Video: The micro-future of renewables

Scotland has huge sources of renewable energy. But the massive schemes – whether wind, wave or water power -tend to attract opposition from people who don’t want the landscape despoiled. However, with the increasing efficiency of much smaller, micro-schemes, a solution may be at hand. In Glen Lyon in Perthshire, landowners first started using micro-hydro [...]

Should we wave goodbye to anonymity and privacy?

man walks into a village shop. “Morning John,” says the shopkeeper. “You’re into old British motorbikes. I’ve just heard somebody in the next village is selling a 1957 BSA A10. It’s supposed to be in great nick as it’s been kept covered in a barn, It just needs a clean.”
“Hmm,” says the man. “Any [...]

Cube that helps disabled children use music to learn

usic is an important part of a young person’s education. It does more for their development than just the pleasure of playing or performing. It helps with their social skills. It can encourage team work. It can even help develop logic and mathematical skills.
That raises issues for severely disabled children who cannot use traditional [...]

Never forget

A famous New Yorker magazine cartoon from 1996 showed a pooch sitting in front of a computer with the caption: “In cyberspace, nobody knows you’re a dog.” The suggestion, of course, was that the anonymity of computer communication meant you could pretend to be whoever you wanted to be.
Not any more. Far from being anonymous [...]

Offline for 24 hours

By David Bateman
There can be no doubt that the Internet is one of the world’s greatest ever inventions.
It may not be as groundbreaking as the harnessing of electricity by Edison or Guttenberg’s printing press; or have as deep and immediate consequences as Oppenheimer’s atomic bomb; or even be as widely used as the [...]

Are Scots slow on the uptake of technology?

report from networking giant Cisco suggests that people in Scotland have lower expectations of what technology can achieve than those living in the rest of the UK. On almost every question asking their predictions on when activities such as videoconferencing, online voting and watching more television on the internet will be available, the Scots [...]

Is the Queen a closet techie?

nlikely as it may seem, across the pond the Government of Ontario seems to have discovered an until-now unknown side of the British monarch. She has just been presented with a personalised BlackBerry Bold 9700 because she is “rumoured to be a fan of the Canadian smartphone”.
We’d long wondered what she used to keep [...]

Why Gates won’t do a Steve Jobs to save Microsoft

Who do you think runs Microsoft? Unless you’ve been paying really careful attention to corporate technology news over the last couple of years you’ll probably reply: “Bill Gates.” And you’ll be wrong. But Microsoft would dearly love to have him back.
Most of the world still thinks Gates is the boss of Microsoft and the company [...]

Guitar Hero passes the baton to orchestra app

by Kevin Gilmartin
Most of us at some point have fancied ourselves as  something of a musician. Perhaps you took some piano lessons as a child, or maybe you can tease Smoke on the Water out of that guitar you bought years ago and promised yourself you’d learn to play? If, however, you’re like me and [...]

Video: Practical side of design at Glasgow School of Art

This week, the graduates of Glasgow School of Art hold their annual exhibition. While much of the attention usually focuses on what might be described as the “fine arts”, the show also includes a stunning range of work from the Product Design Engineering Course, whose students are often snapped up by potential employers long before [...]

Scottish games industry levels up with award nominations

Three of Scotland’s leading computer games companies, have been shortlisted in this year’s Develop Industry Excellence Awards 2010.
The international awards recognise the most talented UK and European games developers for their creativity, teamwork, and innovation.
Realtime Worlds has been nominated for All Points Bulletin, its latest online title, as well as Best Independent Studio. Tag Games [...]

Apple unveils the iPhone 4 – the world’s thinnest smartphone

For once Apple failed to keep the lid on a new product launch. The rumours were pretty accurate and the iPhone that was lost by an Apple employee in an a Silicon Valley bar, found and paid for by gadget blog Gizmondo seems to have been a genuine prototype.
As expected, the iPhone 4 launched at [...]

When will gravity take effect on Apple?

