November 4th, 2009

Google Maps and the mystery of the non-existent town

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 12:05 pm

Categories: Google, Security, Space, University fun, Weird and wonderful

Tags: Google Inc., Google Maps, Argleton, Document Management, Internet, Blogging, Branding, Enterprise Software, Software, Finance

A small village in the north of England, Argleton, has been causing confusion with an air of mystery. The simple reason is, is that the village simply doesn’t exist except in the world of Google.

The above image is from Google Maps, displaying the village of Argleton, Lancashire, in the north of the UK.

The above image is from Bing Maps, displaying the exact same area but without any reference to Argleton in the map.

The above image is from the birds-eye view from Bing Maps, which shows an aerial, high-resolution image of the area, which I have stitched together (click to enlarge into full scale; warning: 7MB). As you can see, there is nothing but a load of fields and certainly no buildings, let alone a whole village in the area.

So why does Google display this village - which I’ll point out now, categorically does not exist - and other mapping services don’t?

Some believe that the added name is due to a measure to prevent copyright violations, but Tele Atlas provide the imaging and name data and have said they provide accurate information and Google deny that they have altered it in any way. It seems in this area, Google Maps is the looking glass to external information.

The local blogosphere is already taking advantage of this “Internet sensation” with this spoof site. Yet even after months of knowing about it plus users reporting it as an error, it still hasn’t disappeared — branding Google’s mapping service as potentially inaccurate.

Mike Nolan, head of web services at Edge Hill University, wrote:

“I grew up in the area and spotted on the map one day that it said ‘Argleton’,” he says. “But it’s just a farmer’s field close to the village hall and playing fields. I think a footpath goes across the field, but that’s all. The name ‘Argleton’ is similar to ‘Aughton’. Maybe someone made a mistake when keying in the name?”

Yet the president of the Society of Cartographers, Prof. Danny Dorling, suggested that perhaps this was an additional element to a map to hide secret locations, as some may well be forced to do.

The only thing I can think of, and after trying out the name in an anagram solver which provided little except slight amusement, is that it’s a tiny Easter egg which has taken all this time to discover.

What’s your theory? Surely it can’t be as crazy as, say, a fictional village existing only within the realms of Google, can it?

August 10th, 2009

10 bits of tech to get for the back-to-school student

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 4:12 am

Categories: Hardware, Mobile computing, Money, Multimedia, Productivity, Space, University, University fun

Tags: Phone, Choice, Telecom & Utilities, Zack Whittaker

Time is inching its way through the season, and is now slowly approaching the back-to-school month. With only a few weeks to go until you pack up your things, get dropped off by your parents or make your way cross-country to your academic residence, hopefully you’ll be taking a whole load of brand new technology with you.

But what do you need? What could you get? With an unlimited budget, it’s easy to go absolutely overkill and with a limited budget, it makes choices really matter.

To see 10 bits of tech a student shouldn’t buy for college, click here.

There is a gallery of top 10 bits of tech for students buy here.

I’ve chosen these because I’ve either bought them for myself or sought them out because of their features and attributes. I am taking into price spent and subsequent costs, usability and functionality, and professional advice from my peers and colleagues.

Read the rest of this entry »

August 10th, 2009

10 bits of tech the back-to-school student should avoid

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 4:09 am

Categories: Hardware, Mobile computing, Money, Multimedia, Productivity, Space, University, University fun

Tags: Online Backup, Backup, Wireless, Home Server, Zack Whittaker

As the countdown to the academic season starts about now, the race to get the best deals and offers at your local tech stores is on. You’ll need to start working out what you didn’t have before which could have made your life a lot easier at university, and what to get now to make up for past purchasing mistakes.

However, the temptation to walk in and point randomly whilst saying, “that’ll do” may well work in buying presents for your significant other, but this will not work when buying technology.

I’ve selected these because I have experience in living in halls of residence and know what would work and what simply wouldn’t. I’m also taking into account pointlessness, power consumed (such as the usual lack of power points and limited electricity supply halls have) as well as general frivolity.

To see 10 bits of tech you will need for college, head on over here.

There is a gallery of top 10 bits of tech not to buy here.

Read the rest of this entry »

March 20th, 2009

Google starts blacking out London

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 12:01 pm

Categories: Breaking news, Google, Legal and political, Space, Web 2.0

Tags: Google Inc., London, Disaster Recovery, Backups, Data Management, Zack Whittaker

Google, once again, has sparked controversy with the new Street View service available on Google Maps. The Google Car took a trip over the pond to London, where it saw a reveller throwing up outside a Shoreditch pub, a man being arrested and a man walking out of a sex shop in Soho.

