NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 16 March
16-03-2009
by Bryan Collins
US trade mission reaps export contracts | TerminalFOUR and ALISON win US deals
The Enterprise Ireland trade mission to the US involving 92 Irish companies has so far resulted in contracts worth around EUR100 million. The two-day mission to New York and Washington, which is being led by Taoiseach Brian Cowen, is aimed at encouraging investment in Ireland and reassuring people that the country is open for business. Among the Irish companies that made announcements during the trade mission were Advanced Innovations, ALISON, BioTector Analytical Systems, Dromone Engineering, Information Mosaic, Rockall Technologies, Softco, TerminalFour, MindLeaders, Interactive Services, Pulse Learning and Curam. Taoiseach Brian Cowen said: "Securing export sales has always been at the heart of Ireland's economic success but its importance increases exponentially in the current economic conditions. In the years ahead, overseas sales will be the single most important factor in sustaining employment and wealth creation in Ireland."
TerminalFOUR, one the companies involved in the US trade mission, has secured a USD200,000 contract to deploy enterprise web content management solutions for US customers. The Irish software company is to provide its services to the University of Virginia School of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and the United Nations Development Programme. It is also planning to open a Boston Office to facilitate its new customers.
In more news from the trade mission, Irish e-learning software company ALISON also revealed it's to provide its Basic Skills Training courseware to US company Geographic Solutions.
IrelandOffline has called for the Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan to implement 'net neutrality' guidelines for Irish internet users. The Irish broadband organisation wants guidelines based on three principles. The first principle would see internet users entitled to an internet connection with a predefined capacity and quality. The second would allow users to send and receive content and use services and run applications of their choice. The third would entitle internet users to a connection free from discrimination with regard to applications, services and content. IrelandOffline called for the guidelines after Eircom reached a deal with Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) to monitor and block Irish internet users from accessing certain file-sharing websites to illegally download music.
'Team Awesome', a group of five final year game development students from IT Carlow, have won USD10,000 for their PC demo 'RagCat' as part of the Havok Physic Innovation contest. The contest saw Havok put up USD40,000 in prize money and invite students and hobbyists to create an innovative PC game demo using Havok's Physics software. In an effort to encourage Irish game developers, one of the categories was only open to entries from Irish third-level students. Team Awesome's winning demo involves a paralysed cat who uses telekinesis to get around his interactive world. Havok will showcase all the winning demos at the upcoming Game Developer Conference in San Francisco. You can see the cat in action (or not, as it's paralysed) on YouTube.
The art of Limerick student Evan O'Sullivan Glynn will appear on the Google.com homepage this St Patrick's Day. O'Sullivan Glynn's depiction of a shamrock and its roots won the Irish 'Doodle for Google' competition and this will be the first time a competition winner has had his or her entry displayed on the dot-com Google homepage. The Irish competition was based on the theme 'My Ireland' and the 16-year-old's entry 'My Irish Roots' was selected by Dennis Hwang, Google's chief doodler, as the overall winner. "On St. Patrick's Day, Irish people around the world celebrate their connection to Ireland. 'My Irish Roots' represents this connection with how shamrocks trace back to their roots in the same way that Irish people throughout the world trace back to Ireland, their Ireland, my Ireland," said O'Sullivan Glynn.
Tesco has virtualised 1,500 servers and increased its Real Times Sales Systems capacity by 75 percent. Tesco claims it achieved this by virtualising key business applications using Citrix XenServer and HP ProLiant BL680c G5 blade servers across the UK and Ireland. The company implemented virtualisation as an alternative to adding more physical servers to handle its growing capacity demands.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 