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Telematics firm builds datacentres on Compellent hybrid flash

Martha — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:39:38 +0000

Telematics provider Masternaut has built twin active-active datacentres on
Dell Compellent hybrid
flash arrays.

The project, which cost “multi-single-digit millions” of pounds, has allowed Masternaut to deal
with a five times growth in data with no extra staff and has boosted disaster
recovery capabilities to near real time.

Masternaut is a pan-European operation that operates
on a software-as-a-service
basis, in which its customers can access telematics information for
a range of applications including: fleet vehicle data from gritting lorries to refrigerated
transport, delivery services, and consumer car insurance vehicle monitoring.

Customers include G4S, Travis Perkins and Balfour Beatty. Masternaut operates around 300,000
devices on its own in-house developed Linux-based applications with customer access via a web
portal.

Masternaut had run four datacentres with 200TB of data in Dell Compellent SC40 arrays, but a
decision was made to consolidate to two active datacentres in the UK and France, said CTO Alex Rothwell.\

Indian IT services more business expertise than low cost, says Nasscom

Martha — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:39:36 +0000

Indian IT services firms are no longer simply vehicles for Western businesses to make massive
cuts in IT costs, but are now suppliers of business expertise that is complemented by IT, according
to Indian IT association Nasscom.

IT services from India became big in the West when overly concerned corporates invested in
services to help them prepare for the perceived risks of the millennium bug in 2000. Software
services were needed in large volumes and India had the resources to meet this demand at a fraction
of the cost of the same expertise in the UK and other developed countries.

This has been a stigma for Indian companies such as TCS, HCL, Infosys and Wipro. They see
themselves as being much more than a lower-cost option.

All major IT companies now have resources in lower-cost regions such as India. IBM, for example,
is one of the country’s largest IT employers.

But what do the Indian IT services firms offer today?

Strategic partners

Recently appointed Nasscom chairman KK Krishnakumar Natarajan, who is also CEO at tier-two
Indian supplier Mindtree, said clients are looking for business knowledge, not necessarily
technology knowledge, and they are making the transition.

“A lot of members of Nasscom have moved away from just being a source of cost-competitive
services to [become a strategic partner for] the customer, such as doing transformation or
innovation to help them compete,” said Natarajan.

He added that Indian companies have now been working with large corporates in the UK and US for
years and have built up great domain expertise during that time.

“A lot of that is coming based on the experience that has been gained by Indian suppliers over
the past 20 years. They have built intellectual assets which they are using to deliver services,”
said Natarajan.

He cited stock exchange trading software as an example of how Indian companies have matured. The
New York Stock Exchange is currently looking to replace a 20-year-old trading platform, for which
three Indian firms have been shortlisted. And of course it was a company not far from India – in
Sri Lanka – known as Millennium IT, which replaced the London Stock Exchange’s previous trading
platform.

Global growth

Asked why Indian suppliers do not make large acquisitions in their home country, but prefer to
acquire small companies in Europe, KK Krishnakumar Natarajan said European companies are much
cheaper.

Research over the past decade from ISG revealed an increase in global market share of 13% for
Indian IT services firms, compared with a decline of 7% for their multinational equivalents.

But growth will slow for the Indian companies unless they establish services that offer
non-linear growth, spread geographically beyond their main markets in the US and UK, win government
contacts and develop core software and business process outsourcing (BPO) aimed at specific
vertical sectors, according to Sid Pai, president at ISG Asia-Pacific.

Peter Schumacher, CEO at management consultancy Value
Leadership Group, recently told Computer Weekly that Indian suppliers are more mature in their
evolution than they are often given credit for.

“The traditional players in Europe and the US have been more static than the offshore
suppliers,” he said.

European competition

There is also a competitive threat to Indian suppliers coming from companies
based in Eastern and Central Europe.

Countries such as Ukraine and Moldova have the highly skilled IT workers as a result of the
legacy left by the Soviet Union. These resources are less expensive to UK businesses than
home-grown workers and are in close proximity making real-time communication between onshore staff
and those in Eastern Europe possible.

Huawei invests £10m in UK university research

Martha — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:39:33 +0000

Huawei
today pledged £10m to UK universities to fund research projects in telecommunications
technology.

The money will come from the £1.2bn
investment the Huawei announced in September 2012 in a bid to bolster its presence in the UK,
which has already gone towards building new research and
development facilities, as well as a UK
headquarters for the company in Reading.

The £10m will be split between six universities, including the University of Cambridge and the
University of Southampton. It will be used on projects including advanced multimedia, IT and
optical technology, green radio, 5G technologies, optical technology, wireless communications and
product engineering.

Huawei hopes the findings will enable it to improve on its own products, used by large telecoms
companies in the UK such
as BT and EE.

“This collaboration with UK’s universities is an excellent initiative,” said Victor Zhang, CEO
of Huawei UK. “As the global technology economy continues to grow, new innovation is fundamental,
and these research projects will ensure the UK is at the forefront of developments in wireless,
multimedia and advanced communications.”

