NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 24 November
24-11-2008
by Deirdre McArdle
Dublin chosen as City of Science for 2012 | Hibernia and Evros to merge
Dublin has been selected as the City of Science for 2012, according to Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Jimmy Devins, who has hailed the decision as recognition of the great strides that Ireland has made in the area of science, technology and innovation. As part of being City of Science, Dublin will host the Euro Science Open Forum (ESOF) in 2012. "As a gateway to the world we will... be able to draw on an unrivalled network of international experts to help take the Euro Science Open Forum to the next level. It is a unique opportunity at home to promote the value of investing in science with true consequences for the daily life of the citizen," said Minister Devins.
Irish firms Hibernia Technology Group and Evros The Computer Centre have announced they are to merge, to form one company called Hibernia Evros Technology Group. The newly formed entity will employ 80 people in Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Kildare and Limerick and will have a combined turnover of EUR30 million. Hibernia managing director Bob Murray and Caroline Godsil, managing director of Evros, will become joint managing directors of the new firm. Hibernia provides technical consultancy and project management services in areas such as advanced infrastructure solutions, networking, storage technologies and virtualisation. Evros, meanwhile, is an IT solution provider, partnering with companies in Ireland and abroad to help them implement their IT projects. Financial details of the merger were not disclosed.
Irish gaming software firm Havok has announced the appointment of Takahiro Harada as senior software engineer. Takahiro has relocated to Dublin from Tokyo, where he held the position of Professor at the University of Tokyo. In his new role Takahiro will be responsible for expanding the feature set of Havok's latest product, Havok Cloth, a development tool designed to minimise the time game artists spend on animating the behaviour of character garments and environmental cloth.
Budget airline Ryanair has launched a pre-pay MasterCard service, which it has released in partnership with M-Cube Media and An Post. The service is available through www.ryanairprepay.com and costs EUR85. For that price users will get four free Ryanair flights, as well as some online discounts. Users can top up their MasterCard through An Post, online or via mobile phone.
Smartphone manufacturer Palm has announced it is poised to make an unspecified number of job cuts in its global operations. The firm currently employs around 1,050 employees worldwide. It cut 130 workers at the end of the third quarter last year and a further 120 at the end of the first quarter this year. Palm cited the current economic slowdown for its decision. The firm is also facing increasing pressure from Apple's iPhone 3G.
Speaking of Apple, the iPhone maker has released its iPhone 2.2 update, which fixes some bugs and adds some new features. A number of the new additions concern the Google Maps application on the handset; the update has added StreetView, integrated walking and public transportation directions and added the option of sharing your location with friends via e-mail. The Safari browser has also received some attention, including a new search bar next to the browser bar. Other notable improvements focus on the formatting of HTML e-mail and sound quality on the Visual Voicemail app.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been ordered by a judge to testify in a class action lawsuit against the software giant that alleges the company misled consumers in a marketing campaign for its Windows Vista operating system. It's alleged that computers sold with an older Microsoft operating system were labeled 'Vista Capable' when in fact they could only run a basic version of Vista. Judge Marsha Pechman of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle has ruled that Ballmer has "unique personal knowledge" of the case and must therefore face questioning on the issue. The so-called 'Vista Capable' case against Microsoft was launched early last year.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 