Matt Denton’s job is a job we wished we could all do! Matt builds solutions for movie special effects but not just software CGI, Matt builds animatronics too.

With an education in electronics and an apprenticeship with Marconi, Matt dropped out of University when he got the opportunity to join a small special effects company. Finding his niche adding the electronics to models made by the company, Matt soon established his own network of movie contacts and created Micro Magic Systems (http://www.MicroMagicSystems.com) in 1999, ‘to supply animatronic, robotic and puppet control systems and services to the film and television industry’.

Matt now offers a number of solutions, both hardware and software, which ‘have played pivotal roles in award-wining productions’, including the Harry Potter series and music videos (Massive Attack) to commercials (Lloyds TSB).

Matt uses a wide range of operating systems to implement his solutions with C. From DOS based systems that ‘just keep running’, to Windows CE embedded, Linux and PIC microprocessors. As most of Matt’s electronics work usually results in custom built circuit boards, he works below the hobbyist module world of Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

He also has a nomadic approach to projects. To keep costs low, Micro Magic Systems doesn’t have a permanent workshop. As projects can be located anywhere in the world, Matt assembles a workshop and a team dynamically, with the skills, tools and location required per project. He does have a trailer based fabrication workshop which includes a high quality CNC device, that can be hired out to movie locations as required.

I first linked up with Matt when my own interest in robotics led me to his Hexapod implementation – which is available in kit form (http://www.hexapodrobot.com/store/). The Hexapod is beautifully made, and can be driven using Matt’s custom HexEngine servo control board – allowing higher level direction control of the hexapod with simple movement commands such as forward and turn instructions from a control machine. The smooth, life like movement of the hexapod has landed it several movie roles where it is usually dressed in an appropriately creepy crawly disguise.

I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Matt on his latest creation; the biggest, all-terrain operational hexapod robot in the world, called the Mantis (http://www.MantisRobot.com). Conceived in 2007, the Mantis has taken several years to make its first debut at the 2012 Bestival UK.

Mantis is colossal, weighing in at nearly 2 tonnes, with a 5 metre diameter in a neutral standing position. Each leg weighs 130kg, and there is a sizable 2.2ltr Perkins diesel engine on the back to drive the hydraulic system. The Mantis hydraulics’ require 165 bar @ 150 litres per minute maximum to move the legs.

This is a big machine, with a suitably impressive computer control system. The key driving system is a Linux PC running a port of Matt’s HexEngine (developed from his small hexapod solution). This communicates to the drive and feedback systems via a CAN bus to two operator control units, the engine control unit (dsPIC), a hydraulic control unit and 6 actuator PID control and feedback units (dsPIC). This is all presented back to the driver under the control of a Grayhill touch panel PC running Windows CE. In addition, there are more feedback sensors and a lighting system.

The Mantis can currently move at a sedate 1mph, although software simulation shows 4.5mph is possible. When you have six, 130kg legs moving under hydraulic control a cautious approach is best. There is still plenty of fine tuning to do which can improve the Mantis performance.

An initial design goal was to have each leg weigh less than 100kg. However, this wasn’t achievable with the hydraulic RAMs available and affordable at the time. Each leg is made from steel; the team now believe that with greater understanding of the stresses and a better structural analysis, the legs could now be made in aluminium. They have also discovered better hydraulic RAMs with built in encoders. Although these were initially thought to expensive, the team found adding external encoders to standard RAMs proved time consuming and added weight to each leg.

Hydraulics of this size was a new area for Matt and his team. Lots of initial trade-offs were made in initial design and purchasing decisions, taking advantage of easily available parts rather than researching more technically challenging solutions. Now with the benefit of the build experience, some of these decisions would be done differently.

The Mantis project has generated an interesting range of opportunities for Matt beyond the normal movie effects; the most notable from a manufacturer of underwater mining machines, who see the potential in the hexapod design to secure a stronger hold on the sea floor. The Mantis is now available for private hire, custom commissions, events and sponsorship.

Matt has a fairly unique job, but there is commonality with our roles as software programmers, and as such we can learn from Matt. Matt has the self-belief to take on new tasks which require learning new skills and new technologies; his prepared to explore the edge of the envelope, the untested and the all new idea. And his has that designer’s eye to deliver a quality of implementation which makes all his creations extra special.