The investment has gained the support of the UK government. MP David Willetts, minister for
universities and science – and
the man appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron as Huawei’s key government contact – praised
the move.

“This investment is a vote of confidence in UK universities and their world-leading science and
technology skills,” said Willetts.

“We want to encourage greater links between innovative businesses and our research-focused
universities. Attracting global companies, like Huawei, shows we are realising these
ambitions.”

Huawei has always emphasised how
much of its revenue it puts into R&D – over 10% annually – with 2012’s levels reaching
$4.8bn.

“As a global leader in the technology industry, we believe we have a responsibility to nurture
the next generation of talent,” said Zhang.

“The research partnerships we’re announcing today with British universities are a sign of that
commitment, and we passionately believe that greater collaboration across cultures fosters a unique
learning environment and a truly global workforce that benefits everyone.”

Scabal moves to the cloud for storage flexibility

Martha — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:39:32 +0000

UK mobile operators to scrap roaming charges by 2016

Martha — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:39:30 +0000

The government has signed an agreement with four of the UK’s major mobile operators pledging
their support to scrapping mobile roaming charges by 2016.

The Department
for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has signed the formal agreement with EE, Three, Virgin
Media and Vodafone, following the government department’s pledge in September 2013 to create a
Telecoms Consumer Action Plan including the issue.

The European Commission began capping
the amount mobile operators could charge for calls, texts and data when European citizens were
roaming from 2009, but the EC commissioner responsible for the digital agenda, Neelie
Kroes, is determined to cut them entirely by the next European elections.

“There is no other sector of our incomplete European single market where the barriers are so
unneeded, and yet so high,” said Kroes in a speech to the European Parliament earlier this year.
“The time for change is now.”

Although the timescale of the DCMS’s plan is not as ambitious as that of Kroes, it is a positive
step towards achieving her goals, which many operators have previously held issue with, claiming
they will damage revenues and, in turn, their ability to invest into new networks.

“The government has made it clear that it sees no place for mobile roaming charges in a true
European Single Market,” read the
formal agreement released by the DCMS on 3 December 2013.

“The UK has been at the forefront of efforts to bring down roaming charges over time and the
current EU Roaming Regulation will see roaming charges decline further. The market is responding.
Operators offer various deals – such as daily rates, no roaming charges when using partner
networks, or a contract price that includes roaming – which can help consumers and businesses
manage costs.

“But we want to go further. We will work with Ofcom and the industry to develop a UK government
position for ongoing negotiations in the EU that will help us achieve the goal of eliminating
roaming charges within the EU by 2016. This will need to be accompanied by appropriate safeguards
to prevent abuse and ensure that UK mobile operators are encouraged to continue to invest in their
networks.”

Tariff transparency for mobile users

The agreement also contains pledges to help consumers avoid bill shocks, with operators
promising to work towards introducing a monetary cap on customer liability when their phone is lost
or stolen, and a deal for the networks to work with Ofcom
on improving transparency so prices do not rise unexpectedly during a contract period.

However, this last proposal has led to one of the UK’s biggest networks, O2,
refusing to sign up to the agreement.

A spokeswoman from the company said: “We have a track record of delivering for consumers and we
welcome any measures that improve transparency, clarity and fairness in consumer contracts.
However, one area of the government’s announcement relates to Ofcom’s recently published guidance
on ‘price rises in fixed-term contracts’.

“We need clarity on what the guidance means for us and our customers before we can sign up to
all the commitments referred to by the government and we have been unable to obtain such clarity
from government or Ofcom at the time of this publication.”

Computer Weekly contacted the DCMS for a response, but it had not returned the request at the
time of publication.

Fantastic Cartography Tips From the Guy Who Mapped Game of Thrones

Martha — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:39:25 +0000

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The city of Cassadega. (Jon Roberts)
Official World Map for George R.R. Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire, from Westeros to Asshai, from the summer isles to the blasted waste of old Valyria. (© George R.R. Martin, 2012, courtesy of Jon Roberts)
This map depicts the frozen lands in the north of Midgard, published in Frozen Empires by Open Design. This was the first region to be illustrated after the launch of the Midgard campaign setting, and was an opportunity for a change in the style of the Midgard maps. (Jon Roberts)
Entering the Glacier, an outdoor battle map. (Jon Roberts)
An indoor battle map. (Jon Roberts)

In the Northlands of Midgard, the Lung of the Sea blows thick clouds across the Bleak Expanse. In cold years, they reach all the way through the Ironwood Forest to ice the mountainsides of Jotunheim. In another universe, deep in the Milky Way galaxy, humankind has left Earth and settled a planet called Nova Prime. And in the ragged geography of Westeros, a war rages from Castle Black to the Dornish Marches. These are well-known worlds to fans of fantasy and science fiction. However, few know them better than Jonathan Roberts, cartographer of the imagination.

