Every year T3 the well known men’s gadget magazine brings together those in the know to a glamerous and glitzy award ceremony to celebrate the top gadgets of the year. Sometimes known as the “technology oscars” all the stars come out in all their glory (I think our invite got lost in the post somewhere!) and this year they were all tweeting away.  Here’s what was awarded to whom… let us know who you think should have got what?

T3 Gadget Awards 2011: the winners

Innovation of the Year: Razer Switchblade

Commuter Gadget of the Year: Amazon Kindle

Camera of the Year: Canon PowerShot G12

Gadget Accessory of the Year: Eye-Fi X2

Gaming Gadget of the Year: Microsoft Kinect

T3 Design Award: Apple MacBook Air 11-inch

Phone of the year: Samsung Galaxy S II

Tech Brand of the Year: Google

Tablet of the Year: Apple iPad 2

App of the Year: Flipboard

Work Gadget of the Year: BlackBerry Bold 9780

Digital Media Service of the Year: Twitter

Music Gadget of the Year: Monster Beats by Dr Dre Pro Studio

Home Gadget of the Year: Philips Airfryer

Computer of the Year: Apple MacBook Air 11-inch

Retailer of the Year: Amazon

TV of the Year: Samsung 8000 Series UE55D8000

Tech Personality of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg

Outstanding Contribution to Technology: David Attenborough

Gadget of the Year: Microsoft Kinect

We were quite happy to see a few of our personal favourites in this list such as the Kinect which really is stirring up the gaming industry and looks like it will also be going further than that with hacks making it usable on desktops and for all sorts of random things!

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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I’m sure that a lot of you have been following the HP saga for some time now. The result as of yesterday comes as no surprise; Leo Apotheker, the CEO and director of HP finally had to step down. The board was not happy and with good reason. A quick recap; Apotheker announced to the world that the HP Touchpad is dead and development will cease on the WebOS platform. That was blow number one, but on the same announcement he decides to also drop the bombshell that HP will spin off its PC business as it was no longer profitable. There are a few glaring issues with this.

First of all, contracts were already in place with hardware manufacturers to churn out thousands of HP Touchpads, with the Touchpad discontinued what exactly do you do with all those parts sitting in a warehouse doing absolutely nothing? You make more Touchpads and sell them cheaply to get a third of your money back, which is an improvement from zero return. They made one final production run after the Touchpads already out on shelves disappeared rapidly.

One thing you can learn from this costly exercise; consumers will buy anything if the price is right. The Touchpad is not the massively popular iPad, but at less than £100 you get A LOT of hardware for your money. The initial price point was not competitive; it may even have to be priced at a loss but you need traction and the Touchpad wheels barely touched the ground before it was labeled defunct and unsupported.

Trust and reliability

The second problem was the PC business spin off. This in itself is not an issue if they had executed this correctly, but because the announcement was so sudden this unnerved channel partners that had tons of HP PCs stockpiled. As a consumer, why would you buy a piece of hardware that had its warranty in doubt? In a year or two, will there be HP support for your broken workstation?

This leads me onto how I and many others in my field feel about their transformation. As an infrastructure engineer and architect, I know how many HP servers are out there being used by companies. My initial reaction is, if they can so easily do this to their PC business what of their server business? It would be financial suicide if they decide to axe this revenue stream. But then again their PC business was worth a big slice of their total revenue and they had no qualms about potentially wiping that off their books.

Companies and corporations need a hardware vendor they can trust and rely on to deliver; and there is doubt they can achieve this with their indecision and lack of direction. The vultures are already swooping overhead sensing a bleeding animal waiting to die. Dell have been quick to react; they have a strong PC and hardware business. To them, this is the perfect opportunity to take what HP discarded.

Bring back the old HP

I’ve had huge respect to HP as a company for a long time. I remember when I first got my hands on a DL385 server. It literally came in pieces; the fans, CPU, heatsinks, hard drives, power supplies… and yet I was able to build it from scratch in 25 minutes flat. That included unpacking it all as it came in so many boxes; I had to build 5 of these that afternoon and I was swimming in cardboard by the end of it. But the build design is genius, each part is modular. The same with attaching server rails, everything required zero tools to assemble. It was a pleasure to work with and I still feel the same about it now.