Find out more about .NET Gadgeteer

Traditional games consoles and the web have had a somewhat fractious relationship in the past. Consoles aren’t widely renowned as being the weapon of choice when browsing the internet and with good reason; anyone carrying out even the most simple of tasks on the web using a Nintendo Wii will probably have tried to bleach their mind of the experience shortly afterwards.

But things are changing.

2013 is shaping up to be a huge year for gaming. The next generation of consoles is upon us, with Sony’s unveiling of the PS4 marking the second of three major next generation announcements, following the launch of Nintendo’s Wii U towards the end of last year. Microsoft is expected to follow suit next month with news regarding their next generation Xbox, which is likely to be on shelves before the end of this year.

Working with the web, it is easy to disregard games consoles when considering how users might be viewing your website. This next generation however is bringing with it bold statements of blurring the lines between the web and the games console, trying to truly become the online hub the PS3 and Xbox 360 have built towards over the last few years.

The Wii U has set the standard already; shipping with what can be regarded as a genuinely decent browser with good HTML5 and CSS3 capabilities. But what I think this next generation of consoles is going to do above simply providing a better console browsing experience, is to truly blow away any notion we have of designing with specific devices in mind.

A niche market?

For a browsing experience that has been inherently poor, the usage statistics show that internet usage on consoles is actually greater than you might think.

Anna Debenham has done some remarkable work highlighting game console browser usage and performance recently; if you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you read Anna’s great A List Apart article on game browsers for more of an insight into the console browser landscape. Having seen Anna speak back at Full Frontal last November, I was interested to learn that as many as 1 in 5 of 16-24 year olds use a console to visit websites. The actual device landscape is even stronger as you might expect. As of 2009, Pew Internet reported that 80% of teens aged 12-17 own a TV games console, while the under 30′s and 30-49 year olds have ownership levels of 59% and 51% respectively.

These statistics were taken as long as 3 years ago, when the console browsing experience was considerably bleaker than it looks today.

In terms of the number of consoles out in the market currently, as of December 2012 the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 had sold 77 and 76 million units respectively, with the recently launched Nintendo Wii U accounting for over 1 million worldwide sales at that time. With next generation consoles set to provide these users a viable browsing alternative, it would be logical to predict that usage statistics will start to rise, albeit by how much is less clear.

Another change?

There’s still a mindset following the notion that we design a website while still having some control over what devices we are going to ‘support’. The reality is that this control is being lost with increasing speed; each new device launched puts us further away from this comfort of thinking we can control what hardware people will view our sites on. In the next year and beyond, consoles will be one of a number of devices to make us seriously think about the truly fluid nature that web design needs to extend to, making us consider large screen internet usage on the same terms that we currently consider small screen usage.

Those already embracing responsive web design will be more than prepared for this change, but those not in that position may need to look hard at their process before discounting RWD once again.

Like Elliot Jay Stocks recently stated on his blog, I feel most worried when people state that their current usage statistics don’t warrant a responsive approach, as this somewhat misses the point. If you keep a fixed width approach, your usage statistics may never change; not many people will use your site on a mobile if the experience sucks on small screen devices. Case studies like the ones Luke Wroblewski recently highlighted show that implementing even small scale responsive changes can have a dramatic impact on usage figures.

What consoles are giving the web community in the next year is another great opportunity. Much like the continued rise of mobile and tablet devices have helped accelerate the move towards wider implementation of responsive web design, consoles will expose the true nature of the responsive web; to adapt not just to smaller screens, but screens of any size.

Everyone is  doing one it seems and as someone who loves them, I can’t get enough of really good podcasts. I’ve been listening to podcasts for as long as I have had to travel to work, some have come and gone and others have stuck around, what hasn’t changed though is the lack of good podcasts. It started with Diggnation (RIP) but over the years it has snowballed into more and more content, so much so that I often find myself listening to 2 a day.

Over the past couple of years there has been a rise in WebDev / Creative industry orientaited podcasts and it seems like there was a influx of new podcasts in 2013, so here I round up some of my personal favourites that I think are well worth taking the time to listen to either whilst you’re working, traveling to work or just doing the washing-up.

Unfinished Business

Unfinished Business is quickly becomming my favourite podcast. I started listening because of the two hosts (Andy Clarke and Anna Debenham) and I continue to listen and love each episode because of them. They bring real personality and honesty to a show about the business end of web, design and creative industries injecting every episode with their personal and often funny take on the what’s, why’s and hows of this crazy industry. If you are starting out as a freelancer or thinking of setting up a company to do web stuff, each episode is a must listen. Completly open and honest, Andy and Anna discuss some things that others don’t, such as how much they charge for projects, how they do invoicing – depoists and kill fees and how they handle rejection when not getting that dream client or job.

