Networks of Evil

One thing that struck me while we were away is how things conspire to make your mobile phone useless when you go abroad. Just when you are in a place where you could make the best use of portable data access you find that it is prohibitively expensive, if it is available at all. Using voice is out of the question. I can’t think of anyone I’d be happy to pay 85p a minute to talk to, or receive a call from at 70p. So I made no calls on the phone while we were away. Then one night the network made my phone call itself. Which was very confusing for me, as well as costing me 1.55 a minute..

Then there is network connectivity. Charging 8 pounds a megabyte for data access from the phone makes it unusable on the internet. Are there people who can afford to do anything with data at this price? I don’t think so, because I didn’t run across anyone wearing a solid gold hat and looking up things on their phone. From a technical point of view it can’t be any more expensive to provide me with network access than it is to connect the local folks sat next to me on the tram. This is just plain and simple profiteering. Ugh.

So we go back to the hotel. They are happy to provide me with “unlimited” access to the interwebs for just 29 dollars a day. That is around twenty times the cost of my home connection. But wait, it gets better. Once I’ve transferred 100MBytes (i.e. read a few emails, uploaded some pictures and visited a few image heavy web sites) I can either pay extra per megabyte or get shunted onto a capped data connection that is actually slower than my dialup modem used to be. Double ugh. It’s almost as if they have concocted a tariff that makes it impossible for someone to, say, watch a movie from Netflix in their room. Or actually achieve anything.

My experience has been that the more posh the hotel, the more appalling the network charges. The Howard Johnston motel I stayed at had free WiFi. Once I found myself in a very pricey hotel in Las Vegas (I wasn’t paying fortunately) where a network connection wasn’t expensive, it just wasn’t there at all.

In the end we became the worst kind of WiFi leaches, looking for places that happened to provide working WiFi for free. It is always sobering to read all these reports of how connected devices are going to be the way, the truth and the future, and then find yourself in a place where the network either doesn’t work, or is so expensive as to be useless.

Number 30 in Plumbing and Household Automation

I’ve just received a box containing 10 copies of my new book, Start Here! Learn the Kinect API. This means that the book is actually in the shops and you can all rush out and buy it. I suggest one copy for home, one for work and another for travelling should just about hit the spot. Apparently the ones in the shop are not signed by the author, which makes them a lot more valuable.  And I can categorically state that none of the books contains a “Golden Ticket” which is worth a million pounds and gets you a free tour of the University of Hull campus. Not one. Honestly.

And according to the Amazon Best Sellers Rank (show me an author that says he doesn’t check this and I’ll show you someone telling a whopper) the book is (drum roll):

#30 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > How-to & Home Improvements > Plumbing & Household Automation

And it is lot of fun.

Birthday

Today is my birthday. I’ve had quite a few of them actually. In fact, so many that I can remember using most of the things in this exhibit from the Powerhouse Museum.

Many thanks to those who sent birthday wishes. Had a great day, although thanks to the jetlag it ended at 7:30pm….

Water Welcome Home

So, what would you like after 30 hours of travel? Would that be a cup of tea, or perhaps a nice lie down? How about a flooded kitchen? Thought not. Neither did I. All seemed well when we staggered back into the house. Although the kitchen floor did seem a bit shiny……

You can see the culprit above, the plastic fitting behind the washing machine had failed and released quite a lot of water into our brand new kitchen. So rather than any of the above, we were instead engaged in mopping up and making good, along with wondering if the place would ever get back to how we left it.

Oh well. Worse things happen at sea. For one thing, there is a lot more water there….

Flying home via the Skydeck

Today we flew home. But because the flight was not until the afternoon we had time to sample the Melbourne Europa Tower Skydeck , which has “the highest viewing platform in the Southern Hemisphere”.  This gave some very good views, as shown above.

It also had WiFi, so I could download some more Kindle books for the journey back..

Next we got to sit in an aluminium tube for 23 hours…..

