New $25 Raspberry Pi Model A board ships from South Wales
A smaller version of the Raspberry Pi computer built in South Wales is driving the cost to under $25 for portable and low cost media centres.
element14 has announced the launch of the new credit card sized Raspberry Pi Model A board in Europe, selling at under $25. It uses the same 700MHz ARM1176 Broadcom BCM2835 processor (Boradcom has a design centre in Bristol) but only 256MB of RAM is included as standard, there is no Ethernet connection and only one USB port, but it does use considerably less energy for battery-powered applications.
The larger Model B sold over 500,000 units and demand for the Model A board is anticipated to be from those making industrial control modules, from robotics, automation, and significantly, to use the Pi as a very cheap media centre.
In recent weeks element14 has launched two exclusive accessories to support the development of new applications and uses: The Gertboard, a flexible experimenter board that connects the Raspberry Pi out to the physical world, and PiFace, which allows the user to sense and control the real world. Both are available to buy to supplement activity on the Raspberry Pi and can be used with the Model A and Model B boards.
“The Model A board is the next item in the Raspberry Pi range to be manufactured exclusively in Wales by Sony in partnership with element14,” said Claire Doyle, Global Head of Raspberry Pi at element14. “Being a part of the Raspberry Pi revolution is something we are very proud of as computer science and programming skills are key to ensure future generations of design engineers.”
The Model A board costs $25 (£15.95) plus tax and shipping, and is available today through Farnell element14 in Europe and CPC in the UK and Ireland. Further countries will be added in the coming weeks.
www.element14.com/raspberrypi.
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West of England LEP launches High Tech newsletter
A new publication is now covering the high tech activities in the wider Bristol and Bath region from the Future Smart City to the latest chip developments.
HighTech News comes from the High Tech Sector group of the West of England Local Economic Partnership (LEP). The group supports the wide range of activities in microelectronics and embedded software and systems and feeds back into the LEP that determines the wider strategies for growth and development in the region. The West of England is the only LEP to have a group specifically focussed on technology, demonstrating the strength and skills in the region.
The six page February issue covers new funding for Future City developments, as well as a proposed £24m growth fund for innovation in the region. New technology centres are being set up by power company TDK-Lambda and subsea technology from GE. Bristol silicon chip maker XMOS is now supplying the widest range of multicore microcontrollers in the industry, while the Universities of Bath and Exeter are collaborating in a joint graphene research centre.
High Tech News is published by SW Innovation News.
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Bristol wins £3m ‘second prize’ for Future City development
While Bristol lost out to Glasgow for the Future City demonstrator project, the TSB judges rated the city’s bid very highly, so much so that they have awarded a £3m ‘runners-up’ prize.
“While there is some disappointment that we did not gain the main prize, Bristol is now the only city in the UK to have won funding from Government to be both a Super Connected City and a Future City.” said Mayor George Ferguson. “Bringing these awards together gives us a pot of nearly £15m with which we can move really quickly to lever-in additional funding and support from business to help deliver our plans.”
“We are fast becoming the UK’s creative capital, a city of experimentation and a city that offers a warm welcome,” he said. “Our achievement in beating more than 30 other cities to win government funding for Future Cities is testament to our ambitions and our strong partnership approach with both the city’s universities, businesses and partners such as Watershed and Knowle West Media Centre.”
A round up of the tech news from the Bristol and Bath region is in February edition of the the new LEP High Tech newsletter
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£600m science and technology opportunities for SW region
The UK government has detailed funding to boost its vision of science and technology, with the South West seeing significant opportunities.
The key investment is £189 million for big data and energy efficient computing to build on the research base’s capacity for analysing big data sets, in areas like earth observation and medical science, but there are other significant areas of funding.
There is a £35 million for centres of excellence in robotics and autonomous systems aiming to bring together the research base and industry. The Bristol Robotics Lab is the largest in Europe and at the forefront of such developments. Science and universities minister David Willetts (right) also announced a £1m Technology Strategy Board competition to help to accelerate the development of concepts where robots are able to interact with each other and humans.
