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Short for electronic waste, e-waste is a term used to describe the refuse generated by electronic equipment such as monitors, computers, and mobile devices. E-waste encompasses the materials used to manufacture electronic devices as well.
Also see: Computer, E-, Monitor
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Credit card fraud is the act of someone illegally using another person's credit card to make purchases without their permission.
Also see: Identity theft, Security terms
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A site, website, or web site, is a central location of various web pages that are all related and can be accessed by visiting the home page using a browser. For example, the Computer Hope website address is: http://www.computerhope.com. The image to the right shows how the Computer Hope website looked in 2011.
The first web site was built at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee and put online August 6, 1991.
Most style guides suggest using "website" instead of "web site" in all forms of writing.
A website refers to a central location that contains more than one web page. For example, Computer Hope is considered a website, which contains thousands of different pages. However, this page you're reading now is considered a web page on Computer Hope.
Also see: Dynamic website, Internet, Internet terms, Portal, Static website, Web design, Web page
Every time I tell someone I've written a book, I chase the announcement with a cascade of panicked, aggressively modest explanations that although it is about my journey through the creative industries, it isn't an autobiography.
The things nobody tells you about going freelance
Besides, who would even know who I am? It was never going to be the tabloid-serialised, wholesale slamming of the 10,239 ignorers of introductory emails. I wrote it because I wanted to pull back the curtain on the industry, just a little.
I mean, visit my website. You'll see a client list featuring the likes of the Premier League. But in 2006, when I skittered out of the New Blood graduate show like a dog from a bath, played off the park by the overwhelming competition, I was still two years from launching my maiden website, let alone landing a commission.
Every creative website portfolio I saw made me sweat at the impossibility of the task ahead. Window dressing is essential, but also a bit like a celebrity Photoshop retouch. What it took me a few years to grasp was, we all have our own airbrushed spots that never made it to the front cover.
Just the other week I was working for the Premier League. I found myself being filmed for a Sky Sports segment as I drew directly onto a phrenology head. The idea was to splice me amongst a series of football action clips previewing the upcoming Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal game; it was a great commission that I couldn't have even dreamed of in 2006.
However, what nobody will ever see is my frozen, glassy-eyed demeanour upon the realisation that I'd missed out the Y in 'psychology' (written in permanent marker pen).
And the resulting bendy-legged scurry to the nearest WH Smith, breathlessly barking "Tipp-Ex!" at the poor staff. I had to forego my lunch break to barely control my shaking hand and eventually managed to correction-fluid my way out of an irreversible mess.
That slapstick sketch was just one selection from an equally inglorious lowlight reel. It won't be shown on BT Sport or Sky TV with the feature, but the grey hairs multiplied all the same. Not only was this my first job for this client, it was also the end of a four-week spell without work.
The trials never end, but that's what makes the unthinkable moment you dreamed of so sweet when it comes every once in a while. The showcasing and the brand development is a lot of fun, but remember that you're not alone on the bleak days, no matter how star-studded your hero may appear when pinned up on your wall.
But let's not shed the mystique altogether. I still believe David Bowie is from Mars, but even he, like the Premier League greats, performed on a wet Monday night in Stoke-On-Trent in 1973.
Ben Tallon
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Term often associated with computer hard drives, however, can be used to describe any external or internal box that holds a computer peripheral such as a hard drive. The picture is an example of an Adaptec laptop hard drive enclosure that could be used to connect a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer. These enclosures can be purchased online or at any local computer retail store.
Also see: External storage, Hard drive terms
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Alternatively referred to as the squiggly or twiddle, the tilde is a character ( ~ ) found on computer keyboards below the escape or ESC key and on the same key as the back quote that resembles a squiggly line. The graphic gives an representation of how the tilde may appear.
For English keyboards the tilde is created by holding down the Shift key and pressing the tilde key, which shares is on the same key as the back quote ( ` ). Below are a few examples of how and when the tilde is used.
Also see: Keyboard terms
The 1980s: a decade when robots were as vogue as Madonna. They graced the covers of popular magazines and strutted their stuff across the silver screen. Having grown up in the ’80s, it’s no wonder why the Computer History Museum’s stellar collection of robots is my favorite. Aside from popular culture, robots are also an important part of computing history. I’ll be sharing some insight into the history of robots and also highlighting some of my favorite robots currently on display at the Museum.
