NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 6 November
06-11-2009
by Deirdre McArdle
LG unveils new handsets for Ireland | Jobs named CEO of the decade
A new web portal that focuses on encouraging collaboration among pharmaceutical companies and researchers has been launched in Ireland. The site – www.bpx.ie -- was developed through the Solid State Pharmaceutical Cluster (SSPC), which is a collaborative research group of Ireland's leading pharmaceutical companies and third level institutions, led by University of Limerick. The portal will be a collaborative environment focusing on best practice techniques, to assist researchers in the area. "This proactive and visionary arrangement illustrates the collective determination among Ireland’s scientific community to pool their resources and expertise towards achieving far-reaching outcomes for the benefit of Ireland, and for the stakeholders involved," said the Tanaiste Mary Coughlan, who officially launched the site.
Irish travel software firm Datalex has revealed that it is facing legal proceedings in Australia from one of its clients, Flight Centre. Datalex had earlier this month threatened legal proceedings against Flight Centre related to money Datalex claims it is owed for work carried out. Flight Centre's claim is related to the deployment of Datalex's software in Flight Centre's travel agency business. Datalex said it believed the Australian company's move was "defensive" and "without any basis or merit". For its part, Datalex said it would now lodge a counterclaim for "substantial" damages in Australia arising from Flight Centre's decision not to deploy Datalex's software.
Mobile phone maker LG has released three new mobiles for the Irish market. The handsets, LG Viewty Smart, LG GD900 Crystal and the LG Chocolate BL20, will launch in Ireland in November and will bring to 11 the number of handsets the firm has in the Irish market. The LG Chocolate BL20 boasts a 5 megapixel camera and an MP3 player, while the Viewty Smart features an 8 megapixel camera and a touchscreen. Meanwhile, LG claims that the GD900 Crystal is the world's first transparent handset. It also has an 8 megapixel camera and is Wi-Fi compatible.
Online marketplace eBay has confirmed that it has settled with the original founders of Skype Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis in a move that will clear the way for the sale of the internet telephony firm to a consortium formed by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. According to TechCrunch, Zennstrom and Friis are getting 14 percent of Skype back for rights to the Global Index P2P technology their company Joltid controls and which is a key part of the Skype technology. As it stands now, the consortium will own 56 percent of Skype, eBay will retain 30 percent and the original founders will control the remaining 14 percent.
Apple chief Steve Jobs has been named 'CEO of the Decade' by Fortune magazine. Apple products such as the iPhone, iPod and services like iTunes are key to why Jobs merits the award, according to the magazine, which said that he has been instrumental in re-shaping three sectors: music, movies and mobile. According to the magazine, Jobs has had a remarkable affect on Apple over the past decade. In 2000 the company had a market capitalisation of USD5 billion; today, that figure comes in at USD170 billion.
In other Apple-related news, the App Store truly is a weird and wonderful place. The latest application to make it to the App Store is the "Cry Translator". The iPhone app apparently helps parents to decipher their baby's cries. Using sound analysis technology, the app identifies a baby's cry, based on one of five emotional or physiological states: hunger, fatigue, annoyance, stress or boredom, and claims a 96 percent degree of accuracy. [Wonder if it can identify if the baby's crying 'cos their parent is spending too much time on their iPhone?] The app costs a pricey USD30. This latest release shows that there really is an app for everything, no matter how strange. Earlier this week Apple announced that it had hit the 100,000 app milestone on the App Store.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 