Welcome to London. What did you expect?

Whilst many newspapers over in here in the UK, such as London’s very own Evening Standard and the Nazi-esque anti-immigrant views of the Daily Mail have all pounded the technology for “assisting offenders with burglaries”, I’ve just been on the phone to a Google spokesperson who is in brilliantly good spirits about the technology.

“Some are worried about displaying the Houses of Parliament and other buildings, but we’ve gone to great lengths to cover this with the [Metropolitan] Police, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) to make sure everything is in order.”

Any images which are deemed unacceptable can easily be reported to Google and the average time for removal is “less than 24 hours”, according to the Google spokesperson. Some of the images which have been displayed in the media have now been blanked out by the technicians working on the product.

While the face blurring technology isn’t perfect, at least it makes an effort to report the images as unsuitable, and passes the data protection laws the UK has in place.

What’s your take on Google Street View? Comment and let me know.

Updated: something I saw earlier on which made me laugh. This is Microsoft’s office in Cardinal Place, London. This is practically proof that the sun shines out of the Microsoft’s arse. </satire>

October 24th, 2008

The technologies which will change our lives

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 1:32 pm

Categories: Government, Hardware, Major breakthroughs, Microsoft, Research, Security, Space, Windows 7, Workplaces

Tags: Earth, Multi-touch, Computing, Technology, Microsoft Research, MSR, Rootkits, Internet, Security, Spyware, Adware & Malware

We are at a strange place in this world’s history, where the Industrial Revolution is over, and we’re in the new technological age. So many things have been discovered over the course of the last and this century, and we’re still no closer to reaching a technological epiphany… or are we? One of my favourite quotes in the world of technology is:

“It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million people. The internet got there in 5 years flat.”

I’d like to highlight some of the most innovative, interesting and fascinating emerging and developing technologies, as well as future technologies which could change our lives, just in the way that the World Wide Web has.

Metamaterials and invisibility
Having invisibility cloaks has been the dream of every Harry Potter and James Bond fan for some years now, but we’re surprisingly close to getting the real deal. Of course, many would see this as either a hoax or a theory, but scientists at the University of California have developed a material which allows light to be reverse-refracted around 3D objects making them disappear… to some extent.

These “metamaterials” allow forms of electromagnetic waves (of which visible light is part of) to be channelled from one side of the material to the other, allowing the object with the material covering it to appear invisible. At the moment, they’re no way near to making this perfect, but the theory and practicality is there; it’s just a case of investing more money into research to perfecting it.

Although I don’t see any civilian use for it, the military could acquire this for combat scenarios. By covering soldiers and combat vehicles in this material, this would make warfare scenarios a lot more interesting; even though it’s something we would rather not see. I bet Kim Jong-il would be quaking in his boots if he saw this field of invisible tanks.

Speech and touch, and cyber-intelligence –>

September 25th, 2008

KAUST to house fastest supercomputer in Middle East

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 7:13 am

Categories: Hardware, Major breakthroughs, Research, Space, University

Tags: Supercomputer, University, Middle East, Supercomputing, KAUST, Zack Whittaker

Thanks to one of my tipsters, I was informed the other day that KAUST, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, have teamed up with IBM to build the fastest and most powerful supercomputer in the Middle East.

KAUST is one of the most modern, dedicated and technologically advanced graduate-level research university in the Middle East, and with this new venture into supercomputing, will now make it one of the most important centres in the region.

Dubbed “Shaheen”, as the Arabic name for the peregrine falcon; known to be one of, if not the fastest creatures on the planet. It’s based on the IBM Blue Gene/P system, so will look very similar to the other supercomputers out there. In terms of mathematical calculations, it has 16 racks overall, and it’ll be capable of around 222 teraflops - essentially 222 trillion decimal calculations per second. Not only that, the storage capacity reaches 1.9 petabyte, making “Shaheen” the sixth most powerful supercomputer in the world.

This is a huge step for the university, but also for the world. Having yet another super computer running can help find answers which we never could have considered before. The interim CIO, Majid Al-Ghaslan, who also takes charge of the design and development of the supercomputer, spoke in a press release:

KAUST is dedicated to inspiring a new age of scientific achievement in the Kingdom that will also benefit the region and the world.  This statement amongst other aspects translated to access for our scientists and students to unique research facilities that will enable them to carry out KAUST’s mission.

