Handball: HC Erlangen und Nico Büdel verlängern Vertrag

Der HC Erlangen und Spielmacher Nico Büdel haben am Dienstag den im Sommer auslaufenden Vertrag um ein weiteres Jahr verlängert Der fränkische Erstligist HC Erlangen und Spielmacher Nico Büdel haben den aktuellen, bis Juni 2021 geltenden Vertrag um ein weiteres Jahr verlängert. Der 1,95 Meter große Rückraumspieler wird somit das fünfte Jahr in Folge im Erlanger Trikot die Fäden im fränkischen…

HC Erlangen: Heimsieg gegen den TuSEM Essen

Der HC Erlangen gewann am Mittwochabend auch sein drittes Heimspiel des Jahres 2021 und setzte sich mit 29:24 (13:9) gegen den TuSEM ESSEN durch. In einer umkämpften Partie behielten die Hausherren auch in Phasen, in denen es eng wurde, den längeren Atem und belohnten sich mit den nächsten beiden Punkten. Bester Werfer auf Seiten der Erlanger war Antonio Metzner, der sechs Treffer zum Heimerfolg…

Mit dem 35:29-Heimsieg gegen die HSG Nordhorn-Lingen am vergangenen Wochenende beendete der HC Erlangen die Vorrunde der Saison 2020/21. Gemessen anhand der Quotientenregel schlossen die Erlanger Bundesligahandballer diese sogar mit dem besten Ergebnis ihrer Vereinsgeschichte ab. Mit 18:20 Punkten und einer Tordifferenz von +6 ist der HC Erlangen punkt- und torgleich mit dem TSV Hannover-Burgdorf…

Controversial app that updates your Twitter feed from beyond the grave

LivesOn is a new Twitter service which will allow users to carry on their stream of consciousness in 140 characters or less from beyond the grave. It will analyse users’ Twitter feeds to learn their ‘likes, tastes and syntax’ to continue posting similar messages, updates and links after they’ve passed.

The service, due to launch in March, promises: ‘When your heart stops beating, you’ll keep tweeting.’

LivesOn is being developed by London-based advertising agency Lean Mean Fighting Machine.

Dave Bedwood, a creative partner at the firm, told the Guardian he was ready for negative responses to the service.

‘It divides people on a gut level, before you even get to the philosophical and ethical arguments,’ he said.

‘It offends some, and delights others. Imagine if people started to see it as a legitimate but small way to live on.

‘Cryogenics costs a fortune; this is free and I’d bet it will work better than a frozen head.’

LivesOn uses artificial intelligence algorithms to analyse users’ online behaviour and their style of writing.

This allows it to scour the internet to post the kinds of links its users like, as well as mimic their manner of communicating and favourite appropriate tweets to create a personal digital afterlife.

An early post on the LivesOn Twitter feed pronounces: ‘God doesn’t exist, servers do. Sign up to the real after life.’

But as bizarre as it might seem, LivesOn is only the latest service to offer to continue your social media life after death.

DeadSocial, launched last April, and If I Die, launched in January 2012, offer users the ability to send predetermined messages from beyond the grave to selected Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.

DeadSocial can be scheduled to post social media updates for long after users have passed away, while If I Die posts a single video or text message to the Facebook wall of any user after three friends confirm their death.

The benefits of animation for educational publishers [VIEWPOINT]

Author // Nicola Esson Posted in // Views

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This is a guest post from Nicola Esson of HL Studios, sponsors of BookMachine Oxford, happening this Thursday 6th September at the Ashmolean Dining Room.

Picture the technology available when you were a child… I dont know about you but, I dont consider myself to be that old (30′s ahem) and things were pretty shabby. 2D graphics with the only movement in a game being left to right, phone boxes (and calling the operator for a reverse charge call to your mum) no internet and a computer room at school where you could sit in front of a giant box and grow an electronic sunflower in double science (anyone remember that gem?!).

