Simon Bond of Silicon South West said: “We’re delighted to join the Cambridge Wireless team and we’re excited to extend the reach of this competition nationally. Discovering Start-Ups just got bigger and better.”

The Discovering Start-Ups competition is for:

• Technology Start-ups
• Small companies looking to take their business forward
• Design or research groups in larger companies looking to exploit technology
• Students or academics in education with a brilliant idea

For details on how you can get involved as a pitching company, delegate or sponsors Click Here

Bristol-based WPD is providing the funding from part of the £16m the company received from Ofgem through the Low Carbon Network Fund. Researchers from the university are set to use the funding to prepare electricity grids for the use of low carbon technologies. The funding will go towards two new projects – Project Falcon and Project Bristol.

Dr Miles Davis from the research development and support office at Bath University said: “These awards are a huge vote of confidence in the University from the power industry, they recognise our leading expertise in low-carbon research. “Working with WPD will give Bath a central role in work on the future of the UK grid as we move towards a lower-carbon world.”

Roger Hey, future networks manager at WPD, said: “Their academic skills will help deliver long lasting benefits to electricity customers across the country.”

The university said the insights from these projects will help the UK achieve its climate change objectives.

The 4th Future of Wireless International Conference will take place on the 26th & 27th June at the Møller Centre and Churchill College in Cambridge. This annual global conference will bring together over 350 delegates, sponsors and exhibitors representing every part of the wireless value chain to explore “The Reshaping of the Mobile Industry”.

Is the wireless industry entering a new era of growth for operators and device manufacturers, or does the disruption caused by Internet brands, and the accompanying value transfer, threaten to undermine these traditional players’ future, and perhaps the whole ecosystem around them?

Keynote Speakers include:

• Andrew Gilbert, Executive Vice President, European Innovation Development, Qualcomm
• Olaf Swantee, CEO, Everything Everywhere
• Prof. Chris Lowe, Director, University of Cambridge
• Matthew Postgate, Head of Research & Development, BBC
• Paul Taylor, Engineering Manager, Google
• Rory O’Neill, Vice President of Software and Services EMEA, RIM
• Andy Hudson, Head of Spectrum Policy, Vodafone
• Jim Maynard, President of Wavefront, Canada
• Kar-Ann Chew, Technology Strategy Manager, Vodafone
• Vincent Korstanje, VP Segment Marketing, ARM

For more information and to register please visit:

www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/futureofwireless

The funding has been led by David Holloway who was a co-founder of Codian, a videoconferencing hardware vendor which was sold to Tandberg (now Cisco) in 2007. David previously had senior roles at Madge Networks and Calista, steering each of them through to successful exits. David is now a seasoned angel investor in technology startups and has joined the board of Xsilon.

This investment enables Xsilon to accelerate its product development programme, with its M2M Connectivity Evaluation Kit now targeted for customer availability in Q3 2012. Its HANADU product line is now planned to launch in 2013. HANADU is Xsilon’s patented Whole Home, Every Home M2M connectivity technology, extending M2M services seamlessly into the home environment.

Mike Baker, CEO of Xsilon, said “We are delighted to be endorsed by such highly experienced technology experts as these. We welcome David onto our board, and we are looking forward to working closely with all our investors to grow Xsilon into the world leader in M2M that we know it will become.”

The HAN9000 CEK uses a modular design to accommodate the varying needs of different customers. Available singly or in pairs, the CEK allows HANADU connectivity technology to be evaluated within real-world homes, validating the strength of the communications reach to any part of the building. Each CEK unit is approx. 27cm by 13cm in area, which encompasses all the network interface technology, power supplies and data processing modules. Accompanying software allows connection throughput and link integrity to be logged, monitored and analysed. The CEK can operate in a simple point-to-point Virtual Wire mode, or in a dynamic anypoint-to-anypoint Ad Hoc Network mode.

