Saturday, 27 August 2011

Power-generating device could be embedded in footwear

An energy-harvesting system that could supplement batteries in electronic devices has been developed in the US.

In a paper appearing today in the journal Nature Communications, Tom Krupenkin and J Ashley Taylor describe a new energy-harvesting technology that captures the energy of human motion to power portable electronics.

‘Humans, generally speaking, are very powerful energy-producing machines,’ said Krupenkin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of mechanical engineering. ‘While sprinting, a person can produce as much as a kilowatt of power.’



Exploiting a small fraction of that energy, Krupenkin said, is enough to power a host of mobile electronic devices, including laptop computers, cell phones and flashlights.
‘What has been lacking is a mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion technology that would work well for this type of application,’ he said.

According to the university, current energy-harvesting technologies are aimed at either high-power applications, such as wind or solar power, or very low-power applications, such as calculators, watches or sensors. ‘What’s been missing is the power in the watts range,’ said Taylor, an engineering researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ‘That’s the power range needed for portable electronics.’

Solar power, the researchers said, can also be used to power portable electronics, but, unlike human motion, direct sunlight is usually not a readily available source of energy for mobile electronics users.
In their report, Krupenkin and Taylor described a novel energy-harvesting technology known as ‘reverse electrowetting’. The mechanical energy is converted to electrical energy by using a micro-fluidic device consisting of thousands of liquid micro-droplets interacting with a novel nano-structured substrate.

It is claimed that this technology could enable a novel footwear-embedded energy harvester that captures energy produced by humans during walking, which is normally lost as heat, and converts it into up to 20W of electrical power. Unlike a traditional battery, the energy harvester doesn’t need to be recharged, as the new energy is constantly generated during the normal walking process.
The energy generated by the footwear-embedded harvester can be used in one of two ways. First, it can be used directly to power a broad range of devices, from smartphones and laptops to radios, GPS units, night-vision goggles and flashlights.

Alternatively, the energy harvester can be integrated with a Wi-Fi hot spot that acts as a ‘middle man’ between mobile devices and a wireless network. This allows users to utilise the energy generated by the harvester without having to physically connect their mobile devices to the footwear. Such a configuration reduces power consumption of wireless mobile devices and allows them to operate for much longer without battery recharge, the Wisconsin researchers said.

Krupenkin and Taylor have established InStep NanoPower in order to commercialise the technology.

Australian researchers explore benefits of thermopower waves

Australian researchers are exploring how thermopower waves could be used to convert heat from the environment into electrical energy to create truly autonomous micro and nano machines.
The team at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) has created thermoelectric semiconducting structures that could be used as micro-power sources.

The researchers claim it could help to realise concepts such as ‘smartdust’, which describes micro-electromechanical systems that are networked wirelessly for sensing and receiving data — for example, in testing the pH of soil in large agricultural fields or the quality of water reserves.

In addition, electronic devices powered by thermopower waves could apply large energies to targeted cancer cells inside the human body, enabling a high level of precision.

Project lead Sumeet Walia of the Microplatforms Research Group at RMIT said the size of power sources had not kept pace with the ever-reducing size of electronics.

‘We focus on thermopower waves — which generate intense waves of electrical current by sweeping electrical carriers from one end of materials to another — because of their potential for creating small-scale power sources that can release energy at very high rates,’ she said.

Walia said the team’s work demonstrates a new class of micro-power sources and shows it is possible to obtain alternating output signals with opposite polarities, which is crucial for developing alternating signal sources.

‘This is an important milestone towards making efficient thermopower wave systems for future industrial applications,’ she added.

The work was conducted in collaboration with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and New South Wales University.

Engineering needs to invest in work experience

Engineering graduates don’t have enough practical skills. There’s an argument that we’ve heard so often it’s become a cliché. ‘University courses teach you the theory but you need real work experience before you’re ready for the job,’ argue not only outright critics of our academic system but also employers who say they are struggling to recruit young people with the right skills.

In the current depressed economic times, it’s never been more important for engineering graduates to have a work experience placement on their CVs. The Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HESCU) says 10 per cent of recent engineering graduates are out of work – higher than for graduates of social sciences such as psychology and geography. So job applicants are facing stiffer competition than probably ever before.

Students are well aware that work experience is key. ‘There has been a significant rise in the number looking for internships,’ says HESCU’s deputy director of research, Charlie Ball. The number of students and graduates viewing engineering internship opportunities on the Prospects careers website has increased by 27 per cent between 2009 and 2011.

But new research suggests that engineering companies just aren’t offering the placements that employers themselves say are so important. In a survey of engineering graduates from predominantly top-ranking universities, the number one complaint against potential employers was the lack of opportunity to experience the world of work.

‘It was the most passionate part of their response,’ says Chris Philips, chair of the TARGETjobs Engineering Forum, which carried out the survey of 1000 graduates through its careers website. ‘Students are broadly content that their degrees taught them technical skills and employability skills, but there aren’t enough relevant work placements over the whole spread of engineering companies. They also felt they were competing with European students who have placement opportunities built into the degree courses. UK students are feeling double crossed.’

Of course many companies do offer work experience schemes to young people of different ages. According to the IET’s latest skills survey, 60 per cent of firms have taken on interns in the past 12 months. But the issue is how many placements there are compared with the number of graduates and jobs. As an example, energy firm Centrica is hiring 17 graduate engineers from a variety of disciplines this year but only offers 10 summer work experience placements. And competition is fierce. In total the company has 140 places for its graduate and summer placement schemes but receives around 5,500 applications.

If the problem is as widespread as students seem to feel it is, then the industry really needs to take note because it could be damaging what is already a struggling skills market. Depending on whom you talk to, either there aren’t enough engineering graduates, or their skills don’t meet the requirements of employers, or too many of them are going into other industries. Employers who tell students they can’t have a job without work experience but then don’t offer any placements could be exacerbating all these problems.

If students are turned away from engineering jobs they could be more likely to look to other sectors, not least those that offer more money for their problem solving skills. Universities can only do so much: industry needs to play its part in training the engineers of tomorrow, especially if such a premium is put on practical job experience. And if young people are assessing the employability of different subjects – increasingly likely now that the cost of a degree has tripled – they’ll be less likely to choose engineering if they feel their three years of study won’t lead to a job.

So why aren’t more placements available to young people? Although health and safety bureaucracy can cause a serious headache for those setting placements for under-18s, they shouldn’t have the same trouble accepting university students. ‘Once they become adults, young people have a lot more common sense,’ says John Nollett, managing director of steering system manufacturer Pailton Engineering, which employs 150 people and places both under- and over-18s in work experience and apprenticeships. ‘We have a robust health and safety regime in place already for our employees so we’re not worried about older people doing work experience.’

A problem for some firms, particular smaller more specialised ones, is that students don’t have enough knowledge to be able to drop in for a few weeks and gain meaningful experience. ‘Our work is so specialist that we can’t just take anyone – they need proper training,’ says Michelle Rix, operations manager at green energy firm Ecotricity, which doesn’t offer work experience to engineering students.

‘Companies do appreciate that if you can’t do work placements properly you may as well not do them at all,’ says Philips. And this is the biggest problem for engineering firms: work placements cost time and money, which many companies can ill afford especially in the current economic climate. ‘Senior executives say they get the need for more work experience but it’s a resource issue,’ says Philips, who adds that many companies he has spoken to are planning to put more money into work experience schemes.

Increased commitment from employers does seem like the key way this situation can be improved. Another could be closer cooperation between industry and academia to ensure universities are turning out graduates with the skills needed to make them employable. Perhaps more courses should look at incorporating placements into their curricula.

‘The sector needs to ask if it is properly articulating what it needs to universities and if it is being realistic,’ says Ball. ‘What are the skills deficiencies and can employers address this problem themselves? But we have to be nuanced about our approach. We need to make the case that being an engineer is an excellent career option. Engineering employers and universities need to have a good thoughtful dialogue and not blame each other.’

What is clear is that we need a long-term solution and investment in young people. Refusing students work experience placements might save some cash in the short-term but is only storing up problems for later on.

