May SuperMondays Presentation: The Aftermath

I had a really enjoyable night at last night’s SuperMondays event.

Some of the innovative uses for technology on display from Newcastle University provided a great glimpse of where we could be heading in the future towards ubiquitous computing. Of special interest were the research being undertaken with surface computing, which seems to have taken centre stage of new technologies recently, although unfortunately the expected MS Surface device wasn’t available at the last minute.

I also liked the work being done by the Ambient Kitchen project. While the technology is still in it’s early stages it is easy to see how this technology could be a part of every day life. With the focus the group has on providing assistance and support to people with cognitive difficulties the fruits of the project could go a long way to genuinely improving people’s lives. It makes a nice change to see new technology being developed for a real, useful purpose rather than the usual, ‘we can, it’s cool, why not’ approach to some tech development.

Linked with these new technologies Patrick Oliver and Jayne Wallace demo’d and talked about some of their work with developing cultural and meaningful technologies. One example was a twinned pair of necklaces which allowed the wearers to communicate some acts of distance, for example holding one pendant would cause the other to vibrate. As wireless communications become more pervasive I can envision similar technologies becoming more subtle and common place. Despite my initial perception of the topic as being ‘arty’ and not really that useful, I enjoyed the presentation and can see some valid and quite exciting uses for this technology in the future.

The event finished with a change of pace, with me presenting about my experience with using honeypot systems and hopefully convincing others that the system are valid additions to any network, and are good fun in the process. From my perspective I feel that the presentation went well, although I blew through the material a bit rapidly. I was genuinely relieved and thrilled with the amount of questions and discussion that was generated at the end of my presentation.

Unfortunately I believe that there isn’t a recording of this presentation, as is customary with SuperMondays talks, as the video camera decided to flatten it’s battery just before I started. As a compromise I’ve posted my slide-deck from the presentation. Hopefully people may find this useful, I’m always open to questions or discussions so please let me know your thoughts.

Bottom line from all this? SuperMondays is a blast, if you’re in the area and haven’t been along yet, why not? I’m definitely going to make more of an effort to ensure I’m available for future events, see you all there next time.
Andrew Waite

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