The Rise of the Small PC

I’m not sure whether the ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) was inevitable, or kick-started by the OLPC project, but it’s now in full flow.  There now seem to be no end of companies competing in this market.
Asus have just released a new, faster Eee PC. MSI have their Wind PC. HP have the Mini-note, and Dell […]

NHS IT Delays

NHS IT 4 Years Late
It will be at least 2014 - four years later than planned - before a single NHS electronic patient records system is in place in England, say auditors.
What the hell? This was started in 2002. It’s going to have taken 12 years to deliver a patient records system?
But an NAO […]

Holographic Storage Coming Next Month

From Crunchgear
InPhase today announced that it has begun bulk shipping its 300GB holographic storage disks. The platters are 1.5-millimeters thick and cost $180 each. That is on top of the initial $18,000 investment for the Tapestry HDS-300R drive. InPhase says that the drives should expand to capacities of 1.6TB by 2010.
OK. Very expensive stuff right […]

Vista “Work in Progress”

From SeattlePI.com
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer called Windows Vista “a work in progress” on Thursday, but he stopped short of committing to extend the life of its predecessor, Windows XP.
I recently bought myself a new PC. I had a Mac and I didn’t see eye to eye with it. So, I asked around lots of […]

Free Wi-fi with Coffee Republic

Large coffee chain in the UK. From 1st May. See this.
Anyone know if the coffee’s good?

Google Static Maps

Google Static Maps Launched
A jolly useful feature, this. Google Maps are normally known for their super duper javascript/ajax maps that you can move around, but they now offer maps that can be put on websites as static images, like the one I created below showing Swindon’s best known landmark.

Will Hutton on Terminal 5

From The Guardian
British companies, BA included, almost always decide to improve capability on the hoof. One BA baggage handler said there had been only four ‘familiarisation days’ before Terminal 5 - a small city in scale - went live. On the day, there were problems of car park access, ID cards and lift systems. There […]

Someone Got the Internet Very Wrong

I hope everyone is enjoying the weekend.
This article from 1995 made me chuckle, in a way that bad predictions often do, and also with nostalgia. Add it to the man at Decca who thought that “guitar groups are on the way out” when auditioning The Beatles (and picked The Tremeloes instead) or Lord Kelvin’s “Heavier-than-air […]

The Mac…

… is Going Back.
Replacing it will be a Windows/Ubuntu dual-boot.
Your mileage may vary with it.

The BBC Micro

via The BBC:-
The creators of the BBC Micro are reuniting at the Science Museum in London to discuss the legacy of the computer known fondly as “the Beeb”.
Dr Tilly Blyth, who is writing a book about the machine said: “The Beeb helped shape today’s IT landscape.”
“The story of the BBC Micro is one of […]