Archive for April 2009

Onzo to Attend Event to Mark Prestigious Design Award for Eight UK Companies.

London, 22nd April 2009

Representatives from the eight UK companies awarded the prestigious red dot product design award in 2009 will come together on Thursday 23rd April to celebrate and explain what winning means to them. During a private reception there will be the opportunity for members of the press to meet the eight winning companies, gather more information and ask questions.

Onzo will be represented by Research and Development Director Neil Tierney and members of the design team.

The reception, press briefing and photo-call will take place at the showroom of Colebrook Bosson Saunders, 23 Union Street, London SE1, from 5.00 pm to 6.00pm on 23rd April.

According to the award’s organisers, the record breaking 3,231 entries received for the “red dot award: product design 2009″”, from a total of 49 nations, is testimony to the significance placed on design by international companies within the current climate:. The design value of a company is becoming a decisive factor in weathering the economic crisis.

The diversity of the winning products highlights not only the strength of product design in the UK and the value that UK companies place upon design, but also the breadth of expertise and success in diverse sectors of design and manufacturing. The British winners are:

  • Robert Welch Designs for “Signature” kitchen knives and knife block with built-in sharpener
  • Onzo with its “Smart Energy Kit” home energy monitoring system
  • Andrew Actman for “Reykjavik Eyes” optical frame
  • Dura with “Dura Integrated Workshop System” a modular range of steel furniture
  • Colebrook Bosson Saunders with its “Rodney” monitor support arm
  • Revo Technologies with “Revo BLOK” an iPod sound system
  • Kenwood for “Kenwood FS620″ food steamer
  • Vertu for its “Vertu Signature” mobile phone
  • Zichi Yalcin for his folding plug “ThinPlug”

The red dot organisers believe that design quality can be a way out of the current economic crisis. As they say, “the companies that offer the highest added value through design during the crisis also have much better chances of surviving compared with their less creative competitors.”

Onzo responds to Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) proposal

London, 16th April 2009

In February the Department of Energy and Climate Change announced proposals for changes to the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target scheme (CERT) Among other things, it proposes to encourage energy suppliers to promote Real Time Energy Displays. In responding to the consultation, Onzo welcomed the proposal, but expressed a number of reservations and put forward several suggestions for improving the scheme further. More.

Broadband: The lesson from down under

London, 8th April 2009

In January the government announced tentative plans for the upgrading and extension of Britain's digital network, to ensure that by 2012 all homes will enjoy broadband access. The Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, Lord Carter of Barnes, published an interim report, "Digital Britain"", and the final report is expected later this month.

Onzo has long been calling for the establishment of a universal service obligation for broadband and in January we welcomed the fact that this has now become official policy. We expressed concern, however, that much about the plan, not least who is to pay for it, remains unclear. We also suggested that this programme should be seen in the context of the general roll-out of smart meters. These, we argued, could be tied in to broadband to act as hubs for the provision of a wide range of services to the home.

Others have been more critical. The Opposition complained about the number of new consultations and discussion papers proposed by Lord Carter, which it sees as a substitute for actual action. The shadow Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, also criticised the relatively slow intended network speed of 2 megabits per second. "Isn't the scale of the government's ambitions pitifully low"", he said, "simply saying it wants to ensure the whole population has access to half the current average speed".

Of course, the duty of all oppositions is to oppose, and a four-year timetable for universal broadband coverage (the current figure according to Ofcom is 57 per cent) in fact seems fairly ambitious. Nevertheless, we hope Lord Carter's final report will go far to resolve all the outstanding issues and allow the programme to get under way promptly.

The government could do worse than to take a leaf out of the book of its federal Australian counterpart. In Canberra, the establishment of a new company to build within eight years a new super-fast National Broadband Network has just been announced. This network will encompass not only homes, but also schools and work-places. Most of the connections will be by fibre optic cable that will allow speeds of up to 100 megabits a second, while premises that are not suitable for cable connection will enjoy speeds of 12 mbits/s through wireless and satellite technologies.

The Australian government seems to have abandoned consultations on alternative ways to implement universal broadband provision, on the grounds that none but the model it has opted for would offer value for money. With reports suggesting that a decision on how smart meters are to be rolled out here will be announced by the end of the month, we believe that if smart meter and broadband provision is to go hand in hand, similar resolution is now needed in Whitehall.