BL Direct now has over 7000 journal titles available for full text purchase:
http://www.bl.uk/news/2008/pressrelease20080527.html
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
Data librarians
Interesting article in CILIP Update:
http://www.cilip.org.uk/publications/updatemagazine/archive/archive2008/june/Interview+with+Macdonald+and+Martinez-Uribe.htm
which quotes:
"‘Recent research carried out by the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training3 has indicated that the amount of data generated in the next five years will surpass the volume of data ever created, and in a recent IDC White Paper4 it was reported that, between 2006 and 2010, the information added annually to the digital universe will increase more than six fold from 161 exabytes to 988 exabytes.’ "
http://www.cilip.org.uk/publications/updatemagazine/archive/archive2008/june/Interview+with+Macdonald+and+Martinez-Uribe.htm
which quotes:
"‘Recent research carried out by the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training3 has indicated that the amount of data generated in the next five years will surpass the volume of data ever created, and in a recent IDC White Paper4 it was reported that, between 2006 and 2010, the information added annually to the digital universe will increase more than six fold from 161 exabytes to 988 exabytes.’ "
Dangers of the cloud
Yep, still reading back through Bloglines (having a bit of a spring clean!) and came across a piece from Bill Thompson on the dangers of the cloud - funnily enough, had a similiar conversation at a meeting last week...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7421099.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7421099.stm
Image search on the web
Reading through old posts in my Bloglines account, came across this BBC story about attempts to address the limitations of image searching on the web:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7395751.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7395751.stm
Thursday, 5 June 2008
BCS at Cheltenham Science Festival
I went across to the Cheltenham Science Festival today, for the BCS sponsored talk "Computer Whizz: The Best is Yet to Come" given by Professor Dave Cliff, from University of Bristol. It was a really enjoyable talk...
Dave Cliff started off by covering some of the big things to happen over the last 50 years. He talked about the idea that one major thing happens every decade and how Moore's Law (giving examples relating to processors, hard drives, digital cameras) is being proved right and has indeed become a self-fulfilling prophecy. He showed the progression from mainframe - minicomputer - PC - LAN/distributed networks - Internet/Web - utility/service computing.
He also talked for a while about utility computing, sharing some of the thinking from HP. He showed the design for a centre with 50,000 blade servers which was interesting to see, especially to learn that around 350 are replaced a day and new kit arrives in shipping containers. In fact, Sun/Google have patented the shipping container which has it all ready to go and just needs "plugging in". The cloud (HP called it utility computing, IBM on-demand computing, Sun N-1) is the future business model offering real-time processing (drug design, real-time translation, simulation, gaming worlds). And in fact, there has been work done on market-based control so computers can effectively bid for work, and the user can determine the price they are willing to pay for remote processing.
Cliff also explained a little how computing is learning from nature - e.g. genetic networks, superorganisms, ecosystems - and socioeconomic systems - .e.g marketplaces, languages, ontologies.
And of course, being a science festival, a talk on computing wouldn't be complete without a reference to robots! There has been a lot of work on humanoid robots but there have been many successful commercial applications of non-humanoid robots e.g. irobot.com. Cliff also shared some thoughts on how the lines between human and robot may be becoming blurred, through for example, the use of intelligent prosthetics for amputees; cochlear implants. Might there be a future for storing our memories increasingly on devices and not in our heads?
Lastly, he touched very briefly on two new-ish areas: amorphous computation and quantum computing. Apparently, Bristol Uni is a Centre for Excellence for quantum computing. Though this is where it started getting a little rushed and possibly too technical to cover neatly in a few minutes so will have to look into these a bit more...
All in all, a really enjoyable presentation :-)
Dave Cliff started off by covering some of the big things to happen over the last 50 years. He talked about the idea that one major thing happens every decade and how Moore's Law (giving examples relating to processors, hard drives, digital cameras) is being proved right and has indeed become a self-fulfilling prophecy. He showed the progression from mainframe - minicomputer - PC - LAN/distributed networks - Internet/Web - utility/service computing.
He also talked for a while about utility computing, sharing some of the thinking from HP. He showed the design for a centre with 50,000 blade servers which was interesting to see, especially to learn that around 350 are replaced a day and new kit arrives in shipping containers. In fact, Sun/Google have patented the shipping container which has it all ready to go and just needs "plugging in". The cloud (HP called it utility computing, IBM on-demand computing, Sun N-1) is the future business model offering real-time processing (drug design, real-time translation, simulation, gaming worlds). And in fact, there has been work done on market-based control so computers can effectively bid for work, and the user can determine the price they are willing to pay for remote processing.
Cliff also explained a little how computing is learning from nature - e.g. genetic networks, superorganisms, ecosystems - and socioeconomic systems - .e.g marketplaces, languages, ontologies.
And of course, being a science festival, a talk on computing wouldn't be complete without a reference to robots! There has been a lot of work on humanoid robots but there have been many successful commercial applications of non-humanoid robots e.g. irobot.com. Cliff also shared some thoughts on how the lines between human and robot may be becoming blurred, through for example, the use of intelligent prosthetics for amputees; cochlear implants. Might there be a future for storing our memories increasingly on devices and not in our heads?
Lastly, he touched very briefly on two new-ish areas: amorphous computation and quantum computing. Apparently, Bristol Uni is a Centre for Excellence for quantum computing. Though this is where it started getting a little rushed and possibly too technical to cover neatly in a few minutes so will have to look into these a bit more...
All in all, a really enjoyable presentation :-)
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