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Sam Town
Technophile. Intellectual property professional. Passionate gamer.
Maker, tinker and breaker of things.
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Info
- Summary
Part-qualified UK patent attorney with a background in digital electronics.
Specialties: Electronics, telecommunications, computer architectures, integrated circuits and computer software.Experience- Sept 2009 - PresentTrainee Patent Attorney (Associate) / EIP
- Jul 2011 - Dec 2011Trainee Patent Attorney (Secondee) / Metaswitch Networks
- Jun 2008 - Sept 2008Work Experience / EIP
- Jun 2008 - Jun 2008Work Experience / Venner Shipley LLP
- Jul 2007 - Jul 2007Work Experience / Withers & Rogers LLP
- Jul 2005 - Aug 2005Temporary Trainee Paralegal / Lyons Davidson Solicitors
Education-
2010 - 2011Queen Mary, U. of LondonPG Cert in Intellectual Proerty Law
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2005 - 2009The University of SheffieldMEng in Electronic Engineering
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Posts
- Oct 14, 11Thank goodness there are so many certifiably insane people in this world. That way the rest of us don't have to strap a camera to our helmets, ride up dozens of stories on the outside of an elevator, and plummet to near-certain doom in the middle of a busy Spanish city on a busy afternoon. Like these guys did. More »
- Oct 14, 11This blows my mind. There is brain juice flowing out of my ears. Chan Hwee Chong, an artist, only needs one pen to create beautiful pieces of art. On top of that, Chong never even lifts the pen from the paper. It's all done in one stroke. More »
- Oct 14, 11I watch this video and I can't believe this kind of sorcery is happening: a drilling machine in action, creating square holes. Instead of using a regular circular motion, this thing just quickly moves at different angles. More »
- Oct 13, 11
I have talked about the uber geeky and cool motorcycle suits that the UD Replicas company makes before. One of my all time favorites was the Tron suit that came out around the time the film was in theaters. One of the most popular suits of all time for the company was the Batman suit that was based on the newer film The Dark Knight. Those suits have so far sold out in two releases.
The company has announced that if you want your own Batman suit, you will have a short time to order one since they are re-releasing the suit right now. The release is set to coincide somewhat with the film due next summer called The Dark Knight Rises. The suit is a real motorcycle suit that will protect the wearer in the event of a spill on their bike.
It has CE-approved body armor inside, Kevlar plates, and glove liners along with other safety features. The line includes full suits with a jacket, pants, and boots. There are also two stand-alone jackets in the line. The price for a full suit is $998 and the company offers a 3-month payment plan on the site. The re-released suit is limited to 450 units, orders will close on December 9, and a second edition of the Batman Begins suit is on order until October 31 with a Q1 delivery.
Relevant Entries on SlashGear.com
- UD Replicas TRON: Legacy Movie Replica Motorcycle Suits Now Available
- The Batman replica cuffs for all your geeky needs
- UD Replicas Iron Man 2 Mark V suitcase motorcycle suit hits pre-order
- UD Replicas to offer Wolverine motorcycle suit from X2 film
- Turbine-powered replica 1989 Batmobile hits eBay for $620,000
- Fully Functional Mini Replica of the Leica M3
- Batman Collapsible Desk Clock
- Entertainment Earth’s Iron Man 2 Mark V Briefcase is Expensive Accessory
UD Replicas to re-release its replica Batman motorcycle suits is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2011, SlashGear. All right reserved. - Oct 13, 11
Picking up your iPhone 4S tomorrow? We’ve got some Siri related sorrow to go with the mirth from earlier: we’ve learned that not only are navigation look-ups US-only, but local directory searches won’t work in the UK either.
One of the much-hyped features of the Siri voice assistant for iPhone 4S has been its ability to look up stuff around you. As iOS boss Scott Forstall demoed at Apple’s press conference earlier this month, you can ask it to find nearby restaurants, or even show you the way home.
That’s great, except new owners of the iPhone 4S are in for a shock. They will find that they can’t. As Stephen Fry touched on in his review for the Guardian, maps and direction Siri requests are US only for now.