Pinball and Batman

This is in one of the Melbourne shopping centres, you get this view if you eat at Nandos, which worked for me. After lunch I dragged number one wife all across town and down to an industrial estate for some pinball action. I’d seen an advert for a place called Bumper Action that said they had lots of machines for sale.

The advert didn’t lie. They had loads. all on free play.

..including the best machine ever, on the left. No idea who the bloke is.

They also sold spares, and I was able to buy a replacement set of electronics for the clock on my TZ machine. If you are ever in Melbourne you should check them out. They have loads of juke boxes and some arcade games too. Lovely place, run by folks who really care about the important business of shooting small metal balls around a wooden playfield….

Once we had made our way back to town we headed off to the Imax to see the latest Batman movie. All I can say is wow. I reckon it was really, really, good. Spiderman last week was OK, but this film shows how it should be done. I was a bit worried that, at well over two hours, the film might drag a bit in the middle. But it didn’t. A fitting end to perhaps the best superhero trilogy that we have seen.

Puffing Billy

Thought we’d get out of town for the day. So we went for a ride on Puffing Billy, which is apparently Australia’s favourite steam train. This is not Puffing Billy by the way, this is how we got to it. Essentially we took a train ride to take a train ride, which made perfect sense at the time.

This is Belgrave, where the train starts from. They seem to have some really cool cars there apparently.

This is Puffing Billy (or at least one of them)

Levers and pipes

Heading home.

It was great fun.I love the smell of a hot steam engine.

When we got back I had another go at capturing the view from our room.

Video Games and Napoleon Bonaparte

First stop today was the Game Masters Exhibition at the ACMI. Very good except for one thing, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures.  Then it was on to the Napoleon exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. I wasn’t planning on getting quite so much culture today, but they had a deal on the tickets.

I think these letters are actually larger than the great man himself..

You know you’ve made it when they reproduce you in bronze….

The exhibition was really good. The thing I learnt most from it was how little I know about French history. But it does look very interesting.

Trams with profound questions.

Once we had got our fill of culture we went for a wander around town.

Melbourne skyline

There were some really nice coffee shops on this street, I’d love to have been in town long enough to try all of them.

Shopping centre architecture

An umbrella display, slightly processed..

More Melbourne Culture. And watches.

Today we caught a tram to the Docklands part of Melbourne. They had a Roman Exhibition that looked interesting.

The whole thing was inside an enormous tent, which we loitered in for a while. Lots of Roman technology that you could play with, which was fun.

Then we went on to the harbour area, where you can take quite nice pictures.

After lunch we went over to Victoria Market, which has loads of stalls selling mostly tasteful merchandise.

Then we staggered back for the evening.

The view from our window gets even nicer at night.

Melbourne Museum Monday

This is the view from the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, a very imposing place that we didn’t get round to visiting.

When we go travelling we always like to take in the local museums and try to acquire a bit more culture (which might be a lost cause in my case). Today it was the turn of the Melbourne Museum.

This was ace. There was a superb exhibit on how the brain works. It turns out to be quite complicated. Next to the museum is the Melbourne Imax cinema. On the way out we bought tickets for the Batman movie that comes out on Friday. To superheroes in one week, both on Imax. Can’t be bad.

Melbourne Sunday

This is Flinders Street Station in Melbourne. It says so on the front.

Today we started our first full day in Melbourne. Lovely place. Has trams and everything. At the moment it looks like it is to Sydney what Boston is to New York.

But with more graffiti, which makes it a bit like Seattle too.

This is Federation Square. They have the Australian Centre for the Moving Image here, which has a fantastic exhibition all about the origins of modern mass entertainment. It even has an exhibit for Skippy.  There is also an interesting looking Game Masters exhibition. Perhaps we’ll take a look at that later.  No, we’ll definitely take a look at that later…

After lunch we went down to St. Kilda, which is down by the beach side. Every Sunday they have booths selling crafty bits and bobs, which were fun.

This is the entrance to Luna Park.

This is the main street in St. Kilda, given a very mild HDR treatment...

I just love what they did with this place.

The weather was very kind, but one thing I have noticed is just how fast it can change from bright blue skies to grey.

