Archive for February, 2012

Google presents the marine world

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

I’m really excited about this. Google is giving us a closer look at what’s under the sea!

It already has Street View, which allows you to view different areas of the world on street level – from your own road to any other place you fancy looking at (if public cars can access it).

But now, it’s starting to move on to oceans, too. A survey project is being undertaken jointly by Google, the University of Queensland and an insurance company, the Catlin Group, to create images of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. It’s called the Catlin Seaview Survey. I really hope they expand it to a full-on Google ‘Ocean View’, or something along those lines.

On a wider scale, Google has already started increasing the detail in its Google Earth tool in recent years, so that more of the sea can be understood by users, using input from surface simulations, public photographs and terrain studies.

I find it fascinating. It’s amazing to think that even though human beings have explored parts of space, there are parts of the ocean on our own planet that no one has ever been. New species of creatures get found in the depths all the time.

I don’t think I’d ever go scuba diving, as it’s very risky… things like ‘the bends’ (when you surface too fast and get air in your bloodstream) really scare me. But a sea view tool would allow people like me to experience the same sights in my own home. You can even turn around 360 degrees, as you can with Street View. I know it’s not quite the same as being there, but it’s still fantastic if you’re interested in marine life.

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Weather forecasts to become more accurate?

Sunday, February 19th, 2012

The government’s Science And Technology Committee is pushing for more powerful computers for the Met Office, to help it make more accurate weather predictions. This sounds like a great idea to me, as I get really fed up of dodgy weather forecasts.

I don’t really trust forecasts at the moment. Take those five-day ones, for example, which lots of media companies produce. They change all the time. By that, I mean one day you check and it says it’ll rain on Thursday afternoon and be warm and calm on Friday morning; and when you check again the next day, it says it’ll just be windy on Thursday and there’ll be light drizzle on Friday. Grrrr. Hopefully new methods will change that level of uncertainty.

In honesty, I spend most of my time indoors, due to my job… but when I DO go outside, I like to know what to expect. Occasionally it’s nice to be surprised; for example, when you open your curtains in the morning and it’s snowed, or there’s bright sunshine and a blue sky after days and days of rain. But if you want to plan ahead and do things, it’s useful to know what’s feasible, based on whether it’s hot or cold, or wet or dry.

Apparently, MPs want the Met Office to do seasonal forecasts too, so we can tell whether it’ll be a harsh winter, or a nice sunny summer, etc. So far, this hasn’t really been possible because their systems aren’t advanced enough – but now serious investment is being considered. I for one have got my fingers crossed.

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Mobile banking security

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Now, I’m all for progress, but I can understand why some people are cautious about banking via smartphones. It’s for two main reasons, really… the first being that phones are often so easily left lying around, or lost; and the second being because security technology is something that few people truly understand.

I’ve always used internet banking – and, as with my other contact preferences, I’ve always preferred it to telephone banking. This is partly because I’m not a big fan of outsourced call centres, and partly because discussing your finances on the phone always seems a bit risky. Years ago, there were fears that people could easily ‘tap into’ mobile phone conversations. On a more basic level, there’s also the risk of being overheard – while in internet banking terms, there have always been worries about any kind of digital transaction, due to hacking and phishing.

Smartphone banking brings with it a mix of these concerns. Barclays has introduced an app called PingIt, which sends money via mobile phone without requiring the sharing of bank details. Users need to use a PIN code which has been developed with the same methods as normal internet banking and other digital transactions. Like a bank card, if a user loses their phone, they can tell the bank – which will wipe all necessary financial information from their phone app.

Put like that, it all sounds straightforward enough. But I can’t help thinking that most people will hang back and see how it progresses before leaping in to use it. I hate to admit it, but I think I’m one of them…

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Are you a phone person or an email person?

Friday, February 10th, 2012

Of all my family, friends and professional acquaintances, everyone has different preferences when it comes to contact. You know how it is… there’ll always be someone who you call and leave a voicemail for, and even if you say ‘give me a ring back’, they’ll text instead, or send you a message via Facebook.

I’m actually one of those people, most of the time. I far prefer communicating in writing than by voice. I think it’s partly because of the nature of my work, with computers – but it’s also part of my cautious, organised personality. I like to have time to think about how I want to phrase what I want to say… and sometimes it’s simply because I want to make sure my message is received properly.

For example, if you’re explaining a process of some kind, or presenting information – informally or formally – you often want to ensure that the person receiving it can view it in their own time, rather than attempting to grasp it within a transient phone conversation. They might forget an important part as soon as it’s been heard.

Of course, in the business world, you have to accommodate what others are comfortable with – especially if they’re your clients. It helps if you have a good phone system to use. I like accessories such as headsets from Accutone, as you can have the best of both worlds – typing out a confirmation email even as you speak to someone, or perhaps remotely demonstrating a process on their machine. Then they’re getting the phone chat they want, while you’re making sure you confirm everything in a way that’s easy to reference.

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Social media more popular than TV

Thursday, February 9th, 2012

I never thought anything would beat TV in terms of home hobbies, but apparently social media has done it – among young people, anyway, with 65 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds listing it as their top leisure activity. Many favour it over a phone conversation, too. It’s been a little while since I was a teenager, but I remember getting in trouble with my parents for how long I spent talking to school and college friends on the phone. I guess back then if Facebook or Twitter were as big as they are now, I would probably have chosen those instead.

