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.
âThis 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 worldâs 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.
âIronically, 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 UKâs 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.
Wintonâs 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 Capitalâs Chief Investment Officer and a Southampton graduate (Maths/Computer Science 2001), comments: âWinton 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 Universityâs 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?
âWe 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.
âIt 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.
âWe 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 âProfiting from the New Webâ, held in London this week.
An audience drawn largely from the technology sector heard Sir Tim outline his hopes for the Webâs 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 worldâs 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.
âMaybe our ideas of democracies will be different,â? he said. âMaybe people will build systems that we can use to communicate across boundaries ⦠or maybe we wonât â¦. 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 Trustâs main aim is to advance education and research in Web Science for the benefit of Society.
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, âThis yearâs 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 yearâs 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, Tauntonâs College Southampton were declared the winners, snatching the title from previous winners Peter Symondâs 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 Tauntonâs College was mentored by ECS student Chris Kirkham, who is in the second year of an MEng Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence.
ECS student Joe Mcloughlin will be moving across campus to the University Studentsâ 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 Unionâs communications channels with the Universityâs 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. âWe needed as many volunteers as possible and I had to inspire them,â? he says. âI 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. âIâd like to see Union communications focus more on what Southampton students want,â? he comments. âCommunications are a way of us getting messages across about important student issues, such as housing, whatâs happening with the University restructuring and the curriculum changes.
âSUSU isnât just a building,â? he says. âNot all the students go there, so it should be a much bigger concept. Itâs there for all the students and it should be involved in everything that affects them.â?
Joeâs first big task when he starts his job next month will be to organize Freshersâ Week. With his own experience of being a Fresher not far away heâll be aiming to create something that will be valuable and relevant.
Despite not continuing with Electronics in the future Joe says that heâs confident he will use the experience of being an engineer. âI love electronicsâ?, he says, âbut there are lots of other things Iâd like to do in the future.â?
Second-year Electronics students were presented with a testing and unusual âtime-travelâ challenge in this year's Systems Design Exercise. Known to generations of students as âD4â, the project was sponsored for the second time by Detica, with components provided by TI.
Working in teams of four to six students for just 11 days, the students were asked to use state-of-the-art components to build a handheld video game system that could be taken back in time and marketed competitively in 1985. Judging criteria for the productâs success were defined as performance, features, price, aesthetics, and innovation.
The teams received precise specifications: for example, the device had to feature graphics and audio that would appeal to the 1985 market. The teams were also asked to make a video advert for their product and take part in a competitive pitch for their design in front of the judges and their classmates.
The judges were Dr Matt Sacker of the Detica Electronic Systems Group and an alumnus of ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, along with Tim Forcer of ECS and Bob Bacon of TI.
"ECS actively encourages the involvement of industry-leading electronics companies in its undergraduate programmes, said Professor Steve Gunn, Course Leader. âThis is great for the students - they hear about the latest developments in this fast-moving industry and have an opportunity to find out what employers are looking for in the next generation of electronic engineers.â?
Pressure on the students was intense as they worked round the clock to design their handheld video game systems. Against a set of tough specifications, the students worked in groups, partitioning a large task amongst the individual team members. The students were expected to show initiative, creativity and innovation, to deploy good time management and trouble-shooting skills, and to undertake technical and market research, costing and budget analysis.
During the final judging session, Dr Sacker congratulated the students on the quality of what they had achieved: âThe quality of the work produced by the students this year was much greater than when I was a student 10 years agoâ?, he said. Describing the kinds of careers available in Detica and the quality of students for which the company is looking, Dr Sacker said that ECS students had a real advantage in the job market because of their experience of project work. âYou have something very substantial that you can talk about at interviews as a result of your projects and real world experience, and that really makes Southampton students stand out,â? he said.
The year 1985 was chosen for the time-travel element of the project because, according to ECS Electronics lecturer Dr Rob Maunder, it represented the golden age of bedroom video game development, when successful video games could be written by a few developers, in a few weeks. âAs games became more sophisticated, video game development became the exclusive domain of large development teams, with large budgets and long timescales,â? said Rob. âHowever, with the recent emergence of mobile phone gaming and indie game distribution channels, a second age of bedroom video game development is flourishing and we wanted to tap into this for D4.â?
The winning team members were: Thomas Conheeney, Robert Gillott, Michael Smith, Matthew Brejza and Thomas Olak. Each received £100 from Detica for their prize. Course leaders were Professor Steve Gunn, Dr Geoff Merrett and Dr Rob Maunder, with support from Tim Forcer, Jeff Hooker and Dave Oakley.
You can find out more about project work at ECS in our Project Work video.
Research on gait biometrics at the University of Southampton has passed another landmark with the first public demonstration of the technologyâs ability to withstand deliberate spooking.
In a programme shown in the Discovery Channelâs 'Planet Earth' series, Professor Mark Nixon of ECS-Electronics and Computer Science explained how his research on gait â the way we walk â has progressed over the years. The programme was filmed in the ECS Biometrics Tunnel â the only one of its kind in the world. The technology based in the Tunnel combines and processes data from 12 cameras to produce an individual 'signature' of a personâs walk that is unique and recognizable with over 90 per cent accuracy.
In the first public test of the system, Professor Nixon and two of his PhD students, John Bustard and Darko Matovski, tried to fool the software by swapping clothes, wearing hats and scarves, and even a motorcycle helmet. The technology stood up to all these tests and Professor Nixon explained how this robustness has been able to help the UK police and security services. It may even be able to detect padding underneath clothing â for example, the changed body profile and walk of a suicide bomber.
