UK's First Sake Brewery to open in Cambridgeshire

The first Sake brewery in the UK is set to open here in the county – after winning the approval of local councillors. The Japanese company Dojima will be investing around £9million in the business on the estate grounds of Fordham Abbey near Ely. They say their venture should lead to thousands of litres of freshly brewed Sake and over a hundred new jobs for the area.

 

But before building can begin, the owners held a Shinto ceremony...

Artist Impression by Kay Pilsbury Thomas Architects

“On the brink of revolution” for tech and public sector

techUK hosts Public Services 2030 conference

"We are on the brink of revolution," says Gordon Morrison, techUK's director for tech for government, at the techUK Public Services 2030 Conference. Morrison is referring to the way in which the digital industry and government integrate and engage with one another.

The London conference was opened by Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude MP (pictured) who stated: "Digital is one of the areas in which Britain is recognised to be world leading and it is part of the government's long-term plan for a stronger economy."

techUk's CEO, Julian David, said that the technology companies it represents welcome this sentiment: "We see the idea of government as a platform that can lead in a revolution to public service delivery."

David said that in all cases of successful digital enterprise from Estonia to Silicon Valley, "the public sector has played a major role in making that happen."

Maude noted that phrases like 'online government project' used to evoke concern due to notable failures such as the NHS computer system. However, Maude said the government is striving to be more efficient noting that 300 government websites have been shut down to be replaced by one, gov.uk. This is part of the government's attempt to modernise its digital infrastructure.

He also said that the government had saved £90 million by changing the way in which ICT contracts were set up, so that they had more clarity, were open to a wider range of applicants and didn't surpass a lifetime value of over $100 million unless under exceptional circumstances.

Maude also celebrated the success of British-based start-ups saying, "You do not need to be big to succeed you just need to be good." He pointed to examples like small Liverpool-based Scraperwiki which had help the migrate website content to gov.uk.

Speakers offered insights into how the digital public sector would change between now and 2030.

Pilgrim Beart, CEO of 1248, said that openness and data will be major drivers: "If we can do that then we can create an ecosystem of applications using analytics to turn data into information, something that the public and the private sector can get and participate in."

Other speakers also noted some of the uncertainties, Dr Sally Howes of National Audit Office said that it had yet to be established how to fully understand the monetary value in the digital government. Meanwhile, Air Vice-Marshall Mark Neal of the Ministry of Defence said that the "nature of risk" needed to be established when assessing proposals.

Julian David said that it is keeping in mind that there is an election this May: "We look forward to engaging with the next government and we are already meeting with the head of the civil service...to say we think this government platform is a fantastic opportunity to British-based tech businesses and of course British citizens."

Originally published on www.cbronline.com on 4th March 2015

Is the UK economy IoT ready yet?

Analysis: UK stakeholders discuss the future potential of IoT at the techUK Public Services 2030 conference

'How far away are we from seeing the Internet of Things (IoT) in our personal and business lives?'

This question was put before attendees of techUK Public Services 2030 conference opened by Francis Maude MP and techUK CEO Julian David. Using electronic voting devices 75% of attendees said they expected to see it within the next 5 years.

Forecasts from stakeholders vindicated their vote; Cisco believes that within 5 years the number of connected devices worldwide will have grown from 12-13 billion to 50 billion. Meanwhile McKinsey and Company says that IoTs could have a potential economic impact of $2.7trillion to $6.2 trillion across sized applications by 2025.

"It has to happen in 5 years," says Julian Bowery of the Department for Communities and Local Government. "It is not excusable for us to be talking about a technology that is here now and allow cultural issues to get in the way."

Attendees also voted IoT and data analytics as the two areas in which the UK could show the most leadership in. However, almost everyone agreed that a lack of understanding regarding IoT was the biggest barrier to its success.

Gary Atkinson, director of emerging technologies at ARM, noted that the IoT infrastructure is out there and operates on a lower bandwidth than the mobile network it runs parallel with.

Daniel Byles MP says in terms of IoT's adoption, "it comes down to business and real world cases, it comes down to why would we do this, how would we do this." Byles noted that many local government authorities may well see this as an unnecessary add-on, especially when under financial pressure.

