Monday 23 April 2012

Coding for all?

Is coding becoming a required skill outside of the IT professional sector? Would it help if more colleagues were able to understand the basics when discussing a project or is it best left to the professionals? Writing on his BBC technology blog, Rory Cellan-Jones, describes who he met and what he learnt on a day’s coding course – ‘Decoded’. The other participants were advertising executives with no previous knowledge of HTML, CSS and Javascript. They wanted to understand digital consumers better and at least try and be able to ‘talk the language’ in the future, even if they will never have to use it directly in their own roles. Rory himself, after struggling to make a basic application with the help of the group, describes how it has given him ‘new insights into the development of our digital world.’ Who in your company would benefit from such a course? Read the full article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17726085

Thursday 19 April 2012

The new ‘weightless’ and wireless technology

We have already seen the benefits of mobile broadband for mass communication but how does this apply to machines? On the BBC technology page, Professor William Webb, chief technology officer at Neul and an IEEE fellow, argues that there is a need for a different type of wireless connectivity required to link machines. Professor Webb explains that the criteria would be very different to that of mass media communication “It would deliberately use much lower data rates than mobile broadband in order to allow greater range, simpler and cheaper chip sets and longer battery life…optimised for large numbers of short messages sent intermittently rather than rapid connection and multi-media download.” Institutions and companies working together have recently identified spectrum that would work with these characteristics and developing ‘weightless’ technology and weightless chips for this new area of information technology. For more on this new ‘weightless’ world read the full article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17666447

Tuesday 10 April 2012

Midlands continues to attract digital jobs

The reputation of Birmingham and the Midlands area continues to grow as an area for games developers and other digital skills. The video game developer Codemasters is hiring around 100 new employees at both the company’s HQ in Leamington Spa and in Birmingham where the company has its development studio. In the report on the Techwatch website, Simon Miles from the company is quoted in a BBC interview as saying "The skilled talent pool in Birmingham, along with the support available for developers in the area, and across the Midlands generally has created a dynamic and creative local business community.” The company is looking for their new recruits from both the Midlands and outside the area. The company started in 1986 and its most famous game currently is the Dirt series based on rally driving. For more details on these new game development opportunities read the full article on the Techwatch website http://www.techwatch.co.uk/2012/04/06/codemasters-hiring-100-staff-in-west-midlands/

Monday 2 April 2012

A new start for ‘start-ups’

A "transformational moment for the UK start-up community" was how Google’s Eze Vidra described the opening of Google Campus in London this week. The centre, opened by Chancellor, George Osborne, is designed to offer desk space and mentoring for new technology companies and links to the Government’s Tech City initiative. On the BBC News technology page, the article on Google Campus includes a video tour of the premises in the Old Street area of East London. Some existing organisations such as TechHub and Seedcamp, have already moved into the building; Seedcamp being ‘an early stage investment programme…for about 20 fledgling technology companies a year.”
The article also looks at different opinions on whether such an approach is too London-centric as technology hubs are also developing in different areas of the country. Read the full article on this new technology start-up area, being referred to by some as ‘the Silicon Roundabout’, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17548128