NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 16 April
16-04-2009
by Emmet Cole
Minister Ryan welcomes 3,700 green jobs | Profits plummet at Nokia
Energy Minister Eamon Ryan has welcomed the ESB's announcement of 3,700 new jobs in the green economy. The initiatives were included in the Programme for Government and include jobs in smart meters, smart networks, electric vehicles, wind energy, home insulation and green technology.
Irish mobile services company Anam announced on Thursday that it has secured contracts with unnamed mobile operators in Cambodia and Estonia to supply its 'Smart Services Applications for SMS' services. These services include SMS Money Transfer; the ability to transfer money through SMS messaging; e-mail-like functionality for SMS; and Parental Control, an anti-bullying filter. The company also recently announced deals with three new operators in Taiwan, Vietnam and Ireland. Financial details of the deals were not disclosed.
ComReg has announced reductions in mobile termination rates in excess of 47 percent over the next three years. The reductions will amount to potential savings in the order of EUR100 million for consumers from 2010 onwards, according to ComReg. Over the next three years, Ireland’s three largest mobile phone operators -- Vodafone, O2 and Meteor -- will reduce mobile termination charges on their networks in line with similar reductions in other European member states.
Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation Jimmy Devins has announced a pilot project involving students in the Mercy National School and St John's National School in Sligo, in collaboration with the Seismology in Schools initiative run by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS). As part of the pilot, students have been provided with their own seismometers and desktop computers that will allow them to detect shock waves from quakes all over the world as they are occurring. Forty-six primary and second-level schools around the country are involved in the Seismology in Schools initiative, with each school actively recording earthquakes from around the world using their own seismometers.
Vodafone Ireland has agreed a EUR17 million 15-year deal with eNet, the company that manages the Government's extensive fibre optic infrastructure (known as the Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs)). As part of the deal, eNet will provide high capacity fibre optic connectivity to a large proportion of Vodafone Ireland's regional and rural transmission sites across the country.
BT has announced that all new BT broadband customers living in the 22 Irish locations on BT's own next generation network will automatically get broadband speeds of up to 24Mbps. From Thursday, new customers in these areas will be automatically provided with broadband speeds of up to 24Mbps at no additional cost -- dependent on the maximum speed that the new customer's phone line can support.
Ryanair confirmed on Thursday that Tui UK has agreed to stop unauthorised screenscraping of the Ryanair website in settlement of legal proceedings filed against it by the budget airline. The English High Court approved the Cease and Desist Agreement signed by Tui on 26 March after it agreed not to make bookings on Ryanair's website that are in breach of Ryanair's terms of use. Tui further agreed that it will not breach any of the Ryanair website's terms of use in the future. Ryanair also revealed that it is now reviewing possible legal proceedings against Thomas Cook after it was revealed that unauthorised screenscraping ticket-touts were charging a fictitious STG40 fuel surcharge and falsely inflating airfares to consumers buying Ryanair tickets.
Nokia has revealed that its profits plummeted 90 percent in the first quarter as demand for mobile phones continued to weaken. Net profit was EUR122 million compared to EUR1.2 billion in the same period last year, while sales fell 27 percent to EUR9.3 billion from EUR12.7 billion in the first quarter of 2008. Last month Nokia announced 1,700 layoffs worldwide, with handset sales dropping 33 percent in January through March to EUR6.2 billion.
EMC Corporation has announced that Saudi Telecom Company has ordered an EMC Symmetrix V-Max system to form the foundation of its virtual datacentre -- becoming one of the first companies worldwide to do so in the process. STC is the largest telecommunication provider in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 