BBC Microcomputer designer honored. Remember Elite?

One of the designers of the once popular BBC Microcomputer, Steve Furber has been recognised in the New Year Honours list. As reported by the BBC website, Furber’s work included design at Acorn, one of the pioneers of the computing sector right here in Cambridge.

The BBC Micro was a project initiated by the BBC as part of a computer literacy program and eventually went on to sell 1.5m units – a lot higher than anticipated.

The BBC Micro was my first ever computer and reading this story on the BBC website instantly reminded me of playing Elite – a game set in space where you have to travel from planet to planet fighting bad guys and trading commodities to make a profit – sound familiar? Elite was published by Acornsoft and written by David Braben and Ian Bell.

And, somewhat amazingly, there’s a clip of Elite on YouTube……

ZDNet Social Web top 10 posts of the year

Steve O’Hear writes the social software and media blog over on ZDNet and has just announced the top 10 most popular posts for 2007. It’s good to see that number 10 was inspired by the uselessly useful brand map of Second Life (in need of updating). Also interesting to note that SL accounts for 40% of the top 10.

Which are:

10. Gallery of brands in Second Life

9. Facebook’s public search listing

8. Second Life to open-source

7. Land owner challenges in Second Life Continue reading →

Osram lights up

German lighting company Osram is offering a L$1m prize to residents in a contest to come up with a design concept making the most innovative use of light.

Here’s the SLurl and a link to the support webpages. Big Al K has a good overview of this story as well over on Ambling. Continue reading →

EnBW powers up

German utilities company EnBW Energie Baden-W?ɬºrttemberg AG (EnBW) entered Second Life early in 2007. Here’s an overview of the venue.

This is a multiple island set-up called EnergyPark with an orientation area for new German residents . The island has the following zones: Continue reading →