Roberts grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons with his brothers on the west coast of Scotland. “Some of my earliest memories were having my hobbit thief killed by a bunch of berzerkers,” he says. Early on, he took an interest in mapping the imaginary worlds they explored. He kept at his childhood hobby through college and into adulthood, eventually starting his own business, called Fantastic Maps. His is a small, passionate field, and he has risen to the top tier. Last year he feathered his cap by producing the official maps for Game of Thrones. On his site, not only does he showcase his beautiful maps, he offers great tips for aspiring mappers.

“The first thing I do when I get a commission is see if it makes sense,” he says. Realism is important, and even imaginary worlds need to have geographic logic. This means rivers that diverge as they flow to a coast, mountains that form clusters instead of lines, and deserts surrounded by forests that will challenge a reader’s suspension of disbelief. “If you can give people things that make sense to them, then they’ll buy into the world,” says Roberts.

Even though fantasy maps are heavily stylized, it’s important to pare them down to the bare essentials, and a working knowledge of real-world geography can help, says Roberts. When he was a boy, he became well-acquainted with the Ordnance Survey, the national mapping authority of Great Britain, while hiking with his brothers in the Scottish countryside. Ordnance maps are busy with topographic contours, trails, rivers, towns, and a plethora of minor map features. But, they economize space logically, without overcrowding. Whenever Roberts has a problem with using space in one of his fantasy maps, he refers back to the Ordinance Survey.

With his deep Scottish brogue, Roberts sounds like he should be narrating the fantasy in addition to mapping it. He seems destined to have fallen into fantasy. He grew up, and learned to roleplay, in an ancient farmhouse with three-foot walls that is so old it is listed in a medieval land inventory called the Domesday Book. On the hill above the house is a Bronze Age fort. Below, a castle hidden in an overgrown valley.

It’s impossible to say when the first fantasy map was made, but most would agree that the maps for Tolkein’s Middle Earth are the benchmark for the genre. “The Lord of the Rings’ maps have an austere style about them,” says map blogger Jonathan Crowe. They combined classical elements, like compass roses and a stylized borders with mountains, towns, and forests were illustrated in profile. Tolkein’s books reinvented fantasy storytelling, and made maps an integral part of any fantasy story.

But, even if they look medieval, fantasy maps have almost nothing in common with medieval maps, and in fact would be pretty useless to people in that time. As tools for conducting trade, gathering resources, or waging war, they generally listed locations linearly, without regard to geographic context. Occasionally they would use Ptolemy’s grid of latitude and longitude – something you never see in a fantasy map.

A hand-drawn map from one of Roberts’ world-building tutorials shows mountains clustered naturally and rivers joining, not forking as they reach the coast. (Jon Roberts

Crowe’s theory is that modern fantasy maps owe more to children’s books than they do medieval cartography. “Think about the maps accompanying The Wind in the Willows or Winnie the Pooh,” he says. He points out that The Hobbit was originally a children’s book, with illustrations and maps. “When _The Lord of the Rings_ came along it shed the illustrations — by this point it was an adult book, after all, and illustrations were for children — but kept the maps.”

Fantasy maps need to toe a line between fantastic, imaginary worlds and modern brains that trained by things like GPS and Google Maps to process spatial information in very rational ways. If your mountains are oddly clustered, your rivers fork as they flow to the ocean, or countries’ borders aren’t clipped to natural barriers, then you’d better have an explanation ready. But, that’s the whole point of fantasy, right?

One of Roberts’ favorite maps is of the Midgard world, designed by legendary game designers Wolfgang Baur and Jeff Grubb. There, in the middle of a verdant, lush continent reminiscent of central Europe is a blasted desert. When Roberts asked for an explanation, he was told that this was the site of an ancient cataclysm. He grins and his face brightens as he explains, “And there’s these old monsters who move on like decades timescales, like one footstep will take a decade! But, the whole place is like a blasted, riven landscape, with canyons through it in the middle of this verdant forest, and it was all because of this magical catastrophe!”

The 13 Best Movies You Didn’t See in 2013

Martha — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:39:13 +0000

Look. Not every movie can be The Hunger Games. As Katniss & Co. continue to gleefully slaughter both each other and the worldwide box office, 2013’s other films are already sliding down the memory hole. Unlike 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, Blue Jasmine, or Nebraska, the films above aren’t necessarily going to win awards. And thanks to any number of factors, from limited distribution to crappy trailers, none are going to make Catching Fire-levels of money. You might not have heard of these movies, or you might’ve written them off, but either way, here are the movies from 2013 that deserved more eyeballs. LIKE YOURS.

