Technology round-up

Published on Saturday 6 September 2008 19:36

NEW HORIZONS OFFICE tower blocks will disappear from city skylines as the traditional nine-to-five grind dies out, researchers claimed.

Mobile technology and flexible working hours are having a dramatic impact on urban Britain's landscape, scientists at Microsoft Windows Mobile said last week.

With 70% of workers claiming they were more able to maintain a good work-life balance, it was predicted city skylines would lower as more employees worked from home.

"The UK is set to change dramatically during the next 25 years as remote working evolves," said James McCarthy, one of the researchers at Microsoft.

NET WIDENS

COMMUNITIES that have missed out on broadband should be the first to receive even faster services, an Ofcom advisory group says.

The regulator's consumer panel said areas of the UK excluded from first-generation broadband should "leapfrog" to the next generation.

Chair Anna Bradley said the areas concerned were likely to be the least cost-effective places for such services. But she said the step was vital to prevent Britain's digital divide deepening.

VINTAGE VISION

FRENCH scientists have devised a way of using X-rays to authenticate vintage wines – without opening the bottle, one of France's top research bodies said.

The new method tests the age of the glass in wine bottles by analysing X-rays emitted when the bottles are placed under ion beams produced by a particle accelerator, the National Centre for Scientific Research said in a statement last week.

"This enables the age of bottles and their origin to be verified and thus a vintage to be authenticated, a bit like the signature of a painter on a masterpiece, all without opening the bottle and without affecting in any way the content," the research centre said.

SPACE CADETS

NASA is searching for new maverick astronomers – and extraterrestrial life

– with the creation of the Carl Sagan Postdoctoral Fellowships in Exoplanet Exploration.

The fellowship is named after the late astronomer who popularised science through his books and television appearances.

The fellows will search for life on planets outside our solar system, the so-called exoplanets, more than 300 of which have been discovered since 1994.

CHART TOPPER

A BRITISH physicist who is involved in the world's most powerful particle experiment was once a member of the chart topping band D:Ream.

Professor Brian Cox, at Manchester University, reached number one in the UK charts with Things Can Only Get Better in 1994.

The 39-year-old, who played the keyboard, said he was involved in music until he was 23. "I then decided to concentrate on physics," he said. "Once I was in the lab all day, and when I finished I walked up the road to support Take That at the G-Mex in Manchester."

The hit Things Can Only Get Better was the New Labour anthem during the 1997 election. The band last played together on election night at the Royal Festival Hall.