Skip Links | Site Map | Privacy & Cookies



InfoLab21 Features On BBC1

Prof. Brian Cox Presenting From InfoLab21 Prof. Brian Cox Presenting From InfoLab21

InfoLab21 featured on BBC Northwest Tonight on Tuesday 15th July as part of a series on Science and Technology in the region.

Presenter Prof. Brian Cox came to InfoLab21 last month with a BBC film crew to interview Prof. Alan Dix and Dr. Joe Finney from the Department of Computing and Dr. Paul Coulton from the Department of Communication Systems about their current research projects.

The five minute segment entitled "Computers Big and Small" was shown as part of a series called Tomorrow's World Today, running over 4 weeks on BBC1's regional news programme Northwest Tonight.

Computing Department's Prof. Alan Dix and Dr. Joe Finney were seen talking about 'Project Firefly!' their application which has been described as 'fairy lights with a technological upgrade'. Each individual light contains a miniature computer, making them individually controllable. As a result, patterns and effects are much easier to create and can be far more intricate and dynamic than those currently available.

Dr. Finney described how as technology advanced and computers got even smaller it may one day be possible to 'paint' a TV screen onto any wall and send data to all the individual computers contained in the paint, which would then make up the TV screen.

Prof. Cox then spoke to Dr. Paul Coulton from the Communications Department who demonstrated his latest mobile phone game, recently in the top five gaming videos of the day on YouTube.

Dr. Coulton went on to explain how mobiles could soon be able to superimpose informative graphics over camera images enabling the user to 'see' information such as Wi-Fi hotspots or clouds of pollution based on available data.

The programme can be viewed on the BBC website via the link below.

Mon 21 July 2008