With the amazingly fast innovations in computers, software and the internet, there are ever more opportunities to learn and interact in new ways. While much popular thought is automatically led to computer games, it is not just about leisure. We are now beginning to see how animation can have a massive positive impact on how we deliver educational material, and the same applies whether considering educating small children; preparing secondary pupils for their exams; helping students to engage with their coursework or putting new recruits through essential training in everything from the specialisms of their sector to rudimentary health and safety and first aid procedures.

Animations can help get a message across in a number of ways, from providing an introduction to delivering clear step by step instructions. Animations are also a great way to illustrate an abstract concept, as normally inanimate objects can be made to move in an animated film sequence, to have lives of their own and even to speak.

This is a new way of imparting information that was previously the preserve of Walt Disney through his cartoons. Today, thanks to computer technology, it is much quicker, simpler and cheaper to put together animations than ‘in older times’ when lots of long hand drawings would be involved. As plenty of YouTube videos from children have already proved, you do not need sophisticated equipment to make a quick animation. And equally, the possibilities are only really limited by your imagination.

Simple basics need to be got right. For example, files sizes need to be delivered at a scale which will work on all computers, in a software format that different machines will recognise (damn you Apple). If the animation is being delivered on a DVD, then the file size needs to be small enough to fit on the medium, whilst being easily accessible by a non-specialist, from a simple menu or by an on-screen link. Likewise, if the animations are being delivered online, then they need to be easy to download or else should be hosted on a web server that has the capacity for a classroom of children to access the animation many times over, concurrently.

Modern day publishers are grasping this new technology with both hands, with new digital departments springing up alongside traditional print ones to convert old media to new. Amazon lead the way with the Kindle and Apple with the beautiful iPad (see how quickly we stopped questioning what a tablet was!). We already have the Wii and the beginnings of the ‘Minority Report’ style interface, mind control and retinal control.

Our favourite underdog of the Olympics so far - Hamadou Djibo Issaka

There's always one, and this time it's the sculler from the Sahara. Six months ago, Hamadou Djibo Issaka was a gardener working in Niamey, with a sideline in swimming. Now he's champion underdog in the single sculls, finishing last, crossing the line 80 seconds after the winner in the F finals, but to the most amazing crowd support.

The 35-year-old, who arrived in London from landlocked Niger, with only three months of rowing experience and trained for the Olympics in an old fishing dinghy.

When asked about his rowing technique he replied 'I don't know any techniques as I have only been rowing for three months. I saw it on TV but hadn't seen it in real life until I visited Tunisia.'

He has our full respect.

The textbook is changing. In the age of the computer, smartphones, tablets and a younger generation increasingly going online to interact with one another, so educational materials are having to change, too. No longer is a simple textbook appropriate.

Increasingly there is a demand for additional material that can be used for more interactive teaching, such as a DVD provided with the book that allows the use of multimedia to assist pupils with understanding the subject matter traditionally handled by the textbook. Additional information can be imparted, exercises can be provided which can be automatically marked.

And there is another dimension of teaching that the new technologies provide, that of using IT in other ways. Software enables school children to become more intimately involved in the subjects they study, while taking the teaching online can pitch pupils one against another in a competitive environment, as it increasingly used for computer games.

 As well as doing homework online, lessons now have the potential to make the most of broadband connections. And just as new smartphone and tablet “apps” are instantly updated to eliminate bugs, so it is now possible to provide online access to coursework material, which can be updated instantly and uniformly, ensuring everyone using it only has access to the latest, approved version of any material they are using.

 All of these changes present new challenges for textbook publishers. Thankfully, alongside the traditional textbook publishing companies, there are new providers springing up and harnessing new disciplines such as software design, animation and graphics production. These skills, once the preserve of the film industry, are increasingly being employed to create learning materials that can fire the imagination of school children in new ways, and add to the learning experience.

One such company that has grouped these new disciplines together is HL Studios. The company now provides a flexible support to mainstream school textbook publishers, helping them to meet the demands of school curriculum boards and organisers, as they prepare the materials required for upcoming teaching schedules.

Within its own team, HL Studios is able to provide a fast, effective and fully project managed support to leading textbook publishers. The portfolio of services available includes page layout, design and illustration as well as a host of animation development activities, capable of delivering the most forward-thinking multimedia material.