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If you are a tech-savy parent and are wondering how you can help your children learn useful ICT skills after the well deserved criticism of the GCSE IT curriculum, buy a Raspberry Pi when they go on sale and let your kinds discover computers perhaps in the way you did ?

Oh, did I mention they will only cost $35 !

I’m planning to order a Raspberry PI, when they go on sale, but the latest update from the team producing the cheap hobbyist computer should be required reading for UK politicians trying to restart manufacturing capacity in Britain.

Bottom line, UK companies are too slow, too expensive and perhaps most importantly it is more tax efficient to import a device manufactured outside the UK than it is to build one here !

Freedom is in Peril

A sister to the more famous “Keep Calm Carry on” World War II poster, this version seems a most approriate message to all users on the internet in 2012.

Interestingly according to the people at the Imperial War Museum, neither version was actually used, although the simplicity and directness of both messages in these days of social media status updates is very effective.

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Makes me proud to be a Googler ! #blogpost

Google has donated £550,000 ($850,000) towards the £15 million project to renovate Bletchley Park. The donation from Mountain View is part of a $100 million charitable program that's previously helped rescue Alan Turing's personal papers. The country estate is the former home of Station X and the British Government's Code and Cypher School, which was where the World War Two model of the Enigma Machine was decrypted. Turing, its most famous alumnus went on to pioneer computer science and artif…

Area51a? now visible in Google Earth/Maps.

Interesting contrast with the main site at Groom Lake, seems operating UAV’s needs much less space and infrastructure. Not sure what Chuck Yeager would think of robot pilots, but its clearly the future.
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A new satellite image of an isolated airstrip in Nevada shows a secret but operational unmanned air vehicle (UAV) test facility. The Yucca Lake airfield,…

The Mountain View based, Computer History Museum has a great online exhibit on Steve Jobs. Well worth a virtual visit, and a excellent example of museums responding quickly to public interest. #blogpost

Computer History Museum

At a conference last week discussing the upcoming “Internet of Things”, there was much discussion about the security concerns of connecting infrastructure to the web. SCADA systems have for a while been connected and this story of the hacking of a water pump to destruction was mentioned by a few people.

Turns out to be a 21st century McCarthyesque scare story, that said security is a real issue which needs to be designed in from the ground up in any future machine to machine network.

It was the broken water pump heard ’round the world.

Cyberwar watchers took notice this month when a leaked intelligence memo claimed Rus…

Some good news from the UK Autumn Statement on the Economy, Great to see the Open Data Institute – Tim and Nigel bring their startup to Shoreditch !

And some real logic breaking the potential Public Data Corporation into Customer and supplier orgnaisations, The Data Strategy Board and the Public Data Group.

Public sector data will be opened up to make travel easier and healthcare better, and create significant growth for industry and jobs in the UK.

There is a long way to go, just ask your kids what they think of ICT teaching.. In the meantime to get your younger family members into programming I recommend "Hello World! Computer Programming for Kids" by Warren & Carter Sande

The teaching of computer science needs to be reformed to make it more relevant to modern needs, says the government.

We solved our shortage of space for our engineers in London by building a starship in geostationary orbit over the UK. Turned out to be cheaper than central London office rents… Beam me up Boris!

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's a fun video based on Google StreetView from my friend +Elise Urbanek:
http://flowingdata.com/2011/11/24/touching-google-streetview-stop-motion/