Daily Digest 21 August

21-08-2008

by Deirdre McArdle

Havok launches game developer contest | Apple faces iPhone 3G lawsuit

Irish gaming firm Havok has launched the 'Havok Physics Innovation Contest', a worldwide competition to find the 'next big thing' in game developing. Amateur game developers are being asked to create an innovative playable PC game demo using Havok's Emmy Award-winning software, 'Havok Physics'. Four overall winners will be selected and they will be announced at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco in 2009 and have their PC game demos showcased by Havok and Intel. One of the winners will definitely be an Irish third-level student, with the other three being chosen from worldwide entrants. Havok said the competition will provide budding Irish game developers with a great opportunity to showcase their talent to the global game developing community. The contest is part of Havok's plan to encourage interest in maths and science among Irish students.

Cable company UPC Ireland has linked up with broadband provider Digiweb to roll out a pilot triple play service in Fingal North County Dublin. The bundled package from both providers will include Digital TV, phone and broadband for EUR49.95 per month. UPC Ireland is providing the digital TV part of the package, with Digiweb offering the phone and broadband services. The pilot starts on 25 August.

AIB's online banking service is seeing significant growth; the bank said that in July there were over 5 million customer log-ins to its service, up 25 percent on July 2007. The bank also reported growth in the area of online payments, with 1.5 million payments made online in July, a rise of 20 percent on the year-ago figure. There was also a 20 percent increase in the mobile top-up service, a 28 percent jump in domestic transfers to friends or family, and a 40 percent rise in international payments.

RTE's online coverage of the Beijing Olympics is proving popular with internet users. According to Complete Telecom, whose metro fibre network is facilitating the live streaming on RTE.ie, there were 148,974 live streams of Olympics-related programmes from the RTE website on Tuesday. Of course, this was the day that two of Ireland's boxers were fighting for medals and runner Paul Hession was taking part in the semi-final of the 200 metres.

In what could be his toughest gig yet, comedian Jerry Seinfeld has been hired by Microsoft to promote its Vista operating system. The comedian and actor is reportedly being paid USD10 million to star in a series of ads for the software giant. The theme of the campaign, in which Microsoft is investing USD300 million, will be 'Windows, Not Walls', which involves "break[ing] down barriers that prevent people and ideas from connecting," according to Microsoft. In the ads Seinfeld will appear alongside Bill Gates, as Redmond launches a concerted effort to claw back some credibility following Apple's "Mac vs PC" ad campaign.

Meanwhile, Apple is facing a lawsuit from an Alabama woman who claims the reception performance of her iPhone 3G is below par. She claims this is despite the fact that there is decent AT&T network coverage in her area. The lawsuit has the potential to develop into a class action suit as there have been numerous reports of unhappy iPhone 3G customers. Though Apple claims that its software update for the iPhone 3G, which was released on Monday, addresses reception issues, it remains unclear if that is actually the case, as many users say they have not noticed any discernible difference.