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New bus for London: Routemaster revival

There are few things Crave likes better than classic British icons getting sleek, shiny make-overs. First it was the technicolor iPod-generation Daleks--now it's the classic Routemaster double-decker getting a retro-futuristic sprucing-up.

The New Bus for London draws on the classic London bus design. Rubbish name, but with its swooping lines it looks the part. Initially, there'll be four of the new models on London streets. The new look was unveiled this week by everybody's favorite bumbling posho, Boris Johnson, and cost a hefty 7.8 million pounds ($11.25 million) in development and manufacture. It'… Read more

British Times papers to charge for Web content

It appears the day when we we'll be paying to read general interest news stories on the Web is coming sooner rather than later--perhaps as early as June for readers of the U.K.-based Times publications.

News International, the British division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., announced on Friday that two of its newspapers, The Times and The Sunday Times of London, are set to begin charging readers using its sites in June.

The two papers have been offering their content in a combined news Web site called Times Online. Under the new plan, however, News International … Read more

Guilt-free plastic for composting in your yard

A new sugar-based polymer could be used to make common food containers compostable at home right alongside your potato peels and egg shells.

A team of engineers and scientists at the Imperial College London led by Charlotte Williams in partnership with BioCeramic Therapeutics have created a degradable material from sugars derived from the breakdown of lignocellulosic biomass.

Williams noted in the group's announcement that while they're not the first to come up with a "biorenewable plastic," many of those have previously been made from sugar beet- or corn-based biomass.

It's a fairly accurate estimate.

In … Read more

Police set up Olympics e-crime teams

London police are setting up two specialist teams to deal with aspects of e-crime and ticketing fraud surrounding the 2012 Olympic Games.

One of the teams will be dedicated to tackling e-crime related to the Olympics, such as attempted hacks on computer systems and fraud aimed at sponsors and prospective visitors. The other will focus on the prevention of ticketing fraud and other physical crime and will investigate ticketing Web sites. Recruitment is under way for the Olympics e-crime team, which is already investigating Web sites suspected of being set up to launch phishing attacks.

The computer systems at the … Read more

Sharp idea: Olympic stadium from recycled knives

The suspense of the 2012 Olympics in London will have spectators sitting on pins and needles--and knives. Well, in a manner of speaking. Turns out the main Olympic stadium in East London's Stratford will contain guns and knives confiscated by the Metropolitan Police Service.

The service said it collected more than 52 tons of scrap metal from guns, knives, and old keys in the last fiscal year. Some was melted down and used in bridges, buildings, cars, and trains, and some will be recycled and used to construct the Olympic structure.

The repurposed weapons add to the eco-friendly focus … Read more

2012 Olympics showpiece: Big bubbles in the sky

An extensive team of engineers, designers, and architects from around the world unveiled plans on Monday to create a digitally connected structure to grace the 2012 Olympics in London.

The structure, called the Cloud, is both a physical and digital cloud designed to broadcast real-time data and images on spherical, three-dimensional screens. While the images would float high above the city, the sound would be broadcast at ground level.

Carlo Ratti, head of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a team leader on the project that includes experts from across the world and Google as a partner. … Read more

London Design fest celebrates design art, business

Several colleagues of mine are in London this week to unveil the special TEDGlobal issue of our design mind magazine in a very special TED Salon on Monday, with the title "More Substance of Things Not Seen." The event will be co-hosted by frog design and TED, and moderated by Sam Martin, editor-in-chief of design mind, and Bruno Giussani, European director of TED.

It comes in handy for the frog delegation that this is also the first week of the magnanimous London Design Festival, an eclectic assembly of design-related programs, exhibitions, and parties all over town.… Read more

IBM: Three tiers for scale

As transactional data volumes increase, system architecture must stay flexible and be able to scale in accordance.

Back in September, the London Stock Exchange experienced a significant interruption when a proprietary system built on Microsoft technology went offline. Few details were shared, but I eventually cobbled together a rough explanation of what happened.

The stock exchange's system hung due to a "coincidence" (whatever that means) that stopped data from processing. What appears to have happened is several Windows processes, including message processing, crashed at the same time due to a configuration glitch. Because the applications were so directly tied in to Windows, the impact affected everything instead of just one component.

I spoke on the phone with Craig Hayman, vice president of IBM's WebSphere, discussing how open standards and design principles allow for more robust system architecture. Craig explained that the stock exchange incident was likely a result of being too dependent on a myopic structure rather than relying on a three-tier architecture that's been proven to scale.

It feels a bit old-school to talk about three-tier architectures in this day of Ruby apps built in 15 minutes, but the fact is you need separation and best-of-breed components when you are dealing with large transaction volumes and varietal peaks. … Read more

London Times adds to hate for the Web (and California)

It's all California's fault.

At least that's how London Times columnist Bryan Appleyard sees it, in a heartily vicious attack on Web culture and everything it has wrought along its socially destructive way.

In his post, cheerily titled "Break Free of this world wide delusion," Appleyard excoriates the cult of the Web, which--he firmly believes--resides in the masturbatory den that is the West Coast.

And while his angle of attack differs a little from that of Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton, it is just as pained.

Web 2.0, he says, can be defined in … Read more