To be fair, Apple has flagged this up in small text right from the start: it was on a slide during the conference, and is mentioned on Apple’s website. More of a blow however is that we’ve learned there is no UK partner for local look-up.
Yell provides the answers for these Siri searches in America, but we’ve heard from those lucky enough to try an iPhone 4S on British soil already that there is no equivalent in Blighty. Forget those requests for a nearby kebab, boozer or even a taxi home.
Hopefully Apple will soon fix this and ink a deal that opens up Siri for those of us on British turf, but for anyone set on upgrading tomorrow it’ll come as a bitter blow nonetheless.
Is this a deal breaker for you, or will you be picking up an iPhone 4S to shout at anyway? Let us know in the comments.
Related posts:
- Oct 13, 11
MAKE friend and founder of iFixit Kyle Wiens is traveling with a crew through the slums of Kibera, Cairo’s infamous Garbage City, and Cairo’s electronics markets revealing how and why fixers do what they do. They’re working on a documentary film about repair titled Fixers.
There are superheroes in our midst, and they’re not wearing capes or costumes. They live in unassuming places, performing miracles with the most humble of tools. They bring ancient machinery rumbling back to life, fabricate new radiators from metal scraps, and repair minuscule circuitry with simple hand tools. They are brilliant hackers, tinkerers, mechanics and repair technicians, transforming our unwanted junk into coveted treasures — genius “fixers” with a preternatural ability to rip apart a piece of hardware and give it a new soul. Fixers are doing more than repairing things. They are the solution to an environmental problem poisoning our planet.
Kyle and crew are posting travel logs on The Atlantic as their journey progresses. The first installment is titled “Why Fixers Will Save Our Planet.”
- Oct 13, 11
Hive13 hackerspace’s glass block matrix, built with ShiftBrite modules, now has an Android tablet app that controls it. Sweet!
- Oct 13, 11(Cross-posted on the Mobile Blog and the Translate Blog)
Mobile technology and the web have made it easier for people around the world to access information and communicate with each other. But there’s still a daunting obstacle: the language barrier. We’re trying to knock down that barrier so everyone can communicate and connect more easily.
Earlier this year, we launched an update to Google Translate for Android with an experimental feature called Conversation Mode, which enables you to you translate speech back and forth between languages. We began with just English and Spanish, but today we’re expanding to 14 languages, adding Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish.
To use Conversation Mode, speak into your phone’s microphone, and the Translate app will translate what you’ve said and read the translation out loud. The person you’re speaking with can then reply in their language, and Conversation Mode will translate what they said and read it back to you.
This technology is still in alpha, so factors like background noise and regional accents may affect accuracy. But since it depends on examples to learn, the quality will improve as people use it more. We wanted to get this early version out to help start the conversation no matter where you are in the world.
We’ve also added some other features to make it easier to speak and read as you translate. For example, if you wanted to say “Where is the train?” but Google Translate recognizes your speech as “Where is the rain?”, you can now correct the text before you translate it. You can also add unrecognized words to your personal dictionary.
When viewing written translation results, you can tap the magnifying glass icon to view the translated text in full screen mode so you can easily show it to someone nearby, or just pinch to zoom in for a close-up view.
Tap the magnifying glass icon to view translations full screen.
Finally, we’ve also optimized the app for larger screens like your Android tablet.
While we work to expand full Conversation Mode to even more languages, Google Translate for Android still supports text translation among 63 languages, voice input in 17 of those languages, and text-to-speech in 24 of them.
Download the Google Translate app in Android Market—it’s available for tablets and mobile phones running Android 2.2 and up.
Posted by Jeff Chin, Product Manager - Oct 11, 11Just in case that plastic shell you picked up has run its course and you're not looking to alert Al Gore with your next purchase, Root Cases offers a wee bit more environmentally friendly alternative. Now you can outfit your iPad 2 with either North American Walnut or eco-friendly, South Asiatic Bamboo. Both cases will protect your slate in book-like fashion, securing the tablet at the corners and sticking shut via magnetic closure. If you're ready to pull the trigger, you can grab both of these via the source links below for $79 each -- or hit the gallery for another peek at the pair. At least you won't regret splurging for a wood case like you did if you shelled out cash for one of these.
