Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Google to bring out two versions of own-branded phone

You have to wonder what Google is thinking if it is planning to roll out its own-branded mobile device at a time when so many manufacturers and consumers are embracing devices based on its Android operating system.

Earlier this week, Mario Queiroz, vice-president, product management, in Google’s mobile devices lab, let the cat out of the bag when he revealed that Googlers across the planet were dogfooding an exclusively manufactured device based on the Android operating system.
Then it emerged that the device will be known as the ‘Nexus One’ and would be manufactured by HTC, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that actually has an Android phone in the marketplace, the Hero. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Monday, December 14, 2009

Just how social are the Irish, really?

Siliconrepublic.com and social media public relations player Simply Zesty have joined forces to conduct an online survey into how socially networked Irish people really are.

For example, according to Facebook, some 1.25 million Irish people – more than a quarter of the population – have a Facebook account.

But we want to learn more – for example, how many people regularly socialise online and how big a factor do social-networking sites like Bebo and Twitter play in their social and professional lives. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Friday, December 11, 2009

Govt outlines 2010 investment in broadband and ICT for schools

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan TD said last night that €45 million will be spent on modernising Ireland’s telecoms infrastructure and that 100Mbps of high-speed broadband will be delivered to 78 secondary schools across the country.

The €45-million investment revealed under yesterday’s Budget for 2010 includes the National Broadband Scheme to bring broadband coverage to target areas in rural Ireland where broadband coverage is deemed insufficient.

The National Broadband Scheme is supporting 250 jobs directly.

Ryan said work will be advanced on positioning Ireland as a testbed for energy-efficient fibre-optic networks.

In terms of Education & Science, €715 million will be provided but total funding in 2010 will amount to €794 million, according to Education Minister Batt O’Keefe. Some €579 million of this, including €74 million carried over from 2009, will fund the important school building programme.

This will be complemented by an investment of €50 million, including €7 million carried over from 2009, in ICT for the classroom.

A further €141 million will fund infrastructural investment in higher education, including €46 million for the promotion of science and innovation.

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Software to identify artworks wins prize

AN IRISH company’s mobile phone application that can identify a painting from a snapshot has won an award and $100,000 (€66,000) from Google.

Plink, an Irish start-up company set up by two Oxford University computer science doctoral students, took a top prize in the education and reference section of Google’s second global Android Developers Challenge (ADC2). Android is Google’s mobile phone operating system.

Plink’s “PlinkArt” application, which can be downloaded for free from Google’s Android applications website, allows a person to identify a work of art just by taking a picture of it with a cameraphone.

The image is sent to a database of images and PlinkArt’s software will then recognise and identify the image and return relevant information, such as Wikipedia articles. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

Monday, December 7, 2009

Two-thirds of Irish firms have an online presence


Two-thirds of Irish firms now have an online presence, new statistics released today by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show.

The CSO’s information society statistics shows that 66pc of Irish firms had a website or a homepage in 2009.

Internet use is nearly universal for Irish businesses, according to the CSO report, with 95pc of Irish enterprises having a computer connected to the internet in 2009.

Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Call for national strategy to tackle cybercrime

IRISH BUSINESSES and consumers continue to fall victim to internet scams, and the lack of a co-ordinated national cyber-security strategy is hampering efforts to tackle the problem, a conference has heard.

The Irish Reporting and Information Security Service (Iriss) held its first annual cyber crime conference in Dublin last week. Iriss was formed last year following unsuccessful efforts to persuade the Government to establish a Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert). Ireland is one of the few western countries not to have such a team.

Staffed on a voluntary basis, Iriss distributes free advice and warnings about information security threats to 250 member organisations. However, many security breaches are not reported to law enforcement, making it difficult to focus resources where they are needed, said Iriss founder Brian Honan. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

Irish websites are safest in Europe

Irish top level domain (TLD), .ie, websites are the safest in Europe, according to new research from McAfee.

More than 27 million country and generic web domains were analysed as part of the research, with each calculated for a 'weighted risk ratio'. This was carried out by testing websites for exploits, excessive pop-ups and malicious downloads, giving the sites that failed a rating.

The UK did not fair either, with 'Mapping the Mal Web' report reporting stating that the UK was 55th safest when it comes to website domains.

The most riskiest web domain was Cameroon (.cm), with 36.7% of sites with that suffix showing up as a potential security risk. Read More

Courtesy: RTE News

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Google agrees to limit access to free news

Search giant Google has bowed to pressure from newspaper publishers and agreed to limit the number of articles users can read for free.

Google had operated a "first click free" programme that allowed a Google News or Google search user to find and read articles, even if those articles were blocked behind a subscription wall. However, readers had found they could read an unlimited number of articles for free as long as they continued to use Google.

The change to the programme will now allow publishers to limit to five per day the number of free articles readers can access through Google.
Any more than five articles and readers will be routed to payment or registration pages.

Google announced the change in a blog post.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch was one of Google’s most outspoken critics on the matter, claiming that Google was profiting from online news provided by media companies.

Courtesy: Silicon Republic