There will also be £25 million of additional funding for the National Space Technology Programme for the development of commercial products and services using space technology and data from space-based systems which can benefit space technology companies in the region such as SciSys in Bristol.
There is also £45 million for new facilities and equipment for advanced materials research in areas of UK strength such as advanced composites, high-performance alloys, low-energy electronics and telecommunications, as well as £28 million to the National Composites Centre in Bristol.
In newer areas such as smart grid, the government plans to invest £30 million to create dedicated R&D facilities to develop and test new grid scale storage technologies, an area where the region is strong withthe Low Carbon South West group.
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South West research universities team up in new GW4 group
The Universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter today announced a formal collaboration, to boost research expertise and capability in the South West of England and Wales.
The collaboration will explore and identify opportunities for combined research to address global challenges, while also maximising the impact of and return on investment from research funding.
The group of four research intensive universities, each of which have significant research capabilities and which represent a total turnover in excess of £1,300 million, will be known as the GW4. There are already strong partnerships across the four institutions and the collaboration seeks to build on these.
Professor Eric Thomas, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol, said: “Regional groupings of research intensive universities are a rapidly emerging and important evolution, enabling the sharing of research infrastructure and the identification of thematic areas of expertise. These will be increasingly important in order for universities to address grand intellectual and societal challenges.”
Professor Dame Glynis Breakwell, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bath, said: “The collective strength of the new grouping is much more than the sum of its individual parts. Taken together, the breadth and depth of our research expertise is truly impressive providing a powerful new contender in the increasingly intense competition for research funding on both the national and international level.”
Cardiff University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Colin Riordan, said: “We want to enhance Cardiff’s world-leading research and reputation by creating a critical mass of research excellence with other UK universities. In a competitive higher education sector we need to find new ways for Wales to compete for research income.
“Working in collaboration with fellow research-intensive Universities will help us to succeed in research and tackle some of society’s biggest research challenges. Critical mass is the key to success and the combined research excellence of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter will give Cardiff – and Wales – a new and competitive edge that will place us at the forefront not only in the UK, but internationally.”
Professor Sir Steve Smith, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter, said: “This is a vital development for ensuring the growth and development of world class research in the South West and Wales. It gives us the critical mass and the quality to succeed in an increasingly competitive and research-intensive environment. The four universities already have a strong tradition of working together and GW4 will take that collaboration to a new level.”
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Bristol ‘too affluent’ for smart city cash
Bristol has lost out to Glasgow for the £24m Future City demonstrator, with the affluence of the region being a key factor.
“Glasgow has some quite extreme challenges – it has the lowest life expectancy of any city in the UK for instance – and the hope is that if we bring together energy, transport, public safety and health it will make it more efficient and a better place to live,” said Scott Cain, the TSB’s project leader for Future Cities, talking to the BBC.
That view was backed up by Universities and Science Minister David Willetts. “With more people than ever before living in our cities, they need to be able to provide people with a better quality of life and a thriving economy,” he said. “From transport systems to energy use and health, this demonstrator will play a key part in the government’s industrial strategy and give real insight into how our cities can be shaped in the future,” he added.
£300,000 from the EU for two projects as part of its Smart City Programme.
“Industry expectations have been overturned throughout this competition, and this result, too, will surprise many,” said Joe Dignan, Chief analyst for European Public Sector at market researcher Ovum. Initially, the smart money was on Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds + Bradford or Manchester to scoop the prize, given their level of preparation. However, only Bristol joined the shortlist alongside Glasgow, Peterborough and London. Peterborough was considered the wild card, while most felt London had already been given more than its fair share of the public purse in the lead up to the Olympics.
“Glasgow’s success reflects a global trend in the development of future cities being presaged by a major global event. Although it was considered the outsider in this race, its preparation for the 2014 Commonwealth Games was the catalyst to get the right people around the table to look at the performance of the city as a whole,” he added. ” There is no doubt that the judging process was objective and Glasgow’s bid excellent, but one can be sure that Westminster is happy to show its commitment to Scotland at the current time.”
The demonstrator will include better services for Glaswegians, with real-time information about traffic and apps to check that buses and trains are on time. The council will also create an app for reporting issues such as potholes and missing bin collections.
