Computing and ICT - OU Community Online

In the first programme of the new series, presenter Evan Davis (pictured) meets the "appreneurs" trying to make money in a marketplace where traditional business rules do not apply – the app industry.

Becoming an appreneur is easy. All you need is a computer, a couple of hundred pounds, and an idea.

Thousands of new apps are created every week to serve the ever-growing smartphone and tablet computer market.

But what happens next? How do you make a living if your product is free? How much can you charge when buyers expect a lot for very little? And how do you market to customers without knowing who they are?

The guests on this week's programme are Barry Meade, co-founder of Fireproof Studios; Professor Anthony Steed, co-founder of Chirp; and Max Whitby, co-founder and CEO of Touch Press.

The Bottom Line aims to cut through the statistics and spin and get a clearer view of the business world by talking to the people running leading and emerging companies.

It is broadcast every Thursday on BBC Radio 4 at 8.30pm, and shown on the BBC News Channel at weekends. It is also broadcast on the BBC World Service and BBC World.

You can listen to or watch past episodes, and get full details of upcoming broadcasts, on the BBC website here.

Get extra insight into the issues discussed on the OU's OpenLearn website.

Graham (pictured), who has graduated with a BSc (Hons) Computing and IT, won the award for a project entitled An ITIL compliant change management system.

The award is presented annually by the Bedford branch of the British Computer Society. 

TM470 is usually the final module students take to complete their Computing and IT degree.
 

Photo by Robert Seaton

BBC's Mastermind is looking for contestants now.

For more information, or to book a place on one of the nationwide auditions, visit the Mastermind website and click on Audition Information; or call 0161 836 0315; or email mastermind@bbc.co.uk

Posted 25 March 2013

This postgraduate certificate will offer Computer Security and Forensic professionals the opportunity to evaluate their previous Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and the impact that it has had on their practise; to identify how to share learning from it within their organisation; and to plan for effective future CPD.

The qualification is also designed to offer professionals the wide range of skills needed to understand, document and manage strategic and operational aspects of their organisation's information security, including the legal, social, ethical, professional and organisational issues at its heart.

For information about this new qualification and its structure go to the OU's Employer Portal.

The UK is suffering from a worrying shortage of skilled professionals in the cyber security sector.

Over 90% of IT employers have reported difficulty in recruiting for cyber security positions and 60% indicated that the demand would increase over the next five years.

To help inspire more people to enter the industry The Open University has teamed up with the Government and security industry to create The Cyber Security Challenge, a competition to find the brightest minds in the UK.

The Challenge will reward winners with professional training courses, create partnerships in the industry and will inspire anyone thinking of developing a career in cyber security.

For more information and to find out how your business can benefit and get involved, visit the Cyber Security Challenge website.

The only thing he had to cling on to was that he had been studying hard for an OU degree in Technology.

And armed with a Distinction in the Cisco Certified Networking module, Brian was able to start a new job within weeks of picking up his redundancy payment.

Brian's inspirational story is featured in the Mirror.

Photo by Tim Anderson, courtesy of the Mirror 

This is just one of many intriguing questions raised by a new and growing strand of research called Animal Computer Interaction (ACI).

Dr Clara Mancini, Research Fellow in The Open University’s Centre for Research in Computing, is a leading exponent of ACI. She is currently working with a commercial company called Retrieva, co-founded by OU alumnus Jon Bryan, on how tracking technology changes the human/dog relationship.

Retrieva sells dog-collars fitted with GPS trackers which display the dog’s movements on a screen similar to a car’s sat nav display, accessed via the owner’s mobile phone or computer. 

It also records the data, so owners can get a complete picture of exactly what their dogs get up to when roaming off the leash, or home alone.  

'our ethics protocol puts the needs of the animal before the needs of science'

Owners can also use the collar to stop the dog wandering too far, by setting invisible boundaries which trigger an alarm if crossed.  

“Dogs need to be off the leash sometimes to keep healthy and not be frustrated, but our society is not very dog-friendly. There are all sort of hazards, traffic, theft or just getting lost,” says Dr Mancini.  

The collars provide owners with reassurance. “If your dog is lying injured somewhere you may not be able to find him or her until it is too late. But when he or she is wearing a tracking collar, you can go straight to them and give aid in a timely fashion.