The Act of Killing

Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary tracks down the leaders of the Indonesian death squads that brutally killed anyone opposing Indonesia’s 1965 military coup. And then? Oppenheimer has them re-enact their crimes for the camera. Using gangster movies and musicals for inspiration, the killers are happy to do so. (“We have to re-enact this properly,” one of them says, casually demonstrating how he choked dissidents to death.) The killers also play golf, go bowling, and drink—and, in the film’s most jarring moments, admit how they feel. “War crimes are defined by the winners,” one says. “I’m a winner. So I can make my own definition.” Terrifying and unexpectedly touching, this is a film everyone should see. (Blu-ray on December 3, DVD on January 7)
Pain & Gain

Upon release, Michael Bay’s true-crime caper flick was met with shrugs. That—stick with me here—is a minor tragedy. Transformers auteur Bay traded in explosions and LaBeoufs for a much smaller, much more gruesome tale of three dumbass bodybuilders (Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie) who plan a crime—and end up screaming and covered in blood. Lurid, funny, and skeevy, Pain & Gain is a reminder that Bay can make a solid movie—so long as he isn’t worrying about how robot testicles will fit into his mis-en-scène. (Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
A Band Called Death

In the early ’70s, in a bedroom in Detroit, three black brothers invented punk. Calling themselves Death, they were forgotten when bands like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and Bad Brains took center stage. Decades later, Death’s recordings were found by crate-digging music dweebs, showing everyone that punk isn’t just “white boy music.” Part family portrait and part detective story, A Band Called Death is about brotherhood and history — and music so raw, so loud, and so new that it sent people running for shelter, hands over their ears. (Netflix, Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, drafthousefilms.com)
Sightseers

Friendly reminder: Grown Ups 2 made $130 million, which means at least some of you reading this paid money to see it. Lessen your shame by watching Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, a comedy that’s actually comedic. Awkward couple Tina and Chris (co-writers Alice Lowe and Steve Oram) set off on a romantic trip through Northern England—only to end up causing death and destruction. Possibly accidentally? Or totally on purpose? Produced by Edgar Wright (who directed The World’s End, another of 2013’s comedy highlights), the brilliant, pitch-black Sightseers isn’t for everybody. But hell, that’s a lot better than a movie that isn’t for anybody. Like Grown Ups 2. (Blu-ray and DVD on December 10)
Upstream Color

WIRED readers might already be familiar with Primer director Shane Carruth, but if you showed Upstream Color to the average person on the street, their brain would start leaking out of their ears. Like Primer, Upstream Color is bizarre and strange and powerful; as odd of a film as it is (pigs infused with human consciousnesses play a major role! okay!), you can’t shake the feeling that Carruth knows exactly what he’s doing… and that if you just watch his movie a few more times, you’ll crack his code. Just writing this is making me want to watch Upstream again. This time I’m going to cram some cotton balls in my ears. No more brain leakage! (Netflix, Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, upstreamcolor.com)
Stories We Tell

Sarah Polley’s documentary about her family is told in a variety of ways: there are reenactments, there’s a memoir, there are interviews with siblings who support and contradict each other. It’s a mystery box, and as Polley opens it, she makes a film about how memory sustains and betrays us. If it sounds like I’m being obnoxiously vague, that’s because I am: Stories We Tell is better the less you know about it. The only thing you need to know is that you should see it, and that it totally didn’t make me cry, no matter what anyone says. (DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Behind the Candelabra

One of the best filmmakers of the past few decades, this year Steven Soderbergh told everyone that he was QUITTING! FILMMAKING! FOREVER! But before he did, he put out one last movie. In America, the subject matter of Behind the Candelabra meant it didn’t get theatrical distribution, but track it down: The true story of the sweet, creepy romance between Liberace (Michael Douglas) and his boytoy Scott Thorson (Matt Damon), Candelabra is a sweet, creepy story of love (and sequins) gone wrong. (Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Spring Breakers

I don’t know if Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine’s fever-dream of a spring break movie, is a thriller or a comedy or a drama or horror movie or softcore porn or what, but I do know one thing: That goddamn Britney Spears scene is the most amazing five minutes of film all year. Possibly ever? Depends on how you feel about Britney. And James Franco’s dreadlocks. (Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Enough Said

Even a genre as cynical and bankrupt as the romantic comedy has the occasional exceptional film—like Nicole Holofcener’s romantic and funny Enough Said. The always excellent Julia Louis-Dreyfuss plays Eva, who gets a crush on Albert (James Gandolfini), then starts hearing terrible things about him from her pal (Catherine Keener), who happens to be Albert’s ex. Holofcener’s film is clever, good-hearted, and hilarious — not to mention a fitting send-off to Gandolfini, who, in one of his final performances, is fantastic. (Blu-ray, DVD, and Amazon Instant Video on January 14)
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Okay, you’re forgiven for skipping this one. When a movie has a gimmicky title, it’s a good sign it doesn’t have much else to offer. (Everybody tweets about Sharknado; no one remembers Sharknado.) But every once in a while, there’s a B-movie — like, say, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters — that lives up its title. Tommy Wirkola’s action flick is crammed with viscera and wit (Hansel has adult-onset diabetes due to eating all that candy as a kid), and it boasts a charming turn from a blood-splattered Gemma Arterton, not to mention useful advice for everyday living (“If you’re gonna kill a witch, set her ass on fire”). To behold Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is to behold cinema in all of its insane beauty. (Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Prince Avalanche