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/1009651.article?cmpid=TE01&cmptype=newsletter&cmpdate=050811&email=true#ixzz1WF4e4QJ8

IET reveals difficulties in recruiting high-level staff

Almost half of engineering companies are struggling to recruit senior-level engineers owing to competition for experienced staff, new research suggests.

The latest skills survey from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) found that UK engineering and IT companies still find it difficult to employ suitably skilled staff, with 34 per cent reporting that new recruits do not meet requirements.

But there is also a more specific problem in hiring high-level staff, with 48 per cent of respondents saying they continue to experience difficulties in finding suitable senior engineers.

Companies that have struggled with a skills gap among school leavers are focusing on those with more experience, the IET’s head of policy, Paul Davies, told The Engineer.

‘The reason why organisations are finding it difficult to recruit at a senior level is due to high levels of competition to hire experienced staff,’ he said.

UK companies need to improve the way they manage their talent, added Davies. ‘Engineers have made a big investment in choosing to enter this profession and need to work with their employers to enable them to excel and move up.

‘Furthermore, by up-skilling your current workforce and investing in programmes that acknowledge the skills they have, companies will fare better in filling those vacancies at higher levels.’

Companies are still looking to hire graduates and school leavers over the next 12 months, however, as only 49 per cent of roles are expected to go to experienced staff.

The 2011 skills survey also highlighted the belief among employers that something needs to be done about skill levels in engineering.

Thirty per cent of respondents said that the profile and image of engineering needed to improve and 21 per cent stressed the need to make it cheaper for organisations to offer training.

‘We are seeing more companies investing in professional registration programmes to ensure they are continually engaging their workforce and equipping them with the necessary skills to progress in their career and increase their earning potential,’ said Davies.

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/1009622.article?cmpid=TE01&cmptype=newsletter&cmpdate=050811&email=true#ixzz1WF0sJcAB

LCD screen harvests energy from indoor and outdoor light

Researchers have developed an LCD screen that harvests electrical energy from ambient light, sunlight and its own backlight using a built-in photovoltaic polariser.



 
Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) work by using two polarised sheets that let only a certain amount of a device’s backlight pass through. Tiny liquid crystal molecules are sandwiched between the two polarisers and these crystals can be switched by tiny transistors to act as light valves. Manipulating each light valve, or pixel, lets a certain amount of the backlight escape; millions of pixels are combined to create images on LCDs.

From the perspective of energy use, current LCD polarisers are inefficient. A device’s backlight can consume 80 to 90 per cent of the device’s power. But as much as 75 per cent of the light generated is lost through the polarisers. A polarising organic photovoltaic LCD could recover much of that unused energy.

A team at the University of California Los Angles (UCLA) has created and tested a screen that it claims is the first such device to be able to simultaneously act as a polariser, a photovoltaic device and an ambient light or sunlight photovoltaic panel.

The polarising organic photovoltaic cell demonstrated by the research group can harvest up to 75 per cent of the wasted photons from LCD backlight and turn them back into electricity, the team claims.

‘In addition, these polarisers can also be used as regular solar cells to harvest indoor or outdoor light. So next time you are on the beach, you could charge your iPhone via sunlight,’ said project lead Prof Yang Yang of UCLA.

‘In the near future, we would like to increase the efficiency of the polarising organic photovoltaics and eventually we hope to work with electronic manufacturers to integrate our technology into real products,’ he added.

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/1009619.article?cmpid=TE01&cmptype=newsletter&cmpdate=050811&email=true#ixzz1WExULiIs

6 People that made a career out of what they love online

Love it or hate it, Youtube is a massive part of our lives now and their new Partnership scheme which allows people to get paid for their videos if they’re popular enough brings massive opportunity for people to become successful for doing what they would normally do for free.

Here are a few examples I’ve found.

Freddie Wong loves action movies.
Freddie used to work in Hollywood in special effects doing things like removing safety wires or power cables that accidently made it into a shot (and also being a national Guitar Hero champion… seriously), but last year he started making little fight scenes and putting them up on Youtube. His great sense of humour and unbelievable talent for action has pretty much made him a star through a couple of Youtube accounts.

Michelle Phan loves makeup.
You dudes out there may have never realised just how much work goes into makeup. But that stuff can be hard!

Michelle Phan has made a name for herself filming tutorials on certain kinds of makeup, to the point that cosmetics companies started sending her products to review and paying her to feature them.

Epic Mealtime love extreme cooking.
I dare you to watch an episode of Epic Mealtime and not feel hungry and a little nauseous. They have recently been picked up by companies like Netflix and Gamefly who offer them sponsorship money to make ridiculous food.

Darren Rowse loves blogging.
Darren Rowse’s blogs Online Photography School and Problogger have made him a very rich man. He knows how to succeed online, and he shares his experience and wisdom with people that want to succeed as well.

Rooster Teeth love making videos with Halo.
Red Vs Blue originally started when a couple of guys found a way to make the space marines in the video game Halo put their guns down and look like they were talking casually. The really well written dialogue and hilarious delivery built up a cult following and everything turned around for them when Microsoft found what they were doing, and instead of shutting them down, started paying them to do more of it.

Rooster Teeth currently run several other shows like ‘Immersion’ where they examine the practicalities of various video game clichés. Check them out on their website here,
Toby Turner loves putting literal lyrics to trailers and commenting on videos he’s found on Youtube.
His trailers have become few and far between, but every time he releases something new, it’s quite special. My favourite is the Tron Legacy one.

If there’s anything we’ve learned today, it’s that I shouldn’t be left to the blog unattended, and that audiences online are full of so many unique people that if you get really good at something, there will be enough people out there interested in what you have to say that they will give to money to say it more!

Wednesday, 17 August 2011

Anti-social media?

The UK’s recent disturbances have prompted a number of urgent debates, not least what, if any, role the government and police can play in identifying and addressing the underlying causes.

Mounted riot police in Manchester city centre

Mounted riot police in Manchester city centre

In the teeth of the riots, the police came close to using baton rounds (plastic bullets) to quell the violence. Mercifully, this wasn’t the case, but with the government apparently giving police the go-ahead to use greater force, it seems probable to expect a less restrained response in future. But are plastic bullets - with their highly charged symbolism, and questionable “non-lethal” status, really the best available option? As The Engineer has reported before, the field of non-lethal weapons research is awash with ideas for dispersing violence - from dazzling lasers, to acoustic canons, and even incapacitating sticky foam. Perhaps the time is right to revisit these technologies.

More pressingly however, last week’s events have also prompted a debate over the technology that is increasingly at the heart of the way we communicate with each other: social media.

Reports that last week’s violence was partly orchestrated by users of Twitter, Facebook and the Blackberry Messaging (BBM) Service has prompted many to call for police powers to switch off social messaging services.  Indeed, Downing Street is already said to be considering the technical questions of how to grant new powers blocking Twitter and Blackberry.

But the armies of broom-wielding residents - also mobilised via social media - who took to the streets the morning after some of the worst rioting tell a different story. What’s more, it’s now emerged that social messaging sites were also a useful intelligence asset, and that by breaking into the encrypted BBM service, police were able to prevent attacks on the Olympic site and Oxford Street in London.

Last week’s events brought into stark focus the positive and negative applications of social media, and putting the technical and legal issues to one side, the likely impact of shutting down social media services is impossible to predict. What seems likely to have more value is an increased focus on the techniques required to crack encrypted messaging services, and, should the need arise, monitor communications in real-time. Police could, perhaps, learn some valuable lessons from the UK’s defence industry, which, as we’ve also reported, is increasingly focussed on the world of cyber-security.

Embarking on a career in Graphic Design

Stuart Littlewood
Following on from my recent post, ‘Tips for students considering a career in graphic design’ it seemed like the next logical step to offer advice once you’ve decided to take the plunge and launch your career as a graphic designer.