Xsilon is offering the HAN9000 CEK to vendors and service providers who are looking to deploy M2M services into the home environment, where existing communications technologies have failed to create a major footprint due to their poor connectivity within domestic premises. Early applications will include home energy management solutions, smart meter connectivity and telemedicine services. These applications will be addressed by Xsilon’s first connectivity product, the HAN1250 module which will launch in 2013. The HAN1250 will be available as pre-assembled modules for direct incorporation into OEM solutions, and as a reference design for tight integration into vendors’ products. Other products on the HANADU roadmap will address additional functionality, multi-mode connectivity and tighter integration with targeted host systems.

Mike Baker, CEO of Xsilon, said “Everyone here at Xsilon is excited and proud that we can now announce the details of our product roadmap, including the availability of our first product which comes out in just a few months’ time. The HAN9000 CEK will showcase the unique and compelling capabilities of our HANADU connectivity for In-Home M2M solutions.”

Great design can boost a new product both at the prototype stage to gain funding and for the end product. Attendees will have the chance to meet and question designers in small groups where they will share some of their most relevant expertise for their silicon and electronics businesses. Technical companies are often great at what they do, and investing in quality design services – product development, brand communications, marketing materials and user interfaces – helps to improve competiveness, convey confidence and attract new business.

As a business case study we will have the managing director from Forgen Renewables. He will explain how his company has engaged with designers to successfully reposition the business and its products.

Design agencies include:

Kinneir Dufort, an international award winning innovation and design consultancy based in Bristol. They will discuss their prototyping technologies and CAD tools.

Matthew Fairweather, a creative design firm based in Bristol. They will discuss the benefits of redesigning highly technical information in ways that engage new customers and decision makers as well as the experts.

Beef, a digital agency based in Bristol. They will discuss their user-interface expertise through successful website ordering systems and app development projects.

Mytton Williams, an award winning branding agency based in Bath. They will discuss the ability for good branding to convey a stronger and more professional capability that improves the ability to compete.

Sign up here for the event or email hello@wedesignforum.co.uk

13:00-15:00, Wednesday, 28 March
Bath Ventures Innovation Centre, Broad Quay, Bath, BA1 1UD

Graphene is a single layer of graphite arranged in tightly bound hexagons just one atom thick. Since the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to UK researchers in this field, investment has been  directed into graphene research by industry and governments around the world including the UK’s  Centre for Graphene Science , which is a partnership of the Universities of Bath and Exeter.

Silicon South West will be hosting an academic-to-business network workshop for commercial and research organisations to openly discuss opportunities for potential commercial applications and funding.

Places are very limited, so if you’re interested in attending, presenting and/or participating please confirm your interest (along with the organisation you represent) to Simon Bond (s.a.bond@bath.ac.uk) by Monday 19 March.

M2M services delivered wirelessly struggle to reach devices that are located inside homes, as external wireless networks struggle to penetrate the shell of the building and internal wireless networks continue to face challenges with the obstacles, clutter and coverage deadspots within a typical home environment. As M2M services look to connect to mobile devices that move in and out of the consumer’s home, and as M2M services within the home begin to take off, a new generation of reliable M2M connectivity is now needed for mass market take-up to begin.

HANADU delivers a ubiquitous In-Home M2M experience for service operators and equipment vendors. It is a revolutionary communications technology that delivers Whole Home, Every Home connectivity at a cost point compatible with low margin domestic appliances as well as higher value consumer electronics. It reaches within the home to every point where M2M connectivity might be needed, and overcomes the deadspots and range problems typically associated with previous inhome deployments. Unlike equivalent wireless offerings, costly but underused repeater points are not needed. Ad hoc topologies are supported with auto-discovery routing algorithms, and the bandwidth scales to support many dozens of connected endpoints within a single home.

HANADU comes with a radically lower power consumption than legacy approaches. Its small form factor enables integration into the smallest of devices, and its feature-rich functionality supports sophisticated interactions for complex devices. State-of-the-art network security keeps householders’ privacy fully secure. In addition, HANADU is compatible with all other in-home connectivity technologies, both wired and wireless.