This is the kind of ingenuity I miss from HP, and by the way their printer business was booming back in the day too. Now, I’m not really sure what HP’s focus actually is or how they intend to get back to that pinnacle once more. The purchase of EDS a few years ago goes some way to indicate they want to be an I.T services company, ala IBM. But IBM took baby steps, planned their strategy early on over several years. Apotheker seemed to think he can do the same thing overnight by axing their hardware divisions. The Palm WebOS acquisition was wasted; I am secretly hoping that HTC or a similar company will take it off their hands to unlock the potential and make some great devices.

I wish the new appointment of Meg Whitman as CEO every success and also a great deal of luck. She is inheriting a PR disaster and needs to re-evaluate their overall strategy. Their mission still seems unclear, and some focus will go a long way to bring them back on track. But I am on the fence about how well she can turn HP around. Around 50% of HP’s share price got wiped off the stock market, this will be a mountain to climb.

P.S: As a side note, this made me chuckle. Here’s a snippet from The Register about the Meg Whitman’s appointment: “On the conference call, Lane said that Whitman was prepared to handle a large hardware operation because, as the CEO of eBay, she was required to purchase large amounts of hardware.” So buying a bunch of servers makes her eligible for the role of CEO?!

About Motoko

First embraced the inner geek at the age of 10 with a Commodore 64 and programming in BASIC. Avid PC gamer, Gundam Gunpla builder, manga editor and anime enthusiast. Loves Mountain Dew and Ghost in the Shell. Twitter: @Motoko_K

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The Ideas Project have set up an interesting new community challenge called DLD Apps to Empower Women. It is supported and powered by Nokia in conjunction with the founder of the DLD conference events.

The point of the challenge is to find app ideas that would of course empower women but also make the life of women easier, funnier, more social, etc. The best idea will be developed by female developers funded by Nokia and the inventor of the winning idea will get a mobile phone of their choice. The winner will also get a chance to participate in a 2-day workshop in Finland to kick of the development work of the winning app. Hotels and flights are of course paid.

When the app is ready, it will be posted for free on the Ovi Store for any woman to download. Sound fantastic, then get putting your app ideas forward! The Deadline for entries is the 30th September!

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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Yesterday a number of Geeks and Girl Geeks ended up involved with a rescue mission after South West Trains failed to deliver any of them to their homes last night!

St. @actionlamb our super hero came to the rescue after seeing on Twitter that we were stranded in and enroute from London to our respective homes and came to the rescue in his ActionCab (aka car) Going from Basingstoke area all the way to London via West Byfleet to pick up the stranded Geeks! I was one of them!

South West Trains failed twice big style this week and we’ve basically had enough!

Here’s the blank complaint form in case you too can’t get hold of one from your local station and want to complain about the delays from this week!!! Also some of the folks on the trains have said they are going to request their local MP to call in the South West Trains directors to find out what needs to be done to stop this stuff from happening in the future.

SWT Complaint Form

@actionlamb was awesome! He came to London to rescue us, picked us up, avoided a traffic cone thrown at the taxi in front of us… Didn’t get upset that the junction off of the M25 was closed for West Byfleet… picked up @motoko_k who had been sat on her train for 3+ hours having witnessed the pulling of the emergency cord and people escaping from their train onto the line.  Then continued home and got pulled by the police coz we had lots of people in the car. They thought we might be burglars… instead they found tired, frustrated geeks trying to get home with their hero still incredibly patient going through the motions with the police (who should have really been on the hunt for the cable thieves!). And eventually after dropping @benjaminellis and @andypiper at Farnborough and then @motoko_k at Basingstoke station got me home at 1:30am!

@actionlamb is my hero! And my fiancée! I’m so very lucky!