On-top of all that talk, they also talk about movies (Thumbs up for Andy’s love of Planet of the Apes), and have recently started adding-on movie reviews at the end of each episode (or more recently somehow convincing Andy to watch Adventure Time, Shmowzow), which has only made the episode even more special. If either of hosts are actually reading this, when you do eventually get around to Tarentino’s Jackie Brown, gimme a call and I’ll chime in with my ever unpopular opinion of why it’s the best Tarentino film.

Favourite Episode: 007 – 100% Horse-Meat Free. Andy and Anna discuss how to handle business disputes.

Shoptalk Show

Shoptalk Show celebrated their first birthday in January and I’ve been an avid listener from the beginning. It is because of this show that I was actually turned on…to other podcasts in this list. Hosted by Chris Coyier of CSS-tricks fame and Dave Rupert of making-awesome-jquery-plugins fame, Shoptalk show is a soundboard podcast that occasionally talks about web development and design stuff. There are so many bits about this show that make it a great listen. #hotdrama, Special guests and Rapidfire Q&A are just a few.

Two great hosts who really get their audience and are willing to pretty mich tackle any subject that might come up in the Q&A – even if they have no experience in it, they point out resources and links to how one might go about finding out about it. Shoptalk show is one of my go-to podcasts each week.

Favourite Episode : Episode 43 – Crossover with BizCraft. A crossover episode with Gene Crawford and Carl Smith.

JavaScript Jabber

Being a JS developer I find it really hard to find JavaScript specific podcasts that are good, consistent and enjoyable to listen to. I can’t remember how I got turned onto JSJabber, but it was during the early days of the show when Yehuda Katz was a regular co-host and I knew from the beginning that this was the JS podcast that I’d always needed. JSJabber is a must-listen for all developers who find themselves using JavaScript on a regular basis as it does a great job of keeping you up-to-date with new JS things, dives deep into discussions with Libray and Framework creators and has a lot of personality with the ‘picks’ section.

From weekly chats with creators to shows dedicated to a specific subject or discipline, it never fails to deliver great content and has me adding both mental notes and bookmarks to articles and code-repo’s on a weekly basis.

Favourite Episode: Episode IV – BackboneJS. Yehuda Katz drop genius from above in regards to JS MV* frameworks, with special guest Jeremy Ashkenas speaking specifically about BackboneJS.

Bizcraft

I was turned onto Bizcraft from the Shoptalk Show crossover episode and from the moment I heard my first episode, I downloaded all the previous episodes and listened to them back to back. Bizcraft was the first business orientated podcast I listened to, it doesn’t focus on code at-all, and it really got me thinking about how business’ are run. Hosted by Mean Gene Crawford and Carl Smith, both hosts bring their own flavour to each episode, usually it’s a flavour of beer, but they are really likable hosts who are open about how their respective business’ are run. Sadly it’s not as regular as other podcasts, but each episode is just-as-rich with quality content as the last. Guests drop by to talk about various business goings-on and its a real eye opener to how different people run their companies.

Favourite Episdode : Episode 15 – Poaching Employee’s and tough clients.

ATX Webshow

The other show that I listen to directly because of Shoptalk show is this, the ATX Webshow, a talk show dedicated to the web community in Austin, Texas. Hosted by Dave Rupert and Travis Swicegood they talk about pretty much anything going on in Austin, including HotBBQDrama. When they are not making you wish you were living in Austin, they are diving into the happenings of user groups and start ups and all community things going on in Austin. Regularity is not something you can count on with the show, but when they do get the time to release an episode, it’s solid gold.

Upfront Podcast

The Upfront podcast is one of the newbies on the block and at the time of writing we are 8 episodes into a great new podcast. Hosted by Jack Franklin and Ben Howdle, this show is certianly aimed at front end developers and designers.

Favourite Episode : Episode IV – Mentoring and Accessibility. An episode with uBelly’s own Laura Kalbag.

JavaScript Show

I’ve been listening to the JavaScript Show for a good while now and its a great quick listen every week. Peter Cooper and Jason Seifer do a great job of gathering up what has been going on in the world of JavaScript and presenting it in a digestible way. Tools, Libraries, Frameworks and everything in-between gets mentioned, sometimes at length and sometimes not, but no doubt that you will be going through each weeks shownotes and bookmarking a lot of handy bits.

Favourite Episode : Every episode. (It’s hard to pick a favourite just due to the nature of the podcast, its a round-up show and not really a talk show – every episode is full of awesome.)

Happy Monday Podcast

Happy Monday is another one of the new ones for this year and it’s proved to be essential Monday listening. Sarah Parmenter and Josh Long get together with other great minds of the web business world to talk about design, business and other cool web stuff. Its short and sweet and the perfect compliment to your Mondays.

Favourite Episodes : Episode 7 & 12. Episode 7 features the always awesometacular Trent Walton and 12 has Andy Clarke. They are both great episodes made even greater with the choice of guests.

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Im sure I’ve probably missed out someone’s favourite web dev / design / business focused podcast and if I have, be sure to let me know in the comments or on twitter, but I hope that maybe I’ve actually turned you onto something new that you can give yourself an eargasm with.

We cast a beady eye over the show and picked out 5 of our favourites, will you be rushing to buy any of these devices when they’re released?

Nokia 720

It’s great to see more affordable Windows Phone 8 devices being released and what’s even more pleasing is Nokia don’t seem to have sacrificed style or functionality with their latest efforts.  The specs are impressive for  what is a sub £300 phone, with the 720 packing a 4.3-inch WVGA display, 1GHz dual-core processor, 512MB RAM and 8GB of built in storage, which pleasingly is complemented by a micro-sd slot.

Sony Xperia Tablet Z

Want to use your tablet in the bath with no fear of damaging it or electrocuting yourself? Then the Xperia Tablet Z is the device for you. And if you want more than just a novelty factor, the screen itself is a definite highlight, offering crisp clear graphics and impressively quick response times.

Nokia 105

Ok, so maybe you won’t be rushing to replace your smartphone with this little device. But for £13 we can think of no better phone to have lying around as a backup or for taking camping, to festivals or for a night out when you’re just not sure if you and your phone will survive in one piece.

Asus Fonepad

Ridiculously large phones seem to be all the rage nowadays and although the Galaxy Note 8.0 may have the ability to make phone calls, we were much more impressed by the Asus Fonepad which just about seems usable as a phone in our daily lives. We’d love to know who they do their user testing with – is there a secret race of giants craving bigger devices?

HTC One

Technology should be beautiful and this is the best looking phone we’ve seen since the Nokia Lumia 920 debuted. Everything about it screams class and we can’t wait to see the Windows Phone 8 equivalent that can’t be far behind. HTC don’t keep us waiting too long please.

Already have a killer app for iOS or Android? Head over to the Windows App Builder pages to find out more about developing and designing for Windows.

Internet Explorer 10 is now available for Windows 7, meaning it’s easier than ever for you to test your website’s compatibility with IE10 and means you can do more with HTML5 and CSS3 safe in the knowledge more of the web can enjoy it.

So what’s new about IE10 for Windows 7 users when compared to IE 9 and what does it mean for you?

60% increase in supported modern web standards

The great news for all of us is that IE10 offers a massive increase in supported modern web standards. This means you can take full advantage of the latest web standards, safe in the knowledge that an ever increasing section of your audience will be able to enjoy your site exactly as you intend them to.

Over 30 new modern Web standards are supported in IE10 when compared to IE 9. These cover  HTML5, CSS3, DOM, Web Performance, and Web Application specifications across important aspects of Web development including:

• Create rich visual effects with CSS Text Shadow, CSS 3D Transforms, CSS3 Transitions and Animations, CSS3 Gradient, and SVG Filter Effects
• More sophisticated and responsive page layouts with CSS3 for publication quality page layouts and responsive application UI (CSS3 grid, flexbox, multi-column, positioned floats, regions, and hyphenation), HTML5 Forms, input controls, and validation
• Enhanced Web programming model for better offline applications through local storage with IndexedDB and the HTML5 Application Cache; Web Sockets, HTML5 History, Async scripts, HTML5 File APIs, HTML5 Drag-drop, HTML5 Sandboxing, Web workers, ES5 Strict mode support.
• Beautiful and interactive Web applications with support for several new technologies like CSS3 Positioned Floats, HTML5 Drag-drop, File Reader API, Media Query Listeners, Pointer Events, and HTML5 Forms.
• Improved Web application security with the same markup and support for HTML5 Sandbox for iframe isolation.