Personally, I found it a rollercoaster of emotions after graduating. The excitement of preparing portfolios, making contact with – and in some cases working alongside – the very designers who’s work had inspired me throughout my studies. On the flip side, there was the reality of having to work in an unpaid placement for 6 months; an unfortunate but common predicament and one any serious graduate should be prepared to face.

The actual experience a work placement can offer is often just as valuable as the reward of a job – exposing you to many different ways of working and different cultures – so even if the latter is not on the cards, take everything you can from it.

The following is a combination of the advice I received along the way, and some of the techniques I employed in order to stand out from the crowd:

1. Perfect your portfolio.
It’s true that great work will often sell itself, but how you present it will help to determine whether people really engage with it. One technique I recommend is to ask: what does your portfolio say about you? Does it reflect your personality, your strengths, your creativity and individuality, and is it appropriate for the audience you are trying to engage? Treat your portfolio as a branding project – not just a collection of bits of work you’ve done.
Also, make sure you keep your portfolio to a good size; 6–10 great projects is ideal. BUT remember …it’ll only be as good as your weakest project, so if in doubt, leave it out!
Finally, consider the presentation of your portfolio. Forget the cumbersome cases they often insist on at college with the stippled sleeves and zips. Go for compact A3 with transparent sleeves that show the work off to its best. Photographers archive boxes are also a popular alternative currently.

2. Do your research.
Make sure any agency you contact works within sectors that are relevant to the work you will be presenting.
Find out who the right person is to contact – call and ask, making sure they are happy to receive your pdf folio (keep this under 3mb showing two or three great projects). Also, consider posting a nicely designed letter (in your brand style) which leaves more of a lasting impression over an email. Within it identify why you like the agency and a piece of their work that interested you. Follow up with a call if you haven’t heard back after a few days – just don’t be pushy.

3. Get all the advice going
Show your work to as many designers as possible. The more you present your work, the better at it and more confident you will become. Even if a company doesn’t offer placements, ask if you can come in and show them your work. Listen to their advice and develop your portfolio and presentation style accordingly.

4. Tell a good story
Explain the context, the brief, the creative process, the challenges, the final outcome and what you learnt. The order of your projects may affect how you present. I recommend starting with a strong project you enjoy talking about (helps the nerves) and end on a great one too.

5. Leave a lasting impression
Present yourself in the best possible way, have a hand full of good questions to ask and leave something behind so you stay in the front of their mind, such as a business card, cv, work sample booklet etc.

Remember that with commitment and persistence, talent is always rewarded. Best of luck!
Stuart Littlewood is a Designer at BergHind Joseph, and has first-hand experience of the trials and tribulations of searching for ‘that’ first job to become a designer.

Stuart is now one of the senior designers for BergHind Joseph, boasting experience in branding, corporate communications and employee engagement projects.

'World's fastest' bipedal robot maintains human-like gait

Engineers have unveiled what they claim is the world’s fastest bipedal robot with knees.
The prototype can reach a peak speed of 6.8mph (10.9km/h) and negotiate rough terrain at lower speeds — all while maintaining a human-like gait.

"Gait:  A particular way or manner of moving on foot"

The research group at Michigan University said it envisages a range of potential applications for the robot, which is called MABEL.

‘The robotics community has been trying to come up with machines that can go places where humans can go, so a human morphology is important,’ said Prof Jessy Grizzle of Michigan. ‘If you would like to send in robots to search for people when a house is on fire, it probably needs to be able to go up and down stairs, step over the baby’s toys on the floor and manoeuvre in an environment where wheels and tracks may not be appropriate.’

MABEL was built in 2008 in collaboration with the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and the team has spent the years since improving the feedback algorithms that enable the robot to keep its balance while reacting to its environment in real time.



MABEL started off walking smoothly and quickly over flat surfaces. Then it moved on to uneven ground at slower speeds. It took its first real jog in late July, according to the team.

To achieve a human-like gait, the engineers distributed MABEL’s weight like a person’s — it has a heavier torso and light, flexible legs with springs that act like tendons. While running, MABEL is in the air for 40 per cent of each stride for the so-called flight phase; this compares with less than 10 per cent of each step for previous bipedal robots, according to the team.

Grizzle said that the technology used to build MABEL could also be used for exoskeletons that enable wheelchair-bound people to walk again or for powered prosthetic limbs that behave like their biological counterparts.

MABEL is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

5 minutes with... David Freer - O Street


Steven Walls    David Freer

    Founding Partner

    O Street

   Website: www.ostreet.co.uk

Vimeo: vimeo.com/user1854623

"We are a multi-disciplinary (only bit of jargon, promise!) design company with a head office in Glasgow. We pride ourselves in offering a wealth of big company experience with small company overheads. Our sleek approach also allows us to work with our clients in a much more direct and fun way."

What do you actually do?
I sit at a big desk in an open plan office with the rest of the company. We are a creative led company, so each of us does account management as well as design. Its hard not to just spend all the time designing, but speaking directly to clients and chasing work has helped give me a much broader understanding of clients needs, and also allows me to have much more control over the kind of jobs I want to work on.

What would you be doing if you weren't doing that?
Probably a failed musician (aren't all designers) or a frustrated art school tutor.


How did you get started in the industry?
I studied design at Glasgow School of Art and Rhode Island School of Design. When I graduated I got my first big break with a placement then full time job at Saatchi & Saatchi in London.

What's your current favourite piece of creative work at the moment?
We are just about to launch an iPhone game for a client and I can't stop playing it on my phone (its still top secret, but in a couple of weeks if you search for ‘Glasgow' & ‘Cone' you will be able to download it for free)

What do you love about your job?
Listening to music while I work and hanging out with creative and inspirational people.


If you could give one piece of advice for someone starting out, what would it be?
Don't get stuck in a dead end job, learn what you can from it and move on as soon as you can.

If you have one Super power what would it be?
Flight.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
A musician.


What was your worst job and what did you learn from it?
Packing frozen turkeys into bags at a supermarket. I quickly learned that I don't want to work in a supermarket, or with frozen goods of any kind.

You have already worked with some amazing brands, who would you like to work with next?
Nike

Iphone or Blackberry?
iPhone.

Your favourite app?
The aforementioned secret app mentioned above, followed by Scrabble.


Too Cool for School or too School for Cool?
Too cool.

Facebook or Twitter?
Twitter.

Eat In or eat out?
Eat in.

Sunday, 14 August 2011

HS2 would boost the region, say engineers

HS2 would boost the region, say engineers 
 

Support for a controversial new high speed rail route from London to Birmingham was voiced by civil engineers today, saying it would boost the economy and bring about a “step change” in rail capacity.

The Institution of Civil Engineers said the HS2 route was more visionary than alternatives, and would encourage long-term economic growth. HS2, set to cost £32 billion, is expected to be built by around 2026 and has divided opinion. The Institute of Economic Affairs said it was “economically flawed”.
But ICE backed the plan, arguing it would free up capacity on the UK’s “congested” rail network and would be value for money.

Spokesman Steven Hayter said: “The opportunity should be taken to invest in growth by providing a new railway that is fit for the 21st century – significantly increasing capacity, strengt- hening connectivity between Britain’s city regions and linking up with the trans-European rail network.”
He added: “Faster, more reliable connections to London could propel a region’s economic competitiveness and act as a catalyst for regeneration as city developers, planners and businesses alike take advantage of the opportunities, especially in the Midlands, the North and Scotland.

“We believe the benefits are not limited to those cities served by HS2. Many will benefit from released capacity and significantly improved services on the existing lines, such as communities that are currently not well served by the West Coast main line.”

Earlier this week a report from the Institute of Economic Affairs said the project was “economically flawed”. It would require a contribution of £1,000 per income tax-payer and was not commercially viable, its report said.

Deputy editorial director Dr Richard Wellings said it was “another political vanity project – like Concorde and the Millennium Dome – being ploughed ahead with complete disregard for properly thought-through commercial prospects or the mounting opposition to it”.

What's more important: money or job satisfaction?

Are you more of a 'money makes the world go round' or 'money doesn't buy you happiness' person? It's a tricky choice as we all want to work in a job that we love but we also need money to make our quality of life as good as it can be. I'd like to think of myself as someone not driven by money, but I have left jobs I've enjoyed in the past after being lured by pound signs. There, I said it.

