NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 20 November
20-11-2009
by Emmet Cole
Telecoms firms scoop green awards | O2 to launch mobile broadband
French pharma company Servier Ireland's new EUR47 million manufacturing plant in Arklow, Wicklow officially opened on Friday. The new 4,500-square-metre facility will act as a centre for the company's R&D activities and is the final stage of a EUR124 million investment process. Servier's Arklow site has doubled in the last three years, with the creation of 100 new jobs. Globally, Servier has more than 20,000 employees, including nearly 3,000 in R&D in over 140 countries.
Operating profits at Conduit, the Irish call centre operator operating the 11850 directory enquiry service, fell from EUR4.35 million to EUR1.3 million last year, according to reports. Revenue for 2008 fell almost 10 percent to just over EUR51 million. At the end of last December Conduit's net liabilities were EUR671,000. The company generated EUR22.2 million of its revenue in Ireland and EUR28.7 million in the UK.
Irish mobile communications companies Altobridge and Sentry Wireless won the Mobile Innovation Grand Prix, Asia Pacific Tournament at the Mobile Asia Congress in Hong Kong this week. Altobridge designs wireless solutions for mobile network operators in emerging markets. The company's 'Remote Community Solution' has been deployed successfully in commercial operations in rural Asia and uses technology developed in partnership with the European Space Agency. Sentry Wireless produces an anti-SMS spam solution called SpamGuard that allows subscribers to identify and block SMS spam using a 'one-click' client on the SIM or handset. Both companies are Enterprise Ireland high-potential start ups.
Telecoms fared well at Sustainable Energy Ireland's sixth annual Sustainable Energy Awards in Dublin, with O2 and Eircom winning at the ESB-sponsored event. Telefonica O2 Ireland won an award for 'Pioneering Renewable Energy Project' for Ireland's first self-sustaining base station powered by wind and solar power. Meanwhile, Eircom won the 'Sustainable Energy Building Excellence' award for the energy efficiency of its new headquarters in the Heuston Quarter in Dublin. Eircom's facility includes an extensive area of exposed concrete that absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night to ensure that the building is heated at appropriate times of the day.
The first annual report of the National Digital Research Centre was launched on Friday by Communications Minister Eamon Ryan. The NDRC supports technology start-ups with help from the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. The report outlines the NDRC's role in helping Irish research projects navigate "the valley of death" between the research laboratory and commercial success. Currently, the NDRC is working with 17 digital projects and has 14 commercial partners in place. The projects include a device for the remote monitoring of heart health, a platform that checks the trustworthiness of web content, and software to deliver enhanced social networking to mobiles. The NDRC also offers direct links to Irish VC companies for start-ups. The NDRC is expected to announce its next round of project sourcing soon.
The Eastern Section of The Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport Ireland (CILT) is making a final call for entrants to the 2010 Innovator of the Year Awards. CILT issued the call to companies and/or professionals working in logistics, transport, supply chain management and related industries. Submissions are sought under six main headings: air, logistics, supply chain management, rail, road, and sea. Competition entry forms are due by 27 November and are available from www.cilt.ie. The Innovator of the Year Awards celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2010.
Google has announced that videos on its video-sharing website YouTube will soon include machine-generated automatic captions. Ken Harrenstien, the software engineer behind the technology, is deaf. His solution combines speech recognition technology with YouTube's existing caption system. Since translation isn't perfect on the speech recognition software, a feature called "auto-timing" will also allow YouTube users to submit a text file with a transcript of the video, while Google technology works out when the words are spoken and synchronises the captions to the audio. Both features are expected to be available in English by the end of this week.
O2 Ireland announced the launch of a mobile broadband service for prepay customers on Friday. O2 Prepay Broadband is available from EUR3.99 for a 24-hour pass which includes 500MB of data usage. A 30-day pass with 5GB of data usage costs EUR19.99. O2 is also allowing customers to borrow a mobile broadband modem for a 72-hour trial period to test the product before committing to a prepay pricing option.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 