This year's BETT technology show, held at Olympia, London, in early January, had its usual line-up of new and interesting products and developments. Here are some of the things that stood out for me. I remember the time when BETT resembled a giant bazaar, with row upon row of boxes. But these days, you'd have to look hard to find a computer that was for sale rather than being used as a demonstration tool. But there were a few interesting computers dotted around. Elonex's stand had lots of computers which didn't look like computers. The Artisan LX, for example, is a digital media centre that looks more like a DVD recorder or a set-top box than the machine weÕre all used to seeing sitting on a desk.
But inside the Artisan LX is a Windows Media Center PC, powered by an Intel 4 chip and offering a 200Gb hard drive. The large drive is essential, because the Artisan is meant to be used as a TV recorder and comes with a twin tuner, which can be configured to receive the Freeview digital terrestrial TV service and the existing analogue service or two digital channels, the latter lets you record one digital TV programme whilst watching another. There are all the things you'd expect from a PC, wireless networking, CD/DVD recorder and lots of USB 2 and FireWire connections. But what is different, is the addition of an FM radio tuner and a remote control handset.
The Artisan LX costs £850 and comes without a display, which tells you where Elonex sees this product fitting in. Many people have now invested in large, flat-display TVs (either plasma or LCD) for the home and this computer would fit very nicely underneath a sparkling new flat-screen set. Whether it would encourage students to do any work in the living room is another thing. Elonex also showed the Lumina, which at first glance, looks like a 32-inch LCD TV, but tucked inside is another Windows Media Center PC. It's an impressive feat, but my big reservation is that it only has 512Mb of RAM memory, which is not a lot for a machine that is designed to record TV and video and which costs almost £2,200.
The Apple effect
It's hard to over-estimate the influence Apple Computer has had on the world of computer design. Its iMac computers, for example, were a welcome antidote to the dreaded 3B syndrome desktop computers suffered from - boring, beige boxes. The iPod has spawned a whole industry of imitators and if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Apple's designers have cause to feel a warm glow when they look at Viglen's MiniPC. It has clearly been inspired by Apple's Mac Mini and is even aimed at the same type of user - someone whose existing PC is getting long in the tooth, but who owns a PC display that could be used with a new computer. The MiniPC is tiny (it snuggles nicely in the palm of a hand) and comes with a Pentium Centrino processor chip.
Unfortunately, it was hard to get further information out of Viglen, but it seems that there is little, if any room for upgrading or expanding the MiniPC, apart from swapping the Centrino chip for a Pentium M processor. Nor could they give me a price. So, the MiniPC looks like an interesting product, but I wouldn't like to recommend it on the information I currently have to hand.
A year ago, "podcasting" was a term that was on relatively few people's lips, but now it's becoming something of a rage. No surprises then, that Apple was shouting about the latest version of its highly acclaimed iLife suite, which includes facilities for recording podcasts and publishing them on the web. Radiowaves, the service which enables schools to set up their own radio service, plans to include a podcasting facility soon.
Gaming in the Classroom
Quite a few stands had educational software that looked more like a computer game. RM's EasiLearn: The Island and a clutch of titles from Caspian Learning that cover everything from life in an Indian village to oil, all feature the sort of interface you'd expect from a PC or console game and as a result, should be far more engaging to many pupils (it would be interesting to know whether boys prefer this type of software interface than girls).
Learning has slowly but surely been going mobile, with the advent of laptop computers, Tablet PCs and PDAs. Handheld Learning thinks it has even further to go and that devices like mobile phones and portable games consoles (like Sony's PSP) could be used for displaying educational games and content. As I waked around BETT, I noticed how CD-Roms were still very much in evidence. Despite the advance of broadband, the growth of online services (both subscription and free) and the great interest in VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments), plastic discs remain the dominant carrier for educational content, even if most CD-Rom titles are networked on the school server. Sometimes it seems that the future takes far longer to arrive than is predicted.
Links
www.apple.com/uk/education
www.caspianlearning.co.uk
www.elonex.co.uk
www.handheldlearning.co.uk
www.radiowaves.co.uk
www.rm.com
www.viglen.co.uk
