The Technology Behind London 2012

The last time London hosted the Olympics was in 1948, and it was a very different event to the Games taking place in London today. There was very little technology in use - the general public listened to events on the wireless, and if it was a really significant event neighbours would get together to listen, bringing people together to share the experience.

Keeping up to date with London 2012 will be completely different; the Games today are much more accessible. There are many ways of keeping up to date, via your mobile phone, tablet or PC.

Alongside the visible tech; the glittery scoreboards and instant replays on the big screens, behind the scenes technology including switches and routers will be helping information whizz seamlessly across the Olympics Park. Cisco said earlier this year that it believes its network will handle around 60GB of data every second during the Games, as scores, event listings, video data and other information is sent to organisers and broadcasters. Those working in the Games' various operations centres have 12,000 PCs, 900 servers and 1,000 notebooks from Acer behind them.

On Your Marks….. The London games are the first to feature an electronic starter’s gun, linked to speakers behind each sprinter to ensure that they all hear the “shot” at the same time. There is also a laser projected across the finish line to record the winner with maximum accuracy – a bit different from the 1948’s London Olympics, where the athletes broke through a fluttering white tape. Times, previously recorded by a chap with a stopwatch and a keen eye, are now obtained by speed guns that can capture the moment an athlete crosses the finishing line to the millisecond, helping ensure the right athlete is at the top of the podium!

The security operation is led by the police, with 10,000 officers available, supported by 13,500 members of the armed forces. Ships situated in the Thames, Eurofighter jets and surface-to-air missiles will be available as part of the security operation. 

The BBC is the primary broadcaster for the Olympics and plans to broadcast coverage of every sport, either on TV or online. Events like the 100m final will be watched by billions, but for those of us that enjoy a bit of archery or judo, you can hit the red button, and enjoy  some of the less mainstream sports. YouTube will live stream the games in 64 territories in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and this content will also be viewable on YouTube's mobile and Xbox Live applications, giving the public unprecedented access to the Olympics.

The Games will also see a huge demand for Wi-Fi, as visitors send pictures and links to Twitter and Facebook.Twitter is the social network king for big events. Sharing news and views in 140 characters couldn’t be easier. During the Olympics everyone from Lord Coe to the athletes in the stadium, to those watching trackside will be busy tweeting their perspective on the Games.

If all that tech isn’t enough for you, don't forget all the bookies' computer systems processing bets; all the medical equipment on standby for every eventuality; TfL and the on-going challenge of making sure everyone, spectators, athletes and the working public alike can get to where they need to be; all the cutting edge technology that has gone into the design and manufacture of all the kit – javelins, discus, tennis rackets, cycle helmets….. even the track itself.

Next time you watch Team GB win a medal remember the technology behind the scenes that is making this all possible!

Some data supplied by The Inquirer and Knovel.com

There's more than one way to keep up with the latest news from Sarsen Technology.....

Social media is now de rigueur in the world of business, and never ones to be left behind we’re keeping up with the Joneses, and have a huge amount of information available every day, in a variety of formats, including Twitter and LinkedIn!

• To celebrate our 10^th anniversary in 2010, Sarsen Technology launched a brand new corporate image, including a new Sarsen logo. Alongside this we started ‘NewsBytes’; our company newsletter with updates on the latest products, events and news from the last month.
• LinkedIn – Here you can find our latest company updates, career opportunities, personnel changes, interesting articles and product information, as well as contact details for our office here in Marlborough, UK.
• Twitter – Check out the Sarsen Twitter feed for real time news and updates from the team. You can follow us here - @Sarsen_Tech. The Sarsen sales team also have individual Twitter accounts, each with a different flavour –

Laura Jeffs - @Laura_Sarsen

Nigel Norman – @Nigel_Sarsen

Robbie Burns – @Robbie_Sarsen

Tim Norris - @embedded_tim

• Our website www.sarsen.net is always being updated with new products and updates from our 10 US manufacturers.

And of course, if you're reading this then you've discovered our blog. It's a more relaxed format, so we might share some of our more social exploits - charity fundraising, achievements, staff party photos...... It's updated every week so stay tuned and who knows what you might see!

Each of these services give you a different insight into the world of Sarsen Technology, so follow us on Twitter, check out the blog, and subscribe to Newsbytes to make sure you aren’t missing out on anything!!

As they say, miss it, miss out......

Have a great weekend!!

Meet the Sarsen Team!!

A recurring thought when working with our partners round the globe is that it would be great to be able to put a face to a name, especially when you’re speaking to the same people every day.

