The wonders of the web, eh? Here’s a couple of photos I wanted to share…

Photo from Telegraph, click image to see original

She’s a petite 20 inches (50cm) tall and weighs a mere 5kg (11 pounds) but this unicycling robot, called “Murata Seiko-chan”, is getting quite a lot of attention today.

Seiko-chan was developed by Japanese electronics maker Murata Manufacturing Co. as a follow up to their Seisaku-kun model from 2005. Both ’she’ and the cyclist robot you can see following her are able to balance and move around on their wheel(s) due to two gyro sensors mounted in their bodies. She also blushes - you can’t see it very well in this photo but she has red LEDs in her cheeks - I don’t know if the cyclist can too but I’m sure that’s not the major selling/talking point on either model really.

So that’s the cute taken care of, now meet the 500 year old Eaglemouth tortoise recently found in a Chinese fish pond:

Photo from China Daily, click to see original

Can you guess where he got his name? Unfortunately there is almost NO information on this species on the web - that I could find anyway, please feel free to prove me wrong and hit me up with the links, I’d love to learn more about them! - All I could find out is that (s)he’s thought to be over 500 years old and that the species is so rare that it was thought to be extinct for a time and is now state protected.

[edit] I have just been sent this link and had it suggested that the reason I could find so little information on the Eaglemouth is it may not exist. I don’t want to believe that’s the case but thought I should share the link anyway.[/edit]

So, it’s - sorry, it be - the 7th International Talk Like a Pirate Day today, if you’d some how managed to not notice yet. Once you’ve found your eye patch (what this old thing..?) and got yourself a new Pirate name (I’m now “Disembowlin’ Helga Straw” apparently.. Try saying that after a barrel of rum!) You’ll be more than ready to join in - or you could keep it simple and just ‘Arrrr!’ and ‘Ahoy me hearties!’ a bit at appropriate times…

While it could be getting a bit tedious for those of you Landlubbers who’ve been online all day, reading all the various reports/hilarious antics people are up to, etc, imagine the freedom you have if you get into the spirit of it - as Pet Rock suggests:

Feel free to call your boss a scaliwag. You know that co-worker you hate? Plunder their desk. Take what you can, give nothing back. You’ve got carte blanche on Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I’m not sure I second PR here… Depending on who you are and where you work carte blanche might not apply. But if you can’t get into the pirating spirit at work there’s always tonight and this weekend - the ITLAPD team have been hard at work this year and there are Piratey events all over the place this weekend. It’s inescapable - brands all over the place have been finding their peglegs including iphone apps and ‘pirate’ radio (har har), even GeekDad & co. got into the spirit early with Pirate Week on Wired blogs.

Also, some believe there could be a connection between the decrease in the numbers of Pirates over the past few centuries which is the real cause of global warming..

If they’re right then I think it’s our duty to dress up and take part this weekend. But, in case they got it wrong, why not also check out Sandbag a new online organisation trying to make a big difference to global emissions:

Thanks to policy makers in the UN and Europe levels of pollution are now controlled. Permits must be bought by polluters to let them keep polluting. But there is a finite number of them in circulation and the good news is anyone can buy them. So by taking a permit out of the system we can reduce the amount of pollution taking place and force industry to invest in cleaner technologies. One less permit means one less tonne of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

It never hurts to have a plan B, eh?  And on that note, I be off.. Arrr, hoist the Colors & have a good weekend! Aye.

No, this is nothing to do with computer games. Accelerometers in laptops and other devices have been catching on, doing a variety of things - from safety (shutting down the hard drive if your device falls off a table) - to just pure fun (in game controllers, or even on your mobile phone). Five cool things you can do with an accelerometer lists more ideas for what you can do with them.

However sometimes the nicest ideas are ones we never thought of in the first place, such as this one reported by the BBC:

A device originally put into laptops to prevent damage to the hard drive if the machine is dropped has been put to a novel use by scientists.

The tiny devices that detect unexpected movement are being used to give warnings on earthquakes.

The Quakecatcher Network has been built by combining the readings of sensors in laptops known as accelerometers.

I think this is a really good idea, especially as so many parts of the world are susceptible to earthquakes - just the other day, there was one in California in which thankfully no-one was badly hurt, which the network picked up. The system is still in its infancy, and the accelerometers are only powerful enough to pick up quakes as they are happening - but this still might give a few seconds’ vital notice to help warn people.

By combining the abilities of lots of computers over a wide area (what’s known as distributed computing), it’s using the power of the network - just like other projects like SETI@home, which is searching for extraterrestrial life, and Folding@home, which works out how proteins fold and is pioneering research into diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer. Wikipedia has a great list of all the different kinds - the key being they do stuff in the background, taking advantage of the uses of the technology without getting in your way.

So far they are mainly limited to computers - laptops and desktops - but given nearly all of us have mobiles and many of us have portable music players and other hand-helds, how long before a bright spark somewhere comes up with an idea for using their capabilities for the better of humankind as well?

A fascinating article from the New York Times about “The Web Time Forgot“, about how a Belgian scientist, Paul Otlet, dreamt up the Internet before the first electronic computer had even been invented:

In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”

Predicting technology is a perilous thing - remember the famous (and possibly apocyphal) quote from IBM President Thomas Watson, who said “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers“. Yet here Otlet is a rare example of someone getting it right - he started his own index-card library aimed at being the repository of the world’s knowledge without limit (very Wikipedia-like) and even had his own version of a search engine, although limited by the technology of the time: people had to post their requests in (which reminds me of this Google circa 1960 joke).

Best of all, he even proposed the one use of the Internet which outstrips all the others today - helping people keep in touch, whether it be by social networks, messaging or working together:

While he very likely would have been flummoxed by the anything-goes environment of Facebook or MySpace, Otlet saw some of the more productive aspects of social networking — the ability to trade messages, participate in discussions and work together to collect and organize documents.

Sadly, the Second World War brought an end to Otlet’s work and a lot of his works were destroyed during the conflict. Today only a small museum, the Mundaneum in Mons, Belgium, stands in testament to his vision, and as the report says, they don’t get many visitors. Which is a shame, it’s so rare to see someone get technological predictions so right. If you ever do find yourself in the vicinity of Mons do go and check it out - and report back here what it’s like.

And I’m sure it’s getting them no end of mentions all over the web.

Cleverly though they’ve got all the original characters/stars involved rather than some recent adverts attempts at ‘homages’ that have been met with criticism.

How many do you recognise?
I, worryingly, got all of them apart from the beauty queen and Kelly. More worrying still I rooted out those two ladies to find out what I’d missed! I think it’s time to admit I have a problem… Feel free to comment if you got most of them too, perhaps we can start a support group?

Also a quick salute to a group of students who decided lie-ins and children’s TV were not enough for them:

Nice work people!

[Edit] Just discovered they did a whole series of these which you can see here. [/Edit]