The development of a new thin and flexible battery by NEC, based on an organic gel like compound, has great potential for making active RFID tags more viable. Most RFID tags are passive, and are powered by the radio signal transmitted by the reader. This means that read ranges are very limited and for any…
The internet search engine firm, Google are just about to launch a video blogging tool. With an ever incresing number of people owning web cameras combined with the popularity of Blogs, the firm sees potential in this market. The concept of video blogging is not however a new one to KMi. The Rostra news sytem…
Today it has been reported that Media Labs Europe is to close down on the 1st February. The supposedly self funding, research laboratory in Dublin, which was started by the Irish Government and MIT in 2000 has failed to attract the 10 million euros a year it needs to survive, and neither the Irish Government…
Last weeks workshop titled UbiComp at the Urban Frontier showed a diversity of research ideas and innovative projects – all at the intersection of ubiquitous and social computing. The workshop programme was particularly focused on applications for the urban environment. Designers, researchers, computer scientists as well as architects and urban planners were present, about 22…
Microsoft are in the process of releasing a major Windows XP update – SP2. This supposedly fixes a number of security flaws etc. So far the update has been made available to firms, but will soon be freely available. However it would appear the update may cause problems on some machine e.g. with some non-microsoft…
A North Carolina university are issuing iPods to students as an aid to their studies. These iPods are being loaded with course work as well as the university calendar and information to new students. Perhaps we should be investigating the use of such popular consumer gadgets? Related Links: BBC News article
Nokia are making available an RFID 'shell' for their 5140 phone. The shell will turn the mobile phone into an RFID tag reader. Read ranges are limited to 1-2cm, which should allay fears regarding intrusion. This marks an interesting start to the inclusion of rfid technology in consumer products. Related Links: Nokia Mobile RFID Kit
Stand 239 in the Schwarzwaldhalle hosted the Prolearn project in Karlsruhe, Germany. Prolearn is an EU 6th Framework Network of excellence in Professional ELearning. The significant KMi role in this network was hightlighted on the trade stand. Peter Scott and Kevin Quick mixed meetings of Prolearn workpackages at the University with attending the Prolearn stand…
AOL the owners of Netscape have decided to make redundant most of the browsers development team and to only support old versions of the browser. They will be keeping possession of the brand name. A number of the released developers have now found jobs with the Mozilla Foundation company Related Links: BBC news article
The British summer is here, but knowing how unpredictable the weather can be, wouldn't it be nice to get a live and updating view of the weather around the country from the comfort of your desk? WeatherFlash is a flash movie which does just that – it has been 'thrown' together by Jon Linney and…