Root Cases launches wood iPad 2 duo, ditches the plastic for $79 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Wood Cases (1), (2) | Email this | Comments - Oct 12, 11
Shop opens next door
Samsung has opened up a smartphone shop just metres away from Apple's Sydney store, with the aim of selling its Samsung Galaxy S II at the knock-down price of $2; conveniently coinciding with the launch of Apple's new iPhone 4S.
The Apple iPhone 4S is due to launch on Friday 14 October and fans of the phone would be expected to queue up days in advance, however Samsung hopes to entice those that do with its bargain hi-end Android offering.
The offer entitles the first ten people through the Samsung store's door to a $2 galaxy S II, the deal being active up to the iPhone 4S launch day on Friday.
This move comes on the back of a run of law suits filed by Apple against Samsung, specifically with respect to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 which allegedly infringes certain Apple patents within the iPad. The tablet is currently offsale in Australia until a decision is made.
Some reports are stating that the line is already longer than Apple's, but nevertheless the gathering could prove to be a beautiful merging of the two groups of avid phone fans - sharing ideas, finding common ground; true syncretism in action... or maybe not.
Tags: iPhone 4S iPhone Samsung Apple Phones Samsung Galaxy S II
Samsung $2 Galaxy S II stunt attempts to spoil iPhone 4S launch originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:35:57 +0100
- Oct 31, 11
- Oct 05, 11
This Daft Punk helmet replica is beautiful to look at, but the deeper we delve into the build process, the more we begin to think that the entire project is a piece of artwork. [Harrison Krix] has been working on it for months, and just posted his three-part build log in September. Check out the video and the links to all three parts after the break.
Now [Harrison] isn’t new to prop replica scene. He’s the guy responsible for the other fantastic Daft Punk helmet we saw last year. He’s tapped the same fabrication skills to churn out an equally impressive chromed helmet, complete with addressable flashing LEDs. He built his own mold to create the body of the helmet, reminding us of the Storm Trooper helmet replicas we saw in July. While this was off being coated in chrome, he got down to business with the electronics.
The visor of the helmet has a red LED marquee. This, along with the multicolored visor sides and ear pucks, is controlled by an Arduino yellow jacket. The lights can be controlled by an iPhone app that connects to the helmet via WiFi, letting a user push custom messages to the display, and alter the light patterns. The build shines on the inside as well as the outside with an incredibly clean LED matrix build, and clever control placement for switching each part on or off.
Build Log Links:
[Thanks Chris]
Filed under: led hacks, wearable hacks - Oct 07, 11
The guys from Bloomington’s Fraternal Order of Lock Sport (FOOLS) sure know how to throw a party! At this year’s DerbyCon event down in Louisville, the group put on an awesome event that combined lockpicking and drinking – what could be better?
The Rumble Challenge is lock picking game where six people compete head to head for the best time. Whenever a competitor masters his lock, the competition is paused so that each player has a chance to take a shot from their air-powered shot dispensing machine. Once everyone has imbibed, the next round starts with the competitors picking up where they left off, in an effort to be the next to successfully open his lock.
The game is controlled by an Arduino, which both times the competition and senses when the locks have been opened. The Arduino relays this data to a computer, which uses a projector to display the contestant’s scores on a big screen. As an added bonus, FOOLS member [dosman] added loud rumble motors to the locking mechanisms in order to throw competitors off their game.
The contest sounds like a ton of fun – we’re bummed that we missed it. If you want to see how the game was put together, check out [dosman’s] build log over at the Bloominglabs wiki.
Filed under: contests, security hacks - Sep 23, 11
[Parker Dillmann] is nearing the end of the prototyping process for his Propeller development board. He wanted a tool that let him work on projects without the need for a bunch of equipment, while still maintaining the ability to extend the hardware when necessary. His last dev board used a large piece of protoboard to host through hole components including the Propeller chip, 3.3V and 5V regultors, an SD card reader, and female pin headers. This version migrates to a PCB from a fab house and mostly surface mount components.
