Professor Nigel Shadbolt was this week appointed chair of mydata, an initiative designed to give consumers easier access to data held about them by businesses.

The initiative, which was announced on Wednesday (13 April) by Consumer Minister Edward Davey, will enable consumers to use the digital data held about them by a whole range of businesses: financial, retail, telecoms and utility companies. This data can empower consumers aiming to get the best deals for products and services - for example, in price comparison sites.

The project will assess how to give people their personal data in a format that is safe to pass on to third parties.

Professor Shadbolt of ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, commented: "Information about how we shop, travel, communicate and live our lives is a powerful source of insight, so it's important that each of us should be able to access our own data.

"I am very much looking forward to chairing the mydata group, which aims to make accessing this data much simpler, and should be a watershed on how we use data to get a better deal every day."

The working group will form a series of subgroups, chaired by Professor Shadbolt , which will decide on a format and timetable for releasing data. Professor Shadbolt has already been involved in a number of government data initiatives, including the setting up of data.gov.uk.

The group of companies include Barclaycard, Mastercard, HSBC, RBS Group, Lloyds TSB, John Lewis Partnership, Groupe Aeroplan (Nectar) Home Retail Group, Centrica, Southern and Scottish Energy, Everything Everywhere (T-Mobile/Orange), Google, and Microsoft.

The initiative was launched by the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) in conjunction with the Cabinet Office as part of a wider consumer push called 'Better Choices: Better Deals'.

The first miniature sensors designed to measure saltiness and temperature across the world’s oceans are currently in use as part of an ambitious expedition.

A four-man team of officers from Swanton Morley, UK, are rowing 3,100 miles from Australia to Mauritius in a voyage that began in mid-April. They aim to raise £100,000 for charities including the Light Dragoons Charitable Trust and the Mark Evison Foundation by rowing in two-hour shifts for 24 hours a day in an attempt to complete their mission in less than 68 days.

As well as raising money for charity, the expedition provides an opportunity to measure ocean conditions and provide valuable information about climate change.

The boat is fitted with sensors to measure ocean temperature and salinity. The technology was developed by Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) professors Hywel Morgan, and Xi Huang of the University of Southampton, along with Dr Matt Mowlem of Southampton’s National Oceanography Centre (NOCS).

According to Professor Morgan, these are the first miniature sensors that can measure these parameters with extremely high precision.

"There are large bulky devices that measure these parameters, but no miniature sensors that come close to what these chips can do," says Professor Morgan.

The expedition has given the ECS researchers an opportunity to test the sensors and to assess their application in areas such as ocean meteorology and water quality monitoring, and as fish tags.

The longer-term plan is to commercialise the sensors and the researchers have just received £150,000 from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to develop them further and to integrate them into devices.

Researchers in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton have designed a new pricing mechanism based on an online auction protocol that makes it possible to charge electric vehicles without overloading the local electricity network.

The new system was designed by a team led by Dr Alex Rogers and presented at AAMAS 2011 – the Tenth Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - held in Taiwan earlier this week. The researchers have devised a system in which electric vehicle owners use computerised agents to bid for the power to charge the vehicles and also organise time slots when a vehicle is available for charging.

"Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are expected to place a considerable strain on local electricity distribution networks. If many vehicles charge simultaneously, they may overload the local distribution network; so their charging needs to be carefully scheduled," said Dr Rogers.

To address this issue, Dr Rogers and his team turned to the field of online mechanism design. They designed a mechanism that allows vehicle owners to specify their requirements (i.e. when they need the vehicle, and how far they expect to drive). The system then automatically schedules charging of the vehicles’ batteries. The mechanism ensures that there is no incentive to ‘game the system’ by reporting that the vehicle is needed earlier than is actually the case, and those users who place a higher demand on the system are automatically charged more than those who can wait.

“The mechanism leaves some available units of electricity unallocated. This is counter-intuitive since it seems to be inefficient but it turns out to be essential to ensure that the vehicle owners don’t have to delay plugging-in, or misreport their requirements, in an attempt to get a better dealâ€?, said Dr Enrico Gerding, the lead author of the paper.

