British bloggers head to Japan

A location-aware blogging tool has won first prize in the UK round of the Imagine Cup, sponsored by Microsoft and BT. 

The winning team is Bit Shifters, a group of students from universities in Aberystwyth and Bournemouth.

The team submitted 'One Reach', a design which allows travelling gap year students to blog their journey using a smartphone.

Bit Shifters will head to Yokohama in Japan next month to compete for a share of the $215,000 total prize fund in the global competition.

"We were thrilled to reach the UK final and to win is an incredible achievement for us. Now we look forward to competing in Japan," said the winning team.

"It's been fantastic to meet so many like minded students and to be able to showcase our applications in front of so many experts."

The competition this year was to create a mobile application capable of " dissolving the boundaries between us" using Microsoft technology and .Net web services.

The winning application uses a smartphone and GPS and lets travellers share hints and tips on a blog site, as well as continually updating a map showing the location of each user.

"We would like to recognise all the students at this year's Imagine Cup UK Software Design final who represent the next generation of technology and business leaders," said Kevin McDaniel, head of the Academic Initiative at Microsoft UK.

"Each of them has created an application that demonstrates the power of technology in solving real-world problems. Their creativity and innovation is inspiring, and speaks a magnitude about the future of technology."

Second place went to Team Genesys Innovations from Sheffield University for their application for checking club playlists before going out for a night on the town.

Third place went to mSpace from Southampton University.