NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 23 November
23-11-2009
by Emmet Ryan
Spotify to launch app for Symbian OS | Study finds staff willing to steal data
Irish motorists with iPhones can now check out the cheapest petrol prices whilst on the move. A new free iPhone application has been developed by designer Daniel Burke for petrol price comparison website Pumps.ie. The application provides information on the fuel prices available at petrol stations across the country. In other iPhone application news, the Irish Rugby Football Union has launched its first iPhone application. The app, which has been developed by Publish-i, will allow supporters to read an electronic version of the match programme for Saturday's game between Ireland and South Africa.
In more iPhone news, Apple's handset will finally arrive in the South Korean market this week. KT Corp. began accepting orders for the iPhone both online and in stores on Sunday and service will start on 28 November as part of an official launch. The announcement ends a long wait for the iPhone in South Korea, which has one of the most developed mobile markets in the world. The South Korean market is dominated by domestic manufacturers Samsung and LG. The iPhone's introduction was delayed by regulatory hurdles but the last of these were cleared last week.
Staying with mobile news, Swedish software firm Spotify has announced the launch of a music application for the Symbian mobile operating system. The OS is used by handset maker Nokia and other smartphone manufacturers, including Samsung and Sony Ericsson. Only customers who subscribe to Symbian's paying premium service will be able to download the Spotify music application onto their smartphones, the company said in a statement.
Workers are proving increasingly willing to steal sensitive data, according to a new study by security firm Cyber-Ark Data. The survey was carried out amongt 600 office workers in Canary Wharf in London and Wall Street in New York. Of those surveyed 41 percent of workers have already taken sensitive data with them to a new job, whilst a third said they would pass on company information if it proved useful in getting friends or family a job.
In other security news, ESET is warning e-mail users to be wary of the Merond worm. The worm has been around for almost a year but has become more prevalent in Ireland in recent times. E-mails containing the worm come with an attachment. The attachment is either a file or a zipped file that appears to be a .pdf, .htm or some other file, but is actually an .exe file, which, if clicked on, executes its malicious content.
Eircom has partnered with cable provider Hibernia Atlantic to provide direct fibre optic connections from Eircom's data centre in Clonshaugh to the US and Canada. The direct transatlantic cable is designed to give North American companies operating in Ireland greater cost control for connectivity by removing the need for connections via the UK or Europe to Ireland, which up to now, had been their only option.
Two NovaUCD companies, HeyStaks Technologies and RendezVu are among nine firms short listed for the 2009 David Manley Emerging Entrepreneur Awards. The awards carries a prize package worth more than EUR100,000. HeyStaks has developed a social web search platform while RendezVu has developed language learning software.
The rate of adoption of cloud computing is directly linked to levels of knowledge about cloud services, according to a report published by communications firm COLT. The research indicates that 77 percent of chief information officers who are familiar with cloud computing are either considering implementing, or have implemented, cloud computing services. The study found that overall levels of familiarity with the term are low, with 56 percent of executives surveyed saying that they are not familiar with cloud computing. The public sector ranks lowest in terms of familiarity with the service, with only 37 percent of public sector IT decision makers saying they are familiar with cloud computing.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 