I’ve just watched a video from TED.org of the presentation given by Harvard Center for Astrophysics Researcher Roy Gould and Curtis Wong, manager of Microsoft’s Next Media Research, unveiling Microsoft’s new WorldWide Telescope a few weeks ago.

According to Gould produces a “holistic approach” by weaving together the best images and information from satellites and telescopes all over the world and will have “as profound an impact on they way we view the universe as Galileo did 4 centuries ago.” Big claims but apparently it made Robert Scoble, MD of Fast Company.TV and, according to Wikipedia an “American blogger, technical evangelist, and author” cry, as he openly admits on his blog: “This is the thing that made me tear up when I saw it because it’s the most impressive thing I’ve seen Microsoft do in years.” and on the company website when they did a feature: “It had a huge emotional impact on me, as I realized the way my son will see the Universe will forever change, thanks to the work of two guys in Microsoft Research (Curtis Wong and Jonathan Fay).”

Curtis Wong discribes the project as a labour of love for his team and they hope it will inspire “kids to explore and learn about the universe”.

Gould ends his part of the talk by saying “When I ask people ‘How does the night sky make you feel?’ they often say ‘oh, tiny - I feel tiny and insignificant!” Well, our gaze fills the universe and thanks to the creators of the WorldWide Telescope we c an now start to have a dialogue with the universe. I think the WorldWide Telescope will convince you that we maybe tiny but we are truly, wonderfully significant.”

There are some amazing images on display in this talk and the technology is fascinating, I recommend watching the video. You can also get more information on the official Microsoft mini-site.

WorldWide Telescope will be available as a free download later this Spring and I for one can’t wait to play around with it!

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Sir Arthur C. Clarke passed away yesterday, aged 90. As well as being one of the leading science fiction writers of the twentieth century, was a passionate believer in using technology to advance mankind. He famously proposed using geostationary satellites - satellites that remained in a fixed point above a spot on the Earth - to relay radio signals - which today is one of the most important components in global communications.

The quote at the top, one of his most famous (the third of his three laws) certainly rings true if you compare the world as it was when Sir Arthur was born. A visitor from 1917 would be astounded to see the amazing leaps mankind has made, from television to space travel to the Internet, we enjoy today. Just think where we’ll be in 90 years hence, at the same rate of advancement; what holds for us then will be as comparatively magical as the present day is to 1917. It’s just a matter of getting there, and as Sir Arthur’s second law states, there’s only one way of getting there:

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

Today sees the launch of the Discovery Channel’s Earth Live web application - brought to my attention by the ever-vigilant chaps at Wired.com.

“It may be more important than ever to track the state of the planet and Discovery Earth Live is designed to help you do that” says the Earth Live page. It’s big talk but the software for the application is pretty impressive - using Adobe Flex technology to wrap video around a three-dimensional object in real time AND allow you to move the globe around without loss of the video frames.

I have already successfully lost a tea break to watching storm patterns and changes sea temperature (it’s more interesting than it might sound!) though sadly there is little more to do at this stage. However the potential is huge and according to The Industry Standard “Future content will include migration paths of birds and animals, and projections of what the world may look like if global warming goes unchecked.” More big talk for the cool little app, which is also available as a facebook widget.

There’s lots of buzz about this interesting invention out - a phone charger that takes the waste energy from when you walk:

A knee brace which can generate electricity as you walk, creating enough power to charge mobile phones and medical devices, has been developed by scientists.

The device is inspired by technology used in hybrid cars which store the power from braking to generate electricity. So-called regenerative brakes can collect energy that would otherwise be dissipated as heat when a car slows. In the same way, the knee brace uses the energy dissipated at the knee as the leg slows after a step.

Using it just as a phone charger might seem a waste of the technology - and it turns out there are actually many more uses for it - such as powering automated prosthetic limbs for the lesser-abled, which is the main intention of the project. But the news coverage has been quick to come up with other ideas for what to do with the energy - and why not? Many inventions end up being used for purposes completely different from what they originally intended (just think about how text messaging was originally intended for voicemail alerts and not person-to-person messages) and it’s not hard to come up with loads of ideas for using that energy - whether it be mobiles, personal MP3 players, portable game systems, even personal computers.

It could even have beneficial effects for us - if our mobile or music player is running out of battery, we might skip that car journey or trip on the bus and walk instead so we can help recharge it, making us fitter and healthier as well (so much for the fearmongering that new technology is for us). And once we start shaping our activity around the electronic devices we’re using as they depend on us, does that make them part of our bodies? Is something as innocuous as this making us one step closer to being cyborgs? Such a simple invention brings surprisingly profound questions if you look at it close enough. Any thoughts you have, share them in the comments below.

The BBC have published their list of technologies to watch out for in 2008 and some of it makes for interesting reading. Four of the five themes explored - blending offline/online, ultra-mobile PCs, widespread public wireless and mobile VoIP - illustrate the trend for computing power leaving the world of the desktop and the office and into your pocket, and the blurring of the distinction between offline and online.

Mobile VoIP and WiMAX public wireless go hand-in-hand and it’s very likely we will see more of both in the future, with demand for one driving likely to drive supply of the other. I don’t see either of these technologies totally dominating just yet - WiMAX have yet to gain a foothold in Europe and the investment demands means 3G services have a natural head start over it for providing high-speed mobile Internet. Mobile VoIP depends not just on bandwidth but also handset provision, and this too will take time to take off. Maybe one for 2009 rather than 2008?

The most interesting is the ultra-mobile computing. Thanks to Moore’s Law, and technologies such as flash memory and sharper, smaller LCD screens, notebook PCs are shrinking and shrinking, while mobile phones are able to pack a lot more power in. While we have long considered a computer as either a desktop unit, or a bulky laptop of a similar size and designed along the same lines, the design paradigm is really shifting rapidly to something very different, and ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) are the start of that.

UMPCs (like the Asus EEE pictured on the right) have ditched hard drives and optical drives in favour of solid-state storage and using wireless and USB, cutting the size down. Who knows what’s next for this kind of PC. Do they really need a keyboard or mouse pointer as input, with touchscreen technology ever advancing? Closer integration with mobile phones and other portable devices via wi-fi or Bluetooth is an obvious possibility - once these are aligned together in a “personal area network”, itself connected to the wider world all the time, does it even mean the “computer” is a single device any more?

Tie that in with the advances in web services and synchronising online and offline (which will become more and more essential), and our concept of what makes a “computer” may become a lot more fluid. No longer bound in a single device, our files, music, video and data can roam between devices within our network and across locations seamlessly, and our computer becomes a more virtual kind of machine, that is always at hand whether we are at home or away, independent of the hardware it’s running on.

Well, that’s one strand of thought about the future of technology. Why not add yours below in the comments?

Gizmodo have reported on a neat little Bluetooth USB dongle from Kodak and Belkin for transferring photos from your phone to your PC.

Nothing that spectacular so far but Belkin claims to have made transferring photos onto your computer even easier than it was before – which is no mean feat given how easy it is already.

So, how have they achieved this?

1. Whenever you’re in range of the dongle it will automatically transfer your photos onto your PC.
2. It will then upload them straight onto Facebook or Myspace.

So perhaps not hugely innovative in itself, but the thought of waking up from a night out and all your pictures have already been uploaded onto Facebook without you touching a button? Sounds good to me.

Over at Crave there is this fantastic pictorial history of the digital camera - from cameras that recorded onto analogue tape (like videos), to the first true digital handheld cameras, and then the advances in miniaturisation and storage which means we have cameraphones today. We’ve come a long way since this prototype from Kodak way back in 1975:

A really interesting story - but it misses once crucial detail. What was the first digital photograph of? It’s amazing that we have the world’s first ever photo still to hand from over 180 years ago, but not the first digital one from a mere 32…

Got piles of DVD’s lying around your house from transferring downloaded video content so you can play it on your TV? Having to move your computer so you can plug it into the TV? This is the problem TakeTV attempts to solve – by using a USB flash drive.

It’s a simple device and fairly innovative in that there is nothing much around that rivals it. You drag and drop files from your computer onto the drive and then use the dock provided to connect it to your TV with either s-video or composite connections. You then control it with a small remote. It also comes with compatibility for Fanfare (beta), a DRM service from a selection of American networks including CBS, which I’m less interested in.

Of interest to me is the DivX and MPEG-4 compatibility of the device, (it also does XviD) and the obvious advantage of using it in conjunction with the Viewty for watching video back on your TV. As video taken on your mobile tends not to have a huge shelf life, the TakeTV is excellent as you don’t have to burn a disc you might only watch several times. Also, giving the slow motion video recording a good airing on a large screen should be high on the agenda of any Viewty owner and this is easy with the TakeTV.

This is a simple solution and whilst not particularly innovative it is inventive. I like the fact there is no wireless syncing or multi-functionality and by sticking to just being one thing it can be used across a wide range of digital devices.

I notice that the Commodore Gravel In Pocket is arriving onto the UK market. It’s a small video and music player controlled by a cheekily designed joystick at the back although from the footage I’ve seen it looks like you need two hands to operate it. It also supports WiFi with access to Commodore World but unfortunately no web browser.

What struck me most about the watching the demos was that increasingly, it seems people are viewing video on smaller and smaller screens. The Gravel has 2.8 inch screen which is large by some standards. The Cowon iAudio 7 for instance, has a 1.3 inch screen and is XviD compatible and Cowon obviously thinks there is a market for video playback in such a small space. The Viewty’s display is also part of this tendency towards smaller screens, although at 3 inch widescreen you get just that little bit of extra area which makes a lot of difference when watching video.

Clearly there is a demand. Players are coming out with expanding list of compatible formats, the Viewty is DivX compatible and the Gravel will play both DivX and XviD. The DivX codec has been downloaded 80 million times in last year and as one of their stated goals is interoperability it’s a good format for the portable market.

As people get used to viewing video on such a small screen and expectations of quality rise, plus the demand for portability that these devices provide, things like DivX compatibility are important features.

Techdigest asks whether the Leon Roswell is “the most purdy calculator yet“. I rarely use a proper calculator these days (not least because Google Calculator is just so useful, especially converting units) but this one does have its charms. It certainly has got craft going for it - the body is made out of just a single piece of aluminium with some laser cleverness, which is admirable. It also does currency conversions (although it doesn’t say how it updates the exchange rates - presumably you have to tell it what they are)

To answer the questions, yes it is purdy, but overall it left me feeling a little cold - perfect for an ultra-minimal office with big skylights and brushed metal finishes - but no-one I know in the real world ever keeps their office or desk that tidy for more than a nanosecond. Technology should be more welcoming and realistic - a battered ten-year-old Casio has a lot more charm and appeal - this calculator, you fear, would be the type to insist you perform only complicated and intellectually stimulating calculations rather than just 2+2.