He decided to use a USB-stick design having been happy with some of TI’s prototyping tools. The Parallax branded development boards use an FTDI 232RL chip for easy programming and that’s what he’s gone with as well. A P8X32A chip in the QFP package was chosen for easier soldering than the smaller QFN option. There’s also a 64kb EEPROM on board to give you plenty of room for your SPIN programs. All the pins are broken out to DIL female headers and there’s a power header on the end opposite the USB plug. [Parker] plans to do a bit of testing to make sure there’s no problems with signal routing below the 5Mhz crystal footprint. This run of prototypes came from the Seeed Studios Fusion PCB servcie–he got more than 10 boards for a total of $13… that’s almost unbelievable.
Filed under: Microcontrollers - Sep 08, 11
Laurent Laveder is a landscape astrophotographer. No, really. That’s his job! OK, he’s also an astronomy journalist, if that makes you feel any better. But it’s his amazing astrophotography, especially his series called Moon Games, that really inspires awe… and lots of FB/G+ reposting.
- Jul 28, 11(Cross-posted on the Lat Long Blog)
Starting today, you can get public transport directions for London within Google Maps. One of Europe’s largest metropolitan areas, London is a major destination for both business travelers and tourists. More than 1 billion passengers are serviced by Transport for London (TfL) every year across over 18,000 bus stops and over 250 Underground stations.
Let’s say you’re at Trafalgar Square, and you want to visit Madame Tussauds. With a simple directions search, you’ll see all the possible public transport connections. In Maps, click “Get directions” in the left-hand panel, and then the train icon to see public transport directions. Enter your departure location next to A, and your destination next to B. These can be either street addresses or names of popular places, businesses or restaurants. When you’re done, click the “Get directions” button and suggestions for your trip will appear below.
Public transport directions are available on both Google Maps and Google Maps for mobile, so you always have access to a trip planner. When you’re on mobile, Maps even uses your current location to determine the best trip to your destination. Just search for your destination location, select it on the map and choose the “Directions” option. The suggested trips will be based on your location by default, and provide you multiple alternatives whenever possible.
If you’re using an Android-powered device, you can also get public transport directions with Transit Navigation (Beta) in Google Maps. With this new feature, which we launched earlier this month, you’ll get alerts when it’s time to get off the bus or train at your destination or to make a transfer. Transit Navigation is available in all regions where public transport directions are available, including London.
TfL is among the first agencies in a major European city to make its timetable information publicly available through the London Datastore. We’re strong supporters of open data and bringing information out into the open, and believe that making information publicly accessible can be an enormous engine of economic growth and innovation. ITO World has been a great partner in this launch by ensuring TfL’s data was adapted correctly and ready for our use.
Public transport directions are available for all Underground, bus, tram and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) lines, and we’ll include more public transport information as soon as it’s available. Whether you use public transport every day or infrequently, as a commuter, on a business trip or as a tourist, we hope that public transport directions in London make planning your trips more convenient!Posted by Thijs van As, Associate Product Manager, Transit Directions - Jun 13, 11
[AUTUIN] sent in a tip for his wifi sniffing digital picture frame.
A soon-to-be-trashed Pentium II laptop was rescued from Free Geek Vancouver. A lot of coffee shops around Vancouver feature local art and free wifi, so [AUTUIN] decided to combine the two. The project is designed to hang on the wall of a cafe and sniff images transmitted on the wireless network – an invasion of privacy, but as [AUTUIN] says, “that’s kind of the point.”
After gutting the laptop and putting it in a custom picture frame, Driftnet, a program that listens network traffic and picks out images from TCP streams, was installed. [AUTUIN] tested his build with an open wireless connection in his building. The results provided a wonderful narrative that started with pictures from news sites than slowly devolved to pictures from a hot-or-not style website, an online dating site and finally pictures from the inevitable conclusion of that browsing session.
[AUTUIN] is now looking for either a brave or foolish local coffee shop in Vancouver to feature his wifi sniffing picture frame. We think this would be very amusing if we weren’t using that network, not that we have something to hide or anything.
Filed under: wireless hacks
