NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 7 October
07-10-2009
by Emmet Cole
Tecnotree to cut 80 Shannon jobs | Havok partners with Ubisoft
Finnish company Tecnotree, formerly Tecnoman, is seeking 80 redundancies from its workforce of 141 in Shannon. According to a statement made to the Finnish stock exchange, the company is seeking the redundancies due to the current economic climate and reduced demand for its products and services. Tecnotree supplies business and operations support systems for telecom operators. The firm plans to remain in Shannon, despite its reduced workforce.
Hewlett-Packard and Systems Biology Ireland (SBI) are set to collaborate on ways to use IT and mathematics to improve life sciences research, it was announced on Wednesday. The SBI research program, supported by HP storage technology, will try to unravel the complexities of cells through the use of models that predict biological behaviour. SBI will use the multipetabyte HP StorageWorks 9100 Extreme Data Storage system in an attempt to improve the efficiency of research processes. The SBI research program is a collaboration among industry and academic organisations, including Agilent Technologies, Ark Therapeutics, HP, Protagen AG, Science Foundation Ireland, Servier, Siemens Ireland and University College Dublin.
Interactive education technology solutions provider Promethean announced on Wednesday that GDK Network Systems -- a supplier of network and IT solutions in Ireland -- has won new business with 50 schools since becoming a Promethean partner in April 2009. GDK now expects to triple its sales in the Irish education sector as a result of this partnership, which will equate to 50 percent of its overall revenues by year end. GDK expects to introduce Promethean's interactive whiteboard systems into a further 25 schools by the end of 2009.
Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment , Mary Coughlan has launched a new digital skills programme as part of National Digital Skills Week. The "I-CANDO Digital Skills programme – Your Passport to the Smart Economy" programme, developed by Irish company, ICANDO.ie is designed to help re-skill some of Ireland's 440,000 unemployed people. Digital Hub-based ICANDO.ie, has been developing the digital skills programme for the last two years, collaborating with industry, government, educationalists and the general public to create a programme that teaches people the skills needed to get the most from everyday technology. The course can be completed online for EUR49 per module or all seven modules for EUR249.
Digital lifestyle company NewBay, which has a Dublin office, has launched LifeCache Smart Address Book (SAB) 2.0, a converged, telco-grade social address book service for carriers. LifeCache SAB syncs, merges and updates contacts and dynamic content from multiple sources and uses cloud computing to store the data. The product aims to create a single unified view of everyone you know -- including all phone contacts, e-mail addresses, instant messaging buddies and social networking friends, and is accessible across multiple screens and applications. When combined with LifeCache Social Networking Gateway APIs the new product enables carriers to connect to multiple social networking services including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace and offers subscribers the choice to import their social networking friends, profile photos, status updates and other dynamic content.
Irish games middleware provider Havok, has signed a multi-year, worldwide licensing agreement with heavyweight games developer Ubisoft. The deal means Ubisoft will use Havok's software in upcoming titles across all game platforms. The two companies are no strangers to each other, with Ubisoft using Havok technology to create leading games titles including Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia, and Shaun White Snowboarding. Ubisoft distributes games in more than 55 countries around the globe and generated sales of EUR1.058 billion in the 2009-2010 fiscal year.
Pest control company Rentokil has announced that it intends to offer free internet-based reporting to all its customers with immediate effect. While pest control activities are traditionally managed via written reports, Rentokil's PestNetOnline system allows customers to access all their information via an internet portal. PestNetOnline works via a series of bar-coded monitoring points, which are scanned each time a Rentokil technician visits. At the same time the technician records details of any evidence of pest activity, recommendations and actions taken. The results are then sent via radio signal to a central processing centre and loaded onto the customer's account. A demonstration site has been developed by Rentokil so that prospective customers can experience the system for themselves before signing up to it.
NovaUCD-based certification solutions provider Q-Validus, announced the launch of its Computer Wings computer skills certification programme in the UK on Wednesday. Computer Wings is a vocational or role-based progressive skills programme which focuses on key functional activities within a modern organisation: communication, marketing, IT networks and security, business development, process flows and project management. The modular-based programme consists of 10 standalone modules, designed to help candidates learn computer skills to enhance their career prospects. Q-Validus is supported by Enterprise Ireland and is part of the agency's High Potential Start-up Programme.
Finally, disgraced Ceann Comhairle John O'Donoghue got some digital comeuppance on Wednesday when his Wikipedia photo image was temporarily replaced by that of fast food giant McDonald's mascot Ronald McDonald. Some clown has since removed the image.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 