Ireland’s first Twittering Taoiseach to tweet to the nation

The Taoiseach of Ireland Brian Cowen TD is about to follow the example of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US President Barack Obama and start writing his own blog and send tweets on Twitter. Sources have told Siliconrepublic.com that Cowen is extremely interested in making use of social media and is planning to construct a blog using WordPress.

It is understood that Cowen and his aides have been mulling over the best approach to take and aides have been working on setting up the WordPress blog and Twitter feed from the Taoiseach’s office. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

YouTube, Facebook and Twitter 'redirected to China'

Visitors to some of the world's most popular websites - including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter - were reportedly redirected to servers in China this week.

One of the Internet's main DNS root servers was reportedly rerouting traffic via China, giving visitors to those sites first-hand experience of what life is like behind the country's firewall. Sites such as Facebook and YouTube are banned in China, which has infamously strict web censorship rules.

The "hijacked" visitors were either sent to Chinese equivalents of the sites, or shown error messages claiming the sites were unavailable, according to a report on CNet.com. Read More

Courtesy: RTE News

Facebook partners with anti-bullying orgs for web safety

Following a meeting with the UK Home Secretary Alan Johnson Facebook says that it plans to add an extra layer to its reporting function in order to better protect younger users against cyberbullying and sexual predators.

The new layer of functionality will include links to support services i.e. BeatBullying and CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) at the end of Facebook reporting function as well more support and advice as part of Facebook's Safety Centre .

'It's crucial that people who feel they have been bullied online, can quickly get help. That's why Beatbullying are pleased that Facebook are taking the right steps by working with third sector organisations like us and referring their users to a safe environment where they can get the correct support and advice they need," said Emma-Jane Cross, CEO of BeatBulling. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Mum of two's autism communication idea

A Co Wicklow based mother of two children with autism, Lisa Domican, has launched a new iPhone application (app) that she hopes will help children with autism better develop their communications skills.

The app, which has already been successfully trialled in the Saplings school in Rathfarnham for children with autism, is called "Grace" (named after Lisa's daughter) and is based on the principle of picture exchange communication. It has been developed by Lisa in conjunction with software developer Steve Troughton-Smith, and with the support of Telefonica O2 Ireland.

The new app is designed to be used in a similar way to how the existing Picture Exchange Communication System is used by parents and tutors of children with autism - allowing them to build sentences using a book of laminated pictures attached to a board by Velcro. Read More

Courtesy: RTE News

Facebook Tool Pays Out For Pizza Orders

Facebook users whose friends have a penchant for pizza could find themselves cashing in with the launch of a new advertising tool.
Social networkers who add the new Domino's Pizza advert to their profile or blog will earn a cash reward every time one of their contacts clicks on it to place an order.

How much they earn will depend on how much their friends spend - each sale will generate a revenue of 0.5% of the order value. An order of a large Pepperoni Passion pizza for £16.99 would therefore pay out 8.5p. Dan Clays of digital agency BLM Quantum, which launched the tool for Domino's, said it was an extension of affiliate marketing, in which a third party is rewarded for advertising on behalf of a firm. Read More

Courtesy: RTE News

Taoiseach on visit to Silicon Valley

Taoiseach Brian Cowen continues his trip to the US today, meeting technology entrepreneurs in California’s Silicon Valley. This morning, Mr Cowen will meet senior executives from leading US multinational companies with successful investments in Ireland.
He will then meet Irish businesses who are successfully doing business in the United States, before addressing a major business lunch in Silicon Valley.

A spokesman said he will focus on the Government’s economic recovery plan, with a particular emphasis on the smart economy and the implementation of the report of the Government’s Innovation Taskforce. He will also stress the firm action that has been taken to stabilise the public finances, reduce the deficit and restore and reform the banking system.He is also due to hold talks with the president of Stanford University, Dr John Hennessy. Stanford is one of the leading universities in the world with a global reputation for science, research and innovation.

Later, the Taoiseach will open a new Irish Innovation Centre in Silicon Valley. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

Competence Centres just the business for third-level research

THE LAUNCH this week of Competence Centres by Minister for Enterprise Mary Coughlan was a formality for an industry-led research initiative that is already under way. Five of the proposed nine centres have received €1 million in start-up funding. The centres are the latest in a long line of Government research and development (R&D) initiatives, but they are a step that all involved say is significantly different.

A joint venture between Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland, the Competence Centres address the biggest challenge for third-level research: turning ideas into marketable applications with commercial value. In the past, blue-sky projects have been criticised for soaking up funding with little chance of commercial payback.

The programme was kickstarted by a call for private consortiums to come forward with ideas, prompting multinationals and indigenous start-ups to join forces with academia in pursuit of common goals. The endgame is intellectual property with commercial applications owned by the university, but licensed first to participating companies. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

Google opens new apps store for businesses

In a move aimed at fueling the momentum so far with 2m businesses now adopting Google Apps, the internet giant has opened a new Apps Marketplace chock-full of third party cloud apps like payroll and productivity software.

The Google Apps Marketplace allows Google Apps customers to easily discover, deploy and manage cloud applications that integrate with Google Apps.