“And if someone steals the dog and tries to cut the collar off, it automatically triggers an alarm.”

Do dogs need privacy?
Great for the owners, but how do the dogs feel about having their privacy invaded? This is a serious question for researchers because ACI – taking its cue from human-computer interaction – sees animals as active participants, rather than objects to be acted on.

“I have been told ‘animals have no sense of privacy’,” says Dr Mancini. “But a sense of privacy has an evolutionary basis which is related to security, safety and social integration, so why should it be restricted to humans? 

“Animals giving birth, for example, will want to go off somewhere alone because during birth they and their babies are at their most vulnerable.”

The research is suggesting that the collars change the behaviour of both dogs and owners. 

Owners reported that knowing the location of their dog when off the lead made them less anxious, and resulted in the dog being given more freedom and becoming more contented.

They said their dogs were more relaxed because they themselves were more relaxed. Dogs also returned to their owners spontaneously and more frequently, even though – or possibly because – their names were not being called so often.

The initial findings published by Dr Mancini and her OU colleague Dr Janet van der Linden were nominated for Best Paper Award at the Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) international conference held in the US in September. Read the full paper at Open Research Online. 

Research on the interaction between animals and technology is not new. In the 1990s a computerised milking parlour was developed which allows a cow to milk herself.

But technology for animals has mushroomed following the development of remote and sensory devices.  

User-centred for cats and chickens 
Today you can get iPad games for cats and, believe it or not, an electronic ‘chicken jacket’ which allows poultry owners to give their hens a reassuring stroke remotely.

But do they do for the animals what we think they do? Animals’ senses and brains mean they see the world in a different way from us. One of the goals of ACI is to better understand how animals see, think, feel and communicate, so that the technology designed for them is truly ‘user-centred’. 

The research will use hypotheses such as that dogs wag their tails symmetrically when they are happy, and asymmetrically when they are unhappy.

“We are developing design frameworks to make sure our technology is completely unobtrusive, so  the wearer can move about freely and behave naturally,” says Dr Mancini.

ACI is more than just an academic interest. In a society where many of us think of our pets as part of the family, the potential market for animal-centred technology is huge.  

New ethical approach 
But the research aims at more than helping manufacturers to design dog-friendly collars or exciting computer games for cats. Dr Mancini and her colleagues are re-writing the rules about the way science works with animals. 

They have developed a strict ACI Ethics Protocol which puts the needs of the individual animal before the needs of science – the same approach used for children participating in experiments. 

Animals and humans will both benefit from ACI research, says Dr Mancini.

“In some milking systems, cows which don’t successfully engage with the system technology are culled. Wouldn’t it be better for farmers and cows to change the system?

“Our perspective is that you should not expect the animal to adapt to the technology, you should build technology that adapts to the animal.”

Find out more

• ACI at the OU
• ACI Special Interest Group on Facebook

Researchers at the OU have found that most financial services firms surveyed about the effects of incorporating national security regulations into their businesses are positive about it

In a report titled Taking Liberties released on 28 September by The Leverhulme Trust, Dr Kirstie Ball and researchers at the University's Business School reveal that responses from 85 financial services representatives show that larger financial services organisations have managed to incorporate the new Anti Money Laundering/Counter Terrorist Finance regulations into their businesses, benefiting from sophisticated computer systems to help identify suspicious transactions.

They found that smaller firms found compliance with the regulation costly by comparison.

The researchers, working under the umbrella of CRISP, the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy, also found that front line staff managed to adapt more effectively and managed to continue the customer interaction as normal while verifying any suspicions about the customer, in businesses which had strong Customer Relationship Management Systems.

Commenting on these findings, Dr Ball said: "In carrying out this research, we recognised almost immediately how Anti Money Laundering and Counter Terror Finance Regulations required the capture of data at great expense to the financial services industry and there seemed to be no return on this investment. Responses from the industry varied but what emerges strongly is how the industry has taken the practice of Anti Money Laundering and considered it as a positive aspect of their business."
 
Money Laundering Regulations came into being in 2007 and the Counter-Terrorism Act came into force in 2008.

A copy of Taking Liberties: Anti Money Laundering/Counter Terror Finance Regulations and The Financial Services Sector can be found here.