Real time underground
Filed under: Community, Conversation, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services
Matthew Somerville has, with support, created a real time, live London Underground map.
See the trains, on their lines, move around the system. Matthew has not created a perfect image of the Transport for London system, but as an example of what can be achieved by a bright coder in a few hours – we think it’s great.
Matthew has used the TfL API to capture train departure data and present the continually updated information on a Google map underlay.
Brilliant! The work was done as part of Science Hackday, over the weekend of the 19th/20th June 2010, courtesy of The Guardian newspaper.
You can see HackDay details and winners of the coding marathon here.
Check out the live underground map here.
You can find the Third Sector Web home page here.
Vote for the Information Pioneers
The Chartered Institute for IT has created a web site where you can read about and vote for your Information Pioneers.
The current top five include Alan Turing, Sir Clive Sinclair, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Hedy Lamarr and Ada Lovelace.
This latter entry on the chart might be surprising. How could a person who was introduced to Charles Babbage at a party in the 1830′s be part of a list of IT pioneeers?
Working with Babbage on the creation of the Difference Engine , Lovelace arguably combined her love of mathematics and poetry in helping to create the machine. Lovelace saw that numbers could be transcribed or used to deliver information as image, music or symbol.
The intuitive leap from mechanical to digital, from calculation to computation.
Previously consigned by history to the role of note taker, we now know her contribution to be much more significant. Lovelace arguably played a significant role in developing the philosophy and processes that now underpin your own laptop or iPad.
You can watch Ortis Deley tell her story here. You can also see the other short films and vote for your pioneer too on the Chartered Institute for IT web pages.
Microsoft Web Office – now live
Filed under: Community, Microsoft, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services
Microsoft have gone live with their new free online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
You can access them thorugh your Windows Live desktop after signing in. The files are stored on your linked SkyDrive account and enable you to recall, share or edit files just as if they were on your laptop or PC.
The suite available offers a reduced set of functions from the full set of facilities available in Office 2010, but still includes enough to make creating documents a useful online experience.
We were pleased to see OneNote included. This is a powerful information management and note taking, action list driven tool and is a useful compliment to the other online services available.
Microsoft with Windows Live accounts, the revamped Hotmail and this new suite now offers a useful and intuitive package.
We think the road-warriors on our team will definitely be using it.
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