In The Papers 14 August

14-08-2008

by Sylvia Leatham

Irish diaspora cut off from RTE.ie Olympics | Nagle fails to remove Payzone director

The Irish Times reports that Irish people living abroad are not able to access live broadcasts through the RTE.ie website for the duration of the Olympic Games due to the restrictive terms of its contract with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The contract that the IOC negotiated with the European Broadcasting Unit (EBU), which represents public service broadcasters in 56 European countries, stipulates that webcasts should only be available in each broadcaster's home country. An explanatory note briefly published on RTE.ie put the blame on US broadcaster NBC, which paid USD894 million for the exclusive rights to the Beijing Games. The note accused the US broadcaster of "pure greed and hubris". However, an RTE spokeswoman said on Wednesday night that the article was an "opinion piece" which had appeared "in error" and did not reflect the views of the broadcaster.

The paper also says that Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe is unlikely to back a system of bonus points for maths, despite industry concerns about Leaving Cert grades in the subject. Education sources said that while the minister has an "open mind'' on the issue, he is not convinced at the moment that bonus points would help. These sources say O'Keeffe is focusing on the new 'Project Maths' initiative, which will be rolled out in 24 schools next month. It is hoped this will boost declining interest in maths by making it more "user-friendly''.

The paper also notes that former Payzone chief John Nagle has failed in an attempt to remove David Mills as a director of the electronic payments group. Nagle's motion was defeated at an extraordinary general meeting, held at the offices of law firm Matheson Ormsby Prentice. Of 237 million votes cast, 85.7 percent voted against the motion while 14.3 percent were in favour. Addressing the meeting, Nagle described Mills as "inefficient" and "incompetent" and said he had no confidence in him as an independent director. The company did not respond to Nagle's claims.

The Irish Independent says that Belfast-based camera maker Andor Technology has agreed the terms of a takeover by a group which includes members of its management team, in a deal worth STG21.3 million. The management group, called Thorndale, said it had reached agreement with Andor's independent directors on the deal. The price is STG0.73 per share.

The same paper notes that PC maker Dell has introduced business laptops that can run for as long as 19 hours on a single charge. Read more on this story on ENN.

According to the Irish Examiner, a scam to tamper with chip and PIN terminals in shops has been uncovered after British police raided a premises in Birmingham. During the raid, stolen chip and PIN terminals, card account numbers, card readers, computer software and counterfeit magnetic stripe cards were recovered. Police believe thieves hid devices inside check-out card readers to unscramble codes and reveal customers' PINs. They then produced new cards and withdrew money from overseas cash machines. Officers said 30 checkouts in Britain had been affected, with petrol stations the most likely to be targeted.

The paper also says that new technology will allow cars to alert other vehicles to road hazards in their vicinity. The European Commission has reserved part of the radio spectrum in all EU member states for smart vehicle communications systems. The use of wireless communications technology will effectively enable cars to "talk" to other vehicles; for example, sending a warning to other drivers about slippery roads or crashes. The European Commission is backing plans to see such technologies introduced in all new car models by 2010.

According to the Financial Times, US electronics retail giant Best Buy has unveiled a deal to distribute Apple's 3G iPhone in nearly 1,000 of its stores. The agreement will significantly expand the distribution of the iPhone in its home US market. The iPhone 3G is currently only available to US shoppers at about 200 Apple stores and 2,000 outlets run by AT&T, Apple's US mobile operator partner.

The paper also says that new media footage of the Olympics is expanding the audience for the Beijing 2008 Games, rather than cannibalising television, NBC Universal has claimed. The broadcaster said traffic to its online video site surged from 4.2 million unique users for Friday's opening ceremony to 7.8 million by Monday, equating to nearly 8 percent of the total US audience for the Olympics, which NBCU paid almost USD1 billion to cover. The television audience grew from 70.1 million to 94.8 million during the same period.

The Wall Street Journal reports that chipmaker Intel has developed technology to remotely power up PCs, letting users retrieve files over an internet connection. The technology, called Remote Wake, works only on forthcoming desktop computers that use a recently introduced chipset from Intel. It also requires new Intel software, which is stored on a memory chip on the circuit board of a PC. With Remote Wake, a consumer could use a web-enabled mobile phone or laptop connected to the internet to wake up their machine and retrieve documents, photos or other data files. It doesn't work with PCs that are completely switched off; they must be in standby or sleep mode.

The paper also says that eBay is in talks to buy a minority stake in Korean rival Gmarket, which operates an online auction site and shopping mall. eBay is in talks with South Korea's Interpark and Interpark Chairman Ki Hyung Lee to buy its stake in Gmarket. Interpark, Gmarket's largest shareholder, owns about 37 percent of Gmarket, which is based in Seoul, South Korea.

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