Dr Tom Howat Spent Seven Years at Trinity College, Cambridge, Studying Applied Mathematics, and Graduating with a Phd in Mathematical Biology in 2006
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The RingTHE JOURNAL OF THE CAMBRIDGE COMPUTER LAB RING Issue XXXII — January 2013 — £20 The Cambridge Phenomenon 5 Ring news 2 64 4 Letter from the Editor Kick-starting Chip Design The Raspberry Pi Effect Who’s who 3 Valobox 64 6 Making it easier and cheaper to Hall of fame news 9 access paid content through the Web Skin Analytics 8 A mobile health app to give you peace of mind Tom Howat 11 Graduate Story www.camring.ucam.org 2 Ring news Letter from the Editor Events calendar As many of you probably know the In contrast with his fellow economics gradu- Computer Laboratory’s graduate association, ates, Julian Hall eschewed the traditional 2013 Cambridge Computer Lab Ring, is open not path to the City and instead took up an only to all graduates and present and former industrial placement at IBM. His time with February staff of the Computer Laboratory, but also a successful start-up in Auckland taught him Cambridge graduates from other disciplines “how malleable software technology can Wednesday 6th, 6.30pm working in computing careers. be” and he set his sights on staying in the London Ringlet Bar industry. Julian has recently co–founded a Venue to be confirmed While many in industry throughout the company in Cambridge (page 8). April land and far beyond bemoan the lack of computer science graduates, the relentless While Tom Howat’s move into technology Thursday 4th, 6.30pm growth of new technologies has served to is perhaps more traditional (he does come London Ringlet Bar attract a diverse cadre of the most capable from the STEM fields having spent seven Venue to be confirmed graduates from other disciplines. Indeed, years at Trinity reading applied mathematics the Computer Lab Ring’s founder Stephen and graduating with a PhD in mathematical Wednesday 24th, 2.30pm Allott, himself a law graduate from Trinity, biology), it was his programming (“I’ve 75th Anniversary Celebrations got into technology because “I was fascinated been programming since high school…I Computer Laboratory to find out how it would make work easier love programming”) that got him his job at and more productive.” Cantab Capital Partners in Cambridge, a 11am Poster competition starts. hedge fund founded by fellow Cambridge In a letter to The Ring (No XXIV) William 2.30pm Wheeler Lecture Graduate Dr Ewan Kirk, where he is now a Speaker: Professor Sir Tony Hoare Bailey (CL Dip68) wrote “In the olden partner (page 11). days…a computer science qualification was 3.30pm Book Launch a rarity, and seen as a useful baseline skill not Departments of Computer Science will Cambridge Computing: only for IT management but indeed for any continue to work hard to increase the The First 75 Years other IT job. Today, with core IT expertise number of applications. However, we should 4.30pm Innovation Lecture very widely distributed, this base expertise be thankful that the industry continues to Speaker: Dr Mike is perceived as fully adequate for all except attract the brightest from other disciplines. Lynch OBE, FREng the most technical roles, and computer science graduates are not essential.” 5.30pm Innovation Discussion Panel In this edition of The Ring we meet some of 7.30pm Cambridge Ring Annual Dinner those Ring members from disciplines other Queens’ College Guest speaker: Lord Broers than computer science. Like Stephen Allott, Anna Lewis read Law. However, she shunned Tickets for the afternoon events are free the traditional routes of a law graduate for though limited numbers are available. the world of on-line publishing (page 6). For Anna, “the pace of change is so rapid in tech- Tickets for the dinner cost £57. Please make cheques payable to “University of nology that it felt like a much more exciting Cambridge” and send them (with your area to be working in.” e-mail address to Cambridge Ring, William Gates Building, JJ Thomson Avenue, CB3 0FD. To confirm your place, please e-mail [email protected] with details of the sessions you wish to attend. © The Cambridge Computer Lab Ring 2013 The Ring — Issue XXXII — January 2013 3 Who’s who Stephen Allott (T MA80) has been made Neil Davidson (T MA95), Joint CEO and James Montgomery (EM BA00) has been an honorary member of the University of co-founder of Red Gate Software is to step appointed Director Test Engineering at Tom Cambridge Computer Laboratory. down at the end of January 2013. Neil plans Tom in the Netherlands. to take some time off before returning to Simon Beaumont (HOM BA12) is university for full–time study. While he’ll David Mrva (PET MPhil00, PhD06) is working for Citrix as a software engineer. remain a major shareholder of Red Gate and working in investment research at Interna- will sit on the Council of Advisors, he will no