Wednesday 12 March 2003 in the Turner Sims Concert Hall (Building 52 on Highfield Campus map)

Twenty-five ThinkPads have been donated to ECS by IBM Hursley, as part of the company"s programme to promote greater use of the Linux operating system. Students at the School of Electronics and Computer Science can apply to take part in a year's exploration into the use of Linux and will win the use of a ThinkPad as part of the project. The aim is to develop a wireless networked community and investigate collaborative working. Head of School, Professor Wendy Hall, said: "This is a very exciting opportunity for the University to work closely with industry to provide and encourage students to use the latest software and mobile computing technologies." Graham Spittle, Lab Director at IBM Hursley, presented the ThinkPads at a ceremony at the School of Electronics and Computer Science. "We are delighted to be part of this innovative project," he said. "Linux is increasingly significant and we want to support creative ways of exploring its future potential. My message to the students is, tell us what you learn, but most of all, have fun.' More than 15 million ThinkPad notebook computers have been produced so far. They have been trusted for use in some of the world's most extreme settings, including space shuttle launches, at altitudes of more than 17,000 feet above sea level and on the open seas.

Currently President of the British Computer Society, one of the world"s leading professional IT bodies, Professor Hall has also recently been appointed to the Council for Science and Technology, the Government's top-level advisory body on science, engineering and technology policy. High on her agenda is the issue of encouraging more women to enter careers in science and IT; she is also keen to address the challenges faced by science education and training. She firmly believes that IT would benefit if a greater number of women were involved in the sector, and is committed to encouraging change. "But there is no easy answer," she says. "We have to tackle the problem at every level because there"s a deeply ingrained culture in the UK that computing is for boys." Only the second woman to hold the office of President in the BCS"s 46-year history, a major part of her presidential year will be devoted to establishing new networks for women and encouraging wider debates about some of the major advances in the world of IT. Professor Hall graduated from the University with a BSc in Mathematics and followed it up three years later with a Southampton PhD. She has been Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton since 1994. She was the founding Head of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia (IAM) Research Group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science and her research interests include the development of web technologies, open hypermedia systems and link services, advanced knowledge technologies, digital libraries, multimedia information management, agent-based systems and human computer interaction. Her group developed the open hypermedia system, Microcosm, and she is a director of Active Navigation Ltd, the company through which Microcosm was commercially exploited. The Microcosm software was an ITEA'95 award winner and a BCS IT award winner in 1996. The company now focusses on a commercial version of the dynamic link service for the Web based on IAM's Distributed Link Service project. The commercial product is known as Portal Maximiser. Professor Hall was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in June 2000. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). In 2002 she was made a Fellow of the City & Guilds of London Institute and was awarded an Honorary DSc by Oxford Brookes University.

Innos Ltd, the UK's leading research and development company for innovations in silicon technology, today announced the launch of its state-of-the-art operations, based at the world-class Silicon Fabrication Facility at the University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science.

Steve Byars has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer at Innos joining from IQE, the world-leading merchant epiwafer supplier for the compound semiconductor industry. With over 20 years management expertise in the field of microelectronics he leads an expert team of engineers, technicians and scientists, providing UK industry with research and development partnerships for research into silicon-based technologies; strategies for exploitation of intellectual property rights generated by users of the Innos facility; a prototyping service for start-up companies requiring fabrication of silicon-based electronic devices, photonic devices, and power devices; and a foundry service offering individual process steps. CEO of Innos, Steve Byars explains: "Born out of many years of research experience at the University of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science, Innos brings to the UK market unparalleled expertise and facilities that will enable UK businesses to conduct research and development into next generation technologies without having to look overseas." Professor Wendy Hall, Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science, comments: "This is a major announcement for the UK electronics industry. We are proud of the Silicon Fabrication Facility and are excited to be working with Innos to successfully deliver internationally-renowned research on a commercial basis." From its 1000m² purpose built cleanroom, Innos has a full processing line for all types of silicon-based devices and a lithography capability down to below 10nm using the latest in submicron electron beam lithography technology.

