. In turn, this ends up causing a number of different problems for the environment.
A year after the introduction of the WEEE Directive (Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment), the UK now has a nationwide collection and recycling network with 1556 collection sites. Electronic equipment manufacturers as well as retailers are obliged under the regulations to take end-of-life items back or inform consumers of local disposal facilities.
Late last year, on a cold December's day, I visited one of these local disposal and recycling facilities that Toshiba uses, to see for myself how electronic equipment such as printers, copiers and PCs is recycled. To see the recycling in process for yourself, please click here.
Huge corporate printers are shredded into small materials around 100mm in size, before being separated into re-usable materials, such as iron, steel, copper, glass, plastic and aluminium. Most of the material recycled can is sold on or re-used following the process. While vendors such as printer manufacturers are taking the WEEE directly very seriously, UK consumers are also being encouraged to recycle their unwanted electrical and electronic equipment, in a bid to reduce waste going to landfill.
So.. next time you are replacing your mobile phone, home PC, fridge or flat screen TV, consider asking your local authority or retailer on how to do your WEEE bit on recycling.
Friday, 4 April 2008
What's High Tech Really All About?
Perhaps the beginning of an irregular series of doodlings and musings but the whole concept of high tech deserves a good old debate.
This story on today's BBC News website caught my eye (and imagination). The knitting machines at the world's oldest factory still in operation have changed over the centuries but the basic technology is probably the same.
Good technology lasts. High technology isn't simply about junking the old and replacing it with something new. If the technology works why replace it? Surely the best strategy is build on its strengths.
In the case of this woolly jumper factory (is there anything more quintessentially English than this?) the traditional knitting factory technology is being focused on producing quality products. So technology designed for mass producing the woolie items that made Britain great are now producing high ticket fashion items for consumers in the Far East.
This story on today's BBC News website caught my eye (and imagination). The knitting machines at the world's oldest factory still in operation have changed over the centuries but the basic technology is probably the same.
Good technology lasts. High technology isn't simply about junking the old and replacing it with something new. If the technology works why replace it? Surely the best strategy is build on its strengths.
In the case of this woolly jumper factory (is there anything more quintessentially English than this?) the traditional knitting factory technology is being focused on producing quality products. So technology designed for mass producing the woolie items that made Britain great are now producing high ticket fashion items for consumers in the Far East.
Monday, 31 March 2008
Blogs are Old Hat, Young Chap?
Reading the biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and among the many interesting insights (e.g. there was no big clamour for him to bring Sherlock Holmes from the dead and he kept writing Sherlock Holmes stories well into the 1920s) was how much Conan Doyle was a bit of a blogger in the (of course) pre-blogging, pre-Internet, pre-computer, pretty much pre-electricity etc. age.
What made me think of a parallel or two was the huge amount of work and energy that he put into contributing articles, firing off letters commenting on other people's articles (and then firing back counter-replies and counter-counter replies) and joining and being an active member of countless clubs and a spinning kaleidoscope of special interest groups. This was in addition to writing hundreds of short stories, novels and poetry. The late nineties and Edwardian period saw tremendous activity in the publishing industry with new magazines being launched and heavy pamphleting about a plethora of issues. Much of this was self-publishing akin to today's social media movement - albeit done by the upper middle classes and in print.
Faced with all these opportunities to see his words in print Conan Doyle simply could not stop himself. The blizzard of activity is overwhelming and even more impressive because all he had was a pen and paper and later a wonky second hand typewriter rather than a laptop and an Internet connection.
I suspect his attitude to information technology would have been warped by his well-known obsession with spiritualism - the belief in the afterlife, which Conan Doyle and others saw as a basis for a new all-unifying super-religion. Spiritualists regarded key technologies like electricity, radio and photography as revealing the spirit world - e.g. unexplained (actually often faked) ghostly auras on photographs or radio waves being the same method the dead communicated to the living. The movement got a huge boost by the First World War because so many people died so young so suddenly and many times with no information about what happened or even if they were dead. Their bereaved friends and families were desperate for closure and the idea of making contact with the dead held huge appeal.
The Internet as a means of universal connectivity certainly would have excited Conan Doyle's mind and - as we all know - is very much a tool for all sorts of wild n wacky obsessions of the kind that appealed to him.