And it's not just me. In a recent survey of 2,000 participants, more than 54% said that pay was the main reason they looked for a new job with just 42% wanting to move for an increase in job satisfaction. No big shock there. But compare this to the same survey held in 2010, in which 61% put job satisfaction first with just 48% wanting more money.

So why the change? We were all reeling from the recession last year, after all. Well, for me, I am really starting to feel the pinch now - and 18% of workers say that it's a 'constant struggle' to make ends meet. From food prices in the supermarkets to MORE hikes in fuel bills, we're all having to tighten our belts, especially as many companies continue to freeze pay or offer below-inflation salary increases.

And actually, people moving jobs can be good for our economy, particularly if you're moving up the career ladder. There are lots of people out of work at the moment and if you're leaving a junior position behind, many people could have the skills to fill it. Plus we all need a new challenge from time to time and we mustn't feel scared to take the plunge, economic downturn or not.

Institution of Civil Engineers gives backing to HS2


The Institution of Civil Engineers has thrown its backing behind plans for a high speed rail network, linking Birmingham to London.
 
The ICE said HS2 would free up capacity on the existing congested rail network and help regenerate and boost the economies of city-regions.

However, it said the Government must commit to the full ‘Y’ shaped route extending to Leeds and Manchester and maximise the environmental potential of HS2.

Chairman of ICE’s HSR working group Steven Hayter said: “The opportunity should be taken to invest in growth by providing a new railway that is fit for the 21st century – significantly increasing capacity, strengthening connectivity between Britain’s city-regions and linking up with the Trans-European rail network.

"The time to invest is now, and we endorse the Government’s strategy.

“In addition to better connectivity between regions, the benefit of improved connectivity to the capital should also not be understated, he added.
 
“Faster, more reliable connections to London could propel a city-region’s economic competitiveness and act as a catalyst for regeneration as city developers, planners and businesses alike take advantage of the opportunities – especially in the Midlands, the North and Scotland.”

Mr Hayter said the benefits of HS2 are not limited to those cities served by it – such as communities that are currently not well served by the West Coast Main Line.

He stressed, however, that while the HS2 proposals open up significant economic opportunities and present good value for money, the business case must continue to be reviewed as the proposals develop.

Additionally he urged Government to ensure the UK wide benefits are realised, by committing to the full ‘Y’ shaped route extending to Leeds and Manchester and by giving serious consideration to future extensions to other key UK cities.

ICE also called on the Government to ensure careful thought is given to the route’s connection points to the existing network and the costs involved in providing extra capacity at terminals.

In particular, how the London Underground lines will cope with the 80,000 additional passengers, each day, that HS2 will bring into Euston station and whether the proposed single track route linking HS1 and HS2, set to operate in the same corridor as the North London line, could cause further congestion to that commuter service and potentially cause delays to HS2 services.

Finally, it urged Government to maximise the environmental potential of HS2, by ensuring that in future decades, UK grid electricity is increasingly generated by low carbon sources.

Is it wrong to work during your holiday?

According to recent research, nearly three-quarters of workers in London are happy to contact work while they are on holiday. The thinking is that, in these financially austere times, employees simply have to make themselves available all of the time in order to keep their jobs. 
 
The concept of checking work email from the beach doesn't trouble me unduly. I know a lot of people make quite a big deal out of shutting down all work activity for the duration of their holiday, but in these connected times, that probably involves more effort than occasionally looking at your inbox. I actually think that wanting to keep abreast of developments while you're away is a good thing - you spend more time at work than you do with your friends or family, and the projects you're involved in play a major part in your life. It stands to reason, then, that you might want to see what's happening when you're out of the office. 
 
A lot of the problem here is that it often isn't the people who want to stay connected constantly who end up doing it. People who boast high job satisfaction usually have a pleasant work-life balance, meaning that, although they'd be happy to think about work on their days off, they probably don't need to. Stressed, overworked and undervalued people, however, would no doubt kill for the chance to switch the Blackberry off for a fortnight, but work pressures mean that probably isn't possible.
 
But the trend certainly seems to be that more and more people find themselves giving up valuable holiday time in order to keep tabs on events at work. And while I can see that worries about losing your job are pressuring many people into out-of-office work that they'd rather avoid, the simple fact of the matter is that technology has made it staggeringly simple for just about everyone to stay in the loop. Decades ago, working from home or contacting work from the other side of the world was the sole preserve of the high-flying executive - overworked and stressed, yes, but paid handsomely for it. Nowadays, it's unusual for anybody to go for a whole weekend without having a sneaky peek at their work email at some point.
 
No matter how easy it is, though, everybody has the right to switch off from work and relax when they take a holiday. It's one thing to know that someone from work might phone you at some point with an urgent query that only you can answer, but it doesn't seem right to me to spend what little holiday you have hunched over a laptop. Swapping your office chair for a beach towel isn't really going to relax you terribly if you're doing exactly the same thing.
 
Me? I am perfectly happy to check my email when I'm away from the office, largely because I'm very nosey and don't like the idea of missing out on office gossip. Unless someone asks something particularly urgent, then I feel that my out of office auto-responder does the job quite nicely of letting people know when I'll get back to them. 
 
What do you think, though? Do you enjoy the luxury of being able to switch off when you leave the office, or do you feel pressured into staying connected the whole time? Or do you just love your job so much that you don't want to stop thinking about it for a moment? Let me know in the comments.
 

Collaboration develops wireless charging system for race cars

Inductive-charging group HaloIPT has teamed up with Drayson Racing Technology to develop its wireless charging technology for high-performance cars.
Drayson Racing, which develops and races ’green’ motorsport technology, plans to market HaloIPT’s technology to the motorsport industry as a replacement for the internal combustion engine and pit stops for fuel.

The system is based on Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) wireless charging, which uses strongly coupled magnetic resonance to transfer power from a transmitting pad hidden in the road or race track to a receiving pad on an electric car.

The pad in the ground is supplied with electrical power at a current typically in the range of 5–125A. The pad is inductive so compensation using series or parallel capacitors is used to reduce the working voltages and currents in the supply circuitry.

 

Within the car, pick-up coils are magnetically coupled to a primary coil. Power is transferred by tuning the pick-up coil to the operating frequency of the primary coil with a series or parallel capacitor.

According to HaloIPT, the technology automatically adjusts for changes in the vertical gap between the car and the surface. It also has the ability to intelligently distribute power so that there is a consistent delivery of power at speed.

Lord Drayson, co-founder of Drayson Racing, told The Engineer: ‘With current battery technology you’re limited to about a 20-minute race in an electric car and that’s why we’re excited about induction-charging technology.’

He added that it could one day be seen on roads. ’I think that it requires very significant investment into the infrastructure for charging, but it’s a lot safer than the use of cables and it enables you to optimise energy transfer for the use of the car as a tiny storage element in a distributed energy grid. It’s an exciting part of the future.’

Justin Dowling


‘I am self employed CGI artist based in Stokes Croft, Bristol, originally from London.

I have over a decade experience in digital media, focusing mainly on 3D modelling, lighting & animation - I have worked for major aerospace companies and architectural visualisation studios around Bristol.

I share an office with Play Nicely, a full service media agency - I'm friends with the directors who encouraged me to take the plunge and really go for the freelance thing - I was reticent at first but I'm glad I listened to them.

Since going freelance I've worked with many agencies around the country and things have just been growing and growing - long may they continue!'
 
Twitter: @JD3D_CGI
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/mynewcat
Website: www.jd3d.co.uk/

How long have you been a Freelancer for?
I've been a full time freelancer for two years now but did bits on the side before that.

Describe your work in one sentence.
I consider my work craft rather than art - so I'm proud to say I am technical, efficient and let the ideas speak for themselves - I try to make my influence as invisible as possible.




What's the most important thing you've learnt in your line of work?
Get things done as quickly as you can. Make sure you clear the deck for the next job.

