3D TV's

So, we rapidly head into 2011, and what does the next year hold for us in terms of technology. Well for sure 3D will take a bigger grip than ever with every major manufacturer now having either a shuttered or polarised 3D display on the market. I'm sure by the end of 2011 we'll start to see the emergence of credible parallex barrier screens that will be the first to allow 3D content to be viewed without glasses, for me the biggest barrier to 3D becoming commonplace in the home.

For now here the pick of the screens that are available with 3D

Sharp's top of the range offering is their LC60925E 60" Aquos with Quaterion LCD adding yellow sub pixels to the mix for greater colour depth and vibrancy.

Samsungs UE55C9000 is an absolute stunner, I've seen this in action showing Avatar on blu ray, while not 3D it made it seem like a wildlife documentary at times not a motion picture, such was the quality and fludity of motion. An expensive screen yes, but absolutely stunning quality.

Panasonic stick with Plasma for their 3D offering, their P65VT20B has both Freeview HD and Freesat HD built in along with wifi networking for instant content retrieval from the Internet and Network video stores.

LG as ever come in with a much cheaper offering in their 55LX9900 55 inch LCD TV this boasts 400Hz display technology and comes with two pairs of active shutter glasses. This television is also network enabled allowing for internet browsing from your TV as well as being able to stream content from other network enabled devices. This is quite a looker having a very slim bezil, the display really does go right to the edge of the screen.

That's all for now, and it just leaves me to say Happy New Year and make sure you come back to Tech Info Blog next year!

Panasonic HDC-SDT750

3D had only just entered the living room properly and already we have the first 3D camcorders coming out. This one from Panasonic uses an adapter lens to split the left and right images for stereo recording.

Video Image Perception Technology For Robots : DigInfo

This is a great technology, add it to a car HUD, and eventually into automated cars and we massively cut road accidents. And eventually it's a system that will allow automated robots to interact roperly with their environment. the future is closer than we think!

Acer Iconia

Not so long ago mobile computing devices with touch screens were only found in science fiction. Now Acer presents ICONIA, a new concept device set to add a brand new tablet experience, combining the versatility of a conventional 14” form factor with a unique dual-screen layout and highly intuitive all-point multi-touch functionality, which means you can use all the fingers of your hands to navigate ICONIA.

If you are looking for a different and innovative approach to personal computing, look no further. With its two all-point multi-touch displays Acer ICONIA offers an enhanced content consumption experience and brings the interaction with the tablet to a new level.

Multimedia, entertainment, communication, web browsing and office productivity seamlessly flow across the dual screen, allowing users to set the best scenario for what they are doing. To improve readability of web sites or documents, the window can be spread across both screens. But the dual screen also means you can do one thing in one screen and something else entirely on the other: you can browse a website on the top screen and view the contents of your favourite folder on the bottom one or you can watch a video on the top screen and check out your multimedia library in the other.

“We took this insight and created a range of easy to use devices with touch technology including Smartphones, Notebooks, AIO PCs, Tablet and our latest addition, the ICONIA Touchbook: this level of commitment to touch technology is something no other PC vendor can compete with.” states Jim Wong Acer Inc. Vice President and ITGO President. “The Intel® Core™ i5 processor together with our experience with touch technology has allowed us to completely remap the user experience to create a far more natural interaction with our devices.

"Intel is proud that our close collaboration with Acer has helped to deliver the world’s first 10 finger multi-touch dual-screen notebook with an exciting and innovative end-user experience, powered by the Intel® Core™ i5 processor,” said Mooly Eden, vice-president of PC Client Group, Intel Corporation. “Combining the adaptable and energy efficient performance of the Intel® Core™ i5 processor with Acer's Iconia provides new and immersive ways to seamlessly view and interact with your favorite videos, photos, websites and movies”.