It will use analytical software and security cameras to help identify and prevent crime in the city and monitor energy levels to find new ways of providing gas and electricity to poorer areas where fuel poverty is a big issue.
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Street furniture comes alive in Bristol in world’s first digital playground
Lamp posts, bus stops and post boxes will soon play an even more important role in how Bristol operates as the result of a £30,000 award which will change the way people interact with the city.
The Watershed has announced Hello Lamp Post! as the winner of Bristol’s first ever Playable City Award, which attracted 93 entries from around the world.
The new art and technology project invites audiences to tune in to the secret conversations of the city and communicate through lamp posts, bus stops, post boxes and other street furniture this summer. Part game, part story, anyone can play by texting in a unique code found on the city’s familiar street objects.
“Hello Lamp Post! is hugely exciting and the University is pleased to support this fantastic initiative which supports Bristol’s rightful place on the global cultural map,” said David Alder, Director of Marketing and Communications at the University of Bristol
Lamp posts, bus stops and post boxes are the goosebumps of the city and so ubiquitous that they have become invisible. The ‘smart city’ approach is to augment them with technologies like digital displays, but Hello Lamp Post! seeks instead to make them playable, using existing city infrastructure to make an open, hospitable and playful experience which encourages people to notice and interact with what is around them.
The project will utilise the codes that city councils and public servants use to tell one object from another when a light bulb needs changing or a bus stop is in need of repair. For the first time, city dwellers will be able to use these codes too in order to play a game and tell a story.
The £30,000 commission seeks to create an original, future-facing work, which uses creative technology to explore the theme of the playable city and is supported by a network of organisations who exemplify Bristol’s strength in creative technologies, including the University of Bristol which acts as a partner and ambassador for the project.
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Bristol shortlists ten ideas for world’s first digital playground
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A series of 3D scanning booths scattered throughout the city. Scan your body and see it play in the city’s augmented reality museum of life. -
Inviting the residents of Bristol to rediscover their spirit of playfulness. By bursting some balloons. -
An interactive pavilion, constructed using 3D scans of personal objects provided by the public, representing the different relationships people have with the city. -
Tumbling out of a tip-up truck comes huge building blocks, all colours and shapes. Build your dream city, knock it down, and then build it again. -
The city is waking up. Lamp posts, bus stops, post boxes and more: all are rising from their slumber. They have questions, and they need answers. -
An ‘album’ installed in a series of spaces throughout the city. Part light installation, part musical performance and part generative interface. -
Explore Bristol while solving a murder mystery – even on rainy days. All you need is a Jolly Brolly, a clever umbrella that serves as your game assistant and guide. -
A network of lightweight, robust digital screens situated around Bristol inviting passers-by to get involved and play. -
A street game that blends public space, collaboration and a swarm of little wheeled robots. -
Digital songbirds are placed in trees, rooftops, alleys. Tweet them and hear your messages as beautiful bird song.
Raspberry Pi stimulates computing for kids in Bristol
Raspberry Pi (Photo credit: tkramm)
One of the team behind the Raspberry Pi £25 computer is coming to @Bristol tomorrow evening to talk to kids in the region.
The Bristol chapter of the British Computing Society has invited Rob Bishop, 22, from the Raspberry Pi Foundation in Cambridge to talk about the joy of making and using the Raspberry Pi. Rob will discuss how he got involved in the project as an intern at Broadcom (which has a development centre in Bristol as well as Cambridge) and why a career in engineering or computer science is awesome (and important!). There will also be a chance to get hands-on with a Raspberry Pi and to ask him any technical or non-technical questions you might have about engineering, computer science and the Raspberry Pi.
The talk will be followed by an opportunity for a Q&A alongside some demonstrations of how the Raspberry Pi can be used.
Rob Bishop is a Developer, Product Engineer & Evangelist for Raspberry Pi Foundation, one of the earliest engineers involved with the development of the Raspberry Pi and currently the only full-time paid employee in the Foundation.
The event starts at 1800 with the chance to have a look around @Bristol followed by the talk starting at 19:00.