With the price of Apple’s shares making it more valuable than Microsoft and the phenomenal sales success of the iPad, now might seem a strange time to examine the vulnerability of what now seems world’s most popular technology company. But it is a business whose strengths could also be its weaknesses.
Take that rise in Apple’s [...]

Scottish engineering orders ‘healthiest for three years’

he quarterly review of Scotland’s engineering sector show that the volume of orders for the three months to June in are at the healthiest for almost three years. According to Scottish Engineering, the improvements recorded in the previous two quarters have continued, with increases almost across the board.
Fewer than a quarter of the companies [...]

Dodgy Windows 7 key in ’stops working’ shock

At the end of January I described how keys sold for a few pounds on eBay were being used to activate copies of Windows 7. I bought one from an American seller for £6.50, typed in the code and watched as the software passed all Microsoft’s “Genuine Advantage” tests.
Today, exactly four months after I [...]

End of the satellite dish is nigh

From today a large part of Sky’s paid content is being made available without the need for a dish. Instead subscribers will be able to hook up an IP Vision FetchTV Freeview+ set-top box to a broadband connection to access live and on-demand programmes.
The news comes shortly after the Office of Fair Trading gave the [...]

Tesla electric sports car makes European debut

This will be an exciting weekend for motor enthusiasts. Not only is the Scottish Motorfair being held at the Knockhill Racing Circuit, but it will also be the first chance to see the all-electric Tesla Roadster in action. The car’s expected to make a number of demonstration runs at the event.
The US-developed car will make [...]

Asus to launch netbook with plug-in mobile phone?

echnology businesses know they’ve made it when they start to be the subject of internet rumours. Sometimes, as with Apple, it’s hard to escape the feeling that the company itself could be behind the speculation. It’s such a great way to both test the water for a product and build marketing buzz.
Since it invented the [...]

18 pieces of technology destined for the scrap heap and four that might not be

Sony’s announcement that it was ceasing production of floppy disks was only surprising in the sense of: “I never knew anybody was still making them.” In fact, they had a good commercial run from 1972 when Memorex started selling an 8-inch disk with 175kb capacity and effectively peaked in 1987 with the launch of the [...]

Fines concentrating minds on data security

This week, the international security industry’s trade show, IFSEC 2010, opens at the NEC in Birmingham. Scottish companies like IndigoVision will have a high profile, not least because they are in for a number of awards.
But IFSEC is also an opportunity to consider the importance of security generally. In particular, it’s a chance to look [...]

The social media election that wasn’t

Whatever happened to the Facebook/Twitter election?
This was supposed to be the election decided by social media. So what went wrong?
The answer is: Nothing. The concept of a social media election campaign was pretty ludicrous from the start.
Did anybody seriously believe that a largely disillusioned electorate was somehow going to be galvanised into mass political [...]

The truth behind the made-up statistics about ‘piracy’

A recent report from the grandly-titled “United States Government Accountability Office” confirms what many had long suspected. The statistics on file-sharing, copying and so-called “piracy” are made up, usually by the very industry bodies that are lobbying for legislation to prevent it.
“Three widely cited US government estimates of economic losses resulting from counterfeiting cannot be [...]

Video: Arup breaks through the sound barriers

How do you know how announcements will sound in a new railway station or airport? What will the music sound like in a new concert hall? Arup has been showing off its latest audio technology to the public in a large box erected in St Andrew Square for the Edinburgh Science Festival.

Apple’s bid for world domination starts in Tesco

Tesco has cut the price of its iPhone subscriptions. Beyond a few British consumers this might not seem particularly exciting news, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg revealing enormous changes in technology which in the last few days can be seen stretching from British supermarket shelves to remote Indian villages.
As with all mobile [...]