Both 14-inch displays have HD 1366x768 resolution, high-brightness Acer CineCrystal™ LED-backlit TFT LCDs and take advantage of cutting-edge technologies supporting all-point multi-touch for precise on-screen input. Protected by the ultra-thin yet durable Gorilla® Glass, the displays are scratch and fingerprint resistant, easier to clean and offer the same touch functionality.

ICONIA is designed to provide the optimal all-point multi-touch experience on a dual-display tablet. This is why Acer equipped it with a full range of intuitive and easy to use features and applications that fully exploit the countless possibilities of multi-touch technology. The starting point to launch ICONIA’s touch features and controls as well as applications is the Acer Ring.

The Acer Ring appears simply by placing five fingers on the screen and making a grab gesture. The Acer Ring allows you to start touch applications by scrolling through the App cards and tapping on the one you choose. The Ring also provides fast access to: Virtual Keyboard, Gesture Editor, Window Manager, and Device Control Console.

The Virtual Keyboard can be launched from the Acer Ring or by placing both palms on the bottom display. The intelligent design senses the position of the user’s palms and launches the keyboard. It comes with a full-size QWERTY layout with international language support to give users the same experience of a traditional physical keyboard and features predictive text input for natural-speed typing while avoiding mistakes. The Virtual Keyboard also includes a touchpad and a numeric keypad and can be easily switched to handwriting mode. With all these functionalities you won’t miss the traditional physical keyboard!

With the Gesture Editor you can set customized gestures to launch specific applications, open websites, view your desktop or lock your computer. The Gesture Editor offers you a simple and intuitive way to personalize ICONIA to best suit your needs.

Window Manager allows users to organize the various application windows on the double touch screen. Windows and applications can be moved across displays, so you can always have what you need where you need it. Plus, you can browse through a list of running application, and resize, dock or close windows.

A wealth of built-in touch applications designed to easily manage content provides a seamless experience. Besides those already implemented on Acer’s touch devices, such as TouchBrowser, TouchPhoto, TouchMusic and TouchVideo, allowing an enhanced browsing experience with on-screen gestures to zoom, rotate, flip and scroll and to access and enjoy your multimedia from an integrated touch-optimized interface, ICONIA includes three new ones: SocialJogger, My Journal and Scrapbook.

SocialJogger lets you gather and check updates from Facebook, YouTube and Flickr in all in the same place, taking advantage of the dual screens to check posts and updates on the bottom display and use the second display for exploring and viewing more content.

You can use MyJournal to collect web clippings on your preferred topics. Web clippings are dynamically updated to display all the latest information and can be categorized and displayed according to your needs. Simply tab on a collected Web Clip to display the full webpage on the top screen for a complete access.

Scrapbook lets you easily store clippings, posts and just about anything else from different sources in the same place. You can capture screen shots from the web or an application, edit them and add notes. You can create photo collections with notes and comments. You can also add your scraps to presentations, and documents. Scrapbook helps you keep track of anything you find interesting, funny or valuable and share it!

Acer ICONIA is based on the Intel® Core™ i5 family of processors, delivering smart performance for multimedia, social networking and other demanding mainstream applications.

A fusion of the latest and best technology, ICONIA can also be equipped with 3G connectivity, for total freedom, while an HDMI™ port guarantees high-definition viewing and the Dolby Home Theater v3 provides vibrant audio for an immersive sound experience.

The result? An outstanding entertainment experience!

ICONIA offers an entirely new computing and touch experience. Are you ready?

Wristwatch Phone, a PHS device with smartphone connectivity : DigInfo

Check out this phone for your wrist!. I like the concept, but it's missing the mark really. It's too big and clunky to be a watch, and too small and featureless to be a decent phone. What would be more useful is a iPod Nano sized device that can connect to and operate your smart-phone wirelessly, at least until component miniaturisation can make the phone small enough to be ergonomically and aesthetically pleasing!

iPhone!