What attracted you to your chosen field?
I played with Lego all the time as a kid and locked myself in with a computer through my awkward teenage years - put that together and you get a 3D artist.

Tell us about your best project to date.
The one I'm working on right now with Play Nicely - we're doing an intro and idents for a major sporting event (coming soon!); seeing the dailies with the stirring music made me feel a bit tearful.



What sets you apart from your competitors?
I love my job, I love what I do and I am always interested in whatever I'm working on - I put as much enthusiasm into rendering rubbish bins as I do with giant robots.

If you could work on any project for any company/organisation, what would it be and who would it be for?
I would love to be doing VFX for the inevitable remake of Ulysses 31 with someone like MPC.

What frustrates you the most about your job?
Lack of routine - you can't just down tools at 5 o'clock and go home. It can really affect other aspects of your life and really upset the balance. First you miss the gym, then you are eating junk food and then before you know it you're raiding the good bins outside Subway at 4am.




What pearl of wisdom can you offer to someone thinking about starting out as a freelancer?
Don't. I don't want any more competitors!

If you could have ONE super power, what would it be?
The ability to make everyone around me accept that they are wrong about everything.




What's your favourite bit of kit?
My HTC Desire HD - I can run my business from my phone if I need to; I can even remotely access my work machines and troubleshoot.

Tell us a random fact about yourself.
I have never purchased my own underwear.

What's your favourite song of all time?
An impossible question! But to pick one... 'The Disappointed' by XTC




What is your favourite App?
Spotify for mobile - bring warehouses worth of music and all your playlists to any gathering.

Iphone or Blackberry?
Android!

Too Cool for School or too School for Cool?
I am the omnipotent all-seeing, all-hearing master of time, space and infinity.

Facebook or Twitter?
You don't get to see how obese your school bullies have become on Twitter, so Facebook.

Eat In or eat out?
Eat in, at the office desk watching renders.

Report suggests big ROI for UK government on High Speed 2

PwC has produced the first analysis of what the government could expect to see as a financial return if it sells the infrastructure of High Speed 2 (HS2).

According to a statement, figures show it could produce between £6bn to £7bn as a return on its £13.9bn investment.

The report, written by PwC for Greengauge 21, a not-for-profit think-tank researching the economic impact of high-speed rail for Britain, has calculated the return if HS2, like HS1, has its infrastructure sold off under a 30-year concession.

Delivering a return on Government’s investment comes before the end of the public consultation on the project on 29 July and focuses on the costs and revenues associated with the planned 175km high-speed route between London and the West Midlands.

The current timeline for HS2 is for it to open in 2026 with a potential sale once built. Once up and running, it will allow speeds in excess of 200mph and an estimated journey time of just 49 minutes between London and Birmingham.

Richard Abadie, PwC partner and global head of infrastructure finance, said: ‘HS2 will represent a significant investment in the UK’s national infrastructure. Given the pressure on government finances it is important to minimise the financial impact of this investment through asset sales.

‘Our report says the government may be able to sell the infrastructure for between  £6bn–£7bn, representing up to 50 per cent of the initial design and construction costs. This will be a key consideration in the continuing affordability debate, not only for HS2, but for the wider high-speed network.’

Jim Steer, director of Greengauge 21, said: ‘This new analysis by PwC demonstrates that HS2 is an investment that not only helps the wider economy, but also makes a healthy £6–7bn payback to the Exchequer three years after opening.

‘This is a very good up-front return on the £13.9bn construction cost. HS2 is unusual in that it is a transport project that generates very large cash receipts, as well as other transport and regeneration benefits that will improve the productivity of the economy, right across the regions, and especially in the Midlands and the North.

‘There are potentially further cash returns over the lifetime of the project. The Exchequer will receive, over time, estimated extra tax receipts on the profits earned by the infrastructure concession holder and rail operating franchises worth £1.5–£2bn and, at the end of the initial concession period, HS2 could be sold again, generating a further £1–£2bn return to the taxpayer.’

The report is based on the planning assumptions developed by HS2, with a journey time from London to Birmingham of 49 minutes, anticipated peak train frequencies in 2026 of 11 trains per hour on the high-speed track from London to the West Midlands, and then onto Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and Glasgow. Fare prices are assumed to increase in line with the rest of the rail network.

In November 2010, the government completed the transfer of a 30-year concession of HS1 to a consortium for £2.1bn. The sale took place shortly after the completion of the 108km line that cost approximately £5.8bn to design and build.

Ruth Kedar and the logo for Google.

Back in 1999, Ruth Kedar was teaching design at Stanford University, California. While here she was introduced to two students named Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The two students were looking for a designer who could design a logo and website and Ruth was invited to attend a meeting. The first time she met with the Page and Brin they told her they were establishing a company based on internet searches and the youthful pair were planning on giving people free, instant access to information about any subject. “It’s going to be called Googol,” smiled Larry Page, “A mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeroes”.

“Most of the companies that offered searches at the time were big portals like Lycos, Netscape and Hotbot, and results of the searches were similar to results from the Yellow Pages: If you wanted to appear in them you had to pay,” Kedar said. “This was the beginning of the era of gathering information on the Web. Sergey and Larry wanted to do something else, what we call today an ‘organic search’ or a ‘natural search’, which brings relevant results. They already believed then that the future of the internet was hidden in searches”.

Page and Brin were clear on what the logo should achieve. They wanted something that would clearly differentiate them from the other search players as well as embody their unique vision. These other players were commercial portals first, and search engines second. Google wanted to convey that it was as a search provider first and foremost. It offered fast, comprehensive, and above all trustworthy search results.Based on these guidelines Ruth Kedar explored many directions. At the time connections were slow, screens only displayed 256 colours and Brin insisted that a maximum of 24 words be used on the webpage because speed load was such an issue.

Ruth describes the logo that was finally chosen as being, “Playful and deceptively simple. The design subtle as to look almost non-designed, the reading effortless. The colours evoke memories of child play, and the texture and shading of each letter is done in an unobtrusive way resulting in lifting it from the page while giving it both weight and lightness. It is solid but there is also an ethereal quality to it.”

Simple as it is, the hero of the design is the name itself. “From the outset, it was clear to us that the name of company had to stand at the centre of the logo,” she said. “It must be remembered that at the time, many people were afraid to use the internet, and it was important to broadcast something user-friendly both on the home page and in the logo. Something simple, that you didn’t need to be scared of, something catchy and full of life.”
 
The use of primary colours – blue, yellow and red – was born of the same desire to design something that at first sight wouldn’t be threatening.”With green there is something that stands on its own, that’s not apologising,” she said, “and also the two Os that lean slightly to their sides. This gives a little drive to the logo, but also shows that nothing on this site is standard.”
 
When asked why the logo hasn’t changed for many years, Kedar replies, “It still looks very different from anything out there. I think one of the great successes is the fact that when you say the word Google, you see the logo in front of you.”

John Fountain, freelance copywriter and writer. Follow on twitter – Fountainjohn

Researchers study motions of self-organising nanostructures

US researchers are developing self-organising nanostructures that can initiate wave-like motions such as those observed among the tiny hairs of the lungs.
In the body, these cilia act to clear microscopic debris from the lungs and determine the correct location of organs during development. Their beating motions are synchronised to produce metachronal waves.

Due to the importance of ciliary functions for health, there is great interest in understanding the mechanism that controls the cilias’ beating patterns. But learning exactly how cilia movement is coordinated has been challenging: each cilium contains more than 600 different proteins.

‘We’ve shown that there is a new approach toward studying the beating,’ said project lead Prof Zvonimir Dogic of Brandeis University. ‘Instead of deconstructing the fully functioning structure, we can start building complexity from the ground up.

The experimental system was comprised of three main components: microtubule filaments — tiny hollow cylinders found in both animal and plant cells; motor proteins called kinesin, which consume chemical fuel to move along microtubules; and a bundling agent that induces assembly of filaments into bundles.

The researchers found that under a particular set of conditions these very simple components spontaneously organise into active bundles that beat in a periodic manner.

