May 8, 2006 9:03 AM

London, Here I Come

*This is all of it. At least, I *hope* this is all of it.

http://www.sf-foundation.org/publications/foundation/foundation.html

SFF AGM 2006‚

The 2006 SFF/BSFA event will take place on Saturday 13th May from 10:00-16:40 in Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. The SFF AGM will be 1230-1300. Announced guests for the event itself are Bruce Sterling, Stephen Baxter and Juliet McKenna.

The schedule of events is as follows:

Open Doors 1025-1030

Welcome (by BSFA)‚ 1030-1120

Panel - "Story, Review or Criticism - Select Which to Download"‚1130-1220

Guest - Juliet McKenna‚ 1230-1300

SFF AGM‚1300-1400

Break‚ 1400-1430 BSFA AGM

1440-1530 Guest - Stephen Baxter‚

1540-1630 Guest - Bruce Sterling

1630-1640 Wrap Up (by SFF)

HARD NEWS super-cheap truths

Always top of our list of "people we'd like to do keynotes at

a one-day conference if they're ever in the UK" is of course

cyberpunk-pioneer-turned-environmental-agitator BRUCE STERLING

- and, while that hasn't been possible this time around, we've

wangled probably the next best thing: guaranteed places for

NTK readers at a rare London appearance by "Chairman Bruce" in

just 10 days' time. Promising some sort of "snake-handling

cyberculture high-mass complete with chalice of Web 2.0 Kool-

Aid", STEALING THE REVOLUTION 2.0 takes place from 7pm, Mon

2006-05-15, in the upstairs room at The Grouse and Claret pub,

14-15 Little Chester Street, London SW1X 7AP (approx 5 mins

walk from London Victoria station), and is completely free if

(and only if) you RSVP to [email protected] with the

subject "I heard about this via NTK" to confirm you can get

in. Not that Bruce has started writing for the New Statesman

or anything, but the event's sponsored by this year's all-new

THE NEW STATESMAN THE NEW MEDIA AWARDS for new "new media"

projects that "benefit society, government or democracy" in

any new (or particularly "new media") way.

http://beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/21/2155/Grouse_and_Claret/Belgravia

- "the best pint of Tanglefoot I've had in many a year"

http://www.viridiandesign.org/

- or pretend to be an NTK reader, there won't be a test or anything

http://www.newstatesman.com/newmedia

- 8 categories, all free to enter, closing date Wed 31 May

Bruce Sterling Rants

Tuesday, May 16, 2006 (7:00 PM)

SPACE Media Arts

129-131 Mare Street (Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps)

London E8 3RH, London

Tagged: Bruce Sterling Rants

/Free, no booking in advance /

On Tuesday, May 16th , come and hear Bruce Sterling, author, journalist, editor and critic, rant about RFID, the future of design and technology and whatever else is on his mind.

Bruce Sterling is best known as a science fiction author and grandfather of the cyberpunk revolution in the 80s, editing the definitive genre anthology Mirrorshades. His books from that period include Islands in the Net, Schismatrix, and the Difference Engine, co-written with William Gibson. Recently, Sterling has expanded on ideas about history, technology, art theory, politics and global cultural trends in non-fiction books, most recently /Shaping Things (2005)/. His current blog, Beyond the Beyond, is at http://blog.wired.com/sterling/.

For more information, please contact Heather Corcoran at heather at spacestudios.org.uk or by telephone at 0208 525 4339.

SPACE Media Arts (Map)‚ 129-131 Mare Street‚ Hackney‚ London E8 3RH

Bus: 254, 253 and 106 from Bethnal Green, 55 from Old Street‚ Tube: Bethnal Green‚ Train: Hackney Central Silverlink

Dear friends and colleagues,

In the next in the series of Tesla events, we will hear from the futurist, critic, and author Bruce Sterling, the charismatic father of cyberpunk, and an internationally acclaimed science fiction writer.

All welcome!

Abstract:

The Internet of Things

The long-awaited vision of "ubiquitous computation" has taken a bumpy step toward reality with the emergence of "Radio Frequency Identification". An RFID chip – tiny, rugged and cheap – is a combined computer and radio. It's tomorrow's barcode. RFID "tags" can be attached, glued or even built-in to objects, giving them unique "Electronic Codes" that can broadcast product data. Because tags can be digitally tracked in space and time with high speed and accuracy, they are spreading rapidly in retail, security, shipping, and the US military. RFID tags are the building blocks for tomorrow's "Internet-of-Things" — auto-Googling nets of objects; graphic front-ends for every thing in the manufactured environment.

Time and place:

May 17th, 18:00; Malet Place Eng 1.02

(You can find a map at

http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/images/uclcs_map.jpg)

Hope to see you there,

Gordana

Tesla Group Coordinator

Tesla - Art and Science Interest Group

Computer Science Department

University College London

______________________________

Gordana Novakovic