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Oxfordshire Branch |
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| 2003/4 Programme
You can also view or download the programme cards as an A4 foldable PDF, a double-sided A5 PDF, an A4 flyer in MS Word format, or zipped calendar entries to update your Outlook® or other iCalendar compatible diary. Links to individual calendar entries are below against each item. Come back to this page from time to time to check for amendments to the programme and more details on some of the sessions as they become available. Programme Summary
We hope that you will enjoy the range of topics to be covered. If there are other subjects you'd like to hear about, it's never too soon to start thinking about the year after. Just drop us a note using the contact form. Following our usual practice, we will send email reminders to each branch member of record just before each meeting. We reviewed the wording of our meeting reminders in the light of the EU Directive on Electronic Communications (which came into force in the UK on 11 December 2003) and now include a clear explanation of why individuals are receiving the message and how to unsubscribe. Programme cards were posted to branch members in mid-August as usual. If, after allowing for postal delays, you didn't receive yours, please let us know using the contact form. Programme DetailNaked Objects: Challenging the Dominant Design
Naked Objects is a radical approach to business systems design and development, supported by an open source Java-based framework. Core business objects such as Customer, Product and Order are exposed directly to the user instead of being masked by a conventional user interface. This 'talk' will be highly participative! Richard and Dan will invite the audience to nominate a business application and will start to develop it, using input from the audience. Wimbledon - the Technical Solution
The presentation gives detail behind the technical solution for the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. This covers the various systems in support of TV Graphics, the Internet, Players and the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) itself and describes the basic systems plus the new areas that have been added more recently. These systems are extremely visible to the outside world and have to cope with extremely high availability and performance requirements. Some of the design decisions will be discussed, along with actual practical experience from 12 years as Technical Consultant to the project and the AELTC. Autumn Symposium
Committee members will be on hand to talk about current topics within the industry and the BCS. Members and non-members welcome. We may decide to focus on a particular topical theme - for example the implications on email of the EU Anti-Spam directive which comes into force on 31 October. Other suggestions via the contact form please. [Symposium, n: (in classical Greece) a drinking party with intellectual conversation, music, etc] Quantum Computing
Quantum computers have the potential to revolutionise the way we think about computing, as they can perform certain calculations effectively infinitely faster than current designs. In the last few years simple prototypes have been built, and there is now significant research into methods for building large scale devices. Jonathan describes what quantum computers are, how they work, what they could do, how they might be built, and their likely future impact. BCS Oxfordshire Branch Christmas Lecture 2003: Growing up with Lucy
"Despite many useful spin-offs, artificial intelligence has so far failed in its mission to replicate the kind of flexible, self-bootstrapping intelligence seen in humans and other animals. We can make a machine that plays championship chess, but we can't make one that can pick up the pieces when they fall over, or tell a rook from a bishop just by looking at it. And no chess playing computer ever throws a tantrum when it gets beaten. Most artificial intelligence bears very little relation to natural intelligence at all, but this is hardly surprising, since despite a century of neuro-science we still don't really have a clue how the brain works. A few years ago I set myself the task of trying to find out, by building a robot that I hope will develop and learn like a baby. Her name is Lucy, and this is a progress report." You can follow Lucy's diary online. An interview with Steve Grand from the August 2003 Edition of PC Format is reproduced here, with permission, as a 488KB PDF Moving BACS forwards
BACS is the world's largest automated clearing-house for electronic payments. Tim joined BACS in 1999 to develop the vision and architecture for what became NewBACS, a major programme to upgrade the BACS payment service. The first Phase of NewBACS - known as BACSTEL-IP - went live in October 2002 and has won a number of awards for innovative use of technology and the improved service that it provides for businesses. In this presentation, Tim will be describing how BACS approached this programme, the NewBACS infrastructure and applications and some of the challenges faced including supporting different trust schemes and smart cards. Tim will conclude with a look at how BACS is now looking to leverage the NewBACS capability, and its market position, to develop new services and move into new areas. See also the Computing Magazine article on NewBACS, issue dated 19 June 2003 BACSTEL-IP was the Technology Services winner at the 2003 BCS IT Professional Awards ceremony The British Library's Web Archiving Programme
In the short time since its invention, the World Wide Web has become a vital means of facilitating global communication and an important medium for scientific communication, publishing, e-commerce, and much else. The 'fluid' nature of the web, however, means that pages or entire sites frequently change or disappear, often without leaving any trace. In order to help counter this change and decay, web archiving initiatives are required to help preserve the informational, cultural and evidential value of the World Wide Web (or particular sub-sets of it). The fascinating and many unresolved challenges of web archiving include a variety of conceptual, technical and legal issues. Spring Networking event and Symposium
Committee members will be on hand to talk about current topics within the industry and the BCS. Members and non-members welcome. [Symposium, n: (in classical Greece) a drinking party with intellectual conversation, music, etc] IBM's Extreme Blue Internship Programme
Becca will describe this programme in which handpicked students (including, this year, one from Oxford) work on exciting high-tech projects and have fun in the process. More details from IBM. The initial pilot for this programme was run in 1999 with 25 students in Cambridge, Mass. The feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that has been rolled out to 10 IBM labs worldwide. In the UK, students are based in the IBM laboratory in Hursley, near Winchester, during the long vac. Becca will talk about the type of projects worked on, the practical results, and the experiences gained. She will also describe the part that the Extreme Blue programme plays in the whole innovation process. One of the alumni of the programme will come and give a personal account. AGM and Computer Restoration
After the business of the Annual General Meeting, preceded as usual by a light cheese and wine buffet, Christopher Burton will tell us about the computer, "Baby", made at Manchester University by Williams, Kilburn and Tootill in 1948 which was the first stored-program computer ever to operate successfully, and the Computer Conservation Society project which he led to build a replica machine to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that first program run. Visit to Bletchley Park
By tradition, we end our annual programme with a visit to a site of technical interest. This year we will be going to Bletchley Park, where you will be able to see early cryptography machines such as Enigma, Colossus and the Turing Bombe in an all-day visit to the museum and grounds, plus the Computer Conservation Society's historic computers collection. You will need to book, and there will be a charge to cover entrance, lunch and coach from Didcot, Abingdon and Oxford. Booking details and costs will be announced on this website nearer the time.
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