However, Byles believes that central government can give local a "nudge" when it comes to the latter bidding to the former for construction contracts. Byles says this can be done without mandates but by simply asking them how they will ensure technology is up-to-date and that they are making the best business choice. Byles hopes that within time it will be seen as a risk not to adopt the IoT changes that we are seeing in today's risk takers like Milton Keynes and that within time the UK will be exporting IoT smart cities to other nations.

Geoff Snelson, director of strategy for Milton Keynes council, outlined how data was being attained through a number of IoT systems throughout Milton Keynes which showed the number of available parking spaces and had sensors on bins to alert waste removal when they were overflowing.

"To get people to volunteer data there needs to be some contract of understanding that there will be some benefit that accrues back," Snelson said.

Sarah Eccelston of Cisco says that consumer demand will drive the public sector once expectations of service are raised in the private sector: "They are simply not going to tolerate being able to wear a T-shirt that can connect them to the internet but the government can't provide their 85-year-old grandmother who has Alzheimer's a t-shirt that connects the grandmother to the internet so that they know she's lost."

Looking ahead to 2030 Atkinson suggested that, "digital identity, assigned at birth, is kind of the way we should be going and then as you go through your life different services and capabilities are added to that."

However, as Robert McNamara of techUK noted that the issue of privacy and security is one area that needs to be addressed before any kind of IoT system can be put in place.

Originally published on www.cbronline.com on 6th March 2015

Equinix invests $277m in 5 new IBX data centres

The new IBX data centres will be built across four continents.

Equinix has announced plans to open five new International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres across four continents.

Equinix is investing $277 million to build the centres in New York, Singapore, Melbourne, London and Toronto. This will create 4,200 new cabinets and add over one million square feet of new data centre space, increasing Platform Equinix's scale by more than 10%.

New York, Secaurcus, will be home to the NY6 data centre, serving financial, media and enterprise companies with premium colocation services.

Over the border in Canada, the TR2 data centre will be a a state-of-the-art Equinix data center located downtown, just one mile (1.6 km) from TR1 -- home to one of Canada's most robust trading ecosystems.

Moving to a the Asia-Pacific continent, the SG3 data centre will be located in Singapore. This date centre will be the company's largest data center in Asia-Pacific.

Melbourne, a hub for software companies, will house the ME1 data centre, while London's Slough will home the LD6 data centre.

The LD6 data centre marks a major milestone for Equinix as well as the UK's digital sector. The flagship UK data center was built to meet escalating demand for interconnection capacity across the region's fastest-growing campus and is a virtual financial center with 25 percent of European equities trades originating inside Equinix.

"In today's digital economy, the demand placed on interconnectivity has reached a new high. In a world where cloud dominates IT strategies and enterprise business models are interdependent, interconnection is a make-or-break proposition," said Greg Bryan, a senior analyst at TeleGeography.

Originally published on www.cbronline.com on 5th March 2015

Lancashire Council defer decision on Cuadrilla fracking plans to later date

By Adam Page
Published: Wednesday, 28 January 2015 on indmin.com

The decision comes as something of an anti-climax after the UK Parliament said it would not impose a moratorium on fracking earlier in the week and suggested that shale gas exploration in the country was getting closer to being a reality.

Lancashire County Council's Development Control Committee deferred its decision on whether to grant Cuardilla Resources planning permission for shale gas exploration to sites at Preston New Road and Roseacre Wood, in Lancashire, northwest UK.

The decision to defer came after Cuadrilla submitted additional information to its application, following an earlier council decision that said it should be rejected due to fears that the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) would be too noisy.

"The additional information we have provided on further mitigation measures will, we believe, fully address the noise and traffic concerns raised by the planning officer’s in their recommendation to refuse planning permission for both sites," Cuadrilla said in a statement.

"This additional information will be assessed by the planning officers and there will now be an opportunity for the public to properly review and comment on this," it added.

Barbara Richardson, chair of the Roseacre Awareness Group which is opposing the application, says she was disappointed there had been a referral but understood the legal pressures the Council was under.

"We believe we have quite a strong argument to get the planning application refused," Richardson told IM.

"However looking back on it now I think we will have more time to build on the evidence we already have to show that there are more reasons to reject the application," Richardson added.

Richardson said that she has written to the council to ask what mitigating circumstances Cuardilla provided. She said that from the group’s perspective, the main issue was the traffic and noise that the development would bring to the area.

