Listen to the Interview – [audio:https://digital-lifestyles.info/media/audio/adrian-westaway-magic-light-RCA-2007.mp3]
Adrian Westaway’s project, Magic Light, lets you guide a light to a different location merely by waving your hands in the direction you want to move the light.
The lack of ‘interface’ means that there’s no age restriction, as using it is as simple as moving your hand around.
(more…)
We attended the end of year show for the Royal College of Art (RCA) and were highly impressed with a lot of it.
While I personally thought that the fine art side of the exhibition was too safe and ultimately unexciting – it felt like they were all being too conscious of trying to ‘make it’ – the work in the Great Exhibition tent was very stimulating – bright minds tackling issues that are just ahead of current issues, and a few, a long way off.
(more…)
‘Green’ festival uses mobile tickets to save the world.
With the glorious … or was it gory-est … Glastonbury out of the way for at least another year (as well as the BBC’s over-coverage), the other festivals around the UK now have a chance of getting their messages out that 1) They’re on, 2) that they have everything that you heart desires.
Getting a new festival going these days is pretty hard as so many people are trying to do the same, realising that live music is where-it’s-at as people generally become ever-more atrophied by recorded music.
New festival, Two Thousand Trees, have a very ‘now’ idea, labeling it as a festival for ethical music fans – and a very worthy one it is in our book too. Beyond this they also have a much-to-be-supported goal of “not ripping people off and making sure everyone has an awesome time at our lovely festival.” Long may this ethos last.
(more…)
With the fortieth anniversary of the first ATM, or cashpoint as it’s known in the UK, the BBC has an interview with the man who came up with the idea, 82 year old John Shepherd-Barron (pictured).
He recounts that the original idea for the dispenser was chocolate bars – true currency in some people’s minds – but this was replaced with the far more profitable idea of dishing out money.
(more…)
Interesting move by PlusNet, as they release a version of their broadband service tailored specifically towards Polish speakers.
(more…)
From the beginning of July, Vodafone UK is dropping the price of their Mobile Broadband service to £25 a month or a ‘designed to get you to take the monthly offer,’ £8.50 for 24 hours.
There’s also a new feature that gives the ability to continue data connections, while you’re in select European countries for £8.50 for 24 hours.
All of these prices exclude VAT.
They are pitching it as a real alternative to fixed-line broadband and Wi-Fi.
(more…)
The British Board of Film Classification (BCCF) have ruled that Manhunt 2, the second version of the game from Rockstar Games, has been banned in its current form from sale or rental in the UK.
Originally scheduled for release during July 2007, the BCCF today made it pretty clear that they really didn’t like it – at all. David Cooke, Director of the BBFC said, “Rejecting a work is a very serious action and one which we do not take lightly. Where possible we try to consider cuts or, in the case of games, modifications which remove the material which contravenes the Board’s published Guidelines. In the case of Manhunt 2 this has not been possible. Manhunt 2 is distinguishable from recent high-end video games by its unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone in an overall game context which constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing. There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the game.”
(more…)
Carphone’s pre-tax profits have crashed ten per cent to £123.1million, with the company’s financial buttocks feeling the lash of their £80.5million free broadband launch.
The launch just wasn’t just painful for Carphone, with punters galore feeling the weals of a truly rubbish service, being forced to wait months on end while the company struggled hopelessly to catch up with demand.
(more…)
There was a large assemblage of HTC bigwigs in town for the global launch of their new Touch smartphone.
A sleek little fella sporting GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Tri-band radio (900, 1800 & &900), Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0, the Touch launches in two flavours: “elegant soft black” and the truly daft sounding, “alluring wasabi green.”
The big news about the phone – hyperbolically described as, “a watershed as important as the introduction of the mouse” – is HTC’s new TouchFLO system, which lets users navigate screens by sweeping their finger across the phone.
(more…)
An astonishing 855,000 handsets are flushed away every year in the UK, totting up to an annual £342 million’s worth of phones flying around the u-bend.
The rather startling figure comes from the price comparison and switching service, SimplySwitch, who claim that 4.5m handsets are lost or damaged every year, with many enjoying a rather bizarre demise.
It seems that phones are particularly prone to falling down the loo as a result of falling out of pockets or being knocked off the toilet roll holder (or, we expect, slipping out of the hands of drunk blokes feebly failing to multitask after a skinful of Super-lager).
(more…)