NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 17 February
17-02-2009
by Emmet Cole
Facebook comes to Dublin | Prosecutors waver in Pirate Bay trial
As some IT companies move their operations away from these shores, it was good to hear Facebook announce the opening of a Dublin office on Tuesday. The company will begin recruiting immediately for around 40 positions across user operations, online operations, inside sales and advertising campaign delivery. The company also announced the appointment of ex-Google exec Colm Long as Director of Online Operations. The Dublin office will act as Facebook's European hub to support advertisers and users across the region. Get your job descriptions and online application forms here.
United Drug Consumer has signed a EUR950,000 deal with Sony Professional to provide Sony photo finishing kiosks to over 1,600 pharmacies in Ireland. The alliterative Sony Super Snap Lab, is an all-in-one system that can produce digital photo prints in less than a minute.
Irish web solutions company DV4 has piloted a new webcasting solution for Kellogg's. The solution features an online video presentation, with interactive supporting materials and was used to enable senior Kellogg's management in Ireland to deliver a live one-hour webcast to colleagues situated in a variety of locations across Europe. As a result of the successful pilot, Kellogg's is now planning to use webcasting regularly to facilitate pan-European corporate meetings and presentations. DV4 was recently awarded the Grand Prix at the Golden Spider Awards for the new TV3 website.
Prosecutors have dropped half of the charges against torrent-sharing site The Pirate Bay on the second day of trial. Swedish prosecutors representing media firms including Sony and Warner Bros. dropped charges of "assisting copyright infringement", but retained the lesser charge of "assisting making available copyright material". Prosecutors are seeking about EUR10.6 million in damages and interest for losses allegedly incurred from downloads facilitated by the site. Three Pirate Bay staff face a large fine and up to two years in prison, if convicted. No copyright content is hosted on The Pirate Bay's web servers. Instead, the site hosts torrent links to files held on its users' computers.
Mini-notebook shipments in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) reached 3.6 million units in the final quarter of 2008, according to market analysts IDC. The figure was in line with expectations and represents 20 percent of total portable sales and 30 percent of consumer portables in the EMEA region. Robust consumer demand for new mini-notebook offerings from Acer and Asus helped sustain the momentum, says IDC, while Hewlett-Packard took third place in the market, helped by the launch of its first consumer mini-notebook, the Compaq Mini 700, in December.
A secondary school student from CBS Midleton in Co. Cork has been presented with an award by MIDAS Ireland for designing an eco-friendly processor. It's the latest in a string of awards for the talented teen. David McCarthy won second place in the 2007 BT Young Scientist Competition. In 2008, he won the "Analog Devices Student Award" at the BT Young Scientist Competition for a project entitled 'Variation on Single Instruction Computer' and in 2009 -- you guessed it -- he picked up another BT Young Scientist award in the technology category for his work on eco-friendly processors.
Meanwhile, Yahoo announced the beta launch of Yahoo Mobile service on Tuesday. Pitched as a personalised mobile "starting point to the internet", Yahoo Mobile will be available on the mobile web, Windows Mobile devices, Apple's iPhone and smartphones from Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Motorola. A final version is expected in the second quarter of 2009. If you're interested in participating in the beta program visit http://mobile.yahoo.com on your mobile phone.
Finally, Microsoft is hosting a "Microsoft BizSpark Innovation Accelerator" event in partnership with the Digital Media Forum, on 24 February 2009 in the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in Dublin. The event is designed to help entrepreneurs find out how they can accelerate the establishment, development and expansion of their new venture and is part of the Microsoft Bizspark Programme. Experts from the business and technology sector will be available to provide business guidance for those interested in setting up a new technology company and those involved with existing startups.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 