For more than two thousand years, people have been creating devices that qualify as robots; after all, the most basic definition of a robot is a machine that can do the work of a person and that works automatically. The Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, Persians, and Romans all worked with mechanical systems that replaced human work with automation. For example, the Antikythera mechanism is often referred to as the earliest known analog computer, dating back to 150–100 BC. The medieval world continued to be obsessed with automata. Al-Jazari, an Islamic scholar, inventor, engineer, mathematician, and artist, authored The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206, where he designed and described over 100 mechanical devices, like this elephant clock from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During the Renaissance, lifelike mechanical figures that originated out of the clockmaking traditions of France, Germany, and England became common fixtures in the Wunderkammern, or cabinet of curiosities, of European courts.
Joseph Racknitz, Engraving of the Turk, 1789. Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
Over time these systems not only became more complex, but also become sights to behold. Such machines were often put on public display and drew huge crowds. This led hoaxers to develop machines like the Turk; a mechanical chess player developed by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770 that seemed to take on human opponents, but was actually being controlled by a man hiding inside a box.
Astounding Science Fiction, October 1953. Cover art by Frank Kelly Freas. Image credit: Chris Holmes.
By the time the word “robot” was coined by Karel Čapek in his 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), the automatons of centuries past had lost much of their luster and robots as we think of them today began to appear frequently in popular culture, long before the academic fields of robotics or artificial intelligence. Films like Metropolis (1927) and pulp fiction series like Astounding Stories, which would later become Astounding Science Fiction, put the modern, humanoid robot on everyone’s minds.
Robot Rebellion scene from R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), 1928–1929. © Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
Imagination quickly led to innovation. Technological and industrial advances following the Second World War, such as miniaturization, sensing, and energy storage, produced some of the earliest modern robots. Notably, George Devol patented a process for controlling machines using magnetic recordings in 1946 and would later conceive of the Unimate line of industrial robots that worked the assembly line for General Motors.
Unimate at General Electric, ca. 1963.
The Computer Museum (TCM) in Boston, predecessor to the Computer History Museum, was revolutionary in recognizing robotics and artificial intelligence as a significant part of computer history. TCM held several early exhibits about robots, including Smart Machines, which was originally touted as the being the most important group of robots ever assembled in one place.
Robot Theater in Smart Machines, 1987. The Computer Museum.
Mobile robots included: Shakey from Stanford University, The Prototype Mars Rover, the Stanford Cart, the quadruped Titan III from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and a Denning Mobile Robot. Robot arms included the Unimate I, the Stanford Arm, the Direct Drive Arm-1 from Carnegie Mellon University, and the Tentacle Arm from MIT. Building upon this strong foundation set by TCM, the Computer History Museum continues to place an important emphasis on robotics and artificial intelligence in its collection as well as its exhibits—especially in Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing.
Squee: the Robot Squirrel, 1951. Designed by Jack Koff. Image © Mark Richards.
One of the most interesting early robots on display in Revolution is Jack Koff’s Squee: the Robot Squirrel. Using two simple light sensors and two contact switches, Squee’s sole purpose was to gather “nuts” and bring them to his nest. These nuts were actually tennis balls, and Squee could only find them if the room was dark.
The Beast, 1961. Designed by John Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory
Another favorite of mine in Revolution is a robot built by the Applied Physics Laboratory at John Hopkins University in the 1960s, simply dubbed “The Beast.” The Beast was significant in that it was not powered by a computer; instead, it used transistors to create logic gates that allowed it to reason out a path as its sensors picked up various obstacles. The Beast roamed hallways, and then when power ran low, it could sense black wall outlets and plug itself in to recharge. Recharging would become an influential concept, especially in modern consumer robots such as the Roomba.
Rancho Arm, ca. 1962. Designed by Rancho Los Amigos Hospital. Image © Mark Richards
Robotics has greatly enriched the field of prosthetics. The Rancho Arm was developed at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, California, and was one of the first attempts at a computer-controlled arm. The Rancho Arm had six joints, allowing it to reasonably mimic the motion of the human arm. The device was heavy, more than 70 pounds, making it less attractive to use as a prosthetic. It did, however, influence further designs of robotic arms for medical and industrial uses.