"For the local residents it is quite a stressful time because we have another eight weeks now, probably, before it goes to the committee again," Richardson said.

The fate of Cuadrilla’s fracking plans could be pivotal for the future of shale gas exploration in the UK, which could open up the country as a market for oilfield minerals that can be used in the fracking process such as silica or 'frac’ sand, barites (barytes), bentonite, borates, bauxite and kaolin.

Critical review of Frank Esser's Dimensions of Political News Cultures

Frank Esser, Dimensions of Political News Cultures: Sound Bite and Image Bite News in France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States, The International Journal of Press/Politics October 2008 13: 401-428.

Professor Frank Esser’s 2008 study into the length of sound and image bites in broadcasting in four western democracies forms the statistical basis of an analysis of media coverage in those nations during political election campaigns. This enables him to assess the value of multiple hypotheses made about media and political cultures involved in these countries. Primarily it seeks to test Patterson’s (1993: 74-5) assertion that candidates in countries like the USA have become ‘voiceless’ due to the decline of their verbal input into election coverage and as well as Bucy and Grabe’s (2007) theory that image is becoming increasingly important in political and journalistic cultures due to it subconscious impact upon audiences.

Ultimately this allows Esser to make conclusions about the levels and manner of journalistic intervention in the broadcasting of election campaigns. In professional journalism, the media structure influences the extent of journalistic interventionism in the political structure. This model asserts that interventionism occurs when public opinion is distrustful of political institutions. Media that has achieved a high status of independence, especially from political control, is more likely to be interventionist. Consequently interventionist reports are made up of sound bites of politicians that tend to be rather short whereas those from the journalists tend to be longer. High interventionism in an election campaign also leads to “a smaller amount of election news coverage in general.” Journalists as opposed to politicians or the subject being enabling them to “increase their influence, authority, and prestige.”

The statistical basis of the study was compiled by a multinational team of ‘coders’  categorising material from Germany, France, the UK and the USA in order to calculate the time amounts that feature in tables dedicated to things like news situations and images bites. At times it is missing a miscellaneous option, meaning answers can seem oddly specific and limited especially when it comes to news that is regarded as anti-candidate, where apparently you can only use television editing to be rude in three ways. The quantitative nature of the study also can lead to ambiguities as to the significance of terms such as ‘interventionist’, although this is defined as a time in which a journalist makes professional interpretations it does not state whether this means the news is biased, objective or impartial. Qualitative information is provided in the form of context on occasions, usually to explain exceptions and national uniqueness.

By mapping the television news in these countries, Esser reaches the conclusion that the French media is the most deferential (and ‘civilised’) towards politicians, giving politicians a greater voice and responding more favourably to their attempts to manage the news so they can prepare for a situation. British and German media’s tendency for interpretation in news reports leads to a moderately interventionist broadcasting culture, with the British media being more cooperative to politician’s attempts to manage the news despite using it as a platform to challenge politicians and put them on the defensive. Esser interprets findings about US news culture, with its briefer sound bites, as vindicating Zaller’s theory that high levels of news management leads to a more sceptical and hostile media because the media’s desire for independence. However Esser refutes the suggestion that this means US media is exclusively about confrontational campaigning when it comes to sound bites, noting that there is still ample ‘substance’ within them, which leads him conclude that the US just get to the point quicker.

The study does limit itself to a western-centric analysis and bases its conclusions upon two of the largest channels in those nations, excluding News International channels such as Fox News and Sky News which could have led to a more nuanced view of contemporary western broadcasting. As a result Esser encounters only one exception (Germany’s RTL channel) to his conclusion that organisational differences between market-oriented and public interest-oriented newsrooms do little to determine sound bite usage in news as opposed to national differences.

Bibliography

Bucy, Erik P., and Maria Elisabeth Grabe (2007) ‘Taking Television Seriously: A Sound and Image BiteAnalysis of Presidential Campaign Coverage, 1992–2004’, Journal of Communication 57(4), pp.652–75.
Frank Esser (2008) ‘Dimensions of Political News Cultures: Sound Bite and Image Bite News in France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States’, The International Journal of Press/Politics, Vol.13, pp.401-428.
Patterson,Thomas E. (1993) Out of Order,  NewYork: Knopf.