âPeople are unique by quite a variety of different measures,â? said Professor Nixon, âand that rich diversity is fascinating.â?
The biggest test of IPv6 in action took place on Wednesday 8 June when ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton joined the world's major content providers including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, CNN and the BBC in the Internet Society's World IPv6 Day.
Companies and organizations around the world offered their content and services for 24 hours over the new IPv6 Internet Protocol. ECS has been contributing to the development of IPv6 for many years, and runs IPv6 throughout its own network, so was able to participate fully and help validate the new technology by encouraging its staff and students to use Facebook, YouTube, the BBC and other sites available via IPv6 on the day.
IPv6 is the successor to the existing IPv4 protocol that enables the vast majority of the Internet to work today. The current challenge is that the last unused IPv4 address space was allocated to Regional Registries in February this year, so it's becoming very important for everyone concerned with future Internet growth to gain experience with and to begin deploying IPv6. The new protocol can run alongside IPv4 - a process known as 'dual-stack' - for the foreseeable future, but eventually IPv6 will become the dominant Internet Protocol as its much larger address space will allow billions of new devices to connect to the Internet.
ECS has been researching and using IPv6 for several years, but to date there has been very little high profile content available via IPv6 outside of other academic research networks. On Wednesday, as ECS staff and students used their normal web browsers to access many of the world's top commercial web sites, those connections were running over IPv6 rather than tIPv4. The event proved that IPv6 is mature and ready for wider deployment, and also equally importantly that other people still using IPv4 were not adversely affected by Google, Facebook and others offering their content over both protocols.
"We shipped over 100GB of IPv6 traffic on 8 June, which was significantly more than we've ever done before, without any reports of connectivity problems for our users," said Dr Tim Chown, who has led ECS's IPv6 research and deployment work since the late 1990's. "It's been a fantastic day for the future of the Internet. The fact that the general public wouldn't have noticed anything different on Wednesday, while some of the world's most popular web sites ran IPv6 alongside IPv4 is a huge success. It's a great testament to all those people who have been working for many years to make IPv6 what it is today, and of course to the Internet Society for arranging this first coordinated IPv6 test flight. We've just begun analysing all the data we've collected from the day, and are already hopeful that a World IPv6 Week won't be too far away now."
ECS' home web site has been available dual-stack, via both IPv4 and IPv6, for many years. While Google, Facebook, the BBC and other World IPv6 Day participants will also be analysing the data they've gathered, some sites have been left available over IPv6 since Wednesday, including some of Google's YouTube video content, the Facebook developer's site at developers.facebook.com and Microsoft's gaming site at www.xbox.com. "While previous measurements by Google and other researchers have shown that as few as 0.05% of users have problems connecting to dual-stack sites, that's still a lot of people," said Dr Chown. "Wednesday's data will help Google and others to get that figure even lower, so that turning on IPv6 permanently for all their services becomes a real possibility. The challenge then is to encourage ISPs to deploy IPv6 to their customers. While IPv6 deployment is growing in academic networks, the larger commercial ISPs are lagging behind, especially in the UK."
Mat Ford, Technology Program Manager at the Internet Society commented "IPv6 deployment is fundamentally about the future scalability and utility of the Internet, and World IPv6 Day was a major milestone in the road towards that deployment. The day was always about exposing the diversity of the Internet's networks and users to IPv6 connectivity, so support from a long-established and thriving IPv6 network like that at ECS was extremely welcome. At the Internet Society, we've been thrilled with the support for the event, and it's very gratifying to see that many participants have seen this 'call-to-arms' as an opportunity to enable IPv6 and leave it enabled."
Friday 16 July will be a busy and high-profile day for Dr Mike Wald. Not only is he presenting at the â1st Digital Agenda Assemblyâ for Europe, taking place in Brussels, but as a finalist in this yearâs prestigious Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards, he will be attending the awards ceremony on the same day.
The Digital Assembly is organized by the European Commissionâs Information Society and is part of the Digital Agenda for Europe initiative. The focus of the event is on shaping and co-creating a barrier-free digital Europe by people with disabilities themselves, in line with policy, technology, innovation and cooperation perspectives. Web accessibility for public and private online services plays a crucial part in this agenda.
Dr Wald will be presenting his work on Synote, which has won wide recognition for its ability to transform learning for all students, including those with disabilities. Synote makes multimedia resources such as video and audio easier to access, search, manage, and exploit. Learners, teachers and other users can create notes, bookmarks, tags, links, images and text captions synchronised to any part of a recording, such as a lecture.
In a further initiative, Dr Wald will be talking about how Synote has incorporated crowdsourcing to provide a sustainable method of making audio or video recordings accessible to people who find it difficult to understand speech through hearing alone.
He comments: âAutomatic captioning of lectures is possible using speech recognition technologies but it results in recognition errors requiring manual correction and this is costly and time-consuming. 'Crowdsourcing' the corrections of speech recognition transcription errors is a sustainable way of captioning lecture recordings.â?
Dr Wald will be presenting remotely because he will be attending the Awards Ceremony in London with the University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Don Nutbeam, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor Education, Professor Debra Humphris. The University of Southampton has been shortlisted for the âICT Initiative of the Year Awardâ for its support and development of Synote.
"I am delighted that Synote has been appreciated and used throughout the world and has won and been nominated for so many awards since the first version was made available in 2008," said Dr Wald.
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Dr Mike Wald is a member of the Learning Societies Lab in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science. If you are interested in doing PhD research in this group, you will find more information on our Postgraduate Admissions Pages.
For further information about this story contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.