In the late 1960s, the team at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) designed Shakey, one of the first intelligent mobile robots. Designed to reason out a path using input from its variety of sensors, Shakey was one of the most ambitious attempts at an autonomous robot. The system used onboard sensors, range finders, and a TV camera, to create a map of its environment. It wirelessly sent that information to minicomputers, which processed it and determined viable paths and movements. This technique made for a slow system, averaging about two meters an hour.
Shakey, 1969. Designed by Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Image © Mark Richards.
Perhaps one of the most important groups leading research in robotics during the 1960s and ’70s was the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, known as SAIL. SAIL attracted many of the top minds in robotics research and developed projects that would have a lasting impact on the field.
Stanford Cart, 1960–1980. Designed by the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL). Image © Mark Richards.
The Stanford Cart began as a test bed for a moon rover that could be controlled from Earth. Led by James L. Adams, the original cart was a tethered prototype that used car batteries and bicycle tires. As time went on, the project evolved and the cart morphed into a robotic road vehicle, designed to be controlled by a human operator. Eventually, it became an autonomous vehicle, but with a few drawbacks: It could only follow a bright white line under controlled lighting.
A later version of the cart system managed to cross a chair-filled room in roughly five hours. The cart would move one meter, recalculate using a television camera and other sensors, then 15 minutes later it would move another meter. While this may seem unreasonably slow, it managed to cross a room without human intervention, a major step along the road towards today’s self-driving cars, which has also been an area of research for the current incarnation of SAIL.
Stanford Hydraulic Arm, 1966–1968. Designed by the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL). Image © Mark Richards.
Robotic arms are another major subcategory in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence. The Hydraulic Arm from SAIL was designed to test whether a robotic manipulator could operate at the speed of the computer controlling it. Using a PDP-6, the arm did operate quickly, but the mass of the arm moving at such a speed led to the entire room shaking as it worked. Eventually, SAIL had to reinforce the floor of the room in order to keep the arm from doing damage to the building!
The Orm, 1965. Designed by Victor Scheinman and Larry Leifer. Image © Mark Richards.
SAIL researchers Victor Scheinman and Larry Leifer developed the pneumatically-powered arm Orm. The Orm, which is Norwegian for “snake,” featured 28 rubber sacks sandwiched between steel plates. By inflating various combinations of sacks, the arm would move. While this method proved inexact, the concept of pneumatically-driven arms has continued.
The Oblix, ca. 1978. Designed by Hirose Robotics Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology. Image © Mark Richards.
Modeling animal motion in robots has also been an area of interest among roboticists around the world. Dr. Shigeo Hirose of the Tokyo Institute of Technology specializes in developing robots, like the Oblix, whose movements are inspired by different animals. Adopting the properties of a snake, the Oblix had a segmented body that crept and slithered on the floor using small wheels. The Oblix operated as both a robotic arm and a tethered rover. It was released commercially as the MOGURA robot arm.
Biper-4 robot, 1983. Designed by Isao Shimoyama and Hirofumi Miura, University of Tokyo. Image © Mark Richards.
Human bipedal locomotion was another area of research among early roboticists, especially in the 1980s. Isao Shimoyama and Hirofumi Miura of the University of Tokyo created the Biper series of robots as an experiment to see if they could make a robot that could walk like a human. By the third iteration, Biper-3, the robot had long legs, feet, and ankles, but no knees; this resulted in a walk that was harsh and jerky. Biper-4, on display in Revolution, had mechanized knees, but was so unsteady that it required large ski-like feet to remain steady! Eventually, five different Biper systems were developed, though none were able to convincingly mimic a human stride.
The pace of robotics research has not slowed. Projects like SRI’s Centibots (currently in the Museum’s collection) and Boston Dynamics’ robot cheetah, are still testing the limits of what’s possible with the application of processing power to mechanical forms. And as long as people are still building research robots, we’ll keep on collecting them!
Back in March, we went to Dublin to speak at the great OFFSET festival. This was one of many talks we will do this year but it's definitely one of the highlights.
So why do we do so many lectures? Well, we don't just get a lot of fans from doing it – we get enemies as well. But we also get work. From one talk we got Microsoft, Samsung, Scandinavia's biggest investment bank and three more clients, all from the 25 people in the audience.
But back to enemies: we often get a few of them when we do presentations. They rage on about us making a show instead of presenting our work. Well, we would much rather talk about what makes us do that work and how we find the passion and energy to keep doing it at that level.
