Holographic technology at its finest

For those of you who just started replacing your DVD collection with high definition Blu-Ray discs having not all that long ago finished the transfer from VHS, you might want to consider banging your head against a nearby wall about now. A clever chap at the University of California has just ironed out the last few problems with HVD (Holographic Versatile Disc) technology which can store 20 times the ammount of data. Personally I’m hanging on to my vast cinefilm collection for another six months at which point it’s more than likely I’ll be able to have the films transfered directly to a microchip in my brain using nanomachines.

An astonishing and thought provoking TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/227

I want to post this under our ‘lifehack’ category – bringing a whole new meaning to the term…

Awesome talk on TED.com by Amory Lovins, outlining how the US can get completely off Oil by 2040, and also save billions of dollarsa year in the process. As bonuses, you get millions of new jobs, severely reduced emmisions, and political stability…

Link

Mildy worrying but mainly quite cool research into wireless worms shows that there is potential for phone viruses to be created whose spread could be modelled in a very similar way to transmission models for influenza. Wireless worms would be transmitted in busy areas and across continents by aeroplane.

New Scientist article

I’ve never actually been… but I hear the Dana Centre at the Science Museum does good talks with a ‘fun’ science tilt to them. Their blurb: “The Science Museum’s Dana Centre is an adult-only venue that lets you explore issues in contemporary science through dialogue, interaction, performance and art events in stylish café-bar surroundings.” Hmm, hope their talks are better than their blurb (’stylish café-bar’ must be a contradiction in terms and ‘adult-only’ always sounds dodgy…) Anyway, if you go, let me know if it’s any good.

I’ve been banging on about this for weeks in the studio so this post will come as no surprise to, and perhaps even elicit a sigh of exhaustion from my colleagues.

Anyway, this arrived in the post today:

The two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 were each graced with a gold-plated record. These records contained images, greeting, music and various sounds of Earth (avalanche, elephant’s trumpet, a kiss and so on).

The book is an account of why they did this, how the repertoire was selected and precisely what the record contains.

Although it is unlikely that the contents of the record will ever be reviewed by other beings (the vastness of space in comparison to the size of the craft puts paid to that) it’s remains an intriguing project and one which came with a certain amount of responsiblity – the attempt to represent, equally and accurately, the diversity of human life.

The book unfortunately does not contain the CD. This was only included as part of the 1992 Warner New Media edition – now practically impossible to get hold of it. But that’s okay. It’s a pretty amazing read and they were extremely innovative in a short, very-presssured period of time.

Anyway, enough about this. If you work in The Brand Union in the London office and would like a look, please drop by.

(I would publish some images but I’m not sure where I’d stand on the copyright on this one. There is a wikipedia entry though and I’ve also discovered a picture of the pictures.)

Miss Mimi has had a baby. She is well and so is the “Little Man”. So they’ll be a little break in service on her excellent blog.

But she’s assured me that she’ll be back.

Love to her and her child from all the gang.