In addition to observing the beating of isolated bundles, the researchers were also able to assemble a dense field of bundles that spontaneously synchronised their beating patterns into travelling waves.

Self-organising processes of many kinds have recently become a focus of the physics community.
These processes range in scale from microscopic cellular functions and swarms of bacteria to macroscopic phenomena such as flocking of birds and traffic jams. Since controllable experiments with birds, crowds at football stadiums and traffic are virtually impossible to conduct, the experiments described by Sanchez and colleagues could serve as a model for testing a broad range of theoretical predictions.

Artificial cilia exhibit spontaneous beating

Artificial cilia exhibit spontaneous beating

Wednesday, 3 August 2011

A question of sports.

Google PlusIt’s still on TV. That Head and Shoulders Jenson Button ad. Sports men and women in adverts are generally not a good thing. Just when one of these particularly annoying ads has finally removed itself from our airwaves a new ad comes along; a different sportsperson but with an equally vacuous and robotic-like demeanor. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Sportspeople and advertising can be a harmonious match, as some companies have worked out.


If you haven’t seen the Jenson Button ad I mention above then you can truly consider yourself to be one of the lucky ones. This now seems like a poorly chosen moment to ask you to view the clip below if you haven’t yet seen it. I feel like I should have started off by lying and saying that the ad was really good just so I could have gotten you to watch it and then been able to start my rant afterwards. But I couldn’t have done that. Firstly, it would be downright dishonest and secondly, and most importantly, I couldn’t risk anyone only reading the first paragraph or two and then leaving the blog thinking I actually do like the ad without discovering it was only a ploy.




This ad is particularly mean on its audience as it puts them through several key stages of viewing displeasure. The first of which is perhaps the most damaging of all. When he says the word ‘racing’ followed by ‘spacing’ you immediately know the formula the ad is going to take. You know that the ad is going to show him in a series of situations which he will describe with just one word which will probably rhyme with the others used. It’s a bit like that deflating moment when you’re watching a play and one of the actor’s lines rhymes with the previous one; you know another song is about to rear its ugly head and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.

The next stage of frustration is how the advert fails to even do what it’s supposed to be doing. The words are set-up to rhyme, ‘racing’ is followed by ‘spacing’, which in turn is followed by ‘bracing’. Fine. This is then followed by ‘amazing’ and you think, OK, a bit disjointed perhaps but OK. But then the next word is ‘lie-ins’. Lie-ins?! This makes no sense. From this point onwards any feeling of connection between his little juxtaposed scenarios is completely thrown out of the window as the next words in the sequence are ‘rubber’ and ‘stuff that works’.

The next irritation is the sheer length of time the ad goes on for. By the time he says the word ‘winning’ you think to yourself ‘surely this is nearly over now, surely’. But it’s not, and in his prophetically ironic words of choice, you realise that no-one is ‘winning’ in this advert, everyone is losing.

The final stage of frustration with this advert is when he says ‘little perks’ when being surrounded by beautiful women. The profoundly understated choice of wording ‘little perks’ making this flocking of members of the opposite sex seem on about a par with a cup of tea in the afternoon perhaps with an extra cheeky biscuit on the side.

There are an awful lot of things annoying about this advert but I think it’s reasonable to assume that if the exact same terrible ad formula were given to anyone other than a sportsperson it wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad to watch. There is something about the sportsperson thrown in front of the camera that lets you know it’s going to be a train-wreck before it even starts. The thing is I don’t blame the sports people at all. To be fair they largely don’t pretend to be good at anything outside of their sport. I’m sure Jenson Button doesn’t claim to be a good actor. He probably got the offer to do the ad, thought ‘yeah, cool, that sounds like a nice little earner’ and got himself in front of the camera as quickly as possible. I would definitely do the exact same thing in this situation. It’s the advertisers I blame. They are the ones wanting to put these people in front of the cameras. This seems to be a tactic that I can only assume would be detrimental to the advertisers themselves. I say this because I just simply cannot image anyone being able to get over how annoying ads like this are to be able to then take on what the actual message of the ad is supposed to be.

To prove that the Jenson Button ad is not the only example of irritating ads centering around sportspeople have a look at the clip below featuring Kelly Holmes doing a breakfast cereal ad with patronising overtones-a-plenty.



And remember, that as an Olympian, Kelly Holmes knows what’s best for YOU! I would argue that the reason the advertisers don’t question their own tactics in getting these sportspeople to do their ads is probably because the types of products they’re usually advertising are complete ‘cash-cows’. These are the types of products that sell themselves. They are huge, well-established brands that everyone already picks up walking round the supermarket anyway. Even if the ads for these types of products featured someone simply screaming at the audience not to buy the product it probably wouldn’t really have any major effect.

What it probably really comes down to is crass generations from advertisers about target demographics and the belief that certain groups will be impressed enough by sportspeople to forgive appalling acting. In the current graduate climate can we not please see more drama graduates being put into these ads as there is no doubt whatsoever that they would do a better job a thousand times over. Also, the target demographics for these ads probably wouldn’t lose any admiration or identification with the brand in not seeing a celebrity sportsperson cast in it. In fact, the absence of such celebrities would probably makes them listen to ad more they ever have done before.

If the advertisers really want to insist on using the sportspeople in their ads though there are definitely better ways of doing it than the above examples. Manufacturer of pens, Sharpie, decided to use David Beckham in one of their TV ads. Now footballers are probably the worst group of all for lacking in the personality stakes in front of a TV camera. So how do you solve this problem? Simple, just remove the need for them to talk in the ad. If the pulling power of the ad is simply the presence of the celebrity alone then I guess there often isn’t a need to make them read from a script. I’m sure Sharpie’s weren’t worried about David Beckham’s acting skills in this ad. He probably would have done a good job, but the silent presence seems to work surprisingly well.



The other way of utilising sportspeople in advertising is to actually concentrate on what it is they do well; their sport. It’s a simply idea but for some reason one that’s often overlooked. It makes sense to get someone who’s famous to do what they are famous for doing. It could be argued that Nike Golf realised this in using Tiger Woods in their great TV campaigns.



This ad is perfect. The idea behind it is simple; film Tiger Woods being awesome at Golf to sell Golf stuff. The ad isn’t too long and it’s ‘trick-shot’ fun style means it doesn’t bore people who don’t like golf. Well done Nike.

Maybe Head and Shoulders could take a leaf our of Nike’s book here and have someone being awesome at shampoo?! Hmmm maybe not. Or I guess if they really want to use Jenson button then they could make use of his talents and have him zoom round a racetrack while someone sits in a seat behind him applying shampoo.

By Chris Fiander

Facial-recognition software could help to save great apes

Attempts to save populations of great apes could be helped by new facial-recognition software designed to monitor the animals in the wild.
Researchers from Germany’s Fraunhofer and Max-Planck societies are designing a program that can recognise individual apes from photos, video and audio footage recorded in a specific area and so help to count the numbers living there.

‘The biologists [looking after apes in the wild] have to evaluate whether a management strategy is efficient or not,’ Alexander Loos from the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology told The Engineer.

‘They have to know the number of individuals of a specific species, whether a population is declining or increasing and which factors influence the population.’

Remotely operated cameras and audio equipment are already used to help monitor animal populations in the wild, but they often produce more data than can be manually processed.

The new semi-automatic system can filter the footage to find where the apes clearly appear and then identify individuals in real time using complex algorithms, in a similar way to human face-recognition software such as that of the Microsoft Kinect.

‘This technology has to be adapted but the similarities of the human face and the ape’s face are clear and so we decided that it is a good idea to use face-recognition software,’ said Loos.

This will be augmented by audio-recognition software that can classify sounds such as threatening grunts and chest drumming, providing information about the animals’ behaviour, as well as helping to identify individuals.

recognition
© Dr. Tobias Deschner – MPI EVA (2009), Taï Nationalpark. 

While the software uses similar principles to that designed to identify human faces, it has the particular challenge of needing to work in poorly lit conditions and without the subject standing still and facing directly into the camera.