If you go to listen to a book author you wouldn't want the author to sit and read from the book for one hour. It would be much more interesting to hear how the author thinks and how they live. How do they come up with the stories and how did they end up writing? What does he or she get out of it? And so on.
The same goes for us when we talk. There are so many people talking about their own work already and if people want to see our work and know more about the actual work, it's on our website.
We know not everyone is an entertainer – and you don't have to be. Just remember there's no need to take yourself too seriously. Add humor and you will get smiles. Smiling faces are the best review of a talk.
In Dublin, Richard had a lot of stage fright and had to live up to our motto, 'Say Yes!' The audience was 2,500-strong and it was his first lecture. He pulled it off in great style and the lecture went great.
A week earlier, Richard had shown his grandfather a photo of some billboards of him erected all over Dublin for the talk. His grandfather just stared at it and asked: ";What is it you're doing again?"
So at the talk, Richard filmed the entire audience and asked them to scream his grandfather's name – Colin – and they did.
If you ever get the chance to stand in front of 2,500 people, ask yourself if you want to entertain them or simply just pretend they're not there and push slides. Make them laugh and scream your name! Don't settle for anything less (unless you want to).
Fredrik Öst
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Hardware company founded in 1997 with research that started at the MIT Media Lab that develops Electronic Paper Displays (EPD) technologies found in such products as the Amazon Kindle. As can be seen in the example below, this technology works by positively charging white pigment chips and negatively charging black pigment chips and storing those chips in a clear fluid. When a negative electric field is applied the white pigment chips move to the top and makes the surface appear white, and the opposite eclectic field moves the black pigment chips to the surface.
Electronic Paper is also the code name Microsoft used for Multiplan.
Also see: Kindle
The Sonder's keys are capable of changing both appearance and function (Credit: Sonder Design)
It can get confusing, trying to remember which keys are used for which shortcuts in which programs. That's why Australian startup Sonder Design developed the Sonder keyboard. Utilizing e-ink technology, all of its letter, number and function keys can change appearance and function, depending on the application being used.
The Sonder isn't the first e-ink keyboard we've seen. Jaasta claims to be developing one, while Art. Lebedev's Optimus Popularis can already be purchased – albeit for US$1,500. By contrast, the Sonder can currently be pre-ordered for $199, with a planned retail price of $350.
As suggested by its designers, the Sonder could do things such as operating in a DVORAK layout, displaying Chinese or other non-Phoenician characters, displaying game- or program-specific icons, or allowing for the creation of custom macros.
The keyboard is claimed to work with PCs, Macs and all types of tablets and smartphones, connecting via Bluetooth. As an added bonus, its keys also light up in the dark.
Users will reportedly be able to store their custom layouts in the cloud, along with accessing an online library of layouts and functions made available by other users. Before the device heads to large-scale production, however, Sonder Design is planning to launch a Kickstarter campaign later this year. Potential backers can register for updates via the company website, linked below.
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Short for Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, EDVAC is one of the first electronic computers that utilized the binary system that first began performing basic tasks in 1951. The picture is a public-domain U.S. Army Photo of the EDVAC, from K. Kempf. and the History of Computing.
Also see: ENIAC, Von Neumann architecture
Last week, the University of Brighton's 2015 graphic design and illustration graduates showcased their work at the institution's arts and humanities degree show.
There was a lot on display, from print to animation to film and more. But if you missed it, don’t worry: from 2-5 July, the graduates will present Studio 350, an exhibition showcasing their work, at the Rose Lipman Building in London.
Here are 14 highlights from the BA (Hons) Illustration course…
Illustration (Hons) BA
Lone Wolf
Jonathan Isaacson's exploration into how to hide information within prints examines what he believes to be a media bias towards certain religions groups in regard to acts of extremism, perpetrated by radicalised individuals across all faiths.
The viewer is forced to interact with the work to obtain all of the information presented, mirroring the process of researching a news story.
"I screenprinted reversed text and images on the back of the prints, so that only once light was shone through them would the full image be shown," he says.
The biggest lesson he learned during the process? "Make work about things you care about – no matter what," he says. "University is a safe space to explore themes like this and get your message heard, so make the most of it."
BA (Hons) Illustration
Mother Nature
In Mother Nature, Rumaanah (Roo) Hasan explores the connection between women and nature. "It's so prevalent across religions, cultures, myths and legends," she explains.
"I'm interested in the symbolism in nature and how it often portrays a strong, empowering feminine image across narratives, from the Amazonian warriors to Gaia, the Greek Goddess of the Earth."
Heavily inspired by the craft methods of other cultures – in particular different print and and pattern making techniques – Hasan investigated different ways of utilising rudimentary printing techniques to make images.
"The most challenging part was restricting myself to only a few mediums – I wanted time to explore ceramics and other textile techniques."
BA (Hons) Illustration
Dungeness; A [Pre] and [Post] Digital Wasteland
Katie Fiore's degree project explores the headland of Dungeness, Kent, as a representation of the pre-technological age, current technological age and post-technological age – using driftwood as a visual metaphor for digital decay.
"We invest lives into technology, upload histories to the Cloud, believing that these histories will last forever," explains Fiore. "But just like the floppy discs, tapes and VCRs of the not-so-distant past, things will become distorted."
The most challenging part of the project was the physical journey to Dungeness. "It's almost unreachable by public transport," she says. "I got stuck there without a phone and had to hitch-hike home. So next time, drive."
BA (Hons) Illustration
Magic, Power & the Occult
Inspired by old religion, magic, myths and tales, James Heginbottom created a series of obscured and subtly violent images for his degree project.
"I spent a lot of time reading about everything from English folklore and Wiccan rituals and festivals to Greek and Norse myths about the underworld, and used digital collage to create images inspired by characters and stories," he says.
"The most challenging part of the project was allowing me to be myself," he adds. "I spent a long time being hesitant to dive into subject matter. I had to realise that it was okay to be fascinated by and create work around ideas that might seem unusual or strange – even scary – to most people."
BA (Hons) Illustration
In Search of the Perfect Light
In Search of the Perfect Light explores the forgotten silent film history of the town of Shoreham-by-Sea, Kent. "Photography is a large part of my practice and when I heard that Shoreham housed a vibrant film industry because it was supposed to have the perfect light, my imagination was captured," says Jessie Russell Donn.
She experimented with slide film, producing imagery dependent on light conditions. "I became very interested in the sculptural qualities the town holds – today it's a large cement works. I used materials sourced from the site as tools to describe the events of the past."
BA (Hons) Illustration
The Pretender
Maria Sams' stop-motion animation The Pretender projects paper cut-outs onto a wall. "It shows a conversation between a doctor and his patient who blurs the lines between pretense and reality," she explains.
"The most challenging part of the project was managing my time, and not having bits of paper fly everywhere," she says. "The biggest lesson I learned is to be patient and to use what's around you. I don't think you always need a big budget to make animations."
nine more outstanding 2015 Brighton Illustration graduates – plus get a half-price subscription to Computer Arts
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Short for Video Graphics Array, VGA is a popular display standard developed by IBM and introduced in 1987, VGA provides 640 x 480 resolution color display screens with a refresh rate of 60Hz and 16 colors displayed at a time. If the resolution is lowered to 320 x 200, 256 colors are shown.
In the above picture is an example of what the VGA (SVGA) cable and connector will typically look like on the monitor and on the back of the computer. The VGA standard has been replaced by SVGA and although these cables and connectors are still referred to as VGA they are technically SVGA.
Although it is not uncommon to still find this type of cable and connector with today's computers and monitors. This standard is becoming obsolete and being replaced by the DVI connector and cable.
The illustration shows the 15-Pin VGA connector, its pin assignments, and size dimensions. As can be seen, the VGA connector has 15 holes and each hole (pin) has its own function as explained in the below chart, which describes each pin function
Also see: Cable, Connection, SVGA, VGA Mode, Video card, Video converter, Video terms
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Short for Digital Visual Interface, DVI is a video display interface developed to be an industry standard for transmitting digital video content to display devices at resolutions as high as 2560 x 1600. Common devices that utilize the DVI connection are computer monitors and projectors. DVI can even be used with some TVs, although HDMI is more common as only some DVI cables can transmit audio signals. The DVI connector (shown below) may have one of three names depending on the signals it supports: DVI-A (analog only), DVI-D (digital only), or DVI-I (both digital and analog).
If you have a monitor and GPU that support both DVI and VGA, we suggest going with a DVI cable as the picture quality will always be better with digital (and most analog) sources.
