Upcoming event: Open Source Business Breakfast - Tuesday 30th June

Next week is another Open Source Business Breakfast at Old Broadcasting House in Leeds, as part of the OS4B (Open Source for Business) project.

This is definitely a date to put in your diary, as you’ll be hearing from Yorkshire businessman, Paul Rhodes, from Greencore, talking about his experience in turning around the business from big losses to achieve millions, sharing his ordinary common sense strategies for achieving the seemingly impossible.

Then after breakfast, another highly successful Yorkshire entrepreneur, Neil Warnock of Luminary, will explain how you can gain insight into your own business with a Business Intelligence system based on Open Source.

To register contact the OS4B team on 0845 122 1555 or email info@ntileeds.co.uk.

I'm sure i've blogged about OS4B before but as a quick reminder: OS4B is a joint venture between nti Leeds and Yorkshire Forward, it's designed to help regional businesses make the most of open source technologies. At the heart of OS4B is a centre of excellence for open source, including part-funded training (at least 60%) on open source products to help your business thrive.

Future Technologies June - Interfaces (Johnny Chung Lee)

Whilst at the utterly fabulous Thinking Digital conference I saw a presentation by Johnny Chung Lee from Microsoft Research (http://www.thinkingdigital.co.uk/speakers/speaker_profile.php?id=38) which contained everything I love about new technology. Parts of it made the audience gasp, it made me think about how my life will be in ten years time - just what i'm looking for in a presentation!

I thought i'd cover some of the new developments he shared with us, Johnny focused on new interfaces, pointing out that although many technologies have moved on we've actually been using the keyboard, mouse and monitor for quite some time now.

There are many developments happening using projectors rather than a fixed monitor. At the following YouTube video you can see a demo from Johnny regarding foldable displays - absolutely fantatsic. Note how fast the calibration is with regard to the projector knowing where the object is due to the wiimote. The scrollable screen is particularly awesome, but I can't figure out how the projector knows how much of the display is unscrolled - if anyone else can figure this out let me know!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhSR_6-Y5Kg&feature=channel_page

The orientation sensitivity part of that video is also incredible, the projector knows which side of the screen to display allowing double sided images - how!?!?

Johnny also talked about Haptics, whereby the sense of touch is recreated. He talked about a project he came across whereby he held an empty plastic box and when the switch was flicked it suddenly felt as if there was a metal ball inside the box which he could move around by moving his hand, pretty impressive if you really think about it. I've managed to find another one of Johnny's video's on YouTube where he is demonstrating a haptic pen. It's amazing to think that you can simulate all those different feelings of touch within one pen. Watching the testers using it in the second part of the video really shows how real it must feel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk-ExWeA03Y&feature=channel_page

So you can see how potentially the time has come for the monitor and mouse to move over in place of some new, more intuitive technology.

This next video has Johnny demonstrating 3D images. Stick with this one because as soon as you see the football stadium you realise the potential this has. It really is like looking through a window, with a feeling of depth and space that is very clever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw&feature=channel_page

Obviously the implications for games are also massive as Johnny points out.

Finally I came across this video of Project Natal, which Johnny is now working on, and, well it's just cool! The face recognition, voice recognition etc. The near future of games and home entertainment? I hope so!

One more upcoming event: Shift Happens 2.0

One more upcoming event that I forgot to mention in my blog below, Shift Happens 2.0 will be held on Monday 29 - Tue 30 June at York Theatre Royal. The cost of a ticket is £100 + VAT and they only have a few spaces left.

The programme includes keynote speaker Charles Leadbeater along with many, many more on the line-up and subjects to be covered range from "Sustainable Ability... Building Envirodigital Communities" to "2012 and all that...a new vision for the Cultural Olympiad".

They even have two people calling in live from different locations using Skype - a brave move on the part of the event organisers and surely proof that it's not going to be just another run of the mill conference!

More information and details on how to book your place can be found at:

http://www.pilot-theatre.com/redesign/default.asp?idno=17061

Events - TechTalk 2009, Barcamp Sheffield, Creative Networks

Well it's been a couple of weeks since my last post (mainly due to me moving house) so I have a few events to tell you about today.

First up is Connect Yorkshire's TechTalk 2009: "Enterprise IT for the Masses". The event will be on the 17th June from 1pm - 4pm at York Racecourse. It only costs 40 quid to attend and the keynote speaker is David Aldridge, Vice President at Oracle. The debate will cover Software-As-A-Service and Cloud Computing.

Next, Barcamp Sheffield, registration has now opened for Barcamp Sheffield a.k.a Unsheffield, the theme is Future Users of Cool Technology. The event is free to attend, from the 19th - 21st June and will be held at the Showroom. You can see a previous blog of mine about the last Barcamp Sheffield, which was great! 

And last but by no means least is Creative Networks. This month the speaker is Patrick Burgoyne, Editor of Creative Review and they have combined the event with the Leeds College of Art – End of Year Shows.

The event is also free to attend, on 25th June from 5pm onwards at the Leeds College of Art & Design. If you want to go contact Creative Networks on 01422 399444 or email Bridget March at bridgetm@leeds-art.ac.uk.