Some useful websites...

I have a few links i've been saving up over the last few days so I want to signpost them all in this post.

First up is KnowledgeRICH:

http://www.knowledgerich.com/

It's a free service for businesses to get in touch with Universities in the region to work on innovative projects. What a great idea!

Next up is the Yorkshire Science and Technology Network:

http://www.ystn.co.uk/

I went to their last event in Leeds, it's free (although invite only so you have to sign up to attend) and gives a good networking opportunity to meet people from quite a variety of organisations. They have a couple of speakers at each event and in the past these have included Tim Berners-Lee and Wayne Hemingway.

Next I wanted to point out Cisco's I-Prize:

http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/iprize/index.html

This is a competition to create an idea that Cisco will then fund anything up to $10 million! The really cool part to it is that when you enter you basically register into a community and then can get ideas from other people and create a team from within that community. A very cool way to encourage collaboration...

Finally, 4mations:

http://www.4mations.tv/

This site allows you to upload your own animated movies and games with the most popular each month winning a cash prize! The site isn't the most user-friendly i've ever come across, but if you get stuck you can click 'help' at the top right of the page to get to a fairly useful FAQ.

Melt 2008

Yesterday I was in Sheffield for the Melt 2008 Inspiration Session, and very inspiring it was too! Melt gives R&D awards to artistic, media and technical talent to explore the creative and economic possibilities of innovative content exploitation - basically they invest in cool, new things :-) They also do a lot of mentoring and giving of advice to help the projects make progress.

Personally my favourite part of the afternoon was the Melt Show and Tell where we saw short 10 minute presentations from 5 Melt projects. I loved them all! :

Healthy Island - an interactive game for teachers to encourage healthy behaviour in their pupils. A great way to bring more modern technology into the classroom without using a whiteboard!
http://www.lovemelt.com/past-awardees/7-earth-heart.html

Call of the Wild - a sound controlled game using animal noises. The added value with this one has got to be the whole 'all the family' can play factor.
http://www.lovemelt.com/past-awardees/13-call-of-the-wild.html

Piefighter - a mobile game using bluetooth and involving throwing pies at friends using your mobile and gaining free beer! Surely a winner with students.
http://www.lovemelt.com/past-awardees/16-blueface.html

Lost Angels - another mobile game, this time in a tamagochi / virtual pet stylie using real world info (i.e. news sources). You can really see this being picked up by the increasingly younger mobile market.
http://www.lovemelt.com/past-awardees/10-lost-angels.html

Wizard Academy - interactive 3D / 4D (think water being sprayed at you in 4D!) game for use in theme parks and visitor attractions. This one I thought was particularly commercially attractive, you can see it being used in lots of places.
http://www.lovemelt.com/past-awardees/14-wizard-academy.html

I shall try to keep my eye on the progress of all of them...

Going Global Conference

Another event to blog about, this one is for any industry and is being run by UKTI:

http://www.tradeyorkshire.com/eventdetails.aspx?id=45997

It's all about improving international business relationships, export and trade. Sir Alan Sugar is the key speaker, although personally i'm more impressed with the host, Declan Curry - always been a fan :-)

The event is in Harrogate on the 30th September and even more importantly it's free! It'll be a great opportunity to get free advice, inspiration and more importantly meet other businesses.

Singularity 2008

Just came across an online conference called Singularity which has some very interesting sessions:

http://www.singularity08.com/

It's from 24th - 26th October and features some fairly well known speakers including Tim O'Reilly and Molly E. Holzschlag.

It's not free, which is a shame as it's an online conference but then I guess the quality of the speakers would probably not be as high, however there are 'hubs' where people can get together to watch the conference, the nearest to us being in Manchester:

http://www.singularity08.com/hubs/

I'd be interested to hear from anyone how they thought it went...

AIDC

AIDC is a European Centre of Excellence for Automatic Identification and Data Capture. They basically work in the barcoding, RFID, smart cards, biometrics etc world and are located in Halifax:

http://www.aidc.org/

The building is absolutely fantastic. Covering two floors it's built in a tv / film set style with physical rooms representing different scenarios whereby visitors can walk around and see the technology in practice. Room scenrios include:

* A hospital where you can scan equipment used for surgery to see how many times it's already been used in the past.
* A farm where you can follow stuffed sheep (i.e. cuddly toy :-) ) round the farm with their tags, and even take apart a stuffed lamb (!) and see where the different parts go enabling a supermarket to know not only which farm a piece of meat comes from but even which particular animal on that farm.
* An airport where you can pick up a small tag and walk around the room while watching a moving dot on a screen representing you. This shows how exact an airport can pinpoint luggage moving around its building. The airport room also had smart technology that identified if a runway light needed replacing.
* Town hall, this has a machine that allows the general public to vote using electronic polling stations and their ID cards, this technology has already been used abroad.
* Supermarkets, there are obviously various uses for the technology in a supermarket, my favourite included a smart shelf that knows exatly what products are on the shelf and therefore knows when it needs restocking.

More info about the different room scenarios can be found at:

http://www.aidc.org/page.asp?pageid=74&pagegroup=AIDC&pagetitle=Demonstrators

Digital Print CIC

Today I met with Digital Print CIC who are located at Leeds University. They've been going for three years and are involved with lots of exciting new developments within the world of print. I've been sworn to secrecy regarding most of it but I can say they're interested in hearing from electronics companies and told me about some amazing new products that involve print and electronics.

The website is:

http://www.cic-digitalprinting.com/

I will be keeping uptodate with any events and projects that they become involved with - and will blog about the ones that are allowed to go public!

NorthTech

Another useful link i've come across following the Barcamp in Leeds is NorthTech:

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/5015/

It lists upcoming technology-related events and you can add more events to the list.