Right, I am finally about three years late in finally getting my hands on the most desirable piece of technology in the last three years, the iPhone. The model I have is an 8Gb 3GS and while i was initially disappointed not to have the iPhone4 I don't think there will be that much difference to me. First impressions are very good, the screen is clear and the capacitive touch is very responsive, you can't use a normal stylus on this as it uses the small electric charge in your finger to activate the circuits in the screen, but that has a side benefit as it can't be activated in your pocket if you leave it unlocked. On first startup and connecton to your computer you're guided through the phones setup, guided through the iTunes application and everything is smart and responsive. Within minutes I was synchronising my emails, calendar and uploading music and apps from the app store. The selection of applications is astounding, with many useful applications being completely free! However, most of the free apps are lite versions and most are heavily loaded with advertisments and requests for you to upgrade to the full paid version, if you don't like paying for apps get used to seeing advertisments, everything without a price tag is selling something else. And even some things that you have paid for are loaded with other stuff you can buy. I've installed many of the useful tools at the moment; Facebook, Skype and Twitter among them, and also most of the Google apps. Google maps is pre installed and is the core navigation and geolocation tool.

The build quality is very good, with a smooth black back to the case and a chrome bezel, and the apple logo on the back. The only buttons that disturb that are the standby button on top, silent switch and volume up and down on the side, and the home button on the front. I've covered it with a silicone case and a screen protector, an absolute must for any touch screen phone as they pick up scratches almost instantly!

Uploading your favourite music, videos and pictures is a doddle using iTunes. Simply check the content you want to synchronise and you're away. Any programs you get from within iTunes are also uploaded in the same way, you can also organise you app screens here too. You simply click sync to make any changes to iTunes appear on your phone. Uploading pictures is a bit of a pain, you can't just drag and drop like you can on other phones, again you have to select a folder to synchronise with within iTunes and copy the pictures into there. iTunes is as much of a pain sometimes as it is a really simple tool. It wasn't till later when I decided to get more music off my desktop instead of my laptop that I discovered an even more problematic restriction. Each iPhone (and I guess iPods too) can only synchronise with one iTunes library at a time. I guess this is to facilitate copy protection so you can't share music illegally using an iPhone. But as far as i can see Apple are in effect forcing you to copy music illegally by another method as the only way around it would be to copy music to the original library manually either by ripping the CD again, or by using a memory stick or similar to copy it to another computer. A much better solution ( and I'm sure it would be possible) would be to allow music from up to 5 computers (the same number as you can share your iPhone between) to be copied onto the iPhone, but it can't be copied off again, only deleted.

The camera again is a weak link on the iPhone 3GS. At only 3.1MP it is lagging behind phones of its time, and certainly now with 12MP cameras available now it's way behind the rest. The iPhone 4 doesn't add much more with only a 5MP camera and a face time camera. That said the camera is used in many creative ways, it's the software available on  the phone which really sets it apart.

The iPod feature is just the same as the iPod touch, and you can access your tracks by artist, album, genre etc. You can create playlists or let the phone create one for you with a number of preset lists and the genius mode which takes what you listen to most and puts it into an order that it thinks you like.

I probably haven't touched on half of the features of the iPhone, but my overall impression at the moment is very good. There are weak links, the camera on this model is pretty poor to be honest, and battery life isn't marvellous. In fact one of the weakest features is the phone itself. I have had a number of cases where it looses connection to the network and requires a restart, or calls drop for no reason. It may just be teething problems, but it's a sad case when the phone is the weakest part of a mobile phone.

Samsung Galaxy Tab luxury video review

I've played with a couple of these in shops and it's an interesting beast. Smaller than the iPad, but being an Android tablet it's a much more interesting prospect for me seeing it's without all the restrictions on content that come with Apple devices. It's touch screen seems less responsive than the iPad, but you just learn to have a more positive touch, particularly when selecting applications. Speed is good and the short-cut keys along the bottom of the device make it easy to return to the home screen or open up the search tool. It will be interesting to see how this compares to the iPad.