More than 50 companies are now selling applications across a range of businesses, including:

Intuit Online Payroll: A small business application that offers business owners a new way to efficiently run payroll, pay taxes and let employees check paystubs all within one integrated online office environment.

Manymoon: The company's free work and project management application for Google Apps makes it simple for businesses and teams to organise and share information including tasks, projects, documents, status updates and links with co-workers, customers and partners. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Irish language app for Patrick's Day debut

To celebrate Seachtain na Gaeilge and St Patrick's festival, Irish IT company Maithú is launching two Irish language applications for the iPhone and Google Android App stores.

The Get the Focal Irish Translator is a two-way English/Irish translator with a database of over 13,000 words.

The app can be found on the iTunes and app stores as a free download.

Maithú is also developing a premium version to includep ronunciations so you'll be speaking Irish in no time, expanded online search for over 120,000 words and full sentence translation for €2.99 from the iTunes App Store.

More details are available on http://www.getthefocal.com/

Citizens need web skills for future jobs

Citizens need to prepare for the future jobs market and engagement in society through enhanced web skills, the European Commission said today.

Bringing a close to the EU’s E-Skills Week, Martin Territt, director of the European Commission Representation in Ireland, emphasised that developing e-learning strategies are a core part of the commission's newly launched Europe 2020 Agenda, which road maps the future economy.

Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Twitter hits 10 billionth (or so) tweet

Less than five months after reaching 5 billion "tweets", microblogging site Twitter has now chalked up some 10 billion tweets.

The site Gigatweet, which "counts" the number of tweets (postings by members) on Twitter, isn't an exact science, though. Gigatweet doesn't count to an exact number, but extrapolated out when the 10 billionth tweet would hit based on previous tweet data provided by various sources, according to TechCrunch.

Most recently, the public knows Twitter is seeing about 50 million tweets per day now, because the service released that information.

Number watchers were monitoring the numbers appended onto the URL of each tweet as it was posted to determine when the 10 billionth tweet would go online. When it did reportedly happen, most Twitter users were unable to see the tweet, however, because the user has a protected stream.

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Facebook could earn more cash from virtual currency, exec says

Virtual currency on Facebook has the potential to be a bigger revenue maker than the ads business on the social-networking giant’s site, the head of its European operations Colm Long told a digital conference in Dublin this week.

Speaking at the Digital Landscapes conference at UCD this week, Long said that globally more than 400m people around the world use Facebook. In Ireland, the service is used by 1.4m people, most of whom have been active on the site in the last 30 days. He said that more than 700,000 Irish people are on the social networking site every day.

Long said that many brands are already using its pages as a means to maintain an audience and embrace the digital opportunity. He cited the New York Times’ Facebook page as an example of a traditional brand that stands out in the social networking world, bringing print and online into Facebook and creating an identity that puts breaking news into peoples’ news feeds. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Malicious Facebook app does the rounds

The latest security threat to hit Facebook is a malicious application that spreads quickly by enticing users to create their own app that then inadvertently clones one of the template spam applications.

This malicious Facebook application is doing the rounds in the guise of ‘Who is checking your profile?’ or similar and begins with a link posted onto your Facebook wall by a friend or trusted connection, says Websense Security Labs researchers Erik Buchanan and Jason Pope.

There are other similar apps, including ‘Who Always stalks Your Profile?’ And ‘Who Always Look into My Album??’ Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

'Social Networking Could Come At A Price'

People who use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are being warned they could face shelling out more for home insurance.

The fear is that the information users share online could alert potential burglars to their home's vulnerability, for instance by revealing when they are on holiday.

Darren Black, head of home insurance at comparison website Confused.com, predicts the eventual outcome could be big hikes – up to 10% - in users' home insurance premiums. for home insurance. Read More

Courtesy: Sky News

Building a live online map with your feet on the ground

OpenStreetMaps offers the organic result of real-world volunteers plotting their knowledge of local geography, writes DANNY O'BRIEN

IF YOU watched the news in the last month, you’ll recognise the outline in the first few moments of the data visualisation movie: the island of Haiti.

The barest outline of roads and other major features pick out Port-au-Prince and other major towns. As the date indicator crosses the “January 12th” marker, the epicentre of the earthquake appears as bold red circles. Then, minutes later, the first flashes of red and white light up the island’s silhouette. Hour by hour, the island turns from being a general sketch of the nation to an increasingly detailed street map. Within a day, the resolution is similar to an Ordnance Survey Ireland map: streets, paths, rivers are all marked and labelled.

By January 17th, a new set of icons appears: the glowing blue markings of Haiti’s refugee camps, picked out and entered into this map, which is now, after just one week, the most accurate and up-to-date geographical record of Haiti available. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

E-Skills week takes Fastrack to IT

Fastrack to IT (FIT) has revealed plans for EU e-Skills week 2010 to take place from March 1 to March 5. The week is taking place across Europe to raise the level of awareness around the importance of ICT skills for the future of the European economy.

EU e-Skills Week 2010 highlights the growing demand for skilled ICT users and professionals to drive a competitive and innovative Europe.

This campaign seeks to inform students, young professionals and small businesses about the vast range of opportunities that ICT-related jobs present. The campaign ultimately aims to increase ICT skills among professionals and to encourage more young people to take up ICT studies and careers. Read More

Courtesy: RTE News