So, by popular request, here is our guide to the main players at Sarsen Technology, in no particular order….

Colleen Jameson – Colleen is our Office Administrator. She manages the day to day administration for the sales team to ensure things run smoothly, as well as all the business admin that goes on behind the scenes. She is first point of contact for our manufacturers and organises all of the events and exhibitions we attend. She is also organising our Christmas party this year, which is probably the most important job she will have to do in 2012!

Tim Norris
Twitter - @embedded_tim
Tim is one of our UK account managers. His role is to engage with a set of key accounts and to understand their technical requirements in terms of embedded hardware. Tim has been working with Sarsen Technology for 6 years and has experience providing solutions on the complete range of products.

Lynn Scholefield – Lynn is our ‘numbers lady’. She is very popular with the team because she arranges payment of salaries. She also has to channel her inner terrier to chase up the overdue invoices and hound customers for payment! Lynn juggles cash flows and foreign currency requirements, and analyses the many pages of data that summarises how the company is doing financially.


Robbie Burns 
Twitter - @Robbie_Sarsen

Robbie is one of our UK account managers, and is responsible for some of our largest customers. Robbie works remotely, spending a lot of time on the road meeting with existing and potential customers, and attending local industry events including WEAF.  Also answers to Vic.

 

Laura Jeffs
Twitter - @laura_sarsen

Laura is both the newest member of the team, and one of the longest serving.  Laura was promoted to Product Manager in December 2011, having represented another service for Sarsen previously. Laura is the liaison for United Electronic Industries and VersaLogic Corp, and coordinates the marketing activity and sales support for these manufacturers.

Nigel Norman
Twitter - @nigel_sarsen

Nigel is the captain of the Sarsen ship. Nigel started Sarsen Technology in 2000, and the company has grown significantly in the last 12 years. He has lived in the Marlborough area for 15 years and enjoys developing the business, working with his colleagues at Sarsen, sailing, music festivals with his teenage kids (when the sun is shining), football and playing cricket for the village team.

There are lots of other people who help Sarsen stay a well oiled machine, but these are the people you will speak to day to day at the Sarsen Technology office in Marlborough, Wiltshire.

We're a nice bunch - give us a call on +44 1672 511166 and we'll tell you all about our products and services.

In safe hands....

It’s been a funny old week for the folks at Sarsen Technology.

Car troubles, email issues and ‘ghost’ phone calls have made us think about how much technology we use every day, and how much it can affect us when said technology doesn’t work exactly how it should.

Fortunately, we represent 10 manufacturers who know how important it is that their products are reliable, and perform exactly how they should when you need them to.

Trenton Systems,  GA, offer an impressive 5 year warranty on all of their Embedded Motherboards, PICMG® 1.3 System Host Boards, PICMG® 1.3 backplanes and PICMG® AMC.0 (AdvancedMC) products. Trenton products are used in a wide variety of applications, such as industrial automation, military & aerospace, medical, telecom, professional video & graphics and data storage, and they have developed what is arguably the most reliable array of products in the field, moving them to the forefront of industrial PC-compatible equipment suppliers.

Trenton board and system products are built tough to survive and thrive in demanding industrial computing environments, and they offer "designed to meet" rugged system solutions as well as mil-certified products to standards such as MIL-STD-810.

If you would like more information on the Trenton Systems range, or any of our other manufacturers, please give us a call on +44 1672 511166, or drop us an email with your requirement to info@sarsen.net

Have a great weekend!

Len Crane Introduces the Iguana - Atom-based EPIC format SBC from VersaLogic

Back in March the VersaLogic 'Iguana' was unveiled to the public at Embedded World in Germany. In this video CEO Len Crane gives a 'Show and Tell' on the features and capabilities of the board.

Embedded World Iguana Release Video

The Iguana is a low power Intel Atom D525 (dual core) or D425 (single core) system with up to 2 GB RAM, dual GbE, six USB ports, dual SATA, analog and digital I/O, CompactFlash and eUSB flash storage, PCIe Mini Card with mSATA support, and SPX expansion.

The Iguana is now fully released, and is available in limited quantites. If you would like to take advantage of the VersaLogic 45 day Evaluation scheme to try the Iguana for yourself please give us a call on +44 1672 511166.

Getting Water Smart – Syrinix Ltd Uses VersaLogic Tomcat in Trunkminder Leak Detection System

With water bills having increased by approx 7% in April 2012, water conservation has never been so important. More than half of UK water companies will not be required to reduce their leakages before 2015, and with around 3bn litres of water being leaked every day by our water companies, early detection of pipeline failures is imperative.