Chrome

Ok, here's the first of my browser mini reviews.

The first one I'll tackle properly is Google Chrome.

As I said before it's brutally minimalist, with virtually no controls on the main page apart from the ones you're likely to use regularly on a browser; back, forwards, stop/refresh and the address/search bar. You have to add the home page button by default which I have done on both my desktop and laptop as it's also a control that I use regularly as I have an iGoogle page set up with news feeds and short-cuts etc.

Chrome is a really speedy browser, most pages are loaded quickly and accurately. links are followed quickly too and pages refresh quickly, even on my slow connection at home. The user interface while minimalist is effective with the title bar being replaced with a space for page tabs. These can be dragged about and organised, or dragged to the windows start bar to put it in a new window. External windows can be dragged back in too. The browser window can be customised by loading in google chrome themes, and there are ways of customising the windows yourself.

It doesn't appear to be as well supported as Firefox, for example I struggled to find a web video down-loader, of which there are many available on Firefox. I also get the feelng that the minimalism hides many features that would be far more apparent, again on Firefox.

Overall it has been a good experience using Google Chrome, and it may well be the browser that I settle on once my evaluation if over.

HTC Desire Z video sample.3gp

Check out this video taken with the HTC Desire Z. Very smooth motion, if a bit blurred while the train is panning past, but considering this is a phone it's very impressive.

Browsing for a new Browser

Here's a quick update on what I've been looking at today... Web Browsers.

There's a wide variety available out there, and many users who swear by a particular browser claiming it's the best at security, speed, features and overall coolness. Personally I used to fall firmly in the Firefox camp, and I guess I still do to a point as I'm not ready to change my default browser yet but I am starting to become unfaithful and I'll explain why.

I've noticed over the last few weeks that Firefox isn't without its problems, and it's gradually getting worse. I've noticed many more web pages starting to have problems when displaying on Firefox, most recently when checking out my Google Adsense account it failed to work properly, when just about every other browser could display the page without a hitch, and I mean every other as I now have in addition to Firefox and IE8 on my laptop, fresh installs of Opera, Chrome and Safari. Now I guess I could go down the route of reporting the fault to Mozilla, I guess I wouldn't be the first though as there were a number of recent threads about this issue. But this comes from a general feeling that Firefox is missing the point of modern web browsing at the moment. I hope they catch up soon as I think they have the best chance of ousting IE as the most used browser. Even if the majority of internet users aren't bothered about using anything other than the pre installed browser on their computer, I suspect that's even if they are given the choice of browser as Microsoft have been forced to do over in Europe they would still choose the most familiar option. Firefox is also very resource hungry so if you have a slightly older machine or one without cavernous amounts of memory you may find your favourite browser is getting a little sluggish.

Anyway to business with a brief 5 minute review of each of my new browsers from my first impressions.

The first one I went for was the latest version of Opera 10. This is a nice stylish browser with a minimalist tabbed user interface, maximising the space available for your web pages, a theme apparently followed by all three of the new browsers I'm trying. It's home screen is a nice idea which I'm used to from the Opera Mobile 10 over on my Sony Satio and gives a nice easy way to access your recent and favourite content. It's speed is good, and most importantly at the moment according to www.w3schools.com it appears to be the most compatible browser for the next generation of the mark-up language HTML5. You can also skin the browser and add Widgets. These are little applications that bring elements of the internet out of the browser and onto your desktop like twitter and facebook feeds, or download progress information, that kind of thing. These are also independent of the browser so you don't need to have Opera running to use them. Overall from my first impressions Opera is a nice browser that has improved greatly in recent years, it's always had a slightly clinical and sterile feel to it, but that's moved over for understated classical style. It's also got a very familiar work flow seeing it has shared it's application over a vast array of mobile devices recently, even the iPhone can get the Opera browser and of course it's the foundation for the browser over on the Nintendo Wii. 

