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Webcams for schools
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1–2 minutes·
No comments on Webcams for schoolsPutting webcams in classrooms to catch problem pupils – seems like a great idea to me, you wouldn’t believe the number of parents who think their kids can do no wrong. As for privacy concerns, I think maybe some kind of key escrow agency might be a good idea, wherein (say) at least two out…
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Jargonwatch
As much as I love reading Wired, I find it a bit tiresome how they go completely over the top in using overtly techy terms when more normal (and accurate) ones would do. For example on the reviews page, Iain Banks is described as writing ‘post-cyberpunk novels’. Well, that’s interesting, because the last time I…
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I want my MP3
Unlike many people at Cambridge, I don’t really visit the libraries except to pick up the odd paper that I can’t find off the web. I certainly don’t work in libraries; the atmosphere feels intolerably stifling, as if you’re being forced to work by the mere presence of dozens of your peers’ eyes upon you.…
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Misunderstandings
Yet again, people are being confused by Kevin ‘Captain Cyborg’ Warwick’s work. Wired has just published an article about Tech Predictions for the Decade, and here’s a quote: Other futuristic technology poised for human consumption is the implanted sensor. Gantz pointed out that University of Reading professor Kevin Warwick, who has a sensor implanted in…
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MREs
Son of Spam – a fun article about the US military’s latest advances in creating edible and long lasting food for troops on the move. Says Darsch: “It wasn’t the four-letter words” in soldiers’ letters that caused his lab to abandon its “father knows best mentality” about MREs [meals ready to eat]. “It was the…
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Stepping out
So for a couple of hours this evening I tried to replicate the Dance Dance Revolution experience using my PC. Waiting for me at Cambridge today were two nice new Playstation gamepad USB adaptors that I bought off Ebay; I was intending to hook my two dance mats up to the computer via USB, download…
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Digital TV
An interesting quotation from this week’s New Scientist confirms what I’ve suspected* for a while: The latest 42 inch widescreen flat plasma panel screens cost around $7000, not counting a $250 wall mount and the digital tuner needed to receive broadcasts. Yet customers appear unconvinced of their quality. It turns out you cannot see the…
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Calling you
Why is it the case that on Orange, you can call any number in the USA at any time of the day for 15p/minute, while it costs 35p/minute to make calls to anyone in the UK at peak time? This only applies for the popular Everyday 50 tariff, but I suspect it’s still cheaper to…
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Timeshare
Seen on Usenet, about spacecraft yachts for the rich: “Larry Ellison would probably go for it — but even he isn’t rich enough. Here’s an idea, though: An orbital timeshare. Ellison can use it six months of the year; Bill Gates gets it the rest of the time.”
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Milestones
A few days ago, the world (for me) passed another technological milestone – I now had full and unmetered Internet access for 99% of the time*. I’d just bought the Orange SPV Smartphone. This phone is quite a nice piece of kit; it has a decent sized colour screen with a reasonably fast processor. Importantly,…
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