How others see us

I think it's easy to forget how people outside our own professions and cliques may see us. Earlier this week I had to do some filming for some video promos for my University. I and a student basically just had to talk about and demo our game AI research. What struck me was how the film crew seemed really fascinated and interested in what we were researching. In the downtime between takes, while shots were being set up, they asked really good questions and seemed rather awestruck by what we were doing.
   As an academic I'm so used to viewing what I do through the lens of my peers who are hard to impress and correctly skeptical. Viewing our work through the lens of lay people has let me see again how exciting what we do is.

The Oldest Computer Music

During my research I came across this piece by the BBC on a recording from 1951 of the Ferranti Mark 1 computer, a commercial version of the Manchester Baby, playing some songs.  You can listen to the recording from the link above.

iOS 5.0

I read an article yesterday that predicts from industry insiders that iOS 5 to be released with the iPhone 5 will support wireless sync. I predicted this last year: here and here.

It’s clearly daft that in order to use your IPhone or IPad you must have a PC or Mac as well. However, I think that for iOS 5.0 sync will only operate over wifi, and really that’s not to much of a hassle or restriction. Also I expect iOS 5.0 to make some big changes to ITunes (iTunes-in-the-cloud) and big changes to MobileMe.
   BTW I was spot on with my iPad 2 predictions with the exception of the rear facing camera. I still think it’s a bit unnecessary. However, I think Apple included it because it means that app developers can now develop for a front and rear facing camera on all iOS devices (apple TV excluded of course).
   My new iPad 2 finally arrived today :-)

Amazon author page

I now have my own authors page on Amazon, which includes feeds from this blog. This could all get very circular.
I also have some good news. An Italian publisher of popular science books is interested in translating and publishing my book in Italy when it's completed and [drum roll] a major English language publisher may also be interested in my book for their popular science series!