Also see: Cable, Connection, HDCP, Resolution, Video converter, Video terms
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In general, a paragraph refers to a new section of text that is separated by an empty line and, in many cases, has an indentation at the beginning of the first line. Typically, a new paragraph is created when talking about a different subject, time changes, or setting changes. A good example of a paragraph is each of the different definitions on this page.
A paragraph symbol or pilcrow is a formatting mark that helps represent the end of a paragraph. The graphic shown on this page is an example of a paragraph symbol. Formatting marks must be enabled in order for you to see this symbol in your document.
To create this mark in Windows, open the character map tool, locate the paragraph symbol, and then copy and paste it into your document.
When referring to HTML, the <p> tag is used to designate a paragraph.
Also see: Block of text, Formatting mark, HTML, Line break, Orphan, Paragraph formatting
How would you fill 60 seconds of the world's attention? Would you charm with your 'elevator pitch', that carefully crafted sales tool that assumes people in elevators are there to buy things?
Would you show off what you've got, who you are, the mediated version of the pick-up line that says, 'Look how great I am, don't you want to come with me?' Or maybe you'd give people a taste of your goods, a little snippet of your delights, like a legalised drug leader, offering the first hit for free.
Discover how to build a brand with social media
In our time-starved, media-drenched world, 60 seconds is such a precious asset. The folks who sold this precious commodity at the Super Bowl earlier this year even put a price tag on it: $4.5m.
So when we get it, the temptation to make the most of it with a compelling pitch, an amazing demo and an addictive sample, is almost too powerful to resist. It's this unmissable chance to send our message, sell our products, push our brands.
Yet, maybe we can start thinking about our brands differently. Maybe we can start seeing them less as megaphones for our messages and seductive wrapping for our products. Maybe we can start seeing them from society's viewpoint – less about what we want to say, and more about what they want to do.
Maybe that will force us to think differently about the 60 seconds. Maybe we'd use them differently.
Let's give people something that matters to them. Something personal. Surprising. Rewarding. Like Barclays, a bank in Britain that used its 60 seconds to invite kids to learn code instead of going on about interest rates and joining bonuses.
Or Charity: Water, which chose to show us how something we all have once a year – a birthday – can become a universal tool to do something meaningful in the world.
These organisations forgo opportunities to tout themselves and instead pivot the spotlight towards us in a life-affirming and useful way. They challenge the modern creed that everything a business does must have an immediate commercial return – eyeballs, upsell, revenue – and instead allows them to be part of society's bigger issues.
And it's worth fantasising about a world where more businesses think about the bigger things, the things that really matter. Maybe then 60 seconds would become so much less important – a blip – and maybe we'd have less noise from those millions of brands vying for our attention. Maybe instead, we'd spend more time making useful and wonderful things that make a difference. And give them away.
Then we could give everyone their 60 seconds back. To get a beer. To talk about the game. Take a leak. Or even better, just to sit in silence, reflect and take in the world around them. I think that'd be nice.
Ije Nwokorie is global chief executive of Wolff Olins, having worked with the consultancy since 2006. He originally trained as an architect in Nigeria and the US.
Żaneta Antosik
You can pick up a BartVPN lifetime subscription now for $74.99.
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By routing your web traffic via servers around the world, BartVPN is able to disguise your presence online. In so doing, it protects you from snoopers and fraudsters, but it also offers access to region-locked content. This could mean being able to watch your Netflix library from abroad, or using a VOIP app such as Skype in a country where it isn’t officially supported. You can choose from a list of servers around the world, and with this license, you can use the VPN on three devices.
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Ransomware is a malicious program that infects a computer and then locks it preventing the user access to their computer or their data unless a ransom is paid.
Also see: Cryptolocker, Scareware, Security terms, Software, Software terms, Trojan, Virus
The Liverpool School of Art and Design degree show 2015 ends this week, but never fear — if you won't get a chance to attend we've compiled a choice selection of some of the most interesting graphic design projects on display.
If you're on the hunt for new talent, here's some of the best that this year's Liverpool graduates have to offer.
This collection of images by Dan Howden was inspired by a visit to Cape Cod in June of 2014.
"I stayed in Hyannis and was struck by the Cape’s colour and architecture and I thought my surroundings leant themselves to Linocut," he explains.