PS. This is worth a read regarding the passengers charter apparently yesterday’s events count as void Days. The form relating to this is this one when you go to renew your season ticket you’ll need the updated version of this to get your refund on a season ticket!

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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As you may have already heard whispers, the Sony Xperia Play handset is due out in the very near future and as a result Three are starting to play games online!  What do I mean… well here’s the low down.

The challenge: consumers will have to crack a lock and key combination to be the first to get their hands on this beautiful little handset.

The handset is so exclusive; it’s been locked up – literally.  Secured by two guards, 30 chains, 30 padlocks and 30 keys, the public will have just three hours to try and solve the mystery of the padlock and key combination from the 900 possible variations.

Each key and padlock will be numbered, and all consumers need to do to win is tweet the hashtag #WinThreeXperiaPLAY followed by the key and padlock combination that they think will release the Xperia^TM PLAY.

So if I was playing, my tweet might read: ‘Try padlock 15 with key 9! #WinThreeXperiaPLAY’.

The lucky winner will receive the phone with a Pay As You Go SIM from Three, already preloaded with credit and all-you-can-eat data.  They’ll also get a money-can’t- buy ticket for them and a friend to the Xperia^TM PLAY launch party on March 31^st in London where they’ll be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Tinchy Stryder. Three will also cover their travel and accommodation.

The unlocking will be streamed live on Twitcam so entrants can see if their combination has been successful. Once the Xperia^TM PLAY has been released, it’s game over.  But in the event that the combination hasn’t been cracked in time, it will be a case of fastest finger first and a tiebreaker question will be thrown out on Twitter.  The first person to Tweet the correct answer will win. There will also be nine MiFi’s up for grabs.

Now the question here is do these sorts of gadget marketing games really work online?  Do you get involved with them or do you see them as just marketing pranks?  What is the likelihood of winning and is it worth your tweet? If you are interested in the device then you may like the Engadget Exclusive review of this device.  We’re hoping to get hold of one soon.

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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Ever wished you could let go of your hum-drum office job and dedicate your life to your art?

This week Lady Geek TV bring you apps that will help you discover your hidden artistic talents. With Ovi’s Loop which allows you record almost any noise and assemble your funky beats in your own pocket multi-track music-studio. And for the tortured artists with the assistance of Learn to Draw you’ll be on your way to your first Turner prize in no time at all.

This week’s app of the week is the astounding iPadio – just the thing for budding thespians to declaim their artful words to the world.

To be in with a chance to win a fantastic Nokia C7 watch carefully to spot our Lady Geek logo appear somewhere in the episode. Once you’ve spotted her, write where you saw it under this video on our Facebook/ladygeektv

If you haven’t already, join the Lady Geek community on Facebook/ladygeektv and Twitter @ladygeektv and see how we make technology more fun.

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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There is going to be an event on Capitol Hill today titled Blastoff! Encouraging Our Brightest Stars to Enter and Stay in STEM.  The American Association of University Women (AAUW) will have a strong presence on the panel, “Successful Models and Partnerships,” by moderating a discussion focused on building the STEM workforce.

WASHINGTON – The American Association of University Women (AAUW) continues to be a go-to resource on the topic of universal access to and participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in America. AAUW Executive Director Linda D. Hallman, CAE, will serve as the moderator of “Successful Models and Partnerships,” a panel discussion that is part of the Blastoff! Encouraging Our Brightest Stars to Enter and Stay in STEM event to be held Tuesday, March 8, 2011, on Capitol Hill.

What:                    Successful Models and Partnerships Panel Discussion, part of Blastoff! Encouraging Our Brightest Stars to Enter and Stay in STEM

When:                   Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. EST

Where:                  2168 Rayburn House Office Building, Independence Avenue and South Capitol Street, Washington, DC 20003

Who:                    

• Linda D. Hallman, CAE, Executive Director, American Association of University Women
• Timothy Killeen, Assistant Director, Directorate of Geosciences, National Science Foundation
• Clemontene Rountree, Teacher, Northwestern High School and Northwestern High School Bio-Med Club
•  Donna Wiseman, Dean, University of Maryland Department College of Education, Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative
• Pat Yongpradit, Springbrook High School, Women in Engineering Club

About Linda Hallman
Linda D. Hallman, CAE, joined AAUW in January 2008 as its executive director. Hallman has a long history of executive-level association and foundation experience in the Washington, D.C., area. Most recently, she served as vice president of policy and government strategy, external and member relations, with the National Alliance for Health Information Technology in Washington, D.C.