Xsilon’s experienced technology team has created HANADU using more than two man-centuries of communications technology development and product experience. Other communications technologies deployed in the home were originally designed for other areas, and compromises in performance or connectivity have inevitably been encountered during deployment as an In-Home M2M offering. Rather than accepting such compromises, the Xsilon team designed HANADU using a cleansheet approach with three design goals in mind: superior performance within the home environment; direct relevance to the needs of in-home M2M applications; and, compatibility with all legacy in-home technologies. Xsilon has generated its own intellectual property in designing HANADU, and it will be opening the technology up to standardisation activities in the near future.

Xsilon will begin delivering its product roadmap based on HANADU technology later this year. First products will allow vendors and service providers to evaluate the connectivity advantages of HANADU technology, followed by connectivity modules for integration into OEM solutions. Dual- PRESS RELEASE mode solutions are also being designed, allowing deep integration with other connectivity solutions such as WiFi (802.11), ZigBee and Ethernet.

Key application areas for HANADU solutions include smart meter connectivity in mainstream environments as well as in difficult building deployments, in-home energy management solutions, appliance monitoring and maintenance applications, and telemedicine services.

Two immediate classes of application come to mind for this development:

Law enforcement agencies will be interested because Android means that low cost and ubiquitous hardware platforms can be used to run strong biometric authentication which officers can easily carry around withthem. Smart Sensors is already working with partners developing multi-modal biometrics and other data collection solutions suitable for use in the field, and with software solutions that meet these needs.

Secondly, there is the issue of providing secure access to remotely hosted cloud computing resources. Martin George, CEO of Smart Sensors said, “With corporate customers increasingly using Smart Phones as a remote access terminal to valuable data and communications channels that need to be kept private only to authorised users, there is a whole new exciting area of business opening up to biometrics. Iris is an ideal solution because it is non-contact, and requires only a suitable digital photograph of the user’s eye”.

Smart Sensors’ MIRLIN SDK for Android links with Java Native Interface (JNI) for user input so that apps employing iris recognition can easily be created by developers. Various CPU families can be supported, including ARM, Atmel, TI and Freescale.

The company does business by licensing its technology to OEMs and Systems Integrators, and is increasingly involved through its partners in several large scale deployments around the world where iris biometrics has been selected to provide a vital and strong identification mode for various demographic and environmental reasons.

ZTE Mimosa with Icera wireless modem

“The ZTE Mimosa X is exciting for a few reasons,” said Michael Rayfield, General Manager of the Mobile business at NVIDIA. “The Mimosa X marks the first time NVIDIA technology powers all the major processors in a single smartphone, and also the first time a premium mobile computing experience is coming to the mainstream smartphone market.”

The Mimosa X is powered by the NVIDIA Tegra 2 mobile processor, featuring a dual-core CPU and GeForce GPU, and the NVIDIA Icera 450 HSPA+ modem, comprising baseband and RF processors, featuring excellent throughput and low power. It will run Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), feature a 4.3-inch qHD (960 x 540) screen, rear 5 MP and front cameras, and 4 GB of storage expandable to 32 GB.

The ZTE Mimosa X will deliver super multimedia capabilities, including advanced audio distribution profile (A2DP), Dolby sound, digital living network alliance (DLNA) compatibility for easy sharing of content, HD video record and play, dual microphones, and built-in gyroscope.

The Mimosa X will be launched around Q2 2012. Positioned squarely for the mainstream market, it brings new levels of performance and connectivity to this large segment of users.

Consumers will now be able to use a mainstream smartphone to experience the same speedy web browsing, smooth multitasking, and HD video, as well as console-quality gaming with TegraZone, that was previously available only in high-end phones. TegraZone is NVIDIA’s free Android Market app that showcases the best games optimized for the Tegra processor.

The NVIDIA Icera 450 supports up to 21Mbps category 14 HSPA+ with fast downloads in fading channels, IceClear interference cancellation technology for even faster throughput at the cell edge and advanced Release 7 features for an ultra-low latency network response.