The most overriding of those aspects was supercomputing capacity.  We live in the most exciting times of science and technology in human history.  Supercomputing is playing a vital role in tackling key global challenges including the environment, energy, medicine and health, and helping us develop a better understanding of our universe.  Further, it is clear that High Performance Computing will play a critical role in the development of many 21st century industries and has the potential to seed significant economic growth in high-tech and high-value industry within the next few years.

In short, it was an easy decision!

KAUST as a university and academic institution, naturally wants the world to improve for everyone. By using technology as powerful as this, they believe they could have a positive impact on “significant scientific, environmental or socio-economic outcomes”, which I’m sure you agree, it’s what we all want.

Because this is a very expensive piece of kit, they’re opening it up to all of the research affiliates, partners and contributing members of the university. This isn’t just a big deal for the university, but it’s also a step closer in giving students access to the most powerful equipment to make life and world changing advances.

September 9th, 2008

The end of the world?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:11 pm

Categories: Gratuitous rant, Legal and political, Money, Research, Space

Tags: LEGO Co., Big Bang, Computer, Productivity, Zack Whittaker

Probably not.

Today (Wednesday, well it is for me anyway), we see the first beam test of the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider, in the CERN’s labs in Switzerland. The point of this, quite frankly, bloody huge experiment is to try and recreate the Big Bang on a small scale, to then see how the Universe was created.

Sounds a little dangerous and there has been much controversy over how safe this is, but we’ll get to that later. By creating a really tiny Big Bang, they’ll hopefully see how the Universe started and trace back to the very start, even before the biggest implosion/explosion the Universe has and probably will ever see.

Some background: we already have a “Standard Model” of physics, the basic core elements of everything we see and touch, including nuclei, atoms, photons, quarks, electrons and suchlike. However the problem these physicists face is knowing where these originally came from. They have this theory that they all came from one bigger particle, called the “Higgs boson”, named after Prof. Peter Higgs who first thought it up.

So after nearly a decade of work, construction, digging and thinking, they’ve created the biggest and most advanced particle accelerator the world has ever seen. Today, they’re turning it up to “11″.

If my 5 year old god daughter said to me, “Uncle Zack, can I have a Lego playset with horses?”, I’d say, “yeah why not sweetpea.” On the other hand, had she said, “Uncle Zack, can I have a Lego playset with horses that might end the world?”, I’d probably say, “how about a new bike instead?”

To be honest, it’s almost an impossibility that anything other than a few protons can get destroyed by the LHC. Prof. Brian Cox, who recently presented a BBC documentary about the LHC, as well as being the “inspiration” for this article, spoke to the BBC about these conspiracy theories about the end of the world:

“I am in fact immensely irritated by the conspiracy theorists who spread this nonsense around and try to scare people. This non-story is symptomatic of a larger mistrust in science, particularly in the US, which includes intelligent design amongst other things.

The only serious issue is why so many people who don’t have the time or inclination to discover for themselves why this stuff is total crap have to be exposed to the opinions of these half-wits.”

I mean, that’s pretty much the jist of the whole thing. They’re recreating the Big Bang on a very small scale, to find a God particle called the Higgs boson which may or may not exist, but will essentially be the golden finding of all physics ever found, and may help us understand what mass is all about - maybe even find something climate-change-ish in the process.

Just by the off chance we are all about to die, better time than any to quickly get some things off my chest:

• Mum, between the ages of about 12 to 17, I’d been stealing incremental amounts of money from your purse.
• Dad, I know your bank account details, and have been stealing incremental amounts of money from your account.
• I hate computers with an absolute passion. Sure I use them all the time, I’d be lost without them and I’m bloody good with them - but they really do drive me mad to the point I threw my laptop out the window.
• I’ve never used a Mac computer for more than 25 minutes in my entire life.
• Linux still confuses me.
• Facebook scares me because it seems to know everything about everybody.
• My mother actually wants me to marry another ZDNet blogger, after saying she was one of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen. She’s certainly not wrong there.
• Even though I hate everything about the iPod; the culture, the arrogance of having one, the technology and the fact you have to use iTunes with it, I still desperately want one.

Update: I bought one. It’s an iPod nano (fourth generation). It’s so cool, if you want a new track, you literally shake the iPod and it changes it for you. So freaking cool, or if MJ/Ed sees this - eurgh, yucky, horrible iPod…

• The Live Search team at Microsoft UK use Google as their search engine. Fact.
• I currently only have 42 songs on my Windows Media Player playlist which I just keep on repeat, regardless of having over 5GB of music on my server.
• I am (or would have been?) changing courses from Computer Science to Criminology & Social Policy because I just don’t feel geeky enough.
• I always have, and probably always will love Windows Vista. It never breaks, just sometimes goes a little slow on my desktop computer.
• I haven’t ever legally bought any software, game, or music online. [hint hint]
• A couple of years ago, I personally pissed off Bill Gates.

