The Sensebulb is an intelligent lightbulb designed to act as an alarm for elderly or disabled people. It fits into an ordinary light socket but uses LEDs to emit light. Four heat sensors, embedded in the bulb, can monitor a room for unusual activity: a cooker left on; temperature increase in the bathroom at an unusual time; or perhaps a waving hand. Based on this, the bulb can alert a carer.

Lyndsay has a history as an researcher and electronic engineer. At Microsoft, amongst other things, she was responsible for the SenseCam, a device to help Alzheimer's patients cope with memory loss. Before Microsoft, she was a Senior Research Fellow at BT Labs, where she invented some of the technology now found in the Apple iPhone. In 2007 she left Microsoft to found Girton Labs, which dedicates itself to novel image sensors and non-visual object recognition, computers to reduce global warming, and smarthome systems for care of the elderly.

Venue: ARM Conference Centre, 110 Fulbourne Rd, Cambridge. Doors open 7.30pm, talk starts at 8pm. Everybody is welcome and entrance is free.

Please note that this talk takes place on a MONDAY.

The next stop on our journey of good Cambridge pubs will be the Cambridge Blue on Gwydir St. Monday 4th Feb.

Everyone is welcome. No fee. Mills & Reeve are kindly sponsoring first drinks for CHASE members.

Our first talk of 2008 will be on MONDAY 21st Jan.

True Knowledge are building a repository of knowledge - an active encyclopedia of facts which will respond intelligently to search queries. William Tunstall-Pedoe will be speaking about the technology and the challenges.

Venue: Mills & Reeve, 112 Hills Rd, Cmabridge. Doors open 7.30pm for an 8pm start.

We didn't have a Christmas pubmeet and our first meeting in 2008 is taking the place of the pubmeet. In an attempt to redress the balance, we'll be having a gentle get together on Monday 7th Jan.

Continuing our theme of visiting different venues now that all pubs are smoke free, we'll be meeting at the lovely Live and Let Live off Mill Road. This is a very relaxed pub with wood panelled walls and a wide selection of beers. Wifi too, I think.

The Live and Let Live can be found at 40 Mawson Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, CB1 2EA. Here's a map with an an arrow pointing to not quite the right place.

From January 2007 we will be switching normal CHASE days to the first and third MONDAYS of the month. We'll experiment with this for about six months and then re-evaluate.

Our first meeting of 2008 will be on MONDAY 21st Jan.

We celebrated CHASE's 20th Anniversary with an Open Meeting. Much of the detail can be found here.

Join other technologists, entrepreneurs, business angels, CxOs and people involved in young and growing technology businesses, for a social get-together over delicious Italian food with some lively discussion about technology trends and the problems of starting and running a business.

Update: We're just about maxed out. Reserved 14 places and they've all been taken. Have one possible cancellation, so it's worth a phone call if you have been thinking about it.

Venue: La Margherita. They serve delicious ice-cream and very good tiramisu! 15 Magdalene St, Cambridge. 7.30pm. We shall try to keep a few free places for those we are able to make it at the last minute, but where you are able, please contact us to ensure we include you in our restaurant booking. Call Jeff Veit on 01223 721499 or leave a message. Or email using the General contact form.

Find an advertorial review here which includes menus.  Map if you need it.

Is there demand for an in-depth CHASE day? A large scale event has to bring together all the CHASE stakeholders: entrepreneurs, angels, technologists, existing businesses...

We'd need about 100 to 150 people, and we'd need to charge £120 to make it financially viable.

What topics are worth exploring in depth? What topics are worth your time for a day and £120 of your money?

A few ideas came out of the meeting:

• Lessons learned - people talking about the mistakes that they've made in business
• 20 years of predictions
• Half Baked Ideas - gathering all the people you need to talk to about business ideas together in one place for a day

What do you want to hear about in 2008?

Add your talk ideas here. Both general ideas and talks from companies that you think are innovative are welcome. We're not limited to speakers from Cambridge, though of course they are easiest to arrange.

Some ideas already in the pot:

• Protecting your IP
• Building teams
• Better search
• Meet CHASE members
• The state of web tools - productivity aids
• What happens when things go wrong - the legalities

This process is experimental. In the past I've solicited ideas, but not in public. You can still mail ideas if you don't want to do it in public. I generally combine newly solicited ideas and my existing list of potential people and companies, leaving a few slots open during the year for serendipity.

At the moment CHASE stands for Cambridge Hi-Tech Association of Small Enterprises. That doesn't capture what CHASE is about. We could find another acronym to match CHASE, or perhaps more likely, find a better tagline/byline than 'people interested in business and technology'.

Some of the things that have been said already:

Hi-Tech is 1970's. Hi-Fi. It's Technology.
Keep C in CHASE as Cambridge
SE in CHASE should be Social Environment
E in CHASE is good for Engineers
E for Education
'In the forefront of cutting-edge technology enterprise'

We're currently using 'for people interest