Both BCS Members and Non Members are welcome – tickets are nearly sold out at bcsbristolraspberry.eventbrite.co.uk/
If you require any more information please contact simon.thorp@bcs.org
You can buy the Raspberry Pi at http://uk.farnell.com/raspberry-pi?CMP=KNC-GUK-FUK-GEN-KWL
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Bristol shortlisted for £24m Future City demonstrator project
Proposals from four cities including Bristol have been shortlisted for final interview as the Technology Strategy Board’s £24 million Future Cities Demonstrator competition nears conclusion. The interviews are tomorrow (5th december) with the announcement of the winner in January 2013.
30 Local Authorities were awarded grants of £50,000 in July 2012 to develop feasibility studies and 26 submitted project proposals by the 14 November 2012 deadline. The feasibility studies will be made public in due course as part of the competition process.
The four shortlisted project proposals are (in alphabetical order);
- Bristol
- Glasgow
- London
- Peterborough
The Technology Strategy Board is keen to build upon the involvement of all the Local Authorities in the process, and aim to continue working together. It says it will explore further opportunities to collaborate and develop the ideas and themes addressed in the applications, for example through the development of the Future Cities Catapult centre due to open next year.
Bristol’s Future City bid brings together many of the strengths of the region, from the microelectronics cluster with global expertise in microcontrollers, wireless technology and sensors for the Internet of Things, as well as robotics and smart meters, advanced materials from the aerospace cluster, low carbon and renewable energy innovations in building technology and new digital content from the creative sector.
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RoboWorldCup comes to UK for the first time in Bristol
FIRA’s World Cup of Robotics is coming to the UK for the first time from 20 to 25 August, hosted by the Bristol Robotics Lab (BRL) and @Bristol. A total of 27 teams will be competing, with 202 participants from across the world coming to pit their robotic skills against each other.
Competitors are coming from as far afield as Mexico, Canada, India, China, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan. The UK has two teams competing – one from the BRL and the second from the University of Plymouth. Hundreds of spectators are expected to watch the events unfold in @Bristol, one of the UK’s leading science and discovery centres, as top roboticists test their newest technology and hope to finish on the podium. The most highly-anticipated category is for humanoid robots which can walk and run. ‘HuroCup’ events include football, basketball, wall climbing, weightlifting and marathon running. These robots can be up to 130cm in height and weigh up to 30kg.
Other categories include ‘MiroSot’ – a five or 11-a-side football game for wheeled robots. An external vision system tracks the position of the robots and the ball, relaying this information to another computer which then calculates the next move. While it’s not quite as fast-paced as events in the Olympic Stadium, organisers promise that it will be a spectacle in its own right as spectators marvel at pioneering mechanical, electronic and advanced artificial intelligence technology in action.
Dr Guido Herrmann, from the University of Bristol, led the BRL bid and hopes members of the public will make the most of the opportunity to see world-leading robotics on their doorstep for free. He said: “We are looking forward to welcoming teams from around the world to Bristol. The competition promises to be both exciting and insightful, pushing the boundaries of robotics to the limit. This will be a fantastic opportunity for the public to see just what autonomous robots are capable of. Although very different to the Olympics, it’s another opportunity to show the world just what Great Britain is capable of – both as event hosts and being pioneers of engineering.”
A major scientific conference, the 2012 Joint FIRA-TAROS Congress, will run alongside the tournament, bringing together the world’s leading experts in robotics. The TAROS Industry Day will also be held at BRL on the Frenchay Campus of UWE Bristol on 23 August, with talks by key robotics industry figures and exhibitors from leading companies.
The event is organised with UK’s Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTN) on Robotics and the British Automation & Robot Association (BARA). Members of the public are invited to a public lecture which takes place on Tuesday, 21 August, at 7pm in the Wills Memorial Building. Professor Shuzhi Sam Ge, from The National University of Singapore and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, will discuss the ‘Era of Social Robotics’ and how social robots might one day be able to improve services, healthcare and productivity. Professor Jong-Hwan Kim, President of FIRA, said: “It is my great pleasure to have FIRA RoboWorld Cup and the joint FIRA-TAROS Congress held in the UK for the first time, especially as it’s the birthplace of modern football. Football has created a unique culture and I believe that robot sport can contribute to the future of technology through encouraging young scientists and engineers to get together during the event and share ideas to advance robotics.”