In a study based on the performance of currently available electric vehicles, performed by Dr Valentin Robu and Dr Sebastian Stein, the mechanism was shown to increase the number of electric vehicles that can be charged overnight, within a neighbourhood of 200 homes, by as much as 40 per cent.

This research follows on from Dr Rogers’ and Professor Nick Jennings’ work on developing agents that can trade on the stock market and manage crisis communications and Dr Rogers’ iPhone application, GridCarbon for measuring the carbon intensity of the UK grid.

Professor Tony Hey will urge academics to take part in the technology revolution geared towards solving the world’s problems when he speaks at the University of Southampton this week (Thursday 12 May).

In a talk entitled 'The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery', Professor Hey, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Research, will describe how we are in the middle of 'The Fourth Paradigm' – a period which is all about the data and computational systems needed to manipulate, visualise and manage large amounts of scientific data.

“We are dealing with a whole new type of science where data sets are so large that we cannot easily keep them on machines,â€? he will say. “What we are discovering in e-Science is that we have new communities like biologists, who are doing major tasks like gene sequencing on computers. In fact, soon we will be able to get our genes sequenced for about £100.â€?

Professor Hey will talk about some of the far-reaching changes that this fourth paradigm will bring to scientific discovery. He will describe how research technologies from Microsoft Research are making it possible to establish genetic profiles for drug delivery; to build an effective vaccine against HIV, and to protect the environment by applying machine-learning techniques to sugar cane so that ethanol can be extracted to power cars in Brazil.

He will claim that future progress can only happen if academic researchers collaborate with one another and with people from other disciplines.

“We need to solve the major health and environmental problems facing the world today,â€? he will say. “A multidisciplinary society is the way forward. Academic researchers, you should be part of the process not part of the problem. Computing can help solve the world’s problems and it is worth being involved.â€?

Professor Hey will deliver 'The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery' on Thursday 12 May at 6pm in the Nightingale Lecture Theatre on the Highfield Campus, University of Southampton. The lecture is part of the Faculty Distinguished Lecture series in the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences, and will be chaired by the Dean of the Faculty, Professor Dame Wendy Hall. No tickets are required to attend the lecture and all are welcome.

Professor Hey was a former Head of School of Electronics and Computer Science in the University of Southampton and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He was also Head of e-Research for Research Councils UK.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

A new way to send large files around the Web completely free of charge has been launched by Julian Field, Postmaster at ECS-Electronics and Computer Science.

ZendTo is a free and secure Web-based system, which will allow users to send large files around the Web much faster than by email.

The system allows users to send files within and beyond their organisations from their own servers, and it will run from any Linux or Unix server or virtualisation system with no size restriction.

“This is completely free and because you run it on your own site, you can be sure that it is completely safe and private and you retain complete control of your data, your system and your users,â€? said Julian.

ZendTo is particularly useful for organisations which operate in a customer service environment, since when it sends files, it incorporates customer service ticketing references, so that all the references are kept intact.

According to Julian, ZendTo is his next big development since MailScanner. He began developing MailScanner in 2000 and it is now the world-leading email security and anti-spam system. It has been downloaded over 1.5 million times andis used by some of the world’s leading organisations in 226 countries, such as the US Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command; Harvard, MIT, and Cambridge universities; Vodafone Europe; Amnesty International; Friends of the Earth; and the British Antarctic Survey. The technology is fast becoming the standard email solution at many ISP sites for virus protection and spam filtering.

“Ironically, the success of MailScanner and its strict security protocol means that it imposes limits on files being sent by email, which led to the development of ZendTo which has no size or type restrictions,â€? said Julian.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453

ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton is delighted to announce the establishment of the Winton Capital Prizes, which will be awarded to the top students in Computer Science over the next three years.

As the UK’s largest and most successful integrated department of Computer Science and Electronics, ECS has a world-leading reputation for its education and research which draws students to the University from around the world. Over the last 20 years ECS has made fundamental contributions to the development of the Web, to the establishment of agent technologies, to Open Access publishing and digital libraries, and to a range of other technologies at the forefront of computer science.

