NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 2 June
02-06-2009
by Emmet Ryan
Loopthing to keep firms 'in the loop' | Version 1 lands EUR200k deal
The Minister for Science, Technology, Innovation and Natural Resources, Conor Lenihan, has announced a EUR2.3 million research network for the biopharmaceutical sector in Ireland. The network, which is funded by Enterprise Ireland, aims to deliver more efficient, reliable and cheaper processes for manufacturing biopharmaceutical medicines.
Irish entrepreneur Joseph Kelly has launched Loopthing, a new social business network aimed at connecting businesses and individuals through social media. Loopthing launches with 100 businesses currently using the network as a global marketplace. The company aims to increase this number to 80,000 by the end of this year and said it is currently in talks with international business associations.
Irish IT consulting firm Version 1 has inked a EUR200,000 three-year deal with Irish Continental Group (ICG) to provide Oracle support and consultancy services. The managed service agreement covers support and maintenance of Oracle Real Application Clusters, which facilitates ICG's primary passenger booking engine, www.irishferries.com.
Students from primary and secondary schools in Dublin's inner city will showcase their ICT and multimedia projects at the launch of iFestival in the ILAC Centre on Wednesday. The event is being launched by the Minister for Communications, Eamon Ryan. Projects on show will include comic making, animation, robotic lego, and podcasting. The 38 schools participating are part of Dublin Inner-City Schools Computerisation programme, run by DIT.
O2 Ireland has implemented EMC Centera and Sensage Solution to extend its compliance with the EU Data Retention Directive to capture and retain call detail records and make them accessible for rapid evidential analysis by law enforcement authorities. This move will better enable O2 Ireland to comply with Irish law enforcement requirements on the issue. "Turnaround times have been reduced from days to minutes while operational costs remain within acceptable limits," said Denise Murphy, Fraud and Security Manager for Telefonica O2 Ireland.
Software as a service firm Salesforce.com has launched a new version of Force.com for Google App Engine. The new service will allow developers to take advantage of the addition of Java language support in Google App Engine in their application development projects.
Lanna O'Reilly has been appointed customer relations director at mobile operator Three Ireland. O'Reilly has over 16 years' experience in customer services and previously held senior management positions within Meteor Mobile, Esat Telecom, Conduit Ireland and the Ulster Bank Group.
The US military has launched a social networking strategy for its campaign in Afghanistan. Micro-blogging website Twitter is being used to release updates about operations in the region. The forces already have a Facebook page up and running and they also use YouTube to post videos about the work the US military is carrying out in Afghanistan. According to the US military 1,400 people have already subscribed to the Twitter page, and the Facebook page has 4,700 fans.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 