The public are welcome to enjoy the action from Wednesday, 22 August to Saturday, 25 August. For details of the schedule, please see the At-Bristol website. Entry to the RoboWorld Cup is free. The event has been sponsored by The Institution of Engineering Technology (IET), The Office of Naval Research Global (ONRG), Regional Educational Legacy in Arts and Youth Sport (RELAYS), Team South West, The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) and Maxon Motor UK.
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Bath in £5m solar panel research project
The University of Bath is part of a £5 million collaborative solar panel research project to promote the latest research into harnessing the sun’s energy to produce electricity. The SUPERSOLAR hub brings together expertise from universities across the UK and the solar panel industry to share knowledge, establish a research network and train the next generation of scientists in the field.
The consortium, funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), is unique because it brings together all aspects of photovoltaic (PV) energy generation, from research into new materials for solar panels, to the socio-economic aspects of using the sun as a source of electricity.
The Bath effort is led by Professor Alison Walker from the Department of Physics, and Professor Mike Hill and Dr Aron Walsh from the Department of Chemistry. The hub will draw together PV energy generation research from across the University, from the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, Electronic & Electrical Engineering, and Architecture & Civil Engineering.
The Bath project coordinator Professor Walker researches excitonic solar cells – devices that produce electricity from the sun’s energy through the creation of an “exciton” (or electron-hole pair). These cells are transparent and flexible and could be used on roofs, in windows or in portable applications for example in places where grid electricity is not available or is intermittent and expensive.
“Bath is a major centre for renewable energies research and has long been known for its research into photovoltaics, but this project really puts us on the map,” said Prof Walker. “The SUPERSOLAR hub brings together academics across several faculties at the University, including chemists investigating using transparent conductive oxides as contacts for all types of solar cell, engineers developing coatings that make solar cells more efficient, and researchers from Architecture looking at new ways of incorporating solar cells into buildings.
The hub, led by the University of Loughborough, also includes the Universities of Liverpool, Oxford, Sheffield and Southampton, along with the Energy Generation and Supply Knowledge Transfer Network.
Professor David Delpy, EPSRC’s Chief Executive said: “The SUPERSOLAR research hub will bring together the UK solar energy research community to address the key research challenges facing the development of the next generation of solar technologies. Scientific research into all forms of low carbon energy generation is essential if we are to reduce carbon emissions and avert dangerous climate change.”
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Leading multicore silicon conference set for September in Bristol
Multicore Challenge Conference 2012
24 September 2012
Bristol (UWE, French Campus)
TVS and ICT KTN are holding the 2012 Multicore Challenge Conference on Monday, 24 September 2012 with speakers, case studies, workshops and tool demonstrations on the latest techniques and technologies for developing systems with multiple processor and graphics cores.
Leading speakers from Imagination, Intel and the University of Bristol will also be part of a panel session at the end of the day on the challenges of developing and using multicore silicon chips. Sign up here
Provisional agenda for the Multicore Challenge Conference 2012
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Bath researchers investigate energy network complexity
Researchers from Bath are looking at new ways to make the energy network more efficient and robust.
The team from the University’s Department of Computer Science, in collaboration with Low Carbon South West and Grid Scientific, has funding from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) to investigate how a ‘coherence engine’ could enable operators to achieve significant business and operational benefits and will consider the specific scenario of responding to failures in the network more efficiently.
The introduction of Smart Power Distribution to energy networks, as part of the evolving Smart Grid initiative, will see a sharp increase in the number of systems that rely on sensors and other intelligent devices. A coherence engine may support Distribution Network Operators in extracting the maximum value from data provided by these devices.
The role of the coherence engine could be of importance as software enabled devices become more prevalent, data proliferates, fault symptoms become less obvious and network and operations complexity increases.
By developing an understanding of the anticipated operational and technical impacts of the introduction of these technologies, the researchers would be able to support Grid Scientific with its development of a coherence engine that could improve operations processes in distribution networks.