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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The Scott Trust Ltd, owner of Guardian Media Group plc, is offering two bursaries to assist students who face financial difficulty in attaining the necessary qualifications needed to pursue a career in software development for the web.

The Scott Trust was created in 1936 following the death of CP Scott and his son Edward in 1932. Edward’s brother John was left as the sole owner, and was faced with the threat of death duties, which would have crippled the business and jeopardised the future independence of the newspaper.

To avoid this, and to secure his father’s legacy of the Manchester Guardian’s independent liberal journalism, John Scott voluntarily renounced all financial interest in the business for himself and his family, putting all his shares – worth more than £1 million at the time – into a trust.

Applications for 2011 are now open.  To apply go to www.gnmcareers.co.uk and search under the reference LS34.

Closing date is March 15th, 2011.

As a media organisation The Guardian are keen to reflect the society we serve. We encourage female graduates who have been disadvantaged in terms of their career as a result of family or other domestic

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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The incredible team at the University of Southampton successfully launched a Windows Phone 7 handset into the stratosphere as a testbed for a series of experiements to further atmospheric research into pollution. Friday’s launch utilised a helium filled balloon to elevate a small package to an altitude of 18237 meters/59832 feet. The package contained a Windows 7 phone handset, additional power supply and a commodity digital camera which recorded 1,200 images during the flight.

At it’s maximum altitude the balloon burst (as expected!) and the package returned to Earth via a small parachute. During the flight a custom application on the phone recorded the latitude, longitude and altitude. While in range of the cellular network the application streamed it’s data to another application running on Windows Azure.Windows Azure provided the computational “horse power” to project the likely landing point of the package.

The image below shows the team preparing to launch Astra 7

This is a great example of inexpensive hardware being combined in a creative way with phone software and a cloud service to enable something (scientific research in this case) that would otherwise have been prohibitively expensive yet which can bring benefit to us all.

The team’s write up provides much more information as does Stuart Dredge’s article on the Guardian tech blog and Cliff Saran’s piece on Computer Weekly.

Kudos to Keith who beat me to it in his post which gives a heads up of the flight’s impressive statistics.

The image below shows the package containing the phone at it’s maximum altitude

Congratulations to the Astra 7 team including Dr Andras Sobester, Dr
Elizabeth Hart, Dr Steven Johnston and Neil O_Brien. Thanks to Geoff
Hughes, Ben Nunney (@bennuk), Will Coleman and Lou Waller for their support

I’m delighted to be able to say that this wasn’t a PR stunt – it was
serious scientific research as part of The University of Southampton’s
ASTRA (Atmospheric Science Through Robotic Aircraft) project

About Stephen Lamb

Steve Lamb is known to be a positive disruptive force and is a geek with a passion for making the most of every day!

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After a few months off to regroup, film and edit, LadyGeek TV is now back in full swing and just in time for spring too!!!! We know you missed it, we heard your dismay when the last series finished and we are now back into the swing of things super heroes and all!!!

Have you ever fancied yourself as an international figure of mystery but worry you’ll give away your secret alter-ego? Or perhaps you fear your friends will discover your guilty crush and then shame you forever?

Well help is here because the Lady Geeks are back.

The first episode of series 3 shows our Lady Geeks turn super spy with Kaspersky and LastPass – apps that protect your smartphone and any personal information you hold on your phone.

Also check out our fabulous app of the week Podcatcher.

To be in with a chance to win a fantastic Nokia C6 watch carefully to spot our Lady Geek logo appear somewhere in the episode.

Don’t forget to join the Lady Geek community on Facebook and make technology more fun or follow us on Twitter.

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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