Winton‘s philanthropic support will establish three prizes: for the top student in Computer Science Year 1; the top final-year student on the four-year MEng programme in Computer Science; and the top student on the one-year postgraduate MSc in Software Engineering.

The Winton Prizes will be awarded for the first time in July 2011 at the University's graduation ceremonies.

Matthew Beddall, Winton Capital’s Chief Investment Officer and a Southampton graduate (Maths/Computer Science 2001), comments: “Winton is a scientific research organisation which uses the financial markets as our laboratory. I started here as a summer intern when I was still a student at Southampton and without the University’s teaching and scientific training I would not have been in a position to take advantage of the opportunity. I am delighted that Winton is now able to give something back to the University.â€?

“We are very pleased to acknowledge the generosity of Winton Capital in making these awards,â€? said Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of Physical and Applied Sciences.

“It is well known that our courses are intensive and challenging and our students work extremely hard. These prizes will be a great recognition of their effort, especially at times of financial stringency and will improve our ability to recruit the best and brightest students from around the world. “We very much look forward to working with Winton over the next three years and to welcoming the company to ECS to meet our students.â€?

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

Web Science is one of the main opportunities for ensuring the healthy development of the future Web, according to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, keynote speaker at the conference ‘Profiting from the New Web’, held in London this week.

An audience drawn largely from the technology sector heard Sir Tim outline his hopes for the Web’s future, along with some warnings about potential limitations to the development of the Web. His keynote set the scene for a full day of discussion about new ways of doing business that have been enabled by the Web and will make a significant difference to business practice in the future.

Sir Tim, creator of the World Wide Web, pointed to open data and linked data as exciting examples of the way that the Web is promoting transparency of information and looked forward to the time when the current 20 per cent of the world’s population who can access the Web grows to 80 per cent, with all the changes this will bring in terms of technological and social developments, and new possibilities of communication and cultural change.

“Maybe our ideas of democracies will be different,â€? he said. “Maybe people will build systems that we can use to communicate across boundaries … or maybe we won’t …. Whatever happens at this stage we have to think about it - and what we think about it we call Web Science.â€?

Panel discussions during the day covered the value of open data, the importance of new platforms, social analytics, and the pervasiveness of new media in business communications, with examples drawn from companies such as Talis, Mendeley, BT, Nominet, Microsoft, Edelman, The Times, and IBM. Speakers included Dame Wendy Hall, Nigel Shadbolt, Bill Thompson, Mike Galvin, Charlie Beckett, Hector Arthur, Graham Spittle and Noshir Contractor. The conference was a joint event organized by the Web Science Trust and Intellect, and sponsored by Nominet, Assanka, and Memset.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is Director of the World Wide Web Consortium and Director of the World Wide Web Foundation. He is Professor of Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton. He is Open Data Advisor to the UK Government and a Member of the UK Public Sector Transparency Board. He is a Co-Founder and Director of the Web Science Trust.

The Web Science Trust was established in 2009 at the University of Southampton to raise awareness of Web Science and to build the foundations and framework for Web Science. The Trust’s main aim is to advance education and research in Web Science for the benefit of Society.

Watch the Conference Video.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

For information on PhD fully-funded studentships in Web Science, see our Doctoral Training Centre opportunities.

ECS-Electronics and Computer Science has a longstanding relationship with SELEX Communications, covering undergraduate projects and graduate employment, as well as joint research.

The company is a regular sponsor of the ECS Group Design Project, a flagship activity which is a major part of the final year of the prestigious Master of Engineering degree programme. A group of students spend 12 weeks working intensively for an industrial client on a real project, delivering a 25,000 word report and possibly a working prototype system as a solution. This year, under the direction of Tim Moorhouse of SELEX, the project involved modelling Interrogator Side Lobe Suppression of the Mode Select (Mode S) civilian radar waveform using a sound wave of similar wavelength to the Identification Friend-or-Foe system. The antenna system and sound wavelengths were both scaled down to allow the model to be fitted into a small area, and a generic fighter jet antenna modelled as an array of loudspeakers.