So Conan Doyle, a blogger? Elementarily not because he went over to the Other Side in 1930. But potentially he could have been the world' s greatest blogger. And given his beliefs is desperately trying to get through to get a broadband account and pump out his reports from Afterlife.com
What made me think of a parallel or two was the huge amount of work and energy that he put into contributing articles, firing off letters commenting on other people's articles (and then firing back counter-replies and counter-counter replies) and joining and being an active member of countless clubs and a spinning kaleidoscope of special interest groups. This was in addition to writing hundreds of short stories, novels and poetry. The late nineties and Edwardian period saw tremendous activity in the publishing industry with new magazines being launched and heavy pamphleting about a plethora of issues. Much of this was self-publishing akin to today's social media movement - albeit done by the upper middle classes and in print.
Faced with all these opportunities to see his words in print Conan Doyle simply could not stop himself. The blizzard of activity is overwhelming and even more impressive because all he had was a pen and paper and later a wonky second hand typewriter rather than a laptop and an Internet connection.
I suspect his attitude to information technology would have been warped by his well-known obsession with spiritualism - the belief in the afterlife, which Conan Doyle and others saw as a basis for a new all-unifying super-religion. Spiritualists regarded key technologies like electricity, radio and photography as revealing the spirit world - e.g. unexplained (actually often faked) ghostly auras on photographs or radio waves being the same method the dead communicated to the living. The movement got a huge boost by the First World War because so many people died so young so suddenly and many times with no information about what happened or even if they were dead. Their bereaved friends and families were desperate for closure and the idea of making contact with the dead held huge appeal.
The Internet as a means of universal connectivity certainly would have excited Conan Doyle's mind and - as we all know - is very much a tool for all sorts of wild n wacky obsessions of the kind that appealed to him.
So Conan Doyle, a blogger? Elementarily not because he went over to the Other Side in 1930. But potentially he could have been the world' s greatest blogger. And given his beliefs is desperately trying to get through to get a broadband account and pump out his reports from Afterlife.com
Friday, 14 March 2008
Happy Birthday Flickr
Flickr, the Yahoo-owned, photo-uploading, image-hosting, memory-collecting site has just celebrated its Fourth Birthday. To put into perspective the success of this site, in the minute that I’m writing this a further 4,493 photographs have been uploaded. A search for ‘Grant’ returns 183,293 results, ranging from ‘Grant Lake Falls’ to ‘Richard E Grant on the District Line’ (in the interests of parity ‘Butler’ returns 64,661 results and ‘Coomber’ only 226).
While in an Art Gallery recently I came across a project where the artist had searched for ‘sunset’ and printed 1,000 copies of the result, making a powerful collage. I’ve been reliably informed that a number of bands now even get their album covers from Flickr.
Uploaded photographs can of course be linked to blogs, and in a splendid ‘Web 2.0’ moment, I was able to link 30 of my best photographs on Flickr to my facebook profile. Now snaps of Accra, Bangkok, and Coffs Harbour sit proudly next to my ‘wall’.
The more snaps I uploaded, the more comments I received (all positive – its bad etiquette to post particularly negative ones). Similarly, I was invited to post my photos in groups such as 'UltimateSkyscraperShots', which is apparently significant. It is certainly a compliment when you browse some of photos that your work is then displayed alongside.
Before sites like Flickr, the majority of the photographs now online would doubtless be sat idle on someone’s hard drive. Thankfully, they are now out there for all to see.
While in an Art Gallery recently I came across a project where the artist had searched for ‘sunset’ and printed 1,000 copies of the result, making a powerful collage. I’ve been reliably informed that a number of bands now even get their album covers from Flickr.
Uploaded photographs can of course be linked to blogs, and in a splendid ‘Web 2.0’ moment, I was able to link 30 of my best photographs on Flickr to my facebook profile. Now snaps of Accra, Bangkok, and Coffs Harbour sit proudly next to my ‘wall’.
The more snaps I uploaded, the more comments I received (all positive – its bad etiquette to post particularly negative ones). Similarly, I was invited to post my photos in groups such as 'UltimateSkyscraperShots', which is apparently significant. It is certainly a compliment when you browse some of photos that your work is then displayed alongside.
Before sites like Flickr, the majority of the photographs now online would doubtless be sat idle on someone’s hard drive. Thankfully, they are now out there for all to see.
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
BBC Wowed by New Zealand Technology Stars
We're coming to the end of our work for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise at CeBIT. Our international team led by GBC Germany with support from GBC UK has done some excellent work at CeBIT, drawing crowds of the world's media to the stand to see demos and meet some of New Zealand's best and brightest high tech companies. What has stood out for us this year is how the BBC has covered NZ companies in tremendous depth - a testament to the hard work of our team, the news value of the NZ tech companies and the whole NZTE marketing effort.
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