ScotlandIS

Living computers solve complex math puzzle

Scientists have genetically tweaked E. coli bacteria to create simple computers capable of solving a classic math puzzle, commonly called the “Burnt Pancake Problem." The resulting advance in synthetic biology, according to researchers, hints at the ability of tiny “living computers” to aid in data storage, evolutionary comparisons and even tissue engineering. The mathematical problem imagines pancakes of varying sizes stacked in random order — each with a burnt side and a golden brown side. The solution requires using the minimum number of manipulations to stack the pancakes according to size, with their burnt sides all facedown. Each manipulation involves flipping one or more pancakes, reversing both their order and orientation.

Ron Weiss, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and molecular biology at Princeton University, said the new study provides a “nice demonstration that there’s some capability to instruct cells to carry out computational tasks. And I think this certainly brings a new aspect to what’s been demonstrated before.” Weiss, who wasn’t involved with the research, said the effort is another sign that the field is progressing, despite its relative infancy. “We really are at the beginning, at the vacuum tube stage or something like that, if you use the comparison with computer electronics,”

MSNBC

All we need now is a USB pancake flipper.

“How can the Internet make the world a better place?”

OECD Secretary General, invites Internet users to upload a short video on a dedicated YouTube video channel answering the following question: “How can the Internet make the world a better place?”

The OECD will select some of the best contributions and, in Seoul, will ask ministers and meeting participants to react in a video. You are invited to record your answer to this question in a short 1 or 2 minute video and to upload it on YouTube. You are totally free with regard to how you want to address the question and the content of your answer.
Entries will be closed the day before the opening of the Seoul Ministerial Meeting (16 June 2008).

The link below will help you upload your video on the Web site.
Upload your video: www.youtube.com/FutureInternet - Click “Submit”

With thanks to Bill Graham, Strategic Global Engagement, at ISOC

Data Centres - the opportunity for Scotland

Can Scotland provide a competitive location for environmentally friendly data centres ? How green can they really be? and what can we do to create a serious international offering ? 

Scotland is an environmentally-advantaged location for world-scale data centres, powered by sustainable energy. These would attract multinational investment, create a number of high-value jobs, and underline ICT’s contribution to the green agenda.

Here is IBM's take on it...

Public Sector Procurement Debate

"Imagine that Scotland had an economic development tool with 16 times the budgetary power of Scottish Enterprise's £500 million a year. Pie in the sky? No, actually the Scottish Executive does have such a tool. It is called the procurement budget - the £8 billion a year that public bodies spend on buying goods and services from the private sector." 
Peter Jones, The Scotsman, 6th October 2006

The Scottish Executive is committed to ensuring that, "wherever possible and, consistent with the need to secure value for money, suitably qualified SMEs have the opportunity to compete for public sector business."

Are they acheiving this ? Peter Jones of  the Scotsman raises some interesting questions..

Read the full story at The Scotsman and add your comments here, or contact Peter direct

Five areas of potential !

Jeff Wacker, Chief Futurist, EDS

There are five areas worth highlighting with real potential for Scotland. The first is information technology, where we will see a new fourth wave of innovation starting around 2008.

The second is biotech, which will be driven by the ageing baby-boomers' need for better healthcare technology.

The third is robotics, particularly personal robotics, and the fourth is nanotechnology, which I don't think we have grasped the significance of yet. In reality, nanotechnology will have a dramatic impact on our daily lives and will change the nature of all sorts of materials - from clothes that never become dirty to components for engines that allow incredible levels of performance.

And finally the area of eco-technology to help with the re-greening of our planet will demand new technologies.

The full text of this article is at ScotlandIS News

Developing an Incubator Mindset

Andy Mulholland, Global Chief Technology Officer, Capgemini

While Scotland has lots of small technology companies, it has no real big companies.

So how does Scotland grow companies? I suggest that you need to identify a niche that permits you to be a global company and have the combination of market muscle, financial stability and so on that it takes to grow those businesses.

There is a tradition of exceptional engineering talent in Scotland that goes back more than 300 years. I believe the long-running tradition that Scotland has for engineering is a very powerful brand. There is even a brand identity for Scottish engineering, even if comes out in a slightly funny way in things like Star Trek.

But to accelerate the growth of the technology industry Scotland needs an incubator mindset - the way universities can help incubate and the ability to get your idea to market. If you look at the Americans or the Israelis then they are very good at this. There are companies who specialise in doing nothing more than finding these kinds of start-ups and getting them out into the big wide world and taking a cut on the sales in the meantime. These types of companies are generally absent inside the UK market - particularly in the Scottish market.

The missing link !

David Farquhar, chief executive of 2in10, a specialist in technology product marketing

Why is Wolfson Microelectronics the only IT company we've got that has made it onto the FTSE 250? Innovation is not the problem. Building quality is not the problem either. The problem is we're not commercialising it.

Bob McDowell of Microsoft said last week that there is a lack of ambition in Scots who stay at home. I don't agree with that. It is just that that ambition is not being translated into the right methods to take our technologies global.

We've got brilliant innovators. We've got great engineers developing and designing great products. But the problem is most of the time they are products that do not solve the market's real problems, so they sit on the shelf as technologies that never get used. Or they are not being sold to the market in the way the market wants to buy.

If our companies are going to get their great technologies to the market, the managers have to structure their companies and design their strategies around the way that others in the industry want to buy things.  That's the only way to create companies of global scale. 

The full text of this article is at ScotlandIS News

Working together - the missed opportunity

Ann Budge, CEO, Sopra Newell and Budge UK's view is the industry needs to work together more.  "To grow more companies from a small base into larger ones we need to collaborate more. One of the things holding us back is what appears almost an unwillingness to co-operate and work together. I do not know if it is because we are all frightened of competition or because we are all so focused on our own businesses.......

And, yes, of course you've got to be fairly aggressive in business. But recognising that by co-operating and working collaboratively we might get more out is, I think, an attitude we need to encourage.

I also think companies in Scotland don't understand the value of marketing. I am not convinced a lot of Scottish companies understand what marketing actually is or what it can bring to the technology market.

(The full text of this article is at ScotlandIS News )

Sunday Times Coverage

A big "thank you" to the Sunday Times Scotland for their coverage of the debate on the future of Scottish Technology - Standing at the Crossroads.  The global speakers article is at Times online and the follow up article with a number of Scottish industry representatives is in this week's paper.  The articles are also reproduced in the News section on the ScotlandIS website.

So what do Scotland’s own IT experts think? The cream of the industry will meet at the ScotlandIS Global Forum at Scotsoft 2006 in Edinburgh on October 5. Ahead of the conference, The Sunday Times asked some of the best-known figures in the Scottish IT industry to respond.  We have posted their responses and interviews with a number of others on this blog. 

Agree or disagree add your comments and join in the debate !
Polly Purvis

Innovation in the right places?

Paul King, Senior Security Adviser, Cisco

We're working with a number of authorities in Glasgow where we now have community academies up and running. We are looking to get some of this work adopted as part of the curriculum in Scotland.

There's a general concern about the falling number of people going into IT and obviously as we're driving more technology into people's homes and businesses we need skilled people to be able to do that.

It's not just a challenge for Scotland - it's a worldwide problem. The last few years of the education being offered to students before they make a decision as to what career path they are going to go down will hopefully improve the skills that are out there.

I don't think we are bad at innovating, we're bad at not innovating in the areas that the industry is moving to.