Just how much technology can you fit in your suit case?

Monday, 18 January 2010

The Editor shares her New Year resolution to adopt a reductionist approach to personal technology

The annual family skiing holiday has brought home to me just how much technology “stuff” a family has to pack. It used to be that my husband looked in despair at my make-up and toiletry luggage quota but now that concern has been transferred to what became known on holiday as the “tech. bag.”

I thought my needs were simple: My phone and my iPod and headphones. Obviously I need a charger for both devices and I actually have two chargers for my iPod – a computer dock and direct mains plug in. Speaking of plugs, we were travelling to France so we did need three or four mains adapters. As we were driving through France to our destination, I also needed a cable that allows me to play my iPod through the car audio system. Also, I’m partial to playing a little Nintendo on occasions so that came along too with (you guessed it) a charger. But that was me done.

My son favours an iPhone – can’t live without it and its apps. – so he brought that, along with assorted charging devices (iPhones aren’t strong on holding a charge apparently) and ear phones. For Christmas, he had received special portable speakers through which to play tunes stored on said iPhone, so they had to come, along with mains charging cable.

My husband also favours the iPhone – can’t live without it and his rather quirky music store - which my son and I can definitely live without, hence ensuring our own music devices were packed and that he also had assorted earphones and chargers, both plug-in and mobile.

We wanted to watch movies while on holiday, so we packed the laptop…oh yes, and chargers (one even specially purchased on route which allows the laptop to be charged in the car!) We decided to take just the one digital camera to capture holiday images for posterity PLUS CHARGER. And, as we were driving down to the south of France, we needed the sat. nav. – two in fact, as we weren’t sure which one had the European roadmaps loaded. Did the sat. navs. need a charger? I’m guessing yes.

By this time the “tech bag” was looking pretty full, especially as I then added hairdryer and hair straighteners for good measure.

When we eventually arrived at our destination, it took me as much time to unpack the tech bag as it did this year’s Christmas Tree lights - no, they were not in the bag, I was just remembering the experience from three weeks previously – so many intertwined wires! So much frustration! So much wine needed to calm me down.

So my new year’s resolution is to consolidate my technology needs. I’m in the market for an all singing, all dancing, killer piece of tech. Email me with your suggestions.

And if it can dry and straighten my hair as well so much the better…

Here are some more technology stories with their own messages for 2010...

While the world digitally develops, are we actually built for technology?

In the light of the announcement that Google operations are pulling out of China, Jay Abbott, Threat and Vulnerability Management, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, comments on the security issues prevalent in this case.

"In such cases as Google in China, the attackers target the users themselves - typically the weakest link in the systems security chain. "A recent survey highlighted the most common password in use on a free major web based email platform was in fact "123456." All of these points lead us to the question, is a simple password enough security for any type of system or data, even free web mail? And are we in fact programmed to simplify security to the point of attack? While we build technology are we actually built for it?

Share the costs, share the benefit

JPY, UK distributor, consultancy and software house, has announced the start of an innovative new development and commercialisation programme.
Companies are often sitting on top of core business applications, developed internally, that are very strong; so strong, in fact, that elements of them might be of use to other businesses. At the same time, the cost of having new functionality and updates written to improve these programs can be substantial.
JPY asks: “Why not commercialise programs and sell them to other businesses as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) at the same time as having them updated and improved?” In so doing JPY’s customers can reduce their development costs, reduce risk, improve the consistency of their software and generate income.
“A lot of customers’ applications do things that are generally applicable to many businesses”, said Dr John Yardley, MD of JPY. “Rather than sell customers time-and-materials development, we partner with the customer to make their web application a service. Customers get a return on their investment by allowing others to utilise all their hard work. For once, the developer is just as keen as the customer to produce a great application at the lowest cost. Clearly a company is not going to want to give away its competitive advantage. However, if you can abstract all the company-specific functionality and you have something left, then you probably have a commercially viable service.
The traditional time-and-materials development model is looking increasingly creaky and frayed-around-the-edges; it’s simply not economical enough for many companies in today’s financial climate. Companies want more flexible options. Co-commercialised SaaS is the way forward. This is the kind of agile, forward-thinking response the business community deserves.”

iMinds - is this is the future of general knowledge acquisition?