Low Carbon South West, a membership organisation which creates sector partnerships between businesses, academia, investors and local authorities to promote the growth of environmental technologies and services in the South West region, is leading the partnership and will also disseminate the partnership’s findings across it membership.
Board member Simon Bond said: “Current systems for monitoring faults in the energy network rely on their independent view of activity. As the network becomes more complex and new technologies are introduced, this lack of communication between monitoring systems could become problematic.
“Through this project the partners are aiming to determine the feasibility of a centralised view of the network which will address these complications and deal with a proliferation of network data.”
Grid Scientific, a company which designs software to support the evolution of today’s energy networks, has been investigating the potential of data coherence for energy networks over the last year. The company also draws on over 20 years of experience in telecoms networks where similar changes can be viewed as an analogue for the changes now expected in energy networks. If the feasibility study is encouraging, Grid Scientific plans to develop new data coherence products for the energy network market.
Eric Brown, Managing Director of Grid Scientific, said: “The challenges and opportunities we are now seeing in energy networks are similar to those seen in telecoms when major changes took place in that sector in the 1990s. However, substantial differences between the electricity and telecoms environments mean that a level of technical and operational innovation will be required,” he said. “We’ll be working with the research group to determine where the latest thinking in computer science can be applied to deliver solutions for energy networks.”
Dr Rachid Hourizi, researcher in human and system interaction from the University of Bath’s Department of Computer Science, said: “Understanding the feasibility of coherence to successfully meet the smart power distribution data challenges will depend on collaborative and cross discipline innovation from the electricity, IT and communications sectors. If feasibility can be shown, this project could lead to the construction of a prototype coherence engine for fault management and the extension of the approach to address improvement in other processes in the electricity network.”
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New £715K laboratory to advance cell research
A new £715K laboratory at the University of Bristol aims to equip scientists in the South West with the facilities they need to carry out the latest techniques in cell biology research.
A £715,000 grant from the Wolfson Foundation, coupled with significant investment from the University of Bristol, has enabled the refurbishment of space in the University’s School of Medical Sciences to provide a state-of-the art laboratory space for cell biologists.
The facility will house three research teams, led by Professor George Banting, Professor David Stephens and Dr Jon Lane, who share a common interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms that underlie cell function — how the tens of thousands of individual components within a cell work together for the cell to do its job.
Professors Banting and Stephens will use the facility to study how proteins are delivered to the right place(s) within cells, how they are exported from cells, and how cell membranes are organised. This research is fundamental to cell biology as it has implications for a range of disease states as well as for tissue organisation and responses to pathogen (bacterial and viral) infection.
Dr Lane’s lab applies an understanding of membrane and cytoskeletal dynamics to “autophagy” — a process of cellular quality control that is upregulated during cell stress. This process is vital for normal organismal development, but can give rise to degenerative diseases and cancer if it goes wrong.
Professor Leo Brady, Head of the University’s School of Biochemistry said: “Cells are the building blocks of most forms of life. This investment from the Wolfson Foundation helps to keep Bristol at the cutting edge in cell biology research.”
The refurbishment also provides bespoke space for sophisticated microscopy systems that have been purpose built within the Stephens and Lane research groups. These systems complement the excellent imaging equipment available in the nearby Wolfson Bioimaging Facility – this unique facility was funded from a £1 million investment from the Wolfson Foundation and completed in 2008. It is regularly used by around 100 research groups across the University. It is situated is in close proximity on the same floor as the new laboratory space.
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Bristol researchers aim for super-bright LEDs
Researchers in Bristol are working on a European project to increase the performance of white LEDs by a factor of 10 for brighter car headlights.
The €3.8m GECCO project aims to use vertical structures for the new LEDs. Modern high-performance LEDs already provide a bright light output at high efficiency and are used for automobile headlights. At present though, the production process for these kinds of LEDs is still not cost efficient enough and also the efficiency of these LEDs needs further improvement.
The international team of the GECCO project includes the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany, Madrid, Lodz and lighting company OSRAM in Munich and Regensburg.
