The Emerging Technology Competition (eTech) is a new initiative that aims to attract innovative ideas and incentivize the innovative use of emerging technologies by undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Birmingham. The competition is organised by the IT Innovation Centre (ITIC) in IT Services and builds on the success of the Student Mobile App Competition that … Continue reading “Emerging Technology (eTech) Competition 2016-2017”
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Education
Technology is improving at a rapid pace, as many things emerging today can only exist in human being’s imagination before. Some of the impossible things rising to the occasion are the Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. Although they are very similar in terms of creating virtual objects, they are different in creating immersive environments for the audience. Recently, … Continue reading “Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Education”
Virtual Reality Using Leap Motion and Oculus Rift
The advent of more precise consumer virtual reality (VR) systems garnered the interest of numerous industries over the unimaginable potential of these head-mounted displays (HMDs). These HMDs, coupled with an input device, enables us to interact within the virtual environment – which boosts the sense of immersion. With recent advances in software, it has become easier to interact … Continue reading “Virtual Reality Using Leap Motion and Oculus Rift”
Intranet Newsfeed Experiment – Feedly
Feedly is a news aggregator application for various web browsers and mobile devices. It is available as a cloud-based service. It compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customise and share with others. It can also act as a browser add-on for Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari that delivers news feeds … Continue reading “Intranet Newsfeed Experiment – Feedly”
Chatbot overview and IT service desk chatbot experiment
Chatbot is one of the emerging technologies leading the agenda in 2016. Microsoft launched “Tay” in March 16. Facebook announced in April 2016 that businesses would be able to provide chatbots to deliver automated customer support via its “Messenger” services. Other providers include IBM and Microsoft are also providing development platforms to develop the chatbots. A bot is … Continue reading “Chatbot overview and IT service desk chatbot experiment”
In-memory computing – EXASOL evaluation
EXASOL (http://www.exasol.com/en/) provides an in-memory computing solution for data analytics. It combines in memory, columnar storage and massively parallel technologies to support high performance, flexibility and scalability. In-memory computing (IMC) is an architecture-style where applications assume all the data required for processing is located in the main memory of their computing environment. In-memory computing (IMC) is a … Continue reading “In-memory computing – EXASOL evaluation”
The Lapworth museum application
The Lapworth Museum App is a collaboration between the IT Innovation Centre and the Lapworth Museum of Geology at the University of Birmingham. The app was created by 1st year Computer Science student Adedayo Omosanya, winner of the Student Mobile App Competition 2015. [Download Link] The Lapworth Museum App includes the following features: Guided Tours to the Museum: Visitors can follow up … Continue reading “The Lapworth museum application”
Gesture Control Technology: An investigation on the potential use in Higher Education
For decades, keyboards and mouse have been the main input devices for computers. However, with the rising popularity of ubiquitous and ambient devices, (i.e. PlayStations), and equipment which allows users to grasp virtual objects, hand or body gesture are becoming essential: gesture controls have become central to the human computer interaction system. Gesture control technology is based on … Continue reading “Gesture Control Technology: An investigation on the potential use in Higher Education”
Student Mobile App Competition 2015-2016 Winners Announced
The Award and Demo Ceremony for the Student Mobile App Competition was successfully carried on 18th March 2016. Our finalists have inspired us with their app designs and prototypes.Career Networks provided a great support on the day and interviewed our finalists for their SMAC experiences. External sponsors from IBM, Deutsche Bank and Whitbread came as judges … Continue reading “Student Mobile App Competition 2015-2016 Winners Announced”
Student Mobile App Competition 2015-2016 Final-Demo and Award Ceremony
Time: 18th March 2016, 9:00am – 5:00pm Location: Aston Webb C Block G30 (Careers Network Seminar Room) In the demos and awards ceremony, finalists will present and demo their apps and designs to a panel of experts from industry and academics and to a wider audience.This year, we have engaged a new industrial sponsor, Whitbread (who run Costa, … Continue reading “Student Mobile App Competition 2015-2016 Final-Demo and Award Ceremony”