Financial Markets Data

Financial markets react in different ways to every day events. Relating how this happens, i.e. how market trends are influenced through news, has been the domain of traders in a number of financial institutions. Australian-based SIRCA is now taking data from Reuters and making this available to academic institutions and other financial companies. They provide the TAQTIC engine to aggregate, summarize and publish financial data -- often leading to very high data volumes. A very interesting use of large scale data Grids.

Europe's top 100 from Red Herring Magazine

There are two tech./business trends magazines whose opinions I truly respect -- Wired and Red Herring. Recently, Red Herring revealed it's Top 100 European tech entrepreneurs. A very interesting collection of companies -- ranging from news categorization company Newstin to Rummable -- a location based "social discovery" tool.

How does Google make money?

According to a report released on April 21, 2008 from Millword Brown Optimor the total worth of the worlds top 100 brands is 1.94 trillion US dollars in 2008. Most interesting of all, the world's top brand today, worth over 86,000 million US dollars is Google! A brand that has now surpassed world leaders such as Coca Cola, Microsoft, Nokia, Marlboro, McDonalds and GE. What does this mean? Well, today, Google makes more advertising revenue than mainstream UK television channels such as ITV. According to a report from the UK Times Newspaper, Google generated over £325 million of advertising revenue between July and September 2007 -- surpassing that of ITV (even when taking into account advertising revenue from sporting events such as Rugby). Do these statistics indicate a potential future change in the way individuals interact with media? Is on-line the future of information dissemination and mass marketing?

Life in 2000 frames per second

Ever realized what a single second would seem like if we were to capture it in 2000 of its constituent parts. That's what high speed cameras are capable of doing today -- capturing 2000 frames in one second. Watch the yellow balloon exploding video below. Watch how the water holds its shape when the balloon is burst -- before gravity pulls it apart.

"They Work for You" -- analysing voting record of MPs

Members of Parliament often vote on new bills in the House of Parliament in the UK. Ever wonderered how your MP has been voting? Has he/she been a "rebel" or voted with their own party? Now you can find out. The Web site They Work For You allows an individual to find out who their MP is, details about how to contact their MP, and also analyse how their MP has been voting. See also the related site Public Whip -- both use the Hansard database. A true example of democracy -- whereby the public (you and me) can find out about our MPs!

Afro-Cuban and Latin Jazz

A beautiful recording from Omar Sosa with over 21 musicians bringing together a combination of African, Latin/Cuban and Jazz sounds on one recording called Afreecanos. Omar Sosa's sound is very much influenced by the electronic Jazz guru Steve Arguelles. This has to be world jazz at it's absolute best! -- note the music textures introduced through background electronic instruments on "Why Anga?" -- a tribute to Cuban percussionist Anga Diaz.

Clothes that Change: Sensor networks and art

A highly creative London-based company called "Cute Circuit" brings together expertise in sensor networks (both sensing and actuation), art/design and textiles, to weave together a range of clothes that enable people to hug each other via Bluetooth (Hug Shirt), a dress to change patterns based on the mood of the person wearing it (KineticDress), and clothes that change shape and colour depending on the time of day (Mystique). A really good demonstration of art and technology.