The second browser I installed was Google Chrome. I have tried this one in the past, and previously wasn't over impressed with it. Yes it was fast and minimalist, but I approached it from the point of view 'go on... impress me' which unfortunately it didn't. Now I come to it with a more open mind and looking for a browser that actually isn't Firefox, it's quite a nice experience. You're instantly hit with the brutal minimalism. There is virtually nothing on screen, you don't even get a home button by default which is a bit disconcerting until you discover where you have to go to enable it. Along the top are a neat row of tabs which can be dragged about, even between the windows task bar and other chrome windows which display a nice preview of the window while they're in the mouse. Fair enough most other browsers can do this including Firefox, but it's done in a nice neat way. The main sell for me is the speed of the browser, it's blisteringly quick, pages load quickly and accurately. And the browser itself opens in half the time of Firefox. The address bar doubles up as a search bar and brings up suggestions from the internet as you type meaning that for most common web sites you only need to input a few letters. Again this is the next generation implementation of a feature that endeared me to Firefox in the first place.

Enough fox bashing, my final browser was Safari. Everything apple do is accompanied with a fanfare, and opening Safari for the first time is no exception as you are greeted with a (probably not flash) animation with music welcoming you to the browser. Everything is very slick and flashy. it even makes the task bar of my windows PC look like I'm running a MAC. Browsing speed is good and the tabs are very similar in use to most other browsers. Unfortunately I just get the feeling that it's all a bit more hard work than it needs to be. Populating the slick shortcut page goes from what should be a simple drag and drop from your history folder (which borrows the iPhone's gallery flick for the page previews), to having to input every address manually in the task bar then drag it onto the window and hope that Safari works out what you're trying to do. Yes it's quite a nice experience, and it does work quickly and well, but the glitz for me can't hide the fact that this isn't as polished as it would lead you to believe.

I don't know what the outcome of this experiment will be. I'm currently using Chrome to write this blog entry which is a very comfortable place to be, I will probably give of the other browsers a week or so to really get to grips with each's  features and weaknesses. and post an update when I have made my decision.

Nokia C7 video sample.mp4

Here's a video taken with the new Nokia C7 that I mentioned a couple of posts back.

28 September 2010

• Sony Ericsson LiveView™ micro display with remote control functionality mirrors the activities of your mobile phone

London, September 28th 2010 – Today sees the announcement of the Sony Ericsson LiveView™. This innovative accessory is another step in Sony Ericsson’s commitment to help consumers get the very best mobile phone experience through the open Android platform. The Sony Ericsson LiveView™ is part of the Sony Ericsson Extras portfolio – a division which offers a total product experience and enhanced mobile possibilities.

The Sony Ericsson LiveView™ uses Bluetooth™ connectivity to wirelessly pair up to a compatible handset and allows consumers to control the phone without taking it out of their pocket or handbag. Read text messages, see incoming calls and keep up to date with the latest news on Facebook™ and Twitter™.

The Sony Ericsson LiveView™ allows the user to control the Sony Ericsson music features of the handset from the micro display, selecting tracks and controlling volume.  The product also serves as a calendar reminder, displaying calendar events and other phone applications.

Whether on the go, in a meeting or out for dinner, the convenient Sony Ericsson LiveView™ can be clipped anywhere. Attached in a watch strap, on a keychain or clipped to a laptop, the micro display allows the user to incorporate the product into their lifestyle and always stay connected. 

Mikael Henriksson, Head of creation and offering planning at Sony Ericsson Extras, said: “It is our ambition to be THE Communication Entertainment brand and this includes being the most open mobile phone brand on the market. We believe in openness and offering consumers a wide range of applications to choose from. We will continue to develop accessories to ensure we play a major and groundbreaking role in the market and design innovative and exciting accessories for all platforms, including Android.”

Mikael Henriksson continued: “The Sony Ericsson LiveView™ is the first Sony Ericsson accessory to be compatible with the open Android™ platform which gives developers an opportunity to be creative and develop the next must-have innovative application.”