About Innos Innos is the UK's leading research and development company for innovations in silicon technology. From its state-of-the-art silicon fabrication facility in Southampton, Innos provides industry and academic institutions with a full processing capability for silicon-based devices including lithography capability to below 10nm, using the world's most powerful electron beam lithography system. It has an expert team of engineers, technicians and academics in addition to over 20 years experience of silicon processing expertise, applying nanomaterials concepts to silicon-based devices. Innos has the most comprehensive tool-set and expertise to serve the market with the diverse and complete processes that are required.

In case you hadn't noticed, sharing is all the rage on the Internet these days. There are web sites where you can share your bookmarks, your Internet search results and your music playlists. Just last week, Yahoo introduced its new instant messaging program that allows users to automatically share with buddies the titles of the songs playing on their desktops. Now comes Audioscrobbler (www.audioscrobbler.com). Created by a British online radio station employee, the new service automatically monitors what music you're listening to on your computer and builds an online musical profile for you. With this information, and the profiles collected from other users, Audioscrobbler builds a list of recommended songs for you. Richard Jones, who created the service while earning a computer science degree at University of Southampton in England, likened the recommendations to those that Amazon.com offers users when they hunt for books. "My main motivation was to create a tool for the discovery of music," Jones said. The service is easy to set up and run. Simply download a relatively small plug-in from the Audioscrobbler Web site. Then whenever you play music with your favorite player, it automatically sends the information to the Audioscrobbler database and builds a profile of your musical tastes. The Audioscrabbler Web site says the service is essentially anonymous because users can only see each other's user names (which they choose) and their song lists. Unfortunately, the service has become too popular too quickly. High demand is straining its servers, and Jones is scrambling to buy more equipment to keep up. For now, parts of the service don't work. But Jones is working on a fix, and has high hopes for Audioscrobbler. "Hopefully, we can make it grow to something much bigger," Jones said. "Maybe to where one day you just hit a button and say, `Play music I like.'"

The University of Southampton has signed a multi-million pound research agreement with BAE Systems and one of its joint venture companies, AMS Limited, marking the start of an important new strategic partnership.

The partnership, which is also supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), centres on a planned £3.5million integrated research programme into information fusion and automated decision making in complex environments. The Distributed Data and Information Systems programme, which involves a network of leading academic groups across the globe, will be led by a team in the University"s School of Electronics and Computer Science.

The partnership, which runs for a minimum of five years, will also evolve to deliver linked education and training courses, providing graduates with the skills needed for the future.

The agreement, signed by the University"s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Bill Wakeham; Dr Robert Johnston, Head of Systems at AMS; and Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal, Advanced Technology Director at BAE Systems, is the fifth BAE Systems Strategic Partnership in the academic sector.

Professor Nick Jennings, head of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, is the strategic partnership"s academic director. "This is an exciting initiative bringing together a number of leading academic and industrial research groups to do both fundamental and application-inspired research in this highly challenging area," he commented. "It is a great opportunity to make a significant leap forward in developing large-scale, robust and agile data and information systems. Industry needs increasingly sophisticated information systems that meet the requirements of the people using them. Through this partnership we are bringing together the necessary research expertise to develop the systems of the future," added Professor Jennings.

Professor John Murphy, Head of University Partnerships in BAE Systems said: "This is a strategic area where we must sow seeds for our future capabilities. We recognize Southampton as having in-depth skills in this area and the breadth of knowledge to pull together a global academic network to address our needs."

Dr Robert Johnston, who will chair the Strategic Partnership on behalf of BAE Systems and AMS Limited, said: "We are looking to Southampton and their network to deliver world-class technologies and put research into distributed data and information into network enabled and human centric systems."

The 2004 Open Source Award from UKUUG (the UK"s Unix and Open Systems User Group) recognises the development of free and open source software in the UK.

MailScanner is a complete e-mail security system designed for use on UNIX/Linux e-mail gateways, which protects against viruses and can detect almost all spam. Now the front line of defence at more than 20,000 sites in 60 countries, MailScanner protects over 5 billion emails every week, and has been downloaded a quarter of a million times.

The system is distributed free under the GNU General Public License so Julian can maintain direct contact with users and work with them to make improvements.

Julian wins a £500 cash prize and an expenses-paid trip to the Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon.