Sun, Sea, Sounds, and Arduino at SMC 2009

If you're interested in learning about the sounds of Porto and physical computing then consider participating in the upcoming SMC Summer School on Interactions with Environmental Sounds. It is going to be held in Casa da Música, Porto, Portugal from July 18-21. There is funding available from the COST Action ICO601 on Sonic Interaction Design, for third level students interested but the application deadline is approaching (24th of April). There is a whole range of interesting project proposals already online. Guest lecturers will be given by Marcelo Wanderley of McGill, Joel Chadabe of NYU (and EMF), and Xavier Serra from the Music Technology group in Barcelona. Tutors include Jean-Julien Aucouturier, Stephan Baumann, Bram de Jong, Luis Gustavo Martins, Rui Penha, Stefania Serafin, Federico Fontana and myself.

Check out the Summer School website for details and application forms.

A mad week, SID WG 4 Paper and Betting Exchanges in Ireland

After a mad week that somehow saw things done, we've gotten in our paper on ``Sonification for Sonic Interaction Design'' for the Sonic Interaction Design: Sound, Information and Experience workshop which runs as part of CHI 2008, the paper was authored by Thomas Hermann, John Williamson, Yon Visell, myself and Roderick Murray-Smith. It actually took a fair bit to get some of it into shape but we've got a couple nice ideas including one that Yon and I worked at a bit which was the idea of a Sonic Interaction Atlas for designers. More on this to follow at a later date.

I was busy too on the IMS Arcs front as we're trying to discover the exact legal situation for Betting Exchanges. With a good deal of help from Richard Bruton (Mega Thanks are due to him), I got him to ask a question in the Dail last week which was as follows:

DÁIL QUESTION NO 167

To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance his plans to regulate or license betting exchanges to ensure that users are being treated fairly and that operators are suitable persons to operate in the market place; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

It was marked as a written answer on Tuesday, 2nd October, 2007 and it got the following reply from the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance ( Mr Cowen ) :

Under current betting legislation, betting exchanges are not deemed bookmakers. They differ from bookmakers in that they facilitate the matching of bets between outside parties unlike a bookmaker who takes the bet and the associated risk involved. Consequently betting exchanges are treated, for tax purposes, as normal companies, and as such are subject to corporation tax on their profits, which in the case of betting exchanges, comes from commissions charged on transactions. The question of regulating the services of such companies does not arise in tax law.