and

A big thank you to Pingdom for bring them to my attention (there are loads more here).

The low cost of video creation and production is changing the world, just as affordable home recording equipment did in the 80’s. It is going to change a d few things.

First these two pictures from my week in the US last week.

The first seen by the roadside as I was driving along:

Forget this wireless stuff - I want HI/FI Internet in my hotel room! Bigger pictures and better text, right?

Next up, from a tradeshow I attended:

“Everyone’s included… everyone everywhere… Private function.” FAIL.

And lastly, thanks to Wulf for reminding me of my misplaced faith in the use of technology for good:

Everyday our eyes are fooled by a few clicks.

The BBC ran a story: Beeb creators reunite at museum on the recent meeting at the science museum.  There is a great video embedded in the story, showing the BBC Micro loading programs from a cassette tape. Ah, those were the days, waiting fifteen minutes and jigging with wires just to try and get a game to load.

The Guardian also covered the BBC Micro story, noting that the team went on to develop the ARM processor, which powers most mobile devices today. The successor, the Archimedes was never quite as successful, and RM (Research Machines) took over the lead as schools moved to IBM compatible PCs and the national curriculum pushed IT skills into the main stream, just a few years after I did my PGCE.

The BBC wasn’t my first computer, although it was my first introduction to electronic music and to computer networking. Just seeing the Owl logo again brought memories flooding back! It is amazing to think what we did with 16k of memory and a 6502 processor running at 2MHz! The ZX Spectrum may have been cheap, but the BBC Micro oozed quality and it was many years later that I finally traded in my BBC (by then a BBC Master) for an Amiga, but that is another story.

The Science Museum is planning an exhibition about the BBC Micro and its legacy in 2009, and Dr Tilly Blyth is writing a book about it (Tilly’s blog here, I think).

I hope they cover something about the Music 500 and M,usic 5000. I still miss the ‘Ample’ music programming language, and haven’t seen an equivalent since. Some of the e-music pioneers are still around and making music, for example Dave Morley. I worked with Pear Tree Computers for a while, demonstrating that amazing technology. I wish I had tools to write music like that again.

Yesterday morning saw me working form the Tuttle club, AKA London Social Media Cafe, hosted by Lloyd Davis. There were a lot of people on site and the clatter of keyboards was slightly drowned out by the chatter of conversation.

It was a very positive experience and set me off thinking on a number of threads. There were some great conversations - than you Thayer, David Terrar, Anne Marie McEwan, Joshua March, Francine Kizner, and others too. I was reminded how important the social nature of the office environment is, something that is missed working home-alone. The seed of ‘randomness’ that comes from interactive with other people is a key part of creativity. The unexpected and the different can be inspirational.

The Social Media Cafe provides an opportunity to meet like minded people, with different background and experience. I think it is a concept that would benefit anyone in the creative space, but also something that could be applied to the supposedly less creative businesses too…

It would be great to have places like this to drop in and work all over the country, if not all over the world. If you are in London and in the social media space, check it out: The Tuttle Club.

There’s a fuller write up on the Bass Blog here.

Get yourself one of these, for a mere £20 or so:

A Wi-Fi Detecting T-Shirt

How could we have survived all this time without one? Of course, you could always put that money towards a month or two of 3G service. I still can’t seem to find a hotspot when I need one!

Just click on any of them to see the larger version. If you really like them, I have them as RAW and very high resolution JPEGs. My feet were sore when I returned, but I discovered more of London and the value of a tripod (some of the photos are VERY long exposures)!

We will see a lot more intelligent devices as the underlying technology gets cheaper and more compact - increasingly these kind of devices can be build with a single chip. It is a much faster way of checking your email that firing up your PC to find nothing is there, apart from the usual SPAM of course!

• The Transport for London web site - brilliant design and v.useful.
• The National Rail site - design not so good, but it functions.

Between the two I can usually work out which train to get into London, and when.

You take the base system, then snap on the compentents you need, creating your own unique gadget in real-time. If my eldest son sees this thing, I am in big trouble, he’ll want a dozen and would have ideas for a hundred more modules! There is an SDK to develop apps and BugLabs are driving the growth of a development community around it. The APIs and connections are open, you can download the specs from their site, so anyone can create modules and applications for it.

If you want to see more, here are a set of videos of Scoble interviewing BugLabs CEO and the marketing guy (is than a new industry job title?)

• Video one, introduction.
• Video two, final shipping plastic.
• Video three, open hardware.

I can see how you could end up with a few hundred of these around the house doing everything from security to environmental monitoring.  Their viral videos and blog are quite cool too!