Again I reiterate the likelihood of us all being crushed into something smaller than a period point is less likely than zombies roaming the Earth and only feasting on the brains of idiotic politicians called George.

So, potentially my final words I shall ever write: Emily, give me back my Family Guy DVD, you thieving cow.

Update: great news! Just had an email through from an academic over in Hawaii saying that the world will indeed end today, but because the LHC will somehow cause a huge supernova. Whilst I emailed back telling him to essentially calm down and to get an early night’s sleep, some of his predictions have been published on the web.

Update: See above, I bought an iPod. I feel dirty, but it’s so damn good.

July 8th, 2008

Web 3.0 - the future of social networking

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:23 am

Categories: Breaking news, Major breakthroughs, Social networking, Space, University fun, Web 2.0, Web development, e-Learning

Tags: 3D, Web, Facebook, Network, Web 3.0, Scene, Vivaty Scenes, Social Networking, Online Communications, Marketing

Note: re-posted after withdrawing post a few days ago; no changes made since then.

I would put this very much on par with a past Scoble moment, as I’ve been lucky enough to see something which actually impresses me. I’ve seen a lot over my life, the first real windowed operating system, Windows 95 - the World Wide Web being born, through to the MySpace generation, to seeing on-demand content and multicast streams. This probably tops a good proportion of the stuff I’ve seen over my life in technology.

Social networks nowadays aren’t just used for socialising (hence the name) but also for meeting new business partners and clients. For students it can be a medium for those who need support with their work - allowing them to connect with their colleagues as a virtual workplace to share ideas, thoughts, constructs, and progress with work.

I was asked to a conference call last Friday to be briefed over another social network web-startup; I must say at this point I was somewhat apprehensive, considering the average start-up nowadays seems to start-down and doesn’t get any further than an optimistic idea.

I was wrong, hopelessly wrong.

Vivaty (pronounced “vivv-at-ee”), a small company in the San Francisco area, has developed over the course of two years a platform designed for rich web content, 3D experiences as well as wider ambitions. With the invested support of Google, Amazon, Electronic Arts and others in the process, they have created an application which will be out of private beta into a more advanced, better working public beta this Tuesday 8th July.

The interoperability of Vivaty Scenes, the 3D environment I’ll talk about in a minute, works with AIM and Facebook as an added application. Scenes is not a social network, rather a platform which plugs into your already setup, defined and working social network. It plugs straight into your social network seamlessly; the platform itself designed to carefully piggy-back off what is already there and expand upon it.

Scenes, however, is a 3-dimensional translation of your 2-dimensional virtual life. You can walk around as a virtual you, build your world or “scene” around you, and you can decide explicitly where things go, what they do and how you can interact with them. Consider this another Second Life, but also throw in The Sims, your own social network and (if you still remember it).

I spoke to the CEO of Vivaty, Keith McCurdy on the phone last week and he talked me through what they have, how they’re doing and what this is all for.

Read the rest of this entry »

June 14th, 2008

Students to design, create and launch satellite

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 12:24 pm

Categories: Careers, Hardware, Research, Skills development, Space, University

Tags: Orbit, Satellite, Network Technology, Networking, Zack Whittaker

Students at the University of Leicester have started a project working towards launching their very own satellite into Earth’s orbit. Over twenty undergraduates from their Physics and Astronomy department at the university are working on the project, named “Plume”, helped along by a neighbouring engineering company Magna Parva by donating the main body of the satellite itself.

The CubeSat platform, created by California Polytechnic, will be used as the basis of the project. Each CubeSat costs roughly $80,000 (just over £40,000), involves standard off-the-shelf components, all contained within a small reinforced box. It’s not the first university funded space mission of course, but still quite an achievement, as this will be the first CubeSat from England in space.

Aiming to be in orbit by mid-2009, one of the programme leaders, Laura Evans, from the university described what the device does:

“The University of Leicester’s CubeSat project, named PLUME, started in January 2007 and aims to place an active nano-meteoroid dust detector into orbit by mid-2009. This detector will be capable of characterising the near Earth dust environment an order of magnitude better than any previously flown active detector, allowing significant science to be accomplished.”

Thankfully they have the support of local organisations and businesses, which won’t just help towards costs involved (as you can imagine, it’s pretty bloody expensive to put anything into orbit) but also to be involved in the launch, as well as providing experience to those students for their later careers. Nice chaps indeed.