Your window to your world with Sony Ericsson LiveView™

• Micro display device that mirrors the phone
• Tunes on the go – control music
• Don’t miss out – Get instant notification and readtexts, Tweets and Facebook™ updates
• Incoming calls – see who is calling
• Make it mine – open platform for developers to add to the large collection of applications for a unique experience

To find Sony Ericsson LiveView™ enabled applications, Sony Ericsson has developed the Sony Ericsson LiveWare™ Manager application. It will scan Android™ Market for Sony Ericsson LiveView™ enabled applications and present them to the user. The Sony Ericsson LiveWare™ manager will be available from Android™ Market, or come preinstalled in phone bundles.

The Sony Ericsson LiveView™ will be available in stores from Q4, 2010.

The Sony Ericsson LiveView™ is also available in one of the Sony Ericsson Experience Packs.  An ‘Experience Pack‘ is a package of several related components that together create a great user experience in a certain area. The packages include mobile phone applications, accessories, services and much more. The “Sony Ericsson Fitness Pack” is aimed at sports and fitness enthusiasts. It contains a sport application for the Sony Ericsson LiveView™ - The SportyPal™ Pro – and a carrying case for your mobile phone – ideal for exercising.

The first ‘Sony Ericsson Experience Pack” will be available in selected markets in Q4.

To see more about Sony Ericsson Extras visit: www.sonyericsson.com/LiveView

For more developer information visit: http//developer.sonyericsson.com

Sony Ericsson LiveView™ - at a glance

Music player control

• Play, pause, next, previous track and volume adjustment
• Track title display

Social Networking Services

• Display Facebook™ updates
• Display Twitter™ updates

Messaging

• Display incoming texts
• Display RSS feeds

Calls

• Show phone number for incoming calls
• Mute ringer for incoming phone calls
• List of missed calls

Other

• Calendar reminders
• Find your phone
• Display time and date

Connectivity

• Bluetooth™ technology
• Micro USB connector

Screen

• 1,3”colour OLED display, 128x128 pixels

Compatibility

• Compatible with the Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10, Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 mini and Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 mini pro and most other brands on Android 2.0 and above.
• For full compatibility list please visit www.sonyericsson.com
• Bluetooth™ range approximately 10m

Facts

• Size:3.5 x 3.5x1.1cm
• Typical consumer battery usage time: 4 days

Availability and versions

• Available in selected markets from Q4 2010

Nokia's second Symbian^3 smartphone to hit the market

Nokia's second Symbian^3 smartphone to hit the market

Espoo, Finland - The smartphone for the design-conscious social networker, the Nokia C7, has started shipping to customers around the world. The second Nokia smartphone based on the new Symbian platform, the Nokia C7 follows hot on the heels of the company's entertainment powerhouse, the Nokia N8.

The Nokia C7 combines stainless steel and glass in a sleek, full-touch design. The 3.5 inch AMOLED display is ideal for networking, with updates from Facebook and Twitter fed directly to the home screen, as well as one touch access to many popular email accounts including Ovi Mail, Yahoo!® Mail and Windows Live(TM) Hotmail. The Nokia C7 also opens up a world of apps, games, videos, and web and location-based services through the Ovi Store.

"The Nokia C7 is our second smartphone based on the new version of Symbian to hit the market," says Jo Harlow, head of smartphones at Nokia. "Designed specifically with the style-conscious consumer in mind, the Nokia C7 also brings excellent social networking abilities, making it perfect for people who want to check-in and stay up to date."

Following the release of this social-networking centric device, Nokia will be setting out to find the most active Facebook user from the more than 1.4 million fans on Nokia's own global Facebook page. Nokia will then pick five finalists who will each be provided with a Nokia C7 to organize a party using various social networks. The fan who best captures their party through Facebook - generating the most coverage with updates and posts - will win a Nokia C7 for themselves and 20 of their friends.