Obituary: The man who inspired Microsoft

d Roberts, the inspiration for the modern computing industry, has died aged 68. Although his name is virtually unknown outside rarefied world of technology specialists, his passing has attracted fulsome praise particularly from Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
In a statement they said: “Ed was willing to take a chance on us – two [...]

iPad: Bha sin ann reimhid

Murchadh MacLeòid
Is dòcha gu bi mi de bheachd gu tur eadar-dhealaichte ann am bliadhna eile. Ge-tà, tha mi a’ tighinn a-mach agus ag ràdh nach bi mi am measg an fheadhainn sin a cheannaicheas iPad Apple. Tha mi a’ coimhead ri cho comasach is tha e agus an liuthad rud a nì e, agus mi [...]

Opinion: Apple’s slide into censorship

The philosophy of total control which has helped Apple develop some of the most stylish products of the last two decades has a sinister underside. From ensuring that customers buy compatible products to censoring what they do on them is a small, dangerous step. That’s what Apple is now doing, and where it goes others [...]

Google’s row with China might suit both sides

Google’s decision to stop censoring searches in China sounds as if the company’s just got fed up with the government and pulled the plug. But it’s far from being that straightforward. There was something which felt rather theatrical about the action which suggests it might all have been part of a quiet deal which is [...]

Facebook topples Google as king of the web … kinda

Is Facebook the new Google?
For the whole of last week Facebook overtook Google to become the most visited website in America according to online intelligence specialist Experian Hitwise. It does illustrate the meteoric rise of the social networking website and also, perhaps, the hype surrounding it.
The figures show Facebook’s market share has risen by 185 [...]

Microsoft smartphone aims squarely at Apple

Not since William Tell put away his crossbow has anybody taken such careful aim at an Apple. In Las Vegas Microsoft revealed a smartphone strategy to developers which will see its “Windows Phone 7 Series” compete head on with the iPhone.
The change needed to happen. Unlike Apple which developed the iPhone almost from scratch, Microsoft’s [...]

SXSW winners featuring rainbows, unicorns and the number of calories in a G-spot

Technology conferences are usually pretty dull. Loads of men compete for free tee shirts and other gewgaws while failing to make eye-contact with the “beta babes” handing out flyers. SXSW as in “south by south-west” in text-speak is different. It’s more of a rock, arts and film festival with tech tacked on.
In fact the internet [...]

John Logie Baird Awards winners

The annual John Logie Baird Awards seek to reward inventiveness and innovation. But on this, their 21st anniversary, will success on the night provide the keys to the door of success in the market as well?
The winners were certainly diverse.
Fish farming is a major industry in rural Scotland. But there’s [...]

Game over for consoles despite latest power-ups?

Sony has finally announced the release of a motion sensor control to compete with the Wii remote which has been stealing sales from the PS3 games console for almost four years. It comes as Microsoft readies its own remote-less game controller for the Xbox and a competitor appears on the scene threatening to consign consoles [...]

Jet packs go on sale for the price of a car

It’s been a long time coming, but finally the world’s first commercial jet pack has gone into production and on sale. Made by the Martin Aircraft Company in New Zealand it’ll travel at 60mph for up to 30 miles on a full tank.
This is something of an advance on James Bond jet pack in 1965’s [...]

Google takes a big swipe at Microsoft Office

Google has launched what is widely seen as a full frontal attack on the dominant and highly-profitable Microsoft Office software suite. The Google Apps Marketplace brings together a variety of programs and services from different companies to work together in a single ecosystem.
At the moment business software for, say, accounting, project and customer relationship management [...]

Microsoft rains on Apple’s iPad parade

Of course it’s just coincidence, but details of a new device Microsoft is apparently working on have leaked out just as Apple announced when the iPad would be available. But despite being billed as an “iPad killer” Microsoft’s Courier would be a very different beast.
If the pictures on technology blog Engadget are to be believed, [...]

Medicine, laptops and the web get their Avatar moment

Avatar might have had a bad night at the Oscars, but it’s done nothing to slow the flow of 3D technology. Early adopters can even now pick up an Acer Aspire 5738DZG laptop complete with the requisite glasses from Amazon for £546.43 including delivery.
As with so many technologies there’s more than one way of achieving [...]

