http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org The TechWatch blog Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:06:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en ICT 2008 is a big conference and there are great many parallel sessions covering a veritable smorgisbord of technology areas. Taking a helicopter view of the proceedings gives a pretty good idea of the likely direction of travel for EU-funded ICT developments over the coming decade. I've collated a list ... http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/11/27/ict-2008-future-directions/ Will we start to see robots in our classrooms and university research labs within a decade or so? According to one of the sessions at ICT 2008 we are starting to see robotic applications move beyond their traditional use in high end automobile manufacturing ... http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/11/27/semantic-robots/ At the end of day one there was a panel debate on the successes and failures of EU-funded research. It was generally agreed that the EU research environment is fragmented – there is no equivalent of MIT, no EU-wide centres of excellence. Along with ... http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/11/26/ict-2008-panel-debate/ The opening plenary debate of the ICT 2008 conference focused on trends and directions for the ICT agenda over the next ten years. It was chaired by Viviane Redding, the EU commissioner responsible for ICT and involved a panel including Ben Verwaayen, CEO of ... http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/11/25/ict-2008-plenary-report/ In a previous blog item I talked about the future of the institutional CMS and why TechWatch wasn't going to commission an update to its 2001 report. You may remember that I focused on two of the main concepts from the CMS report: processes rather than products, and blurring the ... http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/11/04/service-oriented-architecture-and-the-future-of-the-cms/ I attended the British Computer Society's Visions of Computer Science conference which took place in London, earlier this month. The idea behind the event was to provide inspiration for the future development of computer science as a discipline and, as such, offered a unique chance to feel the pulse of ... http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/10/14/visions-of-computer-sciences-future/ Last week I attended the BCS Visions of Computer Science conference in London. We'll be posting a more detailed look at the event later on, but I thought I'd just mention Vint Cerf's speech as it relates to a TechWatch report we've just commissioned. Vint Cerf is often referred to ... http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/09/29/new-report-commission-100gb-ethernet-and-the-future-of-networking/ In the Web 2.0 report we published last year (What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education) we noted the importance of geo-spatial data in the development of mash-ups and we're now planning to return to this subject with a new open call. The growing interest in the ... http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/09/02/open-call-data-mash-ups-and-the-future-of-mapping/ Back in September 2001 TechWatch published a report on Content Management Systems, written by Paul Browning and Mike Lowndes. At the time it very quickly became one of the most popular TechWatch reports ever published, and is still a steady favourite, even today. I can't take any of the credit ... http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/08/12/content-management-systems-why-were-not-updating-the-techwatch-report/ TechWatch has recently been asked to contribute its thoughts on future technology developments that are likely to have the most significant impact on library and information services in higher education. It’s for Update, the journal of the Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals, and one of the interesting questions ... http://notesfromthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/08/04/e-books-open-standards-deja-vu/