The aim was to ensure the phase reduction observed at angles off the direction the radar is pointing. The beam steering capabilities of the antenna array was demonstrated by controlling the phase of the sound sent by each loudspeaker. Tim comments, “This year’s project was a great success. The ECS team successfully created the system which demonstrated the phase change. A detection system was created which detected the amount of phase change, the phase change was measured, and it matched the theoretically predicted phase dependence.â€?

The students are pictured here with their ECS supervisor, Dr Jeff Reeve; (l-r)Aaron Bruty, Ricky Patel, Wijendra Gnanendren, and Caleb Ng.

Electronics and Electrical Engineering at ECS came top in this year's league table of university subjects, published in The Guardian. 'We are delighted with this result,' said Professor Neil White, Head of ECS. 'It is a great tribute to our staff and our students, and underlines why leading companies like SELEX are keen to work with us on undergraduate projects and to employ our students.'

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

The final of this year’s Student Robotics event was a day of triumph and disaster, as 15 teams from 14 schools, from as far away as Grenoble, came together for the final showdown at the University of Southampton.

Each team had designed and built a robot able to navigate a course littered with other robots and red bean cans which had to be collected to gain points. In a number of different challenges the robots could amass additional points by completing different manoeuvres. The robots were fitted with sensors systems, including vision and distance sensors.

As always, the day was magnificently organized and administered by the Student Robotics team, based in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science, and including University of Southampton alumni who have themselves been part of Student Robotics over the last six years. The final challenge takes place in a specially constructed arena in The Cube at the Students' Union.

After a gruelling day including 32 matches in a league scenario followed by an exciting knock-out stage, Taunton’s College Southampton were declared the winners, snatching the title from previous winners Peter Symond’s College Winchester.

Prizes were presented to the winning teams by Professor Neil White, Head of ECS-Electronics and Computer Science, who congratulated all the teams on their hard work, enthusiasm, and imaginative use of technology over the preceding seven months which, he commented, were some of the key qualities that were needed in the future by the UK engineering industry.

Each of the schools taking part in the competition received regular mentoring from a member of the Student Robotics team, helping them to design, build and programme a robot to take part in the competition. The winning team at Taunton’s College was mentored by ECS student Chris Kirkham, who is in the second year of an MEng Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence.

You can find out more about the challenge and the final event on the Student Robotics web site.

See our photostream of the day.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

ECS student Joe Mcloughlin will be moving across campus to the University Students’ Union after his graduation this summer.

With his MEng in Electronic Engineering almost completed, he will take up the one-year sabbatical post of Union Vice-President for Media and Communications.

Joe achieved this position after an intense and hard-fought election campaign earlier this year when he spoke to many students, gaining their views on the Union and the University. He now aims to put this experience to good work as he takes on a key role that covers all the Union’s communications channels with the University’s 22,000 students.

Joe developed his interest in communications and leadership on Surge Radio - where he had his own show in his third year, and then took over running the station this academic year. Surge is run by the students themselves, drawing on a team of interns and volunteers, who were led by Joe. “We needed as many volunteers as possible and I had to inspire them,â€? he says. “I loved doing it, and learned so much.â€?

He also enjoyed the election campaign, and used it to find out what the students want from the Union. “I’d like to see Union communications focus more on what Southampton students want,â€? he comments. “Communications are a way of us getting messages across about important student issues, such as housing, what’s happening with the University restructuring and the curriculum changes.

“SUSU isn’t just a building,â€? he says. “Not all the students go there, so it should be a much bigger concept. It’s there for all the students and it should be involved in everything that affects them.â€?

Joe’s first big task when he starts his job next month will be to organize Freshers’ Week. With his own experience of being a Fresher not far away he’ll be aiming to create something that will be valuable and relevant.

Despite not continuing with Electronics in the future Joe says that he’s confident he will use the experience of being an engineer. “I love electronicsâ€?, he says, “but there are lots of other things I’d like to do in the future.â€?