Penguin shows what you can do with your iPad

American followers of the Cult of Apple now know what they’ll on Friday night April 2. They’ll be lining up to buy one of the first iPads. They’ll have to wait a few more weeks for the 3G-connected models.
Consumers outside the US, including those in the UK, will have to wait until the end of [...]

New law threatens pirates but also free speech

The difficulty of reconciling the interests of copyright owners and the rights of internet users has been revealed again in a successful Lib Dem and Tory amendment in the House of Lords to the Digital Economy Bill which would force internet service providers to block access to “online locations” where a “substantial proportion of the [...]

The Cold War 2.0: Apple vs Google

Apple seems to have been taking lessons from the Cold War strategists. Just as the Soviet Union and the USA avoided direct confrontation choosing instead to use smaller nations in a battle by proxy, Apple has launched a wide-ranging legal attack on the little-known Taiwanese manufacturer HTC.
But it is clear who Apple’s real target is [...]

Google grabs picture-editing site Picnik

Online photo-editing website Picnik has been bought by Google. This fills a gap in Google’s Picasa service which already allows users to organise and edit pictures on their computers and display them in web albums. What has been missing is the ability to edit photographs online.
The services offered by Picnik are similar to cut-down versions [...]

Severity of Chinese Google attack revealed

It’s gradually becoming clear just how much of a threat is represented by the hacking attack on Google at the beginning of the year which led to the search engine giant threatening to withdraw from China. Investigators from US security company iSec Partners say at least 33 other companies were hit by the “Aurora” exploit, [...]

Do you really need a smartphone to join the modern world?

echnology pundits are often quite good at predicting the future, but terrible at timing. They get so excited about the latest advances that they forget that it’s going to take a while before the world catches up with their enthusiasm.
Their current “next big thing” is “location-based services”. Of course this is nothing new, 20 years [...]

Hints for the would-be smartphone buyer

ith falling prices and an increasing number of services taking advantage of smartphone technology, plenty of us are going to be splashing out over the coming months. And not a few people will make expensive mistakes.
If you are tempted by a new smartphone it really is worth doing some homework before you take on a [...]

1985 is back – and this time it’s mobile

here’s a strange feeling of déjà vu about 2010. In a large part of the technology business it could be 1985 all over again. Once more consumers and businesses are confronted by a bewildering array of devices that seem to do much the same thing, but not quite.
In the mid-1980s it was personal computers. Magazines [...]

Could Scotland throw away its chance to be a world leader in data centres?

Lack of whole-hearted government support and vaguely-worded environmental legislation are threatening Scotland’s potential to be an international leader in one of the fastest-growing global businesses.
In southwest Scotland two of the world’s largest data centres could provide jobs, educational opportunities and manufacturing growth if they are allowed to flourish.
But a director of one of the [...]

Livescribe Pulse Smartpen – the iPhone of writing

This is a gadget that turns everybody who hears about it into a teenager. They’ll either respond with an over-excited “wow, amazing!” or a sullen “borrrrrrrrrring”. Me? I wish I’d had one years ago.
The Smartpen has actually been around for a little while, but when I came across it I thought it sounded too good [...]

Despite the hype Google Buzz won’t be killing anything much

Google is like Apple. Whenever it announces anything the world goes mad. Or at least the world’s media goes mad. It must be so galling for other technology companies.
Every launch attracts similar headlines. A few weeks ago the Nexus One smartphone was the potential “iPhone killer”. Google Talk was the “Skype killer”. Google Docs was [...]

Ode to a mouse, specifically the ‘Gyration Air Mouse Elite’

When Douglas Engelbart and Bill English invented a computer pointing device back in 1963 and decided to call it a “mouse” little did they realise what a marketing problem they’d cause. No matter how sophisticated the successors to their device they just don’t sound serious.
Now I know the “Gyration Air Mouse Elite” is a very [...]

Gay porn blunder of government site for children

Next Page »