Vertical LEDs from the GECCO project
Up to now, LEDs are being constructed in a planar way, meaning in layers and completely flat. The more light is being required, the more wafer area has to be produced, which is an expensive and laborious approach. The aim of the GECCO project is to assemble LEDs in a three-dimensional way so that actually every LED consists of a ‘light emitting tower’ from which the entire vertical surface is emitting light. Obviously the surface of the tower is much larger compared to the ground area of a planar LED. And in fact, it is exactly the gain of light emitting area that leads to a higher light output.
This means the manufacturing of an LED becomes much more cost-effective and as a result replacing ancient electric bulbs, halogen lamps as well as energy saving bulbs to LEDs is getting a lot more profitable. Considering the fact that currently 20 % of electrical energy worldwide is being utilized for illumination, this innovation provides an enormous potential as far as cost-effectiveness is concerned. In addition, LED lighting is particularly important for future electric mobility, particularly for electric cars.
The dimensions of the ‘light emitting towers’ are within the micrometer range. This means approximately one million LEDs fit on an area of one square millimeter. This process requires utmost precision which can only be achieved by applying nanotechnology manufacturing techniques.
The GECCO project is coordinated by Prof. Andreas Waag from the Institute of Semiconductor Technology at Braunschweig.
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SouthWest crowdfunding helps City startup avoid venture capitalists
A London startup Escape the City has used Exeter-based crowd funding speciliasts Crowdcube to raise £600k in less then two weeks after turning down two offers of venture capital funding.
Initially the company raised £500k in 9 days and then extended the pitch by £100k to £600k, raising the extra tranche in under 4 days.
Ironically, Escape the City is a website that helps professionals to make career transitions. It has a community of more than 65,000 people who want to escape from unfulfilling corporate jobs – be it launching a start-up or joining a quirky company or non-profit organisation.
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Kickstarter startup funding to come to the UK
The Kickstarter crowdfunding scheme for startups and projects is aiming to come to the UK in the autumn.
The company offers start-ups a route to raise funding for specific projects from the general public in return for ‘investor’ benefits. A target amount to raise is set and if that amount is not reached, nothing is funded. Unlike Exeter-based crowdfunding venture Crowdcube, the benefits do not currently include shares.
The latest hit project on Kickstarter is Ouya, a low cost games console that comes with its own software development kit (SDK) so that it can be deliberately hacked (or programmed, as we used to say!). The $100 Android-based console is to the Raspberry Pi what the old ZX80 DIY computer kit was to the BBC B Microcomputer. Funders get their name engraved on their own console, or, for enough money, on the whole production run.
UK companies have been using Kickstater in the US. Xenonauts, a game by Goldhawk Interactive in London, last month raised $155,000 from nearly 5,000 small investors. However, in order to set up a Kickstarter account, you have to use Amazon Payments and in order to use Amazon Payments you have be an American citizen, and that has caused problems for international companies.
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Memorial for South West entrepreneur Kenn Lamb
Serial entrepreneur and stalwart supporter of South West innovation, Kenn Lamb, has lost his long fight against cancer. A memorial service will be held at the Memorial Woodlands, Earthcott Green, Alveston, Bristol, BS35 3TA on Thursday 19th July at 12 noon.
It was as CEO of Hewlett Packard spinout Elixent that saw him take on a wider role in the industry, building up the startup until Panasonic took over the business in 2006. His last role was CEO of Cambridge startup Cyan Technology, re-building the company while commuting from the SouthWest.
He started out at Plessey Semiconductors in Swindon, becoming data products manager, but moved into the electronic design tool industry at Comdisco and then Cadence Design Systems. Moving back into hardware he was the European General Manager at FPGA designer Actel (now part of MicroSemi) followed by roles at development system house Pentica Systems and IP developer Arc (now part of Synopsys).
He was a strong supporter of the industry and of the SouthWest, influencing and assisting many people throughout his career with his humour and expertise.
For information about the memorial please contact nick@flaherty.co.uk
GKN Opens Engineering Centre In Filton
GKN Aerospace has opened a new engineering and technology center at its site at Filton near Bristol. The centre is GKN’s fourth and will focus on future wing structure design and manufacture. The company expect to increase the engineers on the site from 5 to over 100.
via GKN Opens Engineering Center In Filton, UK | Aviation International News.
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