A test of the first version of the software using 24 chimpanzees from Leipzig Zoo achieved a recognition rate of 83 per cent, but this dropped to less than 60 per cent in poor light or when the faces were partially obscured.

The software has so far relied on algorithms that look at the features and shapes of ape faces, but the researchers now hope to improve it by adding the ability to detect more individual characteristics such as wrinkles or facial marks.

Loos said it was difficult to set a specific target success rate but added that 90 per cent in captivity and 75–80 per cent in the wild would be good.

The team, which also includes academics from the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, is one year through the three-year project. The researchers are also working with a team from Bristol University, which has developed software to identify penguins according to their body markings.

Other similar research has looked at recognising dolphins from their dorsal fins and elephants based on the shape and condition of their ears.

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Growth, what growth?

For almost two and half years politicians have been more or less united in their eagerness to say positive things about manufacturing.

Way back in January 2009, in the teeth of the downturn, the then business secretary Peter Mandelson called for “less financial engineering and more real engineering”. Fast forward  29 months and Lord Mandelson’s successor Vince Cable can regularly be found uttering similar statements.

Along with many others, The Engineer has welcomed this apparent recognition that industry could and should be an engine for economic growth. But with the UK’s latest economic figures suggesting that growth has all but stalled it’s a mantra that’s beginning to wear a little thin.

Economic growth slowed to just 0.2 per cent in the last quarter -  and with manufacturing apparently stagnating there are few signs of the long hoped for rebalancing of the economy. Indeed, the vilified financial services sector that triggered the recession in the first place appears to be recovering fastest.

Government has tried to present the news as positive, with both Cameron and Osborne hailing the modest growth as evidence that the ‘UK is a safe haven in a storm’. But shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, along with almost every major newspaper, poured scorn on this suggestion, arguing that January’s VAT rise and deep cuts in public spending have effectively choked off the economy.

The office of national statistics has attempted to sweeten the pill by suggesting that the Royal Wedding may have had a downward impact. Although, perhaps mindful of the scorn poured on him when he blamed bad economic news on last year’s snow, Osborne has shied away from blaming the royal family. Once again, the mere fact that an extra bank holiday can even be entertained as having a significant economic impact is a reminder of the parlous state of the economy.

There’s clearly no magic bullet, but there is still much that could be done to shore up the UK’s manufacturing industry. Government Initiatives such as the current Red Tape Challenge, which is asking manufacturers for suggestions on which burdensome regulations to change or cut , are a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done. Failure to ensure anything less than a continued and unrelenting focus on creating the right conditions for the UK’s manufacturing businesses to prosper will be disastrous for the future of the UK economy.

In the meantime the message from everyone from the CBI to manufacturers’ organisation EEF is “sit tight”. The CBI is predicting some economic bounce-back in the autumn, while EEF has identified a recent surge in manufacturing activity that could make this quarter’s figures less depressing. Let’s just hope the fragile recovery isn’t derailed by weather or weddings.

Floorplanner.com

May be one day it will be needed?

Have a click.


Cameron announces fund to support higher apprenticeships

Prime minster David Cameron today announced details of a £25m fund aimed at supporting up to 10,000 advanced and higher apprenticeships.
According to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Higher Apprenticeships Fund will support the expansion of apprenticeships up to degree equivalent in companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, where there is unmet demand for the higher-level skills.

Industry representatives — including those from advanced manufacturing, information technology and engineering — are now being invited to bid for the fund, which will be delivered via the National Apprenticeship Service. The new apprenticeships will commence from October 2011.

‘The Higher Apprenticeships Fund is a crucial step towards placing vocational learning on a par with academic study, giving bright youngsters the opportunity to work with and build the most dynamic firms in the country,’ said business secretary Vince Cable.

The £25m for the Higher Apprenticeships Fund is part of a package of additional investment in apprenticeships totalling £180m, announced in this year’s budget.

The fund will reportedly build on support offered to business via the Growth and Innovation Fund and the Growth Review, which are designed to target government support on companies and sectors that will benefit most from additional investment in skills training.

‘Apprenticeships make good business sense for young people and employers,’ said Nigel Whitehead, BAE Systems’ group managing director. ‘The advanced training offered by higher apprenticeships will help the UK meet its skills requirements over the next decade.’

Andreu World

Interesting Stuff,

Check it out, Have a click;

High speed rail, biofuels, and a manned space-flight retrospective

This Friday sees the government closing its consultation on the route of HS2, the high-speed rail line designed to cut journey times between London and Birmingham to 49 minutes by 2026, with work expected to begin in 2016.

Under existing plans London’s Euston station would be redeveloped and a new hub built at Old Oak Common, west London, for separate branches to Heathrow and the ’High Speed One’ Channel Tunnel Rail Link, although the airport will be directly linked if the government responds to calls to move the route further west away from the Chilterns.
In the longer term two more lines are planned north of Birmingham: one serving Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh; the other calling at Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle.

Steven Hayter, chair of ICE’s High Speed Rail working group said last week that while the HS2 proposals open up significant economic opportunities and present ‘good value for money’, the business case must continue to be reviewed as the proposals develop.

Additionally he urged government to ensure the UK wide benefits are realised, by committing to the full ‘Y’ shaped route extending to Leeds and Manchester and by giving consideration to future extensions to other key UK cities.

In a statement, ICE also called on the government to ensure that thought is given to the route’s connection points to the existing network and the costs involved in providing extra capacity at terminals.

In particular, how the London Underground lines will cope with the estimated 80,000 additional passengers, each day, that HS2 will bring into Euston station and whether the proposed single track route linking HS1 and HS2, set to operate in the same corridor as the North London line, could cause further congestion to that commuter service and potentially cause delays to HS2 services.

Still with transport and news that Thomson Airways is set to operate the UK’s first sustainable biofuel flight from Birmingham to Palma in Mallorca this Thursday, subject to testing and safety clearance.
The biofuel being used will be a blend of Jet A1 fuel and hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) fuel.

Germany’s DLR recently announced that Lufthansa has started using biofuels on its regular scheduled flights as part of a €6.6m project.

Six months of testing began on July 15 with the airline using the fuel in an Airbus A321 on flights between Hamburg and Frankfurt.

One of the engines will run on an equal mixture of regular fuel and biosynthetic kerosene and the airline estimates the biofuel will reduce CO2 emissions by up to 1,500 tonnes.

Lufthansa says the biosynthetic kerosene is derived from pure biomass (biomass to liquids – BtL) and consists of jatropha, camelina and animal fats.

Tuesday sees the publication of BP’s second quarter results, which a year ago saw the company announce a loss of £17bn following the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

This will be followed on Wednesday with the delivery of the Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation Team report. The team were tasked with developing conclusions and recommendations from the 20 April 2010 oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 and led to America’s largest ever environmental disaster, with up to 208 million gallons of oil spilling into the sea. The leak was capped on July 15 and declared ’effectively dead’ on September 19.

Recommendations will be forwarded to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Since the disaster, the technical group of the UK’s Oil Spill Prevention and Response Advisory Group (OSPRAG) has overseen the development of the OSPRAG capping device which will be a key element of the UK’s oil spill response contingency plans. The cap is now rated for deployment in water depths up to 10,000ft on wells flowing up to 75,000 barrels per day at 15,000 psi.

It might be Monday morning but Briefing is already looking forward to some free time and a visit to a new exhibition that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight. “Gagarin in Britain” is a free exhibition hosted at the British Council and runs from July 19 to September 13.

According to the event’s publicity material, the exhibition will showcase items from the Vostokmanned space programme including the first space suit – SK-1, including the padded inner lining, blue rubberised pressure-suit and outer orange layer; and an ejector seat of the model used by Gagarin.

These exhibits are accompanied by Soviet posters from the Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics; a film made by Roscosmos showing original footage of the early training programme and the 1961 launch itself; a model of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite in the world, launched in October 1957; space food; and one of the earliest dog space suits. Tours of the exhibition are scheduled from 4pm to 5pm every Tuesday and Friday.

The power of dreams.



