Teknovis

This is brilliant – it is so simple, and yet so true!

The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.

There are some other very good articles on that site also.

Yes – you read the title correctly! A team of researchers from Duke University has built a gigapixel camera for the US Department of Defence. The approach it has taken is to create a curved sensor (probably best understood from the drawing below). I think that is very interesting!

Gigapixel Sensor (Copyright Digital Photography Review)

You can read about it, and see a sample photo, in One-shot gigapixel camera offers a future beyond flat sensors and Megapixel Camera? Try Gigapixel.

I read an interesting article during the week by a UCD professor lamenting the drive by Irish Universities towards greater industrial linkage. The article is The bleak future of the Irish university.

I disagree with most of his opinions, and I think it is very important that Irish universities become more relevant to Irish industry!

Tags: Ireland, UCD

There have been some interesting moves by some of the top universities and academics recently regarding the costs of publishing and viewing published content. For example, see Mathematicians Organize Boycott of a Publisher, Academic publishing doesn’t add up, and Harvard University says it can’t afford journal publishers’ prices.

I wonder if this is the start of a major change!

Morning!

Registration for the Irish Collegiate Programming Contest (IrlCPC) opened a few minutes ago!

It sounds like a really good event, and this year it is being held in UCC.  (Interestingly, last year’s photos show that the attendees all look exactly like the stereotypes you would associate with such an event. That is a pity in terms of trying to broaden its appeal!)

Tags: UCC

A friend told me about a very interesting academic paper during the week. The paper is titled Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?, and it is available for download from http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1110/1110.2832.pdf.

I am sure the paper is interesting to those who work in that area. However, in a more general sense the abstract is a really great! It is a perfect example of “less is more”!

Science Foundation Ireland has announced its latest round of funding, in which 15 million Euro will be distributed to fund 79 different university projects. All of the usual universities are in there. See Robust and competitive research will drive Ireland’s economic development – Sherlock for the details.

To be honest, I find it a bit depressing to see some of the names I first came across over 10 years ago in that list, and these people are still doing basically the same projects. It makes me feel that the world moves on, but academics never change :|

Tags: DCU, DIT, NUIM, Science Foundation Ireland, TCD, UCC, UCD, UCG, UL

I heard a review of the papers on the radio this morning that referenced this article: ‘Cloud’ postgrad course a world first. In summary, CIT is to run some third and fourth level taught courses focusing specifically on Cloud Computing. For more details see Cloud Computing @ Cork Institute of Technology.

I think this is a really great idea for two reasons:

• They are great courses from a publicity point-of-view! This should help to attract good calibre students and partners.
• The subjects look very relevant (although the critical aspect is the execution). I think that these subjects could be offered as part of many different courses, but the common branding of the course title certainly helps!

I bet the other institutions are regretting that they did not think of this first! To me, the key issue should be that all courses are sufficiently fresh and up-to-date to allow successful students to go into any area that is currently in demand!

The unfortunate thing for CIT was that the homepage of its website contained no mention of these courses at the time :| It does now – see CIT partners with EMC to deliver world’s first degree in Cloud Computing :o

Tags: CIT

Congratulations to CTVR for securing 24€ million!

For more information see Minister Sherlock announces €24million boost for telecommunications research centre.

Tags: CTVR

There is another interesting insight into how the taxpayers’ money is spent by third level institutions. (I previously wrote about this in How DERI Spends the Taxpayers’ Money.) This time it involves WIT (home of TSSG), and you can read about it in College president defends €100,000 spent on taxis.

In fairness, it probably sounds worse than it actually is! I recall meeting five UL academics at an event in Dublin. They travelled between Limerick and Dublin by limousine, because it was cheaper than buying five return train tickets!

Tags: TSSG, WIT