NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 11 December
11-12-2008
by Deirdre McArdle
Workshops aim to boost computer science uptake | CTVR, IBM collaborate on supercomputers
In a bid to boost the number of students choosing computer science subjects at third level, the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin has been piloting a series of week-long workshops during which participants experience a week of college life with a strong immersion in computer science concepts and programming. All learning is based around collaborative projects and uses instructional material designed by the Science Foundation Ireland funded LERO Software Engineering Research Centre for teaching programming to transition year pupils. A final workshop takes place on Friday where the culmination of the students' work will be on display.
Researchers from the Centre for Telecommunications Value-chain Research (CTVR) are to collaborate with IBM on the development of a new optical network that may form a key part of the next generation of supercomputers to be designed by IBM. Optical networks are used to spread computing workloads over thousands of individual systems, allowing for the processing of vast quantities of data at high speed. "Right now, the world's fastest computing system can carry out around one thousand trillion arithmetic operations per second. We are looking to help create a new system that will run at speeds up to a thousand times faster, allowing for newer, more challenging problems to be handled," said Professor Donal O'Mahony, director, CTVR. Prof O'Mahony added that the collaboration could potentially lead to the creation of high-value jobs as the research moves towards the product development phase. CTVR, which is supported by Science Foundation Ireland and IDA Ireland, is a joint venture between the Irish university sector and a number of industry partners including Bell Labs.
During the past year 'Bebo' was the most popular web search in Ireland, according to Google Ireland's Zeitgeist report, which revealed that Facebook was the fastest-rising search term. Nasza klasa, a Polish social networking site, was also one of the most popular search items in Ireland during 2008. Of the top 10 fastest-rising searches during the year, just two were homegrown sites -- the Irish Times and RTE. Although Bebo was the overall top search term, YouTube appears twice (as YouTube and You Tube) in the Zeitgeist 'Most Popular' list.
Irish furniture retailer Instore has announced the revamp of its company website, www.instore.ie. The updated site features more content, a more intuitive navigation and an easier checkout process, the company said. Instore claims to be the first furniture company in Ireland to offer a fully transactional website that's linked live to their stock system.
Over half (57 percent) of Americans say they are worried their identity will be stolen online within the next two years, according to a survey conducted by CA. The vast majority (90 percent) also say they are concerned about the security of their personal information online. The survey also revealed that 80 percent of US teens are on social networking sites, and 35 percent of them leave their social networking profiles open to viewing by strangers. US teens don't seem to be too concerned about giving away their personal details on networking sites: 38 percent said they post their education information, 32 percent give away their e-mail address, 28 percent reveal their birth date, while 19 percent are happy to disclose their full name.
Sony has announced it is to finally launch its long-awaited 3D online social networking site -- Home -- for PlayStation 3 users on Thursday. Reports indicate that Home is similar to Second Life in that it lets users create avatars to interact in cyberspace. Home will enable users to create their own social networks and set up meetings in their own virtual apartments or in public places. The service will offer instant messaging, voice, and video communications. PlayStation 3 users will be able to join the virtual world through a free software download. Sony is hoping to make money on the service by charging companies to interact with users. A number of companies have already signed up to be part of Home, including Diesel, Red Bull, Paramount Pictures and Eurogamer. Sony first announced details of Home in March 2007, saying it would be available at the end of that year.
Not content with digitising the world's books, Google has launched a project to digitise thousands of magazines to add to its Book Search service. Magazine articles will be archived and indexed in the same format as the rest of Google's digitised book collection, and they will be displayed alongside all book results. Google engineer Dave Foulser also explained that, in time, magazine results will be blended into the main Google.com search results.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 