Let’s say you have one of those tricky briefs to crack today. The pressure is on, the floor is covered in balls of screwed up paper and you can hear the twitch of an account handlers arse right outside your door.

In this kind of situation, take a tip from a few scientists. Instead of banging your head against a wall, go home, head for the bedroom, climb under the covers and go back to sleep. Because some of our most creative moments happen when we are having a deep REM nap.


Apparently REM, or rapid eye movement sleep, is when most dreams occur and this is the time when we are better able to come up with original thinking.

In fact, a study at the University of California San Diego says that volunteers who entered REM during sleep, improved their creative problem solving ability by almost 40%.

When you sleep your mind does not turn off; quite the contrary, it becomes very active during dreaming. Through dreams, your mind

Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm

continues to work out solutions and tackle problems and taps into your innate creativity and problem solving skills.

The old saying “to sleep on it” is a perfect example. Sleep is a powerful problem-solving tool and you can be flat out in the land of nod and still come up with a work of genius. Take the song ‘Yesterday’ for example. When The Beatles were in London in 1965 filming Help! McCartney was staying in a small attic room in a house on Wimpole Street.

One morning, in a dream he heard a classical string ensemble playing, and, as McCartney tells it:  “I woke up with a lovely tune in my head. I thought, ‘That’s great, I wonder what that is?’ There was an upright piano next to me, to the right of the bed by the window. I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F sharp minor 7th — and that leads you through then to B to E minor, and finally back to E. It all leads forward logically. I liked the melody a lot, but because I’d dreamed it, I couldn’t believe I’d written it.”

This creative surge happens more often than you imagine. Stephen King often gets ideas for his books from dreams. Golfer Jack Nicklaus credits an improvement to his game from a dream that showed a new way to hold his golf club. And back in the 70’s copywriter Terry Lovelock was awoken from a dream and scribbled ‘Heineken Refreshes The Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach’ on a sheet of paper next to his bed.

Psychology professor Richard Wiseman, say’s. “In our dreams we produce unusual combinations of ideas that can seem surreal, but every once in a while result in an amazingly creative solution to an important problem”. Professor Wiseman also stressed that the findings reveal the ease with which ideas are produced, but called on bosses to alter working habits to aid creativity.

“Ideas can come to people at any time and in any place, but to fully reap the rewards of a creative mind people’s brains need to be primed for a new way of thinking”, he said. “Britain’s bosses must therefore foster new approaches if they want to get the most out of their employees.”

John Fountain is tucked up with a nice cup of Horlicks.

Technique turns car windows into computer displays

Glasgow University researchers are helping to develop a technique that aims to turn car windows into computer displays and create more efficient smartphone screens.
The scientists are part of a Europe-wide project, also involving Fiat and glass maker Saint-Gobin, that aims to commercialise a method of creating three-dimensional nanostructures on the surface of glass to affect the brightness and direction of light.

This nano-imprinting lithography technique could help to create the next generation of ’head-up displays’ (HUDs) on the windshields of cars and aircraft — that emit their own light rather than using a projector — in order to display information to the driver.

It could also be used to develop windows that maximise the amount of light they let in and to create brighter LEDs and computer displays that use less energy.

‘The technology has never quite broken through in microchips because the number of defects is too high, but it’s an ideal application for optical properties such as light displacement,’ Glasgow’s Dr Nikolaj Gadegaard told The Engineer.

‘The defects won’t necessarily affect the way the light comes out. We’re working at around 100nm, so the eye won’t pick up defects at this scale.’

The technique typically involves creating a stamp that is pressed into a heated polymer to leave an impression of the 3D nanostructure. The NaPANIL project aims to create a scalable way of recreating this method with glass.

As part of the project, Fiat is hoping to use nano-imprinting on a car windscreen to produce an emissive head-up display (eHUD) that provides the driver with speed and direction information without having to look down at the dashboard.

Light would enter the windshield from LEDs at its edge and travel through the glass until the nanostructure released it in the right place — a more energy-efficient method than projecting images onto the window.

‘A lot of light doesn’t want to come out of glass, so we need to create a structure that can pull light out as efficiently as possible,’ said Gadegaard. ‘If we then put the structure on an LED, we could get a two- or threefold increase in brightness.’

Another part of the project therefore aims to use the technique to create brighter, more efficient LED screens. A third element involving Saint-Gobin has set out to create windows that improve natural lighting and reduce the need for electric lights.

One of the biggest challenges for the project is finding a way to produce the stamp to manufacture the pattern quicker and more cheaply.

One idea that could be useful when the nanostructure pattern is replicated over a wide area would be to create a stamp representing one unit of the pattern and repeat the imprinting process over and over — much quicker than making a larger stamp.

The project is due to end in May 2012, by which time the participants hope to have created a prototype technology for the eHUD and the brighter LEDs.

Roar deal. Why the Brits failed at the Lions.



The results are in and the news is not good, I’m afraid. UK advertising agencies have failed to win a single gold at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. It’s the second year this has happened and now there’s talk of an industry that isn’t trying, losing its lustre and throwing up work that is simply not good enough.


Our popularity – as a nation, as a whole – isn’t exactly at a premium and we’ve probably been too superior about our creative chops for too long, but these are petty excuses. If British work wasn’t good enough for the big gongs, then it wasn’t good enough.

That’s certainly how Justin Tindall, group executive creative director at Leo Burnett sees it:
“No, we weren’t good enough. We need to do better. It was not a great year last time either. Production [company] wise we are doing really well, but creative agencies didn’t hit the mark.”

This showing is particularly weak when we consider that the UK placed the second highest number of entries, with 275, and our track record at Cannes is historically a good one. Not long ago, the grand prix was pretty much owned by UK agencies. Firms from this country won three years in a row, starting in 2005 with a campaign for PlayStation, then Guinness and Honda. The last UK grand prix winner was Fallon in 2008 for the infamous Cadbury’s Gorilla ad.

So, what has gone so badly wrong since that simian, Phil Collins board-sweeper?
Well, a recession for one thing. When good times turn bad, high concept, brand awareness work tends to be replaced by hard sell, unit shifting campaigns, as clients clamour for cold cash and market share. Of course, there’s no reason this sort of direct response advertising can’t be creatively adventurous, but the concept is suddenly, considerably less important than return on investment.

I know, I know, strong creativity should deliver the desired sales – but the agency has its work cut out, persuading the client to focus on ideas rather than discounts and promotions.
And, let’s be honest, sometimes it is easier to acquiesce to a demand for lowest-common-denominator, quick wins than to jeopardise a lucrative relationship – but that becomes a real problem when the agency’s work is scrutinised in the judging process.

However, this is a challenge facing the global business, and other countries have managed to build ads worthy of awards, regardless of the economic climate. In truth, I guess we’ve just become complacent.
British (and especially London) creative businesses have long enjoyed a worldwide reputation for innovation and excellence, so it’s entirely possible we have begun to imagine the glittering prizes are ours by right. Glowing reputations are hard won however, and even harder to maintain, so when investment and energy drain away from the industry, we are quickly exposed.

If the bar is at a height we are struggling to reach, exactly how high is it? Well, this year’s grand prix went to Nike’s slick World Cup TV ad, “Write The Future”, which featured famous footballers as well as guest stars like Homer Simpson, Roger Federer and Gabriel Garcia Bernal. The clip is from Wieden & Kennedy in the USA, who also picked up the prize in 2010 with Old Spice’s spoofy ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’.




True, Americans placed the most entries, but that aside, it seems they genuinely are leading the way. BBH New York also won a gold with their work for Google Chrome, which ran during the Super Bowl in January. It cost almost £3m for the airtime alone, but the client, chief executive Eric Schmidt, admitted the ad had paid for itself, delivering both high creative standards and return on investment.

This is not simply the preferred model for every campaign in the foreseeable future, it is the only model. Unless we have a burning desire to be seen as also-rans in an industry we have always led. And summed up with the disparaging comment many of us remember from school: ‘Could do better’.

Magnus Shaw, blogger and copywriter

www.magnusshaw.co.uk   
www.creativepool.co.uk/magnusshaw