Syrinix Ltd, based in Norwich, has developed the Trunkminder, a fully automated data acquisition system designed to continuously monitor water pipelines, in order to detect leaks before they become a major problem. Trunkminder uses an array of sensors attached to pipelines to provide instant alerts if a leak occurs, and to gather data which provides real-time information on what is happening in the pipe. Working at a significantly higher level of sensitivity than traditional pressure/flow-based devices, alerts can identify the site of a leak to within one metre.

The VersaLogic Tomcat provides the Trunkminder with a CPU boasting 800 MHz performance and very low power draw, due to its use of the highly integrated Vortex86DX chip. With no moving parts, full industrial temperature rating and soldered-on RAM, all on the compact PC/104 form factor, it is ideal for operation in applications like the Trunkminder, where size and weight are critical factors. With a 5 year+ production life guarantee, and a standard 2 year warranty, the VersaLogic Tomcat is an ideal choice for applications needing exceptional reliability and long term availability.

About Syrinix Ltd

Based in Norwich, Syrinix Ltd delivers high tech, continuous, intelligent and fully automated monitoring and detection services for the water industry. Syrinix’s TrunkMinder service utilises a combination of sensors permanently attached to pipelines, including a hydrophone, geophone, pressure sensor and optional flow monitor.

For more information, visit www.syrinix.com

Friday 13th. Unlucky for some?

Paraskevidekatriaphobia, or the morbid, irrational fear of Friday 13th, affects as many as 21 million people across the world. Fortunately the fear of a date, and it's lucky or unlucky effect, doesn't affect educated, sophisticated business professionals.
. . . . . . Or does it?

Not at Sarsen Technology! Friday 13th July is the day that culminates a great week for the team. And there's not a black cat in sight!

This week we have had the pleasure of hosting Dwight Justice - VP Sales at Trenton Technology. We have taken him all over the country, talking to customers about the fantastic Trenton product range. We've spoken to a range of markets, including Communications, Displays, High Speed Finance and Military. Trenton have released some brand new products, check them out here - Newsletter.


It's the Marlborough Jazz Festival this weekend. It kicks off tonight with performances from the fantastically named The Filthy Six, and Brewin Dolphin Newcomer nominee the Jessica Mary York Quintet. Saturday sees performances from a Sarsen Technology favourite Eduardo Niebla Trio, and The Jive Aces, fresh from the finals of Britains Got Talent. You can buy tickets here - Tickets

With another full week of appointments coming up, we are all looking forward to a well deserved rest this weekend.


Have a good one!
 

High Frequency Trading speak to CEO Jeff Milrod about BittWare's FPGA development for the Low-Latency Financial Market

High performance computing using FPGA technology is a key technology for the financial services industry. High frequency automated financial trading uses models and simulations to provide real-time assistance in decision making. 

BittWare has designed and developed a family of PCIe format Altera Stratix V FPGA hardware optimised for this market. BittWare CEO Jeff Milrod has been speaking to High Frequency Traders about how this technology has made the low-latency financial market very excited.....

HFT: BittWare has been in business for quite a while, but you’ve only got into the financial space comparatively recently. How did this come about?

Jeff Milrod: "We’ve been producing commercial off-the-shelf signal processing boards and high performance computing boards since 1989 and they’ve been used in a wide variety of markets over the years.

Military is big component of our business as are wireless telecommunications, high-end instrumentation and medical imaging. More recently, we’ve actually had the finance market come to us. In the last couple of years it has decided that FPGAs are very attractive platforms for reducing the latency and increasing the performance of a lot of their applications. It just so happens that we have some of the best FPGA boards in the world. We were approached by financial market customers who thought our engines could work very well for them, so we’ve been working hard to learn more about the market and to figure out how to modify our boards slightly and add additional IP to create better solutions for the finance space.

One thing that’s unique about what we do, particularly compared to some of our competitors in the finance market, is that we consider ourselves a horizontal enabling technology. It’s expressed in our slogan ‘Essential building blocks…Innovative solutions.’ We want to provide building blocks for our customers and allow them to add the unique vertical application-specific value themselves. We don’t believe that’s our role. There’s a commonality across all markets for the underlying processing engines – be they implemented with signal processors or FPGAs – with relation to high speed data movement, power conditioning and control, thermal management and obsolescence management for deployed world class system solutions."