To this, complete with hardy swimmer.

Anyhoo, after a good walk round and another ride on the trams we were ready to turn in. Jetlag to Australia is the worst I’ve ever experienced. The day is completely inverted and there is no way to ease yourself into it gently. After well over a week we are still waking up at odd hours and feeling exhausted at 8:00 at night. But we are not letting it stop us have a great time. More fun tomorrow.

Hello Melbourne

This is the view from the hotel room. Not too shabby.

Today we headed out of Sydney towards Melbourne. People were telling us that “Melbourne is really cold and dismal in winter”. Australians don’t know what winter is. Winter is when water turns solid and you can see your breath. Winter is when it gets dark at four in the afternoon. Winter is properly cold. What Australians have is “Winter Lite”, where it gets dark a bit earlier and sometimes you have to wear a jumper. Or, was we call it in the UK, September.

Really looking forward to spending a bit of time exploring the city tomorrow.

Fishes, Animals, Robotic Personalities. And Spiderman

Today was our last full day in Sydney. So we did everything. In the morning we went round the Sydney Aquarium.

..where they had some sharks...

..some jelly fish..

..some fishy cupcakes..

...and Nemo.

Then we moved on to the small zoo. This is not on the scale of the big zoo we saw on Monday, but you can get a lot closer to the animals and insects.

Butterflies

All together now, Ahhh.....

..and this would be the wombat. In the afternoon we went to the Powerhouse Museum, which is a bit like the Science Museum in the UK, with some fantastic exhibits including a virtual personality on the end of a robot arm.

I asked it a most revealing question.

It particularly likes Camembert apparently..

They also had a Verbot, which I remember playing with many years ago.

We took a ride back on a genuine, bonafide, five car monorail.

This was the view as we were having tea. Very nice. After we had eaten we went to watch the new Spiderman movie. It was good fun, although you have to ask yourself why they made it. And then you remember that you’ve just given somebody a bunch of cash to see it.

Getting Arty in Sydney

We started the day with a trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art which was fascinating. I don’t really understand all the art, but I know what I like, and there was enough of that for me, along with some thought provoking stuff.

From the cafe we got a great view of boats doing a square dance in the dock outside.

After a coffee we went and took a look at the Sydney Harbour bridge close up. Well impressive. Some of the students and judges had been able to do the walk along the top of the bridge over the weekend. You can just see one set of plucky souls doing just that on the left hand part of the bridge at the top. I was sort of keen to do it, except that I suffer a bit from vertigo. And they wouldn’t have allowed me to take a camera….

This is a view of the underneath of the bridge. Solid Stuff.

Exploring Sydney

The Sydney locals call this “The Gear Lever” or something like that. All I know about it is that you can go to the top, and when you get there the views are really, really good.

This is the looking towards Darling Harbour, where the Imagine Cup was based. The bridge in the middle of the picture is lined with Imagine Cup flags 

This is the view of the flags on the bridge, complete with genuine, bonafide, electrified, five car monorail..Once we got down from the tower we walked round to the Sydney Opera Hose.

This is half way around the dock, where they had this chap drawing a really nice picture on the ground.

Once we got round to the Botanical Gardens we waited a while for the sun to set so that we could get ourselves a picture.

Imagine Cup Winners

Today we had the World Final presentations. These are the top three teams. Congratulations to all, very well done. I’m very proud to have played a part in getting you folks to the finish podium. The standard this year was even higher than last year, and that was an amazing year too.

What was interesting to me was that of the six finalists, four of them had designed and built their own hardware. Some teams were creating and building surface mount devices (even etching their own circuit boards). Others had undertaken ambitious mechanical designs builds. Several of the teams had applied for patents based on their entries and all of them had workable business plans. As a judge I often had to pinch myself to remind me that these were student teams, not experienced developers pitching several years of effort.

