Charlie Osborne

London-based medical anthropologist Charlie Osborne is a journalist, graphic designer and former teacher.

Latest Posts

Microsoft double-backs and extends DRM support for MSN Music

This seems to fit quite nicely with my "illegal music sharing/copying" post a couple of days ago. Back on the 22nd April 2008, Microsoft gave all those who downloaded music through MSN Music the two fingers, when it announced:As of August 31st, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers.

June 18, 2008 by

4 Comments Vote

Future employers - I want you

It seems a few people from Microsoft and Google in particular read this blog, and good for you. But I'd like to give the industry partners out there, regardless of whether you're in hardware, software, cloud or mobile computing, online or offline industries, or have anything to do with technology, and you want students to fill the boots as the next generation of IT users, talk to me.

June 17, 2008 by

2 Comments Vote

The killer apps of academia

Mary-Jo wanted to find the killer-apps of Vista, but I think I've found the killer applications for students. Regardless of educational establishment status, we have to consider multiple things in a killer-app (defined as an application which you essentially "must have"), such as open-source where possible, available across platforms, considerably save yourself time, increase productivity whether for social-downtime or performance-uptime, and most importantly - free.

June 17, 2008 by

19 Comments Vote

Students to design, create and launch satellite

Students at the University of Leicester have started a project working towards launching their very own satellite into Earth's orbit. Over twenty undergraduates from their Physics and Astronomy department at the university are working on the project, named "Plume", helped along by a neighbouring engineering company Magna Parva by donating the main body of the satellite itself.

June 14, 2008 by

1 Comment Vote