The full interview can be found here - High Frequency Traders.

Please give us a call on +44 1672 511166 if you would like any more information!

Altera Stratix® V GX/GS PCIe Board with VITA 57 FMC I/O Site or Dual QSFP+. Copyright BittWare.

When is a Tiger not a cat...?

...When it's a VersaLogic PC/104-Plus SBC

VL Tiger (VL-EPM-24) 

Species - VersaLogic PC/104-Plus SBC

Size/Weight - PC/104-Plus: 114 mm x 96 mm (4.49” x 3.78”) and 0.286 lbs (0.129 kg) at its heaviest.

Diet - Intel Atom Z5xx Processor Up to 1.6 GHz performance with very low power consumption 6W typ (while executing code)

Habitat - The Tiger is an ideal choice for space, weight, and power (SWaP) constrained embedded applications. Based on the industry standard PC/104-Plus form factor, this compact and rugged SBC is an excellent solution for industrial, energy, defence/aerospace, medical, and robotics applications where a small footprint, low power draw (6W typical), and fanless operation are crucial design factors.

Description - Based on the PC/104-Plus industry standard form factor, the Tiger supports both PC/104 and PC/104-Plus stackable expansion boards. Tiger’s standard on-board features include gigabit Ethernet with network boot capability, SO-DIMM socket for up to 2 GB DDR2 RAM, seven USB 2.0 ports, four serial ports, IDE controller with support for two devices, HD audio, and a Disk on Module (DOM) socket for removable flash storage.

Life span - From application design-in support to its 5+ year production life guarantee, the Tiger provides a durable embedded computer solution with an excellent cost of ownership.

Population status - The VersaLogic Tiger is available from stock now. Contact Sarsen Technology on +44 1672 511166 or info@sarsen.net for more information.

7 Reasons to Choose United Electronic Industries for all your Data Acquisition and Control Requirements......

Founded in 1990, United Electronic Industries (UEI) is a leader in the PC/Ethernet data acquisition and control, Data Logger/Recorder and Programmable Automation Controller (PAC) markets. Their ‘Cube’ chassis offers incredible I/O flexibility, accommodating up to 6 I/O boards from a selection of over 25. Sarsen Technology has represented UEI in the UK for nearly 2 years.

There are so many reasons why you would benefit from choosing a UEI solution; these are just a handful….

1.       They get around….

UEI products are used in a huge variety of applications, including Simulator I/O, in-vehicle test (flight and ground), UAV/ULV/USV control, electronic production test, machine and vehicle health monitoring, temperature monitoring, wind power system control, vehicle frame stress testing, jet engine test and much more. Whether your application is on the ocean floor, on land or boat, in the air, or in space, UEI products have been there!

2.       Thinking outside the ‘Cube’

UEI have over 25 different available I/O layers, as well as a host of other boards and accessories, meaning they can be creative in finding innovative solutions for customers, responding to their needs with standard products and variations so they can complete their systems successfully, on time, and within budget. UEI offers both COTS and custom products to OEMs, end-users, and systems integrators worldwide.

3.       Green is the new Black

All Cube and RACKtangle™ chassis products and accessories are fully RoHS Compliant. This includes all UEI products that begin with: DNA, DNR, UEIPAC, UEISIM or UEILOGGER, including all chassis, I/O boards and accessories.

4.       Speaking your language

UEI supports all popular Windows, Vista, Linux and Real-time operating systems, programming languages, and application packages such as LabVIEW, MATLAB, and DASYLab.

5.       Location, Location, Location

United Electronic Industries is represented in nearly all of the US States, as well as across the globe, as far as Australia and Japan. We are all eager to talk to you, and help you put together an ideal solution to match your application.

6.       Bend Me, Shape Me, Any Way You Want Me

The UEI cube is not in any way bendy. In fact it’s very rugged! But it is uniquely flexible, with the ability to be used as an Ethernet I/O slave, standalone data logger, a standalone Linux-based PAC or a Modbus Slave. With I/O interfaces for analog I/O, digital I/O, counter/timer, ARINC-429, quadrature encoder, CAN-bus, serial I/O and more, you can precisely match the I/O configuration to your application.

7.       They’re in it for the Long Haul

All hardware manufactured by UEI is warranted for 2 years to the original purchaser and UEI guarantees the availability of all RACKtangle/Cube series products for a minimum of 10 years. 

If this hasn’t convinced you, give us a call or check out the UEI pages on our website for more information. http://www.sarsen.net/dept/united-electronic-industries_d0141.htm