For the past few years, David Gordon Green’s been directing comedies like Pineapple Express, Your Highness, and Eastbound & Down. With the little-seen Prince Avalanche, he returned to his low-fi indie roots, bringing along Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsh. Rudd and Hirsh play two men repairing roads in an isolated California forest; as with any two dudes stuck in the middle of nowhere, it isn’t long until they’re at each other’s throats. Rudd and Hirsh are both great, and Green knows how to deliver off-putting humor and well-earned sentiment. (Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Frances Ha

I overheard Frances Ha described as “a movie about the kind of people I hate,” which… fine. That’s fair. Focusing on young, self-involved Frances (co-writer Greta Gerwig), Noah Baumbach’s film starts off being about… well, the kind of people you hate. But give it a few minutes: With humor and insight, Gerwig and Baumbach tell a subtle, smart story about characters who you first think are stupid and annoying, but then you start to care about. Hey, just like real life! (Netflix, Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)

Look. Not every movie can be The Hunger Games. As Katniss & Co. continue to gleefully slaughter both each other and the worldwide box office, 2013’s other films are already sliding down the memory hole. Unlike 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, Blue Jasmine, or Nebraska, the films above aren’t necessarily going to win awards. And thanks to any number of factors, from limited distribution to crappy trailers, none are going to make Catching Fire-levels of money. You might not have heard of these movies, or you might’ve written them off, but either way, here are the movies from 2013 that deserved more eyeballs. LIKE YOURS.

The Act of Killing

Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary tracks down the leaders of the Indonesian death squads that brutally killed anyone opposing Indonesia’s 1965 military coup. And then? Oppenheimer has them re-enact their crimes for the camera. Using gangster movies and musicals for inspiration, the killers are happy to do so. (“We have to re-enact this properly,” one of them says, casually demonstrating how he choked dissidents to death.) The killers also play golf, go bowling, and drink—and, in the film’s most jarring moments, admit how they feel. “War crimes are defined by the winners,” one says. “I’m a winner. So I can make my own definition.” Terrifying and unexpectedly touching, this is a film everyone should see. (Blu-ray on December 3, DVD on January 7)
Pain & Gain

Upon release, Michael Bay’s true-crime caper flick was met with shrugs. That—stick with me here—is a minor tragedy. Transformers auteur Bay traded in explosions and LaBeoufs for a much smaller, much more gruesome tale of three dumbass bodybuilders (Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie) who plan a crime—and end up screaming and covered in blood. Lurid, funny, and skeevy, Pain & Gain is a reminder that Bay can make a solid movie—so long as he isn’t worrying about how robot testicles will fit into his mis-en-scène. (Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
A Band Called Death

In the early ’70s, in a bedroom in Detroit, three black brothers invented punk. Calling themselves Death, they were forgotten when bands like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and Bad Brains took center stage. Decades later, Death’s recordings were found by crate-digging music dweebs, showing everyone that punk isn’t just “white boy music.” Part family portrait and part detective story, A Band Called Death is about brotherhood and history — and music so raw, so loud, and so new that it sent people running for shelter, hands over their ears. (Netflix, Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, drafthousefilms.com)
Dirty Wars

Just in case Edward Snowden’s files didn’t totally destroy your faith in America, this should do the trick! Dirty Wars tracks The Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill from Afghanistan to Yemen to Washington DC as he uncovers the secret American strike forces that carry out targeted killings—assassinating not only suspected terrorists, but also women, children, and whoever else is nearby. Sometimes the kill lists given to these teams contain the names of American citizens; sometimes the lists are vague, to give those doing the shooting carte blanche. If The Act of Killing is a movie everyone should see, Dirty Wars is a movie every American should see. (DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Sightseers

Friendly reminder: Grown Ups 2 made $130 million, which means at least some of you reading this paid money to see it. Lessen your shame by watching Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, a comedy that’s actually comedic. Awkward couple Tina and Chris (co-writers Alice Lowe and Steve Oram) set off on a romantic trip through Northern England—only to end up causing death and destruction. Possibly accidentally? Or totally on purpose? Produced by Edgar Wright (who directed The World’s End, another of 2013’s comedy highlights), the brilliant, pitch-black Sightseers isn’t for everybody. But hell, that’s a lot better than a movie that isn’t for anybody. Like Grown Ups 2. (Blu-ray and DVD on December 10)
Upstream Color

WIRED readers might already be familiar with Primer director Shane Carruth, but if you showed Upstream Color to the average person on the street, their brain would start leaking out of their ears. Like Primer, Upstream Color is bizarre and strange and powerful; as odd of a film as it is (pigs infused with human consciousnesses play a major role! okay!), you can’t shake the feeling that Carruth knows exactly what he’s doing… and that if you just watch his movie a few more times, you’ll crack his code. Just writing this is making me want to watch Upstream again. This time I’m going to cram some cotton balls in my ears. No more brain leakage! (Netflix, Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, upstreamcolor.com)
Stories We Tell

