Technology

(CNS): A team of five students from year 7 and 8 of Cayman Prep High School have competed in a qualifier First Lego League tournament in Clearwater, FL.  The tournament was the culmination of 5 months of hard work by the team and its coaches.  At the end of the all-day event the team's outstanding performance meant that they advanced to the next round with a coveted 'golden ticket' to the regional tournament in Tampa, FL, on February 4.  The event comprised a mission field with almost 20 potential missions to complete within the 2.5 minute round.  The highest score of three rounds was counted. 

(CNS): Weststar’s planned move to a fibre-optic infrastructure took a step forward this month the television company said as it has signed an agreement with the leading fiber access systems vendor in North America and the Caribbean – Calix (NYSE: CALX).  The deal means that Calix will provide the equipment connecting the fiber-optic infrastructure to the consumer.  WestStar said it expects to receive the first shipment of equipment in early February.  Jeremy Elmas of Weststar said the firm was selected because of its focus on FTTx equipment, its service record, and because it is a leader in the industry.

(BBC): The Queen's Christmas speech has been released as a free download for Amazon's Kindle e-book reader following its broadcast. The retailer secured access to the transcript after approaching the Royal Household with the proposal. The arrangement is an e-book exclusive although the text was also made available at Facebook, the BBC and the Royal Household's official website. Book industry watchers described the move as a "coup" for Amazon.  In addition to this year's speech Kindle owners are able to download the Queen's previous Christmas messages dating back to 1952, the year of her accession to the throne.

(BBC): The intellectual property rights relate to a method to switch a vehicle from a human-controlled mode into the state where it takes charge of the wheel. It explains how the car would know when to take control, where it is located and which direction to drive in. The search firm suggests the technology could be used to offer tours of tourist locations or to send faulty models to repair shops. The application for Transitioning a Mixed-mode Vehicle to Autonomous Mode was applied for in May, but had been hidden from public view until this week.

(CNS): SeaGrape House a residential project by John Doak Architecture is this year’s winner of the Governor’s Award for Design and Construction Excellence in the Cayman Islands. Selected from a short list of projects where renewable energy and sustainability dominated the finalists. SeaGrape House was described by Doak as a traditional Caribbean style home, which utilised renewable energy resources and set in the undisturbed surroundings of the seagrapes of the Frank Sound beach-ridge. The owner of the house Janet Morse said Doak had designed a plantation style home that featured renewable energy and a beautiful garden.

(Reuters): Asaf Moses is in the midst of displaying a new way to measure body dimensions. A virtual instructor prompts him to turn 90 degrees to the left and adopt various poses such as "The Penguin," aimed at capturing over 20 different measurements using a device that many people have embedded in their laptops -- a simple webcam. "It's capturing everything that's needed to tailor a shirt to your measurements", said Moses. And it's all online. Shoppers generally flock to malls during the holidays beginning on Black Friday, although in recent years many have headed to the Internet. A recent survey by analytics firm comScore predicted online shopping would increase 15 percent this current holiday season.

(CNS): The local airport authority has issued a request for proposal for the construction of a four-storey concrete tower that will house the planned Doppler weather radar on part of the former Prison Farm in East End. Two contracts have already been awarded to German companies to manufacture, supply and install the digital radar itself and for the technician. The Cayman Islands Airports Authority (CIAA) said SELEX Systems Integration will make and put up the radar while the Icon-Institute won the bid to provide a Technical Assistant on contract, for the duration of the project.

(Telegraph): Confronted with a weak wifi signal and no mobile reception, a top technologist knew exactly the right solution. Use an old baking tray as an amplifier. Peter Cochrane, formerly the Chief Technology Officer at BT, was on a boat on the Norfolk Broads but unable to get online. By improvising, he could boost a flagging, useless signal to something much more effective. Writing on his blog at Silicon.com, Cochrane explained that the baking tray proved just as effective as an expensive high-gain antenna which he didn’t have.

(CNS): The chair of the national energy policy sub-committee on renewable energy said that the most viable alternative to Cayman’s current diesel powered electricity is wind. Louis Boucher said that while wind power was not without its problems, turbines were the most likely solution for a sustainable power source in the future. Boucher, who is also the deputy Managing Director of the Electricity Regulatory Authority, said that he was disappointed by the decision to use the site proposed for a wind farm in East End for the government’s Doppler Radar project, but he said there were alternative places on Grand Cayman that could be used.

(CNS): Local telecommunication operator LIME has launched a personal mobile-broadband router called ‘MiFi’, which creates its own hotspot and allows up to five devices to connect to the internet at the same time.  LIME said the new gizmo is Ideal for small-businesses, individuals, families and small student working groups as it is a light-weight portable modem that works at a distance of up to 30ft and provides simultaneous internet access to Wi-Fi enabled devices such as laptops, tablets, media players, digital cameras and video game consoles.

(Telegraph): Top Facebook executive, Ethan Beard, has said that Google and other search engines are failing to give people the results they really want and need. Talking exclusively to The Telegraph, Beard, the director of the Facebook Platform, said that search will have to “go social” but admitted that a tie-up between the social network and its major rival Google would not make good business sense, despite the benefits to consumers. Beard is in London, as part of a global tour, talking to hundreds of British developers about the new additions to the site’s Platform since f8, the recent Facebook developers conference – at which the site's chief, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the 'Timeline' and a ‘new breed of social apps’.

(Times of India): Scientists in Singapore have discovered a process that can expand the data storage capacity of computer hard disks six-fold using a common kitchen ingredient -- table salt. The discovery was made by Singapore's national research institute the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, in collaboration with the National University of Singapore and the Data Storage Institute. The institutions have "developed a process that can increase the data recording density of hard disks to 3.3 Terabits per square inch, six times the recording density of current models", they said in a statement.

(CNS): The UCCI’s goal to open an observatory on the campus has taken another important step forward after an expert local land surveyor defined a True North - South line on the concrete slab where the telescope will sit, recently. Chris Evans, of Evans & Associates, Licensed Land Surveyors, who admits to having an interest in the subject donated his time recently to establish this important fact at the start of construction of the “Reach for the Stars” project which gets underway this month. One half of the building will be a classroom and the other will house a 12.5" fully computerized reflector telescope and in order for it to operate correctly it has to be accurately orientated.

(The Telegraph): Violent video games may actually reduce crime as aggressive players are "too busy" shooting virtual enemies to cause trouble in the real world, experts claim. Games such as Manhunt and Grand Theft Auto - where gamers rack up points or cash for killing or savagely attacking victims - are routinely blamed for a rise in violent crime. A spate of high profile murder cases have heard evidence that various games were 'to blame' for a string of killings. But a report, called 'Understanding the Effects of Violent Video Games on Violent Crime' by three respected academics has said it doesn't believe there is a link. The report argues that gamers are 'too busy' playing to cause much trouble in the real world.

(BBC): Ultra-high resolution images of several Dead Sea Scrolls are now available on the web, after Google helped digitise the ancient texts. The search firm lent its expertise in scanning documents to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Both amateur and professional scholars will now have access to 1,200 megapixel images. Five scrolls have been captured, including the Temple Scroll and Great Isaiah Scroll. Ardon Bar-Hama, a noted photographer of antiquities, used ultraviolet-protected flash tubes to light the scrolls for 1/4000th of a second.  The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956 inside 11 caves along the shore of the Dead Sea, East of Jerusalem.