To assist in testing for all versions of IE you can use Modern.ie to identify any loose ends or stray bits which may affect performance.

20% faster for real world web sites than IE9

Pages are faster.  Your interactive elements will render faster and on top of it all CPU usage will be reduced.

In testing, IE loads real world pages up to 20% faster in top sites for news, social, search, ecommerce, and more; meaning no more frustrating situations where you have to explain to clients why their shiny new site is rendering so slowly. *critter high-five*

Want to try this out yourself? The IE Test Drive site features a Minesweeper game created with HTML5  which lets you measure your browser’s performance.

Enjoy a full featured HTML5 Minesweeper experience and test your browser’s performance

And remember - Browserstack makes it easy to check your sites across a range of browsers and devices, so you can spend your time on what matters – creating awesome websites.

Reddit’s online public question and answer sessions or Ask me Anything’s are all the rage at the moment, with the great and the good signing up to give users their opinions on any topic the Reddit audience cares to throw at them.

Bill Gates was the latest person to enter the arena and although the majority of the discussion was focused around his work with the Gates Foundation he still found time to give us a few nuggets of wisdom about the current and future state of the technology industry. We’ve pulled out the questions we found most interesting below, but if you have time it’s worth reading this compilation of all his answers.

Q What are your thoughts on the push against the open and free Internet that we have been seeing in the recent past and present (such as sopa, etc)?

A: There are two things this could reference. One is the free/pay for software mix. The Internet has benefited from having lots of free stuff and lots of commercial software. It has been interesting see people inventing hybrid models. Even stuff that is pretty commercial often has free versions for some audiences. Even the most open stuff often have services people choose to pay for. The second thing is the anonymous versus identified tension. This is another one where both will probably thrive since you want anonymity for some things and full identity for others. I am surprised how little progress has been made in the identity space but it will improve.

What emerging technology today do you think will cause another big stir for the average consumer in the same way that the home computer did years ago?

Robots, pervasive screens, speech interaction will all change the way we look at “computers”. Once seeing, hearing, and reading (including handwriting) work very well you will interact in new ways..

Do you still code?, if so which language?

Not as much as I would like to. I write some C, C# and some Basic. I am surprised new languages have not made more progress in simplifying programming. It would be great if most high school kids were exposed to programming…

And because it just wouldn’t be Ubelly if we didn’t manage to find a way to reference this – we were delighted to see that one intrepid user had asked Bill if he still jumped over chairs and equally disappointed to learn he didn’t do it as regularly as he used to. If you have no idea what the past paragraph was about, watch the video below and prepare to be amazed by the former Microsoft CEO’s physical prowess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxaCOHT0pmI

So do you agree with Bill, should more be done to make programming languages simpler or should we accept that there is always going to be that level of complexity? Follow Bill on Twitter and find out more about the Gates Foundation here.

A few months ago we put the call out for new writers to join the ubelly family, and received a ton of responses, so thank you to everyone applied. We have sifted, chatted and fought it out about who should join. It was an incredibly tough decision, but we are happy with the final five. So, without further ado, we bring you the nUbelly class of 2012…

Ashley Nolan

Ash is Ubelly’s token Welshman, and an avid fan of all things visual. He is an absolute games nerd, especially when it comes to retro gaming, and has recently been getting very excited about the possibilities with HTML5 and the various APIs out there, and what this means to gaming. He works at TMW in London as a front end web monkey, and has worked for folks including Ford, RSPCA, Xbox and DL Records in the past. In his spare time he tinkers about with the web, creating awesome things like ‘Media Query Mario‘.

Twitter: @dragongraphics
T’interwebs:  www.dragongraphics.co.uk

Amber Weinberg

Amber has been coding for over 12 years, and has been freelancing for 3. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee (I can’t wait to roll out all my country music jokes), she’s now based in London and earns her bread doing web and mobile development. If you haven’t seen her around, she has featured in .Net Magazine and GeekTalk, as well as speaking at Points, Reasons to be Creative and the upcoming Handheld Conf. She’s got a bit of a passion for handmade things, pie and dacshhunds, and more importantly seems to love the occasional animated gif (check out Day of the Dev for some cathartic gifs).