The estimated retail price of the Nokia C7 is EUR 335 before applicable taxes or subsidies, with pricing and availability varying from region to region, operator to operator. 

 This is a repost of a story on the BBC News website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10951040

 Tech Know: BBC Micros used in retro programming class

By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

Click to play

Click to play

Ellie Gibson joined Ousedale School students learning how to program BBC Micros at the National Museum for Computing in Bletchley

In our regular series about makers, hackers and amateur technologists, BBC News meets the people giving the classic BBC Micro a new lease of life. Computer history is cruel. It is a story of the old constantly being pushed aside for the newer, the faster, the smaller, the shinier. Those old machines are rarely allowed a graceful retirement. Cast aside, they end their days in the dark ,fit only to be homes for spiders in lofts and cupboards. But one lucky flock of BBC Micros is getting another lease of life by helping to educate students in the art of rigorous programming. The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) at Bletchley Park has started letting a few lucky A-level students loose on the machines to hone their programming skills. "The computing A-level is about how computers work and if you ask anyone how it works they will not be able to tell you," said Doug Abrams, an ICT teacher from Ousedale School in Newport Pagnell, who was one of the first to use the machines in lessons.

 

The BBC Micro has an unforgiving interface

For Mr Abrams the old machines have two cardinal virtues; their sluggishness and the direct connection they have with the user. In one of the first lessons held at TNMOC the lucky Ousedale students programmed a venerable PDP-8 machine by flicking the switches set on its front panel to set the binary values in its memory. And an interface does not get more direct than that. "Modern computers go too fast," said Mr Abrams. "You can see the instructions happening for real with these machines. They need to have that understanding for the A-level."

Cranking code

 

The second time the students got to use the BBC Micros they were given three hours to create a simple 8-bit game. Tech Know was there to record what happened. Prior to the lesson Mr Abrams had produced 100 lines of code that created a rough version of the game pitting a battleship against a bomber. The students' task was to refine the game by introducing a scoring system, improving its looks and introducing new elements such as a hunter-killer submarine. Two students tackled the bugs and refinements, two the graphics and sounds and the remaining student got to work typing the program onto other machines so testing could get going. The five soon discovered that just because a program was simple did not mean the underlying code was straight-forward. To make matters more testing, the BBC Micro offers a very unforgiving programming environment. 

Click to play

Click to play

Micro Live focussed on computing issues with the BBC Micro, Spectrum, Olivetti and other machines. This episode is from 17th October 1986.

For much of their A-level, the students had been using Visual Basic - a breeze by comparison. Because there's no copy and paste, if you do something wrong it takes time to go back and fix it," said Joe Gritton. "You cannot take out sections and move them around."

Be the machine

 

Perry Gemmell lamented the lack of friendly interface on the BBC Micro, which presents users with a screen full of text. "It's easier to find bugs in Visual Basic," he said. "It helps you as you go along." Visual Basic suggests words while a coder types, highlights syntax errors and makes bug hunts easier by jumping straight to the problematic code - even when the error is one of logic rather than letters. By contrast, the BBC Micro is a study in imperious indifference. Get something wrong and the program will crash and perhaps throw up an error message. Worse are the cases when it works but not in the way expected leaving the programmer to scratch their head and try to work out why. The machines also enforced a parsimonious programming style. A memory of only 32K is a shoebox in comparison to the Lordly halls of memory available on the average 21st-Century desktop.

