'Uncategorized' Category

• Google h1n1 (Swine Flu) tracking in the UK

  Google is offering an interesting data source as part of their social responsibility activity. The Google Swine Flu activity monitor looks at the types of searches that people are making and infers the level of swine flu from what people do. I do want to encourage Google to do more of this sort of activity. [...]

  November 18th, 2009

• A List Apart Surveys Designers, 2008

  I found the 2007 review to be interesting, but flawed. The 2008 survey has more focused questions and should present an interesting snapshot of the lives of web oriented workers. I’m not a graphic designer - this blog design isn’t a clue? - but I do spend a lot of time on interface design, information [...]

  August 2nd, 2008

• Work/Life Balance: Paper Planes

  We sponsored a student for a Masters by Research at Cranfield University last year, to do some work on using AI for improving content match for advertisers. I keep an eye open for what Cranfield gets involved in and ended up taking part in a competition on their recent Open Day showing how they contribute [...]

  August 2nd, 2007

• Work/life balance: Making time for floods.

  This view looks out over the field to the southwest of the house. The far line of trees, on the near horizon, marks the normal far edge of the river, which is usually about 10 to 20 metres (30 to 60 feet) wide. The visible water here averages about 1 metre (3 feet) deep, [...]

  July 23rd, 2007

• Incubator conversations

  There are some conversations that reveal the location. We have an office in a startup unit in i-Lab. Shared coffee area conversation:
  First seriously cold morning this winter, I’m frozen
  Yeah, these warm winters.
  Could do with a good cold winter to kill the insect vectors of disease.
  Sure could.
  Apart from a University, where else do you get that [...]

  December 5th, 2006

• Good Google - Accessibility Technologies and CAPTCHA

  Nice article on accessibility and usability improvements to “CAPTCHA” technologies.
  Generally, I’m not personally in favour of CAPTCHA - it’s essentially an exercise in security through obscurity. That means it won’t be long before those who find it a problem (spiders and bots) get better software that removes the obscurity. Long in this context means weeks [...]

  November 30th, 2006