Sarah Polley’s documentary about her family is told in a variety of ways: there are reenactments, there’s a memoir, there are interviews with siblings who support and contradict each other. It’s a mystery box, and as Polley opens it, she makes a film about how memory sustains and betrays us. If it sounds like I’m being obnoxiously vague, that’s because I am: Stories We Tell is better the less you know about it. The only thing you need to know is that you should see it, and that it totally didn’t make me cry, no matter what anyone says. (DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Behind the Candelabra

One of the best filmmakers of the past few decades, this year Steven Soderbergh told everyone that he was QUITTING! FILMMAKING! FOREVER! But before he did, he put out one last movie. In America, the subject matter of Behind the Candelabra meant it didn’t get theatrical distribution, but track it down: The true story of the sweet, creepy romance between Liberace (Michael Douglas) and his boytoy Scott Thorson (Matt Damon), Candelabra is a sweet, creepy story of love (and sequins) gone wrong. (Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Spring Breakers

I don’t know if Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine’s fever-dream of a spring break movie, is a thriller or a comedy or a drama or horror movie or softcore porn or what, but I do know one thing: That goddamn Britney Spears scene is the most amazing five minutes of film all year. Possibly ever? Depends on how you feel about Britney. And James Franco’s dreadlocks. (Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Enough Said

Even a genre as cynical and bankrupt as the romantic comedy has the occasional exceptional film—like Nicole Holofcener’s romantic and funny Enough Said. The always excellent Julia Louis-Dreyfuss plays Eva, who gets a crush on Albert (James Gandolfini), then starts hearing terrible things about him from her pal (Catherine Keener), who happens to be Albert’s ex. Holofcener’s film is clever, good-hearted, and hilarious — not to mention a fitting send-off to Gandolfini, who, in one of his final performances, is fantastic. (Blu-ray, DVD, and Amazon Instant Video on January 14)
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Okay, you’re forgiven for skipping this one. When a movie has a gimmicky title, it’s a good sign it doesn’t have much else to offer. (Everybody tweets about Sharknado; no one remembers Sharknado.) But every once in a while, there’s a B-movie — like, say, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters — that lives up its title. Tommy Wirkola’s action flick is crammed with viscera and wit (Hansel has adult-onset diabetes due to eating all that candy as a kid), and it boasts a charming turn from a blood-splattered Gemma Arterton, not to mention useful advice for everyday living (“If you’re gonna kill a witch, set her ass on fire”). To behold Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is to behold cinema in all of its insane beauty. (Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Prince Avalanche

For the past few years, David Gordon Green’s been directing comedies like Pineapple Express, Your Highness, and Eastbound & Down. With the little-seen Prince Avalanche, he returned to his low-fi indie roots, bringing along Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsh. Rudd and Hirsh play two men repairing roads in an isolated California forest; as with any two dudes stuck in the middle of nowhere, it isn’t long until they’re at each other’s throats. Rudd and Hirsh are both great, and Green knows how to deliver off-putting humor and well-earned sentiment. (Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)
Frances Ha

I overheard Frances Ha described as “a movie about the kind of people I hate,” which… fine. That’s fair. Focusing on young, self-involved Frances (co-writer Greta Gerwig), Noah Baumbach’s film starts off being about… well, the kind of people you hate. But give it a few minutes: With humor and insight, Gerwig and Baumbach tell a subtle, smart story about characters who you first think are stupid and annoying, but then you start to care about. Hey, just like real life! (Netflix, Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video)

No Shiitake, This Chair Is Made of Mushrooms

Martha — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:38:31 +0000

Designer Eric Klarenbeek’s Mycelium Chair combines the precision of 3-D printers with the emergent behavior of biological organisms. Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek
Inside a bioplastic shell filled with straw pellets, mycelium fungi grew and eventually sprouted mushrooms on the surface. Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek
The chair’s sinuous curves look organic, but were all painstakingly specified with CAD software and 3-D printed as hollow skins. Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek
Straw pellets provided the shell with strength and acted as a food source for the mycelium spores. Photo: Johan Baars
The mycelium acts like an organic glue, binding the chair together and transforming the flimsy husk into a sturdy household item. Tiny perforations in the surface gave way and allowed mushrooms to sprout, creating an unplanned organic upholstery. Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek
Early experiments proved challenging. “We had burning 3-D printers, exploding bottles, collapsing structures, contaminated substrates, but luckily, also several ‘happy accidents.’” Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek
A miniature 3-D model of the form Klarenbeek used to work out the design. Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek
In addition to building the chair, Klarenbeek also had to design a mobile laboratory to fabricate his chair—the project was part of an outdoor exhibition combining the visual arts and life sciences. Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek
An early structural prototype 3-d printed with a straw-based polymer. Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek
The Mycelium Chair is a fanciful proof of concept, but with proper controls, the fungus/straw combo could be molded into unique shapes and potentially replace the styrofoam blocks that surround televisions and other electronics during shipping. Photo: Sjoerd_Sijsma
“We can 3-D print both the house, insulating structure and its skin at once,” he says. “By combining 3-D printing and mycelium, the applications are endless.” Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek
Klarenbeek believes getting more designers involved in probiotic production is critical and is trying to productize his mobile lab with hopes that other designers will take up the challenge. Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek
Klarenbeek attempted to print the chair’s form in a traditional manner using a straw-based polymer with the hopes that mushrooms would grow on the surface. Sadly, it didn’t work out as expected. Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek

Aside from the occasional hookah-smoking caterpillar, mushrooms are rarely used as seating. However, if Dutch designer Eric Klarenbeek has his way we’ll soon see furniture fabricated from fungi at IKEA. His latest project, the Mycelium Chair, combines the precision of 3-D printers with the emergent behavior of biological organisms to create a recliner that can support your weight while expanding your mind.

The chair’s sinuous curves look organic, but were all painstakingly specified with CAD software and 3-D printed as hollow skins using a corn-based bioplastic. Pellets made from straw filled the cavities and a starter solution of liquified spores was fed into the construct. Over a period of five days the eukaroytes fed off the nutrients in the straw and infiltrated the tiny gaps between the straw pellets and plastic skin, acting like an organic glue that bound the chair together and transformed a flimsy husk into a sturdy household item. Tiny perforations in the surface gave way and allowed mushrooms to sprout, creating an unplanned organic upholstery.

Klarenbeek studied design in college, but got a crash course in mycology, aka mushroom cultivation, when he agreed to take part in an outdoor exhibition at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands. The goal was to bring the schools of art and life sciences closer together, a mission Klarenbeek interpreted quite literally” “I told this team of professors we’d like to 3-D print living plant cells.”

After getting a feel for the potential of additive manufacturing the faculty pointed Klarenbeek to the “Mushroom Research Group” a crack team of professors fixated on fungus. They suggested he use mycelium, a species that grows quickly, can thrive on common materials, and is surprisingly strong and dense when dried.

Some spores snuck into a bag of straw pellets and quickly transformed it into a biologically engineered brick, setting Klarenbeek on the path that led to a mushroom-crusted chair. Photo: Studio Eric Klarenbeek

At first, Klarenbeek attempted to print the chair’s form in a traditional manner using a straw-based polymer with the hopes that mushrooms would grow on the surface. Sadly, it didn’t work out as expected. “We had burning 3-D printers, exploding bottles, collapsing structures, contaminated substrates, but luckily, also several ‘happy accidents.’” One of those was when some spores snuck into a bag of straw pellets and quickly transformed it into a biologically engineered brick, setting Klarenbeek on the path that led to his successful solution.

The Mycelium Chair is a fanciful proof of concept, but also represents a breakthrough in materials. With proper controls, the fungus/straw combo could be molded into unique shapes and potentially replace the styrofoam blocks that surround televisions and other electronics during shipping.

This might seem like magical thinking, perhaps a result of ingesting a mushroom or two, but a New York company called Ecovative Design, is already manufacturing with mycelium and producing everything from packaging to surfboards. Klarenbeek believes getting more designers involved in probiotic production is critical and is trying to productize his mobile lab with hopes that other designers will take up the challenge.

Beyond commercial applications, Klarenbeek imagines a future where everything from our homes to our furnishings could be manufactured locally and sustainably—using mushrooms. “We can 3-D print both the house, insulating structure and its skin at once,” he says. “By combining 3-D printing and mycelium, the applications are endless.”

IT problems hit RBS and NatWest customers again

Martha — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 11:33:02 +0000

Problems with IT systems at the Royal Bank of Scotland stopped customers making online and card
payments on the busiest shopping day of the year.

The cause of the problem that affected customers of RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank has not yet
been identified.

RBS said all services are now back working normally and offered to refund customers if they have
lost money as a result.

“We would like to apologise to our customers. If anyone has been left out of pocket as a result
of these systems problems, we will put this right,” said RBS in a statement.

“If any customer is experiencing issues this morning, they should get in touch with our
callcentres or come into our branches, where our staff will be ready to help.”

The banks’ IT systems have been hit several times over the last couple of years. In summer 2012,
the banks’ customers were unable to access their accounts for days, as a result of software
issues.

The glitch in the CA7 batch process scheduler ended with 12 million customer accounts
frozen. Customers were left unable to access funds for a week or more as RBS, NatWest and the
Ulster Bank manually updated all the account balances. RBS said the problems cost the bank
£175m.

As a result of the software glitch, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) demanded details of
how major banks planned to prevent a repeat. Then, in March 2013, the bank experienced further
disruptions as ATM, online and telephone banking services were hit by IT problems

The problems meant customers
had difficulties making cash withdrawals and debit card payments, as well as disruption to
online and telephone banking.

