For the record 16 July

16-07-2008

by Deirdre McArdle

Irish music video site launches | Nintendo unveils 'Wii Music'

A new Irish music video website has launched in beta, Muzu. A kind of cross between YouTube and MySpace, the site is aimed at both the music industry and music fans. For the industry, bands can upload any video content (music videos, interviews, backstage/tour footage) and take part in a revenue-sharing model whereby they are rewarded when people view their content on the site. Fans, meanwhile, can view all of this content for free, and can create social networking-style pages where they can upload their own videos, create playlists of favourite songs, and interact with other users of the site. Muzu said on Wednesday that Sony BMG had become the first major record label to sign a content deal with the new site, giving users access to its library of videos from its global artist roster.

Danville Business Park in Kilkenny City has opened for business, and all 34 business units are directly connected to Kilkenny's fibre optic Metropolitan Area Network (MAN). eNet, the company that manages Ireland's MANs on behalf of the State, said the direct fibre connection for each business unit will mean companies will potentially be able to access broadband at speeds of up to 1Gbps.

Xerox has signed on as a founding member of the Information Overload Research Group (IORG), which will focus on boosting workplace productivity by fighting information overload. Xerox joins Microsoft, Intel and IBM, which are also members of the group. IORG's mission is to build awareness of information overload, conduct research, help define best practices, contribute to the creation of solutions and resources, offer guidance and facilitation and help make the business case for fighting information overload.

Social network site Facebook has inadvertently revealed thedates of birth of many of its 80 million active users, even those who had requested that the information remained confidential. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, explained that the information was exposed during a public beta test of Facebook's new design. Cluley added that he informed Facebook as soon as he discovered the flaw, which now appears to have been fixed. Sophos has published a video on its YouTube channel, demonstrating the security hole.

Making its way into the fast-growing gaming segment pioneered by "Guitar Hero", Nintendo has announced it plans to launch a music game for its Wii console. "Wii Music" will let players simulate more than 60 different instruments. The game is slated for release later this year. Nintendo made the announcement at the E3 video gaming event in Los Angeles.

Telecoms firm Colt has launched the first phase of its next generation network (NGN) deployment across Europe. The UK-based business telco said it has gone live with its Ethernet-based multi-service platform (MSP) layer and enhanced application-enabling Softswitch layer, which it said would enhance customers' experience and help the company combine its next generation network and data centres into a single virtualised system.