Teknovis

I read a fascinating article today about a Brazilian clothes shop that is using clothes hangers that display the number of “likes” that the clothes items have received on Facebook. The article is Brazilian store uses hangars that tell customers how many people like the clothes online.

This is one of the most imaginative M2M ideas that I have seen to date! I can definitely see this appealing to the Facebook generation of clothes shoppers!

Tags: Facebook

I read that the European Parliament is introducing further caps on data roaming charges this summer, according to EU mobile data roaming charges to be capped as of 1 July.

I am not sure if the telcos will be happy about this, but I actually think that it will encourage greater usage (and hence higher revenues)!

I found the following statement particularly interesting:

She went on to say that, from 2014, the European Parliament would be delivering a “permanent solution” to the roaming issue.

I have never understood why roaming is even allowed within the EU! After all, it is a single market, and very often it is a single operator that is both the home provider and the roaming provider!

Last week I read that the UK’s courts have declared that access to The Pirate Bay must be blocked in Pirate Bay must be blocked in UK, High Court rules.

It is disappointing that the UK is becoming the most censored country in the EU in terms of Internet access :|

Tags: Censorship, The Pirate Bay, UK

I came across Weightless today in Experience Weightlessness.

The value in machines having wireless communications has long been understood and a large market is predicted for many years. That this has not transpired has been because of the difficulty of meeting all the requirements within the constraints of the available radio spectrum. These constraints changed significantly with the advent of white space availability which provides near-perfect spectrum with free access.

However, the combination of the unique and unusual nature of that access and the very different characteristics of machine traffic compared to human traffic means that using any existing standard is far from optimal. Hence, the need for a standard designed specifically for machine communications within white space. Weightless technology has been optimised for this specific scenario and is now being delivered as a royalty-free open standard.

For more details see Weightless (wireless communications) or Weightless SIG. I see that the SIG is having its first meeting tomorrow according to First Weightless Plenary Conference!

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!

I have just noticed that Vodafone Ireland are offering a new tablet called the Vodafone Smart Tab 10.

I think that for an unbranded tablet it is overpriced!

Tags: Vodafone

The deadline for entry into the Annual All-Ireland Schools’ Programming Competition is the end of this week! It is a great competition, and the standard at the final in DCU is always extremely high!

For more details see How to Enter.

Tags: DCU, Ireland

It really was a week celebrating intellectual property!

First, there was the World Book and Copyright Day on the 23rd of April!

Second, there was World Intellectual Property Day on the 26th of April. There were a few events on to celebrate this, and some great Irish science discoverers are featured in World Intellectual Property Day: celebrating Irish innovators.

The scientist that most caught my attention was Kathleen Lonsdale. I must admit that I had not heard of her before this week!

I spent my afternoon setting-up a new laptop. I usually choose my passwords securely, but it reminded me of this infographic that I saw a while ago (click image to see larger version):

What Makes A Strong Password? (Copyright Killer Infographics)

The original article where I saw this inforgraphic is Use This Infographic to Pick a Good, Strong Password.