Jean-Louis Bravard, director at Burnt-Oak Partners and former CIO at UBS said: “After
yesterday’s fiasco and the earlier problems in 2012, it is painfully apparent that the RBS Group
has systemic IT problems.

“But it is most probably not alone in relying on obsolete legacy IT, surrounded by an
ever-increasing plethora of newer systems to give consumers the impression that the banking systems
are fit for purpose in our internet and smartphone world. They are not and the FCA and the
bank boards are in denial.

“Bank IT in the UK is not OK.”

SAP user group: Innovation agenda clear but for long haul

Martha — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 11:33:01 +0000

Philip Adams (pictured) is the chairman of the UK and Ireland SAP user group. He is also the
head of group IT at Dublin-based construction firm Mercury Engineering. The recent 25^th
anniversary user group conference in Birmingham was Adams’ first in the driving seat, as chairman.
He spoke with Computer Weekly about how users are seeing SAP’s strategy of promoting Hana,
cloud and mobile, and about his vision for the group.

How are UK and Ireland users seeing SAP’s strategy for Hana as the platform for enterprise
resource planning (ERP) as well as analytics?

I think it has been slow for them. When SAP started talking about it, they didn’t get it.
They’re not worried by it, and they now see it as impressive. They can see benefit, and it is not
just a sales hype. SAP didn’t invent it out of the blue. They must have had feedback from customers
over the world.

With the economic conditions, they have focused on getting the most value from what they’ve got,
and so not had the opportunity to figure out the future for themselves. SAP has done that for
them.

Now every business is different and not everyone cares about the volume of data or real-time
information, and that is how they saw Hana. But then they brought Hana into transactional systems,
and the light bulb has been going on. We’re starting to think: “That means I can have less
hardware, less infrastructure to invest in. If I can run the ERP and the data warehouse on the same
platform there is a cost benefit. And if I can have my users consume that on a mobile device, on
the same platform that’s powerful.”

Who in the UK and Ireland is at the bleeding edge of this?

We just know the ones SAP reference: Kingfisher, MacLaren, and Plan (a global charity).Globally,
Bayer and Vodafone are early adopters. There will be more, and this is still early days.

How about your own business, Mercury Engineering?

We’re not that big, so the big data thing isn’t so relevant for us, as an SME. The high speed is
less relevant in construction, too. But we have an ERP stack sitting on its hardware and a BW. If I
were doing this again tomorrow I would go for Business Suite in the cloud. But I have to sweat the
assets we already have. But I would think there will be few SAP customers on a traditional database
in four or five years’ time. Maybe still on premise because of concerns about security, but on
Hana.

Some customers are very sensitive about where their data is held geographically, so if SAP is
offering you Business Suite on Hana in the cloud the blocker could be the physical location of the
datacentre.

Last year’s conference gave voice to a good deal of user
scepticism about SAP’s cloud strategy. Has that confusion dissipated?

I think so, yes. People are figuring out when it will be suitable. But SAP is not pushing that.
We get it and we know it is there, when and if we are good and ready. That’s the case for my own
business, certainly. We’re not on the cloud.

What’s your vision for the user group?

We still want to grow. We have 600 members, but there are some 9,000 SAP customers in the UK and
Ireland. Our growth has been steep over the past ten years or so, but there is still a large
installed base out there who are not in our membership. We need to put across that we can challenge
SAP not just in the UK and Ireland, but worldwide, through the user group executive network. The
fundamental thing is, the more you put into networking in the user group, the more you get out of
it. We find, from annual surveys, that 97% of the members say they get added value from
participation in the user group.

Internationally, we are one of 16 involved in the SAP user group executive network Sugen, and
that is a huge voice that SAP does listen to. There is an SAP executive board member who attends
global meetings. It’s been Jim Snabe in recent years, he’s handing over to Gerhard Oswald.

And we also share best practice of the other groups. We work very closely with the Dutch
user group, for example.

How do you plan to keep and bolster your independence, given that relations
seem warmer in 2013 than they have been in recent years?

Well, we want SAP to be successful. We are an SAP user group, not an Oracle user group.
Sometimes by being so upfront and harsh we’ve slowed progress, so we are trying to see if we can
speed progress by working with them on some of the topics.

We’ve got very formal structures in place around who can become a volunteer or a member of our
board. Even working for an SAP partner is not admissible, since it could compromise independence.
That can be difficult if you lose a good volunteer.

We’d prefer all speakers at our events to be customers. But that is not always possible, and we
do tend to get to a point where we need an SAP person for technical details. Individual SIGs
(special interest groups) are very much run that way, with SAP employees brought in where
needed.

It must be tricky trying to influence SAP while safeguarding your independence?

It is a fine line. We need to work with them, but we still maintain our independence. If there
is an awkward thing out there, like the enterprise
support issue, we can only challenge by virtue of our independence, financially and
otherwise.

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