Tuesday 16 February 2016

The obituary of Batgirl actress Yvonne Craig

Yvonne Craig, the actress best known for her role as Batgirl in the 1960s Batman TV series, has died aged 78.

Appearing in the third and final series of the iconic, multicoloured adventure spoof, Craig’s portrayal of Batgirl was every bit as charming, self effacing and fun to watch as her on-screen co-stars Adam West and Burt Ward.

The creation of Craig’s iconic role was a rare example of synergy between the disparate words of television and comic book fiction. In the comics, a character called Bat-Girl (Betty Kane), who was designed as a love interest for Robin, had appeared at the beginning of the decade, but been abandoned by the series creators just a few years later. However, the new version of the character (this time with the civilian identity of Barbara Gordon), created by DC staffers Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino (at the request of editor Julius Schwartz and Batman producer William Dozier), was fresh, funky and fun, as well as an instant hit with the fanbase. The new Batgirl debuted in the comic books in January of 1967 and then in the TV show later that year.

Although the series was cancelled after season 3, Batgirl became an icon of 60’s television, as well as an integral part of the comic books, her four colour character formed, at least in part, by the spirited performance of Yvonne Craig.

The role came to define Craig and, in later years, she would admit to being surprised by the show’s enduring popularity.

"I really didn’t think we were making Gone With the Wind," she once said. "Just an episodic TV series that would be over when it was over and then it would never rerun again”.

Instead, millions of people around the world enjoyed Craig’s performance, especially young girls, many of whom saw the character as a brave, empowering figure in an era typified by submissive female roles in film and television.

Craig was comfortable, if slightly demure, about being a role model. When asked about the subject later in her life, she simply said, "I meet women today who tell me that they grew up viewing Batgirl as an important role model. If they choose to know me in that context, well, I’ll take it."

Initially trained as a ballet dancer, Craig worked at The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and used her skills as a dancer to perform most, if not all, of her own stunts as Batgirl.

Away from Gotham City, Craig also acted alongside Elvis Presley in two of the singer’s movies, It Happened At The Worlds Fair (1963) and Kissin Cousins (1964). She appeared in the third season of Star Trek as Marta, the Orion Slave Girl from Series 3’s Whom Gods Destroy and portrayed a ballerina in Austin Powers favorite movie In Like Flint (1967).

A prolific TV actress, Craig also appeared in episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E, The Wild Wild West, My Favorite Martian, Wagon Train, It Takes A Thief, Kojak, The Six Million Dollar Man and Starsky & Hutch, amongst (many) others.



In later life, Craig worked as an estate agent and then made a living in the prepaid phone card business, however she didn’t give up acting entirely and is perhaps best known by younger fans for lending her vocal talents to the Nickelodeon cartoon series Olivia.

In a heartfelt statement to Yvonnes many fans, Craigs family praised her resilience, sense of humour, business acumen and charity work. She will be missed.

Monday 15 February 2016

Lenovo to phase out the Motorola brand name

The Motorola brand, which has been a fixture in the technology world for 85 years, is about to be phased out by its parent company Lenovo.

The US-born company was bought from Google by the Chinese giant in 2014, with the company continuing the lineage of Motorola handsets.

However, the days of the Motorola name appearing on phones and in marketing materials will come to an end this year.

Motorola Chief Operating Officer Rick Osterloh told CNET: “We'll slowly phase out Motorola and focus on Moto."

The company plans to simply use ‘Moto’ and the familiar batwing logo for high end devices, while all other handsets will feature the Lenovo Vibe branding. Even the top devices like the Moto X will feature the blue Lenovo logo rather than the Motorola name.

The rather complex blending of the two brands will involve Moto devices being introduced to Lenovo stronghold territories and marketed it as premium devices.

The budget Vibe devices will also be introduced to western markets to complement the high-end Motorola devices according to the report.

If this wasn’t confusing enough, the Motorola company is being retained from an organisational perspective and that division will now oversee all of Lenovo’s smartphones activity.



Motorola is credited with inventing the first mobile phone with the DynaTAC released in 1984. Likewise, the company’s importance to the development of consumer technology in other sectors cannot be overstated.

In 1930 it released one of the first commercially successful car radios and in the 50s had a major role in the foundation of cable television systems. In 1969 a Motorola radio transmitted the first words from the Moon to Earth and in 1990 it launched the world’s first digital HD television.

Adios, Motorola.

Whilst the Motorola Brand name is strong in the mobile phone and two way radio industry it is an important institute in the communications field that should be preserved, as this article says it was there at the start of telecommunications and has been around for longer than most of us can remember, it would be a shame if it was pulled apart by Lonovo.

Saturday 13 February 2016

Some Thoughts On... The Sony TV & HiFi Over-Ear Wireless Headphones

I don’t care who knows it; I still think wireless headphones are cool. Like bowties, or fezzes in that respect. Oh sure, there are drawbacks, sacrifices that must be made, but its still a total novelty to take a conference call whilst standing up and wandering around.

I don’t know about you, but I think better on my feet. That’s why I’m crap at job interviews, because I appear far more nervous than I actually am, due to all the squirming I do. In reality, if I could just stand up and pace around the room at will, well, you’d probably be reading this article as-written by someone with far greater knowledge and experience.

And get this, the Sony Over-Ear headphones have a 100m listening range. That means that it should be entirely possible for you to get up and make yourself a cup of tea whilst still listening to...Whatever it was you were listening to that was so riveting that it made you crave caffeine in the first place. Feasibly, you could even venture outside to yell at the local kids, or pick up the paper.

Also, with these headphones, you’ll get 28 hours out of a AAA battery, now you really can’t say fairer than that, can you? Especially if you charge it up when you’re not using it.

They are big though. Like, really big. Instead of being built for regular, Human-size heads, they appear to have been sculpted with Red Dwarf’s resident mechanoid Kryten in mind (two BBC Sci-Fi references in one article? Bonza!), the sheer size is ridiculous. They are adjustable, of course, but you might still have every cause to wish these headphones were smaller.

Another negative is the sound quality. I don’t want to say that it is bad (of course, there’s a ‘but’ coming...), but there is a low hiss that seems to permeate everything that you hear, as well as a loud cut-off noise if the signal is broken in any way. From a design perspective, this second feature makes a lot of sense, you don’t want to be outside, waffling away to your mate and not notice that the signal has dropped out (as happens so often with mobiles), but still, there simply has to be a better way, doesn’t there? The noise is loud, intrusive and actually rather scary at times.



However, apart from those minor, nagging problems, these headphones are actually quite nice. They sound OK, the wireless function works beautifully and the price is alright as well. Nice one, Sony.