NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 18 November
18-11-2009
by Emmet Cole
Buyer beware online at Xmas: Espion | UK geeks get naked - for charity
US software company Bentley Systems is set to establish an international Shared Services, Sales and Marketing Centre in Dublin, creating as many as 150 'high-quality' jobs in the process. The company is currently recruiting multilingual finance and administrative personnel, sales and marketing professionals, technical support engineers, and product release engineers with software industry experience. The offices will be located at Dublin's Harcourt Street.
Dublin-based Openet scooped the overall prize for Company of the Year 2009 at the annual ISA Software Industry Awards. Winners among the eight categories included transport sector software provider Avego, which won the Emerging Software Business award, while Percana took the Sales Achievement award for its financial management product suite, Eclipse. Norkom Technologies scooped the award for Corporate Social Responsibility in recognition of its work with disadvantaged youth, while the same company's CEO, Paul Kerley, was named Technology Person of the Year. Meanwhile, UCD's Yuandong Zhu won the Student medal for developing automated software to aid computer forensic investigations.
Minister for Science, Technology & Innovation, Conor Lenihan, announced on Wednesday that Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and HP are set to joint-fund a EUR3.7 million nanotechnology research programme in Ireland with CRANN, the SFI-funded Centre for Science Engineering and Technology located in Trinity College Dublin. The Ireland-based HP research team are part of a worldwide R&D organisation working on the development of technologies for flexible electronics. An existing three-year nanoscience collaboration between CRANN and HP Ireland resulted in the creation of a low-cost, flexible, transparent, thin-film electrode which is a critical component in the development of flexible displays. The new programme will fund research into the development of flexible displays for laptops, e-books and other electronic devices.
Minister Lenihan also launched the new Institutes of Technology Research Alliance (ITRA) Graduate Education Programme on Wednesday. Designed to enhance the scope and depth of the sector's strategic and professional approach to research and fourth level provision, the ITRA programme has developed a curriculum of certificates and diplomas that can be taken alongside a student's main graduate studies. The programme includes modules on research skills, project management, research methods, creativity and data handling. The programme is the result of a collaboration between 14 Institutes of Technology, NUI Galway and Maynooth, University of Melbourne, University of Ulster, the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, the Irish Universities Association, and the Irish Business and Employers Confederation.
In other research-related news, a pharmaceutical best practice portal designed for, and by, pharmaceutical industry and academic institutions has been unveiled by Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan. The website was developed through the Solid State Pharmaceutical Cluster (SSPC), led by the University of Limerick. The SSPC is a collaborative research group of Ireland's leading pharmaceutical companies and third-level institutions, with Government funding being provided through Science Foundation Ireland. BPX.ie is designed to create a collaborative environment for the pharmaceutical industry and academic institutions, with a special focus on best practice techniques.
Shoppers should be cautious when buying Christmas presents online, according to Irish information security company Espion. With the busiest online shopping period of the year approaching, Espion is advising consumers to use reputable retailers or look for sites with payment safety standards, including PayPal-verified sites. The company also advises consumers to read shipping, refund and return policies, check the site's privacy policy, and always keep a record of internet transactions. Finally, choose to pay with a credit card over a debit card, as credit cards offer security features that debit cards don't have.
Finally, a charity calendar featuring 24 naked London-based internet entrepreneurs is about to go on sale. The STG10 Nude London Tech calendar was the brainchild of Milo Yiannopoulos, a student of English at Cambridge University, and features Hermione Way, the 24-year-old who runs online video news site Techfluff.tv, and David Langer of collaboration site Groupspaces, among others. Yiannopoulos told reporters: "Someone suggested the idea as a joke, and I just thought why not. There is a perception that the people who run these internet start-ups are unattractive geeks, and I wanted to show that's not the case." All proceeds from the calendar will go to Take Heart, a youth charity which sets up IT projects in India.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 