In an effort to make broad-based general knowledge accessible to people's lifestyles and devices, a new company, iMinds has recently launched 8 minute knowledge grabs for MP3s and other devices. Understanding the importance of general knowledge as a way of giving context and clarity to the specialised knowledge we use every day, iMinds has sought to replace some of the music on our MP3 players with knowledge instead. Across a diverse 12 categories of information including Politics, Business, Science and History, iMinds gives the listener a self-contained knowledge grab complete with engaging soundscape.
Now with over 180 titles, is this is the future of general knowledge acquisition? iMinds' expansive library is a unique targeted learning-on-demand experience that's compatible with people's devices, interests and lifestyles and introduce readers of all ages to a new way of learning. iMinds has also released a Junior range, based on the school curriculum, aimed at ages 7-14years.

1 in 4 men have pulled a ‘sickie’ to play videogames

A study of 1,920 employees in the UK has revealed that the number one reason men skive off of work is to spend some quality time with their games console, with a third of all sick days, genuine or not, resulting in time spent playing videogames. Videogame release days are the time most people will make the call to inform their boss they’re ‘too ill to work’, with 14% of men admitting they had no qualms calling in sick in order to play high profile releases such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto on the day they are released.
Mark Pearson, retail expert and managing director of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk had the following to say: “The sickie is a time-honoured employment tradition, and although employers, including myself, wouldn’t be happy to know that our workers are faking a cold in order to play the latest PS3 or Xbox 360 hit, you’ve got to admire their dedication to their interest! Whatever the reason people decide not to go into work despite being fully capable, sickies cost the UK economy a shedload of money. Perhaps the Government could look to recoup lost revenue from games developers?”

Sustainability determining the value of a business?

In today’s business world, sustainability is one of the factors that determine the value of a business to customers and investors. With additional, increasing pressure from legislation, it is now a requirement for businesses to be open and transparent about the environmental cost of their products as well as the financial.
In order to demonstrate the sustainability of their operations, control costs and prepare for environmental legislation businesses need to be able to easily access relevant data about environmental impact. Developed in response to this increasing demand, IFS is a global enterprise applications company whose enterprise resource planning (ERP) software contains a first - Eco-footprint Management- a module that provides the capability to monitor, measure and evaluate the environmental impact of a company and its operations, and the related costs to the business.

Don’t ever expect a business computer to be used again

While the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ mantra is becoming second nature in our everyday lives both at home and at work, more than 90 per cent of IT decision-makers don’t appear to care whether their computers could be used again once their organisation has finished with them.
While companies may well be complying with the EU’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, which demands the amount of IT waste sent to landfill is reduced, research conducted by IT refurbisher Remploy e-cycle reveals this is more likely to be from recycling component parts rather than from ensuring computers are able to be used again. Asked what their considerations were when disposing of their old IT, only eight per cent said they were concerned about making sure computers could be put to a positive use by someone else where as nearly three quarters (73 per cent) claimed to recycle old equipment.
Remploy e-cycle commissioned the study for the launch of its new Re-use IT campaign which aims to reduce the levels of IT waste being sent to landfill by encouraging the re-use of otherwise redundant equipment once all pre-existing data has been securely erased.General manager Malcolm Watson says: “The importance of reusing things is now well understood for many types of waste, both in the office and at home, yet for some reason IT equipment such as laptops, printers, mobile phones and PDAs seem to be treated differently. We believe vast amounts of IT waste are unnecessarily being recycled every year when it could easily be used again. Our Re-use IT campaign aims to make both business people and consumers alike realise that their computers can be reused, providing all the information they hold is securely erased.
“Our philosophy is always refurbish and reuse, and only dispose if a computer can’t easily be fixed. Once refurbished, machines can be sold, redeployed back into an organisation or donated to charity.”