tional Standard Asset Management. Gerald Cheong (T BA96) recently longer be involved in the day-to-day opera- co-founded Mango Health. Based in San Valeriea de Paiva (PhD90) has been tion of the company. Francisco, Mango Health allows consumers appointed a senior research scientist at to take control of their health with fun, Dr Mike Edwards (T MA79) is a cloud Nuance Communications. elegant and easy-to-use mobile applications. computing standards expert at IBM Hursley Larry Piano (CHU MPhil94) is a voice Laboratories and is Chair of the UK BSI Omi Chowdhury (PEM BA12) has joined recognition consultant at Abacii Services. Cloud Computing Standards committee. He Identropy Inc in New York as a lead user is also a strategist in emerging technologies experience designer. Phil Rogers (Q BA87) is a developer at at IBM. IBM. Peter Cowley (F MA77) has been appointed (SID MA96) is working as a non-executive director of Captive Media Raoul Fleming Andrew Wallace (EM MA84) has recently a cloud business executive for Atos in Paris. and a board observer at both Cambridge joined Tunstall Group where he is Chief Marketing Officer. Tunstall is Europe’s CMOS Sensors and e-Go Aeroplanes. (PET MA74) is working as Martin Fulford largest supplier of Telecare and Telehealth a senior developer at Ubisense. Sadly Captive Media’s system can only be services. enjoyed by the UK’s male population as it Richard Hadden (Q BA96) has recently Murray Williams (K MA98) is an IT looks to take advantage of the average 55 joined Finance Wales. Finance Wales invests specialist at IBM. seconds visit time the UK male spends in in SMEs in Wales. a urinal: it has introduced the world’s first Sarah Woodall (G DIP81) is working for retrofit, networked washroom gaming (CHR BA97) has recently Julian Hall Code Red Technologies Ltd as principal soft- system — with hands-free control! co-founded Skin Analytics (see page 8). ware engineer. Peter has also been appointed a board Roger Hill (JN BA85) is a senior consultant observer of e-Go (which is developing a at C5 Alliance in Guernsey. light aircraft in kit and complete forms) and Cambridge CMOS Sensors (CCS). Dmytro Kislov (G BA11) is a technical CCS is a spin-out from the University of director at Improbable Worlds. Cambridge Department of Engineering, Jonathan Miller (R BA98) works for exploiting innovative patented technology Cartesian where he specialises in high-level jointly developed in collaboration with the requirements, project initiation and imple- University of Warwick in the area of CMOS mentation of Revenue Assurance Controls. micro-systems. Jonathan is a contributing member of the UK’s Revenue Assurance Group, whose members include most UK-based telecom- munication Revenue Assurance Managers. The Ring, Issue XXXII, January 2013, price £20/€30/US$40 Published three times a year. Copy deadline for the May 2013 issue is April Web: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/ring/ 1st 2013. All content is copyright ©The Cambridge Computer Lab Ring 2013 unless otherwise noted. E-mail: [email protected] The Ring is the journal of the Computer Lab Ring, which is the graduate Tel: +44 1223 763585 association of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. Post: William Gates Building, Cambridge CB3 0FD The Ring — Issue XXXII — January 2013 © The Cambridge Computer Lab Ring 2013 4 Kick-starting Chip Design: The Raspberry Pi Effect On 27th October 2012 Adapteva Inc. successfully raised nearly $900,000 on the Kickstarter crowd funding Web site — the first Kickstarter success by a chip design company. Jeremy Bennett reports. The “Raspberry Pi” effect With conventional seed funding, Epiphany processors have been avail- able commercially for nearly two years. Adapteva Inc has been making a steady income selling development boards at around $10,000 each to the defence and other high-value markets. The challenge for Adapteva is to become a mass-market processor. Intelligent engineering meant Adapteva could develop its silicon for a fraction of the usual cost. Yet there was no way, as a four-person company, for it to compete with the conventional marketing budgets of established chip companies. In facing this marketing challenge, Raspberry Pi gave inspiration. Conceived as a teaching platform on a tiny budget, Raspberry Pi has The Kickstarter money will be used to manufacture Adapteva’s found worldwide adoption as the prototyping platform of choice for Epiphany multi-core FPU chip and put it on a $99 board. Known as embedded applications. In less than a year, nearly 1 million units have Parallella, the aim is to make “supercomputer” performance available been shipped and, more importantly, many alternatives have seen their to the mass market. popularity rise. My company, Embecosm, has been working with Adapteva since While there may not be many hobbyist/hackers/prototypers out there, 2009, developing its compiler tool chain.