Underwater robots, Google Moon, edible beetles and ID cards

Photos of the month - July 2009

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the first moon walk, an event Google celebrated by launching Moon in Google Earth, an addition to its Google Earth mapping software that lets people virtually travel to the moon.

Moon lets users visit the sites of each Apollo landing and access panoramic images and YouTube clips by following links provided. Here, you can see the location where astronauts played golf on the moon's surface.

Find out more here.

Photo credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET News

With the world going crazy for the iPhone, July saw a round-up of apps that could actually make you much more productive on the move.

This is the SpeakEasy Voice Recorder. It smoothly navigates through a list of saving or rerecording options, lets you title and comment on recordings, and categorise them.

Check out the other useful apps here.

Photo credit: Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

July also saw a first look at the Firefox 3.5 browser that includes new features such as support for CSS media tags and HTML 5, and the ability to take tabs into new windows or merge multiple windows into the tab bar, as shown above.

Find out more in the full photo story.

Photo credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET

silicon.com senior reporter Nick Heath went to the Air Transport IT Summit in Cannes last month to take a look at some handheld technology that could help airlines, airports and passengers.

Airport IT supplier Sita developed this mobile web app for air travellers, currently being trialled by Malaysia Airlines, that allows them to check flight schedules and fares from their phones.

See what other tech was on show at the event in Cannes here.

Photo credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com

Microsoft held its annual Imagine Cup competition in July and silicon.com had a look at some of the best systems developed to tackle world issues in the Embedded Development category of the contest.

The second placed team in the Embedded Development category was Team iSee from China, which developed a system designed to help the visually impaired access the web by taking digital information from the internet and changing it into Braille or speech output via this machine above.

Check out the other technologies created in the photo story here.

Photo credit: Microsoft

Microsoft offered an early peek at its Office 2010 software package to silicon.com sister site CNET News.com, which got to test drive the invite-only technical preview.

Shown here is a tool that allows users to edit images in documents without having to open a separate image editor application.

Click here to see the other delights that Office 2010 has to offer.

Photo credit: Jason Parker/CNET

In July, Google and VisitBritain revealed the seven landmarks and attractions that will get a visit from the search giant's Street View trike this summer.

This photo shows the Angel of the North, one of the trike's targets.

See what other landmarks made Google's shortlist here.

Photo: Delmonti via Flickr, under Creative Commons licence.

Walsall Manor Hospital is helping its doctors and nursing staff save time, thanks to a new system that tracks patients and beds.

The system makes use of this bank of screens to display a variety of information on available beds and patient status.

See what other useful tools the system includes here.

Photo credit: Walsall Hospitals NHS Trust

The Student Autonomous Underwater Challenge took place in July with seven university teams pitting their underwater robots against each other on a submarine obstacle course.

Here you can see the Cambridge team placing their challenger into the ocean basin in which the competition was held.

Find out which robot won the competition and some of those it defeated in the photo story.

Photo credit: DSTL

The Routers of the Future project - a collaboration between the University of London's design department, Goldsmiths, and ISP TalkTalk - aimed to give the humble router a serious makeover last month.

Above is one of the concepts developed as part of the collaboration, Route O'Clock, which uses 24 half-hour segments and a range of colours to indicate bandwidth during that particular part of the day.

Check out the story here to choose your favourite arty router.

Photo credit: TalkTalk

Atos Origin, the company overseeing the tech for the London 2012 Olympic Games, last month revealed how it's warming up for the competition with just three years to go.

The technology roadmap (above) includes the opening of the Equipment Deployment Centre, scheduled for February 2011, which will manage the distribution and configuration of the hardware for the Games' 94 UK venues.

Find out more about how the Games' tech plans will pan out here.

Photo credit: Atos Origin

silicon.com took a look at some interesting ways analytics is being used in some unusual situations, including helping the World Health Organisation predict and prepare for disease outbreaks and the US military improve medical treatment for soldiers evacuated from the battlefield.

See what other novel uses people have found for analytics here.

Photo credit: Army.mil via Flickr under the following Creative Commons licence

The World Map of Real Places in Second Life created by developer New Business Horizons provides an access point to all of the real-life locations that have been recreated in the virtual world.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can take a trip to Mexico and check out (and clamber all over) some Aztec pyramids as shown above.

Check out some of the other places the map can take you in the full photo story.

Image credit: New Business Horizons

Defence technology company QinetiQ showed off the skills of its fire-fighting robots in London last month. The company's remote operated vehicles (ROVs) can be called out to fires within Greater London and the surrounding counties where acetylene gas cylinders are suspected to be involved.

Pictured on the right is the Bison ROV which is being used in conjunction with one of the other four robots, Talon, to assess the risk in the van.

See more pictures of the robots in action here.

Photo credit: QinetiQ

Home Secretary Alan Johnson revealed how the UK ID card will look in July. The cards will soon be available for UK nationals living in the North West of England.

The back of the card (shown above) is embedded with the microchip that stores the cardholder's biographic and biometric information.

See more images here.

Photo credit: Home Office