BBC Micro

• Designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project
• Used alongside TV series The Computer Programme
• First released in 1981; discontinued in 1994
• Cost £235 at launch
• First version had just 16 KB of RAM
• More than 1.5m sold

The simple program that the students were working on threw up some real problems. Mr Gritton and partner Callum Adams were given the task of adding a submarine. But, they realised, the introduction of the torpedo-firing sub would spell the end of the game, as the ship had no way to avoid it. Changing one element in the simple game kicked off the need to solve lots of separate problems - it was a real exercise in creative coding. The students had their eyes on the screen and their hands in the bits. "We're learning a lot," said Callum Adams. "It makes you realise how difficult it is making real video games." The day of study had begun with what must be the ultimate hands-on technology experience: Mr Abrams got the students to be a computer. They each took on the role of a different part of the machine - CPU, accumulator, RAM and program counter - and simulated the passage of instructions through the hardware. The five shuffled data around, wrote it to memory, carried out computations and inserted them into the right places in the store. It was a noisy, confusing and funny simulation and, once everyone knew what they were doing, managed to reach a maximum clock speed of about one instruction per minute.

And even the BBC Micro, for all its age, can beat that. 

I can't remember

You know, we've become victims of our own success. We've developed a culture of wanting more detail, more features, better graphics, more immersive experiences, and the cost... Memory. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to upgrade PC's that are running too slow because they don't have enough RAM installed. Also the number of 'new' devices that just don't work as well as they could because they are crippled by having a small amount of memory installed, or just plain bad memory management of the program that run on it. But take a case in point. I'm running a modest PC with a 2.4Ghz processor, half decent graphics card, but a game that graphically can run without any problems at all, is crippled by the system 'only' having 512Mb Ram installed when there's more than half a dozen objects on screen to render. This is on a system running Windows XP, which by Microsoft's own admission only needs 128Mb installed to run happily (you see why I haven't upgraded to Windows 7 or even Vista yet!). OK, I'm kind of lamenting the demise of a time where more memory simply wasn't available, where programmers had to put a limit on their imagination or come up with new and interesting ways of making the most of the memory they likely had available to them to achieve the results they were dreaming of. I'm also lamenting the fact that I've yet again come to the point when I need to cram as much memory into the slots available that this poor creaking motherboard can handle. Now we're all at the mercy of memory manufacturers who hold a world captive of a public whose demand for ever more gigabytes is pushing the cost of memory up, and older memory costs double or even triple what it would have when it was at it's peak.

These are probably the grumblings of a disgruntled PC user and Gamer frantically trying to keep up with the pace of progress. But you wonder how long this is going to be sustainable for. There's probably hardware and software developers working with platforms we can only dream about. And when the dream becomes a reality we're all left scrabbling to catch up!

TDK OLED See-Through Display and Film Display : DigInfo

I saw this the other day in my YouTube subscriptions and thought it was a great idea. I've already seen examples of wearable oled's and printable oled's that can be made into clothes, lamps, really innovative stuff. But a see through OLED would be great. Imagine, a Heads Up Display in your glasses for while you're riding your bike. An OLED layer in your car windscreen for real head up display technology without the bulky and expensive projection mirror systems.

Things to come

Hello all and welcome to my tech blog. Here I will post info about the tech I encounter and find out about on the web. I fully suspect one of the first items of interest will be the iPhone 4, as we're soon to get these at work. I'm currently not sure what my opinion of the whole iPhone phenomenon is. Initially in my opinion it was an overpriced, underspecced mobile phone handset clagged onto an iPod. But it was the first proper touch screen interface. And it was a real game changer as all the other companies rushed out their attempts at the now ubiqutous design. Even the app menu layout has been shamelesly copied by virtually every other mobile phone manufacturer. I have avoided the iPhone up till now, and it's main purpose for me is to be as a business tool. It perhaps hasn't got the headline specs of some other mobile phone handsets with only a 5MP camera and tied down to the apple interface with very restrictive customisation options. But what it does do, it does very well with Apple vetting the quality of every application developed before they allow it onto iTunes. I have had mixed experiences with my Symbian based phone when struggling to install and run Symbian apps that have been developed by open source developers. While I appreciate the benefit of an open architecture. The reliability of a closed architecture can't be denied.

I'll keep posting here with bits and pieces as I encounter them so keep this on your blogroll!