A study by Click Consult surveyed 1300 people across the UK to produce the data, which also showed that social media is increasingly popular in older people too, with nearly a third of those aged over 55 choosing it instead of TV. That’s the statistic which really surprised me. You tend to picture nearly-retired types and pensioners sitting in front of Coronation Street on an evening in, not fiddling away on a laptop or tablet.

I don’t think there’s any danger of people losing interest in TV, however… because even though most teens don’t list it as their favourite activity any more, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re spending less time watching it. A lot of social media discussion is fuelled by things such as TV, music and films – or by things inspired by those mediums. For example, without them, we wouldn’t get YouTube parodies and song covers – or fan debates about things which have happened on popular shows. It’s easy to write off older forms of entertainment, but there’ll always be a place for them.

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A380 undergoing safety checks

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Nervous fliers everywhere are probably quaking in their boots this week at the news that the world’s biggest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, may have some safety problems. The entire fleet is being inspected after cracks were found in the wing parts of a model owned by Qantas Airways. Apparently there were 36 separate fractures. Pretty scary.

Planes are an area of massive fascination for me. I don’t know whether it’s their powerful engines, their astonishing ability to fly so high despite weighing hundreds of tonnes, or the exhilaration of travelling on them – or all those things rolled into one – but I really am quite a big fan.

The Airbus A380, therefore, captivated me from its first flight in 2005. There are now 68 of them in active service, all of them over 72m in length, nearly 25m tall and with a wingspan of nearly 80m. Despite being the biggest in terms of passenger carriage, however, it isn’t the largest in terms of sheer size. Among civilian aircraft, that honour goes to the Antonov An-225, which is the longest and heaviest plane in the world. Its maximum takeoff weight exceeds 600 tonnes. Wow.

For all planes – large and small – it goes without saying that good maintenance is absolutely essential. Airline crashes are pretty infrequent considering how many flights are made on a daily basis, but it’s not just the major catastrophes that are troublesome. If anything goes wrong on a flight, however minor, it worries people and inhibits their trust in air travel… thereby impacting on the industry. Having the right resources to maintain them well, from premium tools such as torque wrenches to highly-skilled teams of engineers, is big business. Hopefully Airbus will figure out the problems with the A380 soon, so that people can fly on them again with minimal worries.

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Facebook floats

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

The title of this post should perhaps instead be ‘Facebook takes the plunge’. Yes, it’s what anyone interested in internet business and social technology is talking about… Facebook is poised to sell shares in itself. It’s expected to be worth between $75bn and $100bn (that’s up to £63bn, or thereabouts). Yikes.

It’s the first social media platform to sell shares, and I’m sure the owners of other big companies will be watching carefully – though with over 800m worldwide users, it’s difficult to draw comparisons between Facebook and other organisations. It’s just so massive.

The move has revealed a lot of facts about Facebook that people could previously only guess at. For example, it makes around $1bn in pure profit and 85 per cent of its revenues come from advertising, which is a lot, despite being a lower proportion than in 2010 and 2009. It doesn’t currently use advertising for its mobile apps, which is something which may change, as surely smartphone use can only increase over the next year.

One of the statistics which really struck me was that 250m photos are uploaded to Facebook every day. That’s just incredible. And, perhaps more amazingly, 12 per cent of its revenues come from Zynga, the company behind Farmville. I’ve always steered clear of that app myself… I think it’s annoying. I had to ban it from my news feed because I got sick of people inviting me to feed their imaginary cows, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do with it. But you’ve got to hand it to Zynga – they invented an extremely contagious game.

Silly distractions aside, if you’re thinking of buying some of those shares, its ticker on the stock exchange will be ‘FB’. Maybe I’ll have a dabble.

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24 movie in sight

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

I was interested to hear recently that the movie version of 24 starts filming in April. Kiefer Sutherland, who plays central character Jack Bauer, confirmed it in a press interview.

24 was one of my favourite TV shows of the 2000s… or the noughties, whichever term you like to use. It feels strange to say that, as despite now being in 2012, I don’t look back on 2000 to 2009 as being its own decade – or on programmes like 24 being ‘last decade’. It’s weird.

For the uninitiated, 24 was a US television drama which followed events in real time – so each episode was an hour long, with everything in it happening within an hour; and the series was 24 episodes long, meaning the entire season would be one day. It’d either take six months to watch on TV, week-to-week; or a few days to watch on a DVD boxset (my personal preference).

You might think ‘How does that work? Wasn’t it boring when the characters slept for eight hours?’ – but you’d be on the wrong track. They never slept because there was too much action going on. Jack Bauer was the toughest guy ever (trademark!) who worked for a government agency (except in some seasons he’d been sacked) and each season would follow a major crisis which arose, usually due to the actions of a heinous villain, along with a host of subplots. There was a lot of running around and use of cutting-edge communications technology, which I thought was particularly cool. I’ve loved gadgets like headsets ever since. Some of the ones they used looked a bit like the Plantronics CS60, which I use for work.

Though I’ll be keen to see the film, I don’t know how successful a movie version will be, as it’s unlikely it’ll be more than three hours – and if they stick with the real-time concept, it’ll be quite a challenge to make a plot feel ‘epic’, limited to that time frame. We’ll see.

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