Who? What? Why? Where? When? and How? Noisy events
Steve Rogerson’s round-up of last month’s news and events, including some that may have slipped under the radar
I
have to question the wisdom of automotive engineering firm Etas for holding its Driving Innovation
conference last month at the Donington Park motor racing circuit. On the face of it, it seemed a good idea. The circuit has reasonable conference facilities for an event that size and the link between automotive technology and motor sport is obvious. The problem was one of scheduling. To have it on the same day as a motor cycling session in a conference room right next to the pit lane, and in a room without adequate sound proofing, meant that there was a struggle to say the least to follow what was going on. True, it added to the atmosphere, as the organisers were keen to point out, but possibly not the best of plans in retrospect.
I also travelled to London last month to visit the DSEi military equipment show; annoyingly, I didn’t manage to find out why they write the “i” in lower case, maybe I was distracted by all the guns. There were a lot of guns. I felt particularly sorry for the stands near the shooting gallery as they had a similar problem to the people at the Etas event – just a bit too noisy to have intelligent conversations. The show also attracted demonstrators asking people as they came in whether they were buying or selling weapons that kill. I am reporting that second hand as I never actually saw any demonstrators, just heard about them from other visitors. Maybe my suit has some sort of stealth
setting. If I could just figure out what it is, I could make a fortune selling it to some of the exhibitors. I received an email from Mike Meakin, founder of Nikam Electronics, about my column in the September issue. Like me, he was exasperated with Hewlett-Packard for discontinuing the Webos (formerly Palm) line. Like me, he progressed from a Palm PDA and loved the interface with a PC. And like me he bought an unlocked Palm Centro.
He took the risk last year of moving to
an Android phone and struggled with it for a fortnight before returning to the Centro after finding various sync problems. He also rejected the IPhone route, again because it does not sync notes and he hated the mandatory ITunes registration. Well, I already had the ITunes registration as I use an IPod, so I opted to go down the IPhone route and switched to the IPhone 4.
As I write, I have had it about a week, so a little early to give it a full review, but it is annoying that it won’t sync my notes and memos from Palm, though I have managed to get the calendar and contacts over. This now means I am using ICal for my desktop calendar rather than the one in Palmos. For reasons I cannot figure, ICal chooses not to display the times of appointments when in monthly view. So I can see at a glance what day I have things to do but not when during the day. Very frustrating.
The IPhone itself looks pretty but I wish Ahead of the field - Farnell’s Dave
Jones scoops Yuasa racing prize Dave Jones of Premier Farnell (left) pictured with Andrew Taylor, Managing Director Yuasa Battery Sales (UK) Ltd and Honda Racing’s grid girl Tilly Thomson. Jones beat all-comers on the Honda BTCC Racing Bug Competition which took place during Yuasa’s 30th Anniversary party in July to win an electric golf caddy kindly donated by EZiCaddy.
Mark Prisk MP joins the debate at NMI Summit and Awards ceremony
The Minister of State for Business and Enterprise, Mark Prisk MP, will join the debate and speak at NMI’s annual Industry Summit. Mark Prisk's attendance highlights a growing awareness of the economic and strategic importance of the Electronic Systems community in the UK.
Continuing NMI's tradition of 'debate then celebrate' the Summit will be followed by NMI's black-tie awards gala and dinner, which will feature the comedian and broadcaster Dr Phil Hammond as celebrity guest speaker. Both will take place on the 3rd of November at the prestigious Wyndham Grand Hotel - Chelsea Harbour, London.
Phil Hammond
"The Summit provides industry with an
opportunity to influence opinion and resultant action. We anticipate that much of the debate will be relevant to the [UK Electronic Systems - Challenges and Opportunities] ESCO report that the Minister has asked NMI to lead. Debate then Celebrate will be the largest gathering of industry professionals in the year and we extend an invitation to all interested parties to join the Summit Debate and apply for the follow on Celebration awards."
For further information on attending the Summit or applying for awards visit the NMI website:
http://bit.ly/NMIgala2011.
50 October 2011 Components in Electronics
www.cieonline.co.uk Mark Prisk
it came with an instruction manual. The man at the shop just said look it up on Youtube if you want to know anything. No, I want to look it up in the manual. And, and this is a big “and”, it won’t let me use the songs I have downloaded into it as ringtones. Blackberry does that, so why can’t IPhone? Maybe it will grow on me and I’ll let you know if it does. Meanwhile, back to Mike Meakin. Until his email, I must admit I had never heard of Nikam Electronics so I had a look at its web site. I recommend
the tabs “our staff”, “our MD” and “new workshop” to bring a smile to your faces. And talking of Youtube, I received a
press release informing me that the big Christmas hit on the toy front this year will be My Keepon, some sort of little yellow robot that was made famous on Youtube. I’m not holding my breath as I suspect this is the first of many such press releases claiming to predict the Christmas hit, but at least this one is technology based. Top of my list to Santa is an instruction manual for the IPhone 4.
I had one of those moments this month. I went to a shop to buy some washing- up liquid and thought I’d buy some food while I was there. I arrived home to discover I’d bought lots of food but had forgotten the washing-up liquid. Well, at least I didn’t arrive home with a shopping bag full of chips (and not the edible variety either), as this woman seems to have done. They are pretty big chips too, by the look of it, and here was me thinking technology was getting smaller.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52