In the afternoon, before the awards ceremony, I spent two very happy hours walking around the showcase booths where each of the 72 teams was set up and telling everyone all about their entries. Special shout out to the team from Peru with their Kinect based solution for helping children with Down’s Syndrome, one team member had even painted his hand bright red to help with the demonstration on the demo floor. Also I must mention the iQube team from Romania, who had designed and built some astonishing electronics inside something not much larger than a couple of matchboxes.

The Imagine Cup this year completely rocked. The organisation was top notch, with Ali and Jeff putting in sterling efforts to make everything just worked. Australia was a fantastic venue and every contestant has had a life changing experiences, as have the judges.Next year the Imagine Cup moves on to Russia. I really, really hope I can get to go there.

Imagine Cup Finalists

All set for judging

This morning we had our six finalists strut their stuff. We used two ballrooms in the conference centre, and shuttled between them so that the teams had time to set up and we could keep the action flowing. What impressed me was the huge number of students who turned up to see the presentations. The places were packed, which was great. And the presentations delivered, which was excellent too. Once we had seen all the presentations we entered our scores into the judging system and then tomorrow we’ll find out who won at the World Finals. After lunch we headed out on one of the cultural afternoon trips, to the zoo. Which was amazing, with loads of animals and a great view of Sydney.

Harbour view

One of these animal pictures is not as real as the others.

Imagine Cup Second Round Fun

Today we did pretty much what we did yesterday, only this time we took 20 teams down to 6. We also had a new feature for the Imagine Cup 2012, we went down to the Showcase booths and had each team demonstrate their entry. This was great fun. Not having a desk between the judges and the teams made for some great interaction and interesting conversations, at least in the teams that I saw. And then there were six:

• uCHAMPsys, Taiwan
• quadSquad, Ukraine
• Coccolo, Japan
• MobileEye, New Zealand
• i-GO, Portugal
• Symbiosis, Greece

We announced these at 10:00 pm on Sunday night. Finalist presentations tomorrow. Can’t wait.

Imagine Cup First Round Fun

Today we had the First Round presentations in the Imagine Cup World Finals. 72 teams, loads of judges and a whole bunch of presentations to watch and score.Above are some of the teams just before we gave them their competition briefing and sent them off to sell their solutions. Once all the teams had presented we we had to get the scores back in, announce the teams moving forwards to Round 2, summarize their session feedback from the judges and then send it back. All before midnight. And we did. Congratulations to the following 20 teams:

• tethoCloud Australia 
• Xight China
• Level Up Egypt
• Greenway Germany
• Symbiosis  Greece
• DocTek Systems  Ireland
• Coccolo Japan
• Dancing Pillow Jordan
• Etzoockee Kazakhstan
• Let IT Bee Korea
• MobileEye New Zealand
• Grawesome Oman
• wi-GO Portugal
• Technology Lanterns Qatar
• IQube Romania
• AlphaWaves  Singapore
• Osmosis Slovenia 
• uCHAMPsys Taiwan
• cipher256  Uganda
• Quadsquad Ukraine

These are the teams that are going forward to Round 2. They get to present tomorrow, all over again.  The standard this year has been the highest I’ve ever seen, as were the scores, with teams separated by wafer thin amounts. It was hard to draw the line between them, but at the end of of the day we have to do that.

This was the picture just as the results were announced. If you were one of the 52 teams that didn’t make it, please, please, please stay happy. You have a lot to be happy about, more than you know. Just the fact that you have taken part in the competition and reached a point where someone will pay to send you half way round the world to see you strut your stuff is pretty amazing. Sydney is fantastic, the food and drink is free, and you are now on the radar of a lot of very interesting people.

One day one of whom might wake up with a need for someone who is smart, tech savvy and knows how to deliver presentations and products. And your Imagine Cup participation could suddenly change your life in a very big way.

 
Every Saturday night they have a huge firework display here. Which looked very nice indeed.

Imagine Cup 2012 Opening Ceremony

Cutting the ribbon to start things off….

And then firing off a whole bunch of streamers....

Once the briefings were over it was time for the opening ceremony.

I suggested that someone might like to walk over there and press the sign, but nobody did.

The view outside.

Just time for a quick walk around the block, and then an early night.