Twitter: @amberweinberg
T’interwebs:  www.amberweinberg.com

James Seymour-Lock

James co-runs a small, Eastbourne based design house called Simple As Milk, who have put out some rather lovely work over the last year or so. He’s a designer and developer who, in his own words, wants to “travel more but not work less.” He’s a massive lover of art and tattoos, sporting some rather lovely pieces himself. He’s spoken at a few small conferences, including WordUp and Points in Brighton, and has a huge passion for startups. Oh, and most importantly, he likes cats. He’s going to get on just fine here…

Twitter: @JamesSLock
T’interwebs: simpleasmilk.co.uk

Rachel Shillcock

So, that’s the nUbellyers! Make sure you say hi to them on Twitter and at any events that they’re about in the next year, and make sure you keep an eye out for their first articles on Ubelly!

The other day, a short blog post by Peter Gregson popped up on my RSS feed with the title “‘Inspire a Generation’ is for life, not just for 2012“. Like Peter, I have been seeing this phrase around London for the past few weeks thanks to some small sporting event that’s been going on in the capital, and like Peter I agree that it does sound a little like the UK is only producing a finite number of inspiring people, all happening within a two week period.

“Sorry, inspiration’s finished now. Go home.”

One thing that I’ve opened my eyes to in the past year or so is the staggering amount of people out there creating exciting, challenging and just downright awesome things, welding together technology and just about any other area you can think of. While it may be a little overwhelming at first, it’s important to remember that these people are ordinary (to a degree) people, and all they are doing is making the things that happen inside their heads a reality.

My personal suggestions for inspiration? Check out Peter and his Listening Machine project. Check out Keiichi Matsuda and James Alliban’s ‘data aura’ project Cell. Have a gander at the crazy things that are coming out of the High-Low Tech project at MIT, or wander through the plethora of projects that have spurted from the insane-genius mind of Brendan Dawes.

Once you’ve finished looking at tech wizardry, why not move into the arts a little more and look at companies like Punchdrunk and Hide & Seek to see how they’re playing with the concept of audience experience. It’s amazing to see what people in other fields are doing and see how you can work those ideas back into the work you do.

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that the UK has a ridiculous amount of inspiring people out there in just about every field, and it’s time we start looking for them and holding them high for everyone to see. At the same time, there’s always room for one more inspiring person to get up there and inspire the next round of developers, designers, creatives, whatevers.

All you have to do is step up.

In case you didn’t hear; October 26^th will see the release of the brand spanking new Windows 8 OS, letting you get your app on like the technology gods intended!

One thing that gets us really excited about new technology is new accessories. It can be a beautiful avenue for sublime functionality and stunning understated design. These Windows 8 friendly offerings don’t disappoint with their gorgeous, minimalist form.

There are two ranges of Surface being made available, coming soon (dates not available but we’ll keep you updated!). First up is the entry level Sculpt range designed for portability. This range is complimented by the noticeably premium Wedge mobile mouse and keyboard; both being understated and eye-catching in their simplicity and clean lines. The mouse comes packing heat in the form of Microsoft’s BlueTrack tech pimping out your rodent pal with four-way scrolling and Bluetooth functionality. The keyboard comes with a resilient cover that, in the blink of an eye, turns into a tablet stand and boy does it look good.

Will you be picking up a Surface and if so, what colour? We’ve been told that orange is the colour for productivity, so we’re going for a nice relaxing blue instead.

Are you a developer? You’ve probably seen the excitement around Windows 8 already building, and we want to help you guys build awesome Windows 8 apps for when it’s released to the public! If you’re interested, we’re running a series of camps across the UK to help get you tooled up for building Windows 8 apps using HTML, CSS, JS, as well as by traditional means.

We know that you all lamented the death of Clippy in 2007. There was mass outpourings of grief across the globe as Microsoft unceremoniously dealt the final blow to everyone’s favourite anthropomorphic stationary-item. Babies cried. Grandmothers cried. The Critter turned himself blue and couldn’t be found for 6 months.

Well, thanks to the folks at Smore, Clippy has been resurrected from the grave, along with his cohorts Merlin, Rover and Links, in full javascript glory. What’s better is that via clippy.js, you can add Clippy to your website! That’s right, you can endlessly annoy your users with silly animations until the cows come home.

Why would they create such a thing? In their words, “Our research shows that people love two things: failed Microsoft technologies and obscure Javascript libraries. Naturally, we decided to combine the two.”

What more of an excuse do you need? Check out the project and the code here.