"This feeling was further established when I caught a Ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, South of Cape Cod, and was left in awe of the Island’s toy-town-like aesthetic. My final Semester at LJMU presented me with the opportunity to dedicate a project to the Cape."
He took hundreds of photographs during his trip and selected six favourites to make into Linocuts.
Dance and musicals have always been major interests in Sam Warner's life, so she decided to create an animation project focusing on on of her favourites – Singin’ in the Rain.
"Instead of simply recreating the choreography, which seemed like an obvious choice, I realised Labanotation would be a perfect solution to bring the musical numbers and animation together."
Labanotation (created by Rudolf Laban) is a notation system used to record dance choreography.
"I illustrated my own set of the abstract symbols and then used After Effects to animate them," she explains.
"In total I created 20 short animation sequences using my animated symbols overlaying the Singin’ in the Rain footage. My symbols focus on particular dance movements or stage directions in the chosen scene.
"I am going to continue to combine animated Labanotation with other forms of dance. I’d love them to increase more awareness of the notation, as I believe it’s becoming a forgotten practice."
You can also view the animations on Tumblr.
Sana Iqbal's project is a set of posters and a book intended to promote political engagement and provide guidance on how to become more politically active.
Sana explains her motivations: "The upcoming 2015 election was a key moment to re-engage the public with politics. In recent years scandals, austerity and growing inequality have destroyed the people’s faith in government. Our democracy has been diluted down to one vote every five years."
She undertook research which indicated that British political design should be "exciting, honest and communicate at a human level".
To reflect the energy of political activism, Sana created vibrant screen prints which were used as backgrounds for the posters and book. "I reduced my guide from mountains of information and essays to concise statements," she told us.
"The title for the project was the hardest step and through endless brainstorming ‘Impossible Until Done’ perfectly pinned down my publication's message. It was inspired by a Nelson Mandela quote, making it’s meaning even more potent and relevant."
Joe Rampley's architectural illustrations of the buildings near the docks in Liverpool use a technique of reducing shapes, colours and compositions to create images in a minimalist style.
"I find reducing a structure to it's key elements satisfying and I've been developing this process for a few years now," he tells us.
"I took hundreds of photos around Liverpool for this series of illustrations, and selected photos based on their compositions and how the building could be illustrated through my particular style. I then began the illustration process in Photoshop."
Matthew Varker was asked to create the typography and signage for the LJMU Degree Show 2015, which he did using hand-manipulated type. All of his previous type work had been totally screen-based, so his main motivation here was to get away from his Mac for a change.
"I wanted to get up and get hands on with type, and leaving the studio to photocopy maybe one hundred experiments in order to get one perfect piece allowed me to do this," he says.
"I’d print out whatever class or phrase was needed, go and play around with it on the photocopier, come back to the studio and lay each experiment on the ground, assessing and narrowing down the copies until I had my chosen type.
"It was a little like Britain’s Got Talent, but without two small Geordies interrupting."
The final selections were then scanned and fixed up with the good old Mac.
The LJMU GD&I 2015 graduate publication, named after the third year studio space, was designed, edited and curated by Charlene Errity and James McNeff.
"It features articles written by students, reflecting on the projects, trips and experiences that were significant in our time here. Also, we included advice pages featuring quotes from designers that have had contact with the course, set against photographs of the third year studio taken by another student," Charlene told us.
"We decided to focus on the total time of the course in seconds, minutes, hours and days by setting it on the cover and crossed out in black to really emphasise the end of our degree, and mark the next stage in our creative careers.
"It’s a bit of a in-joke as well, to mimic blacked-out timetables that tutors would give us towards looming final deadlines!"
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The double-headed arrow is a special mouse cursor that is displayed when a window or window object can be resized. For example, this cursor is shown when you move your mouse pointer to the edge or corner of a window within the Microsoft Windows operating system. The image to the right shows an example of the vertical double-headed arrow, which means when this cursor is active, you can drag the object up or down to increase or decrease its vertical size
In addition to the vertical double-headed arrow, a horizontal and diagonal version may also be available. Below is an example of the diagonal double-headed arrow, shown in the bottom right-hand corner of a window in the program Notepad. This arrow is used to resize a window.
This cursor is only visible for a window when it's not maximized and capable of being re-sized.
Also see: Mouse pointer, Operating system terms, Resize, Size handle