NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 22 January
22-01-2010
by Deirdre McArdle
Irish broadband speeds not up to scratch | China slams US net freedom stance
Irish broadband connections now account for 90 percent of internet connections, according to a broadband benchmarking report released by Forfas. Ireland has 21.4 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants, compared to the OECD average of 22.4 (this figure does not include mobile broadband and countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, which have very high penetration rates). The report found that although Ireland's broadband speeds have improved, they still lag behind other OECD countries. For example, just 0.6 percent of total broadband connections in Ireland are fibre connections, compared to an average of 11.3 percent in the OECD. In order to get Ireland up to speed, so to speak, Forfas has made a number of recommendations including progressing the use of public ducting and other infrastructure for the rollout of fibre broadband, upgrading the MANs in Cork and Waterford, and building new MANs in the outstanding National Spatial Strategy centres.
Online payment giant PayPal has said it will create up to 100 new jobs at its Blanchardstown, Dublin facility. The jobs will be primarily in the area of customer service and operations. PayPal currently employs 1,100 staff in Dublin, up from 25 when it first established its EMEA headquarters there in 2003. The new jobs come on top of a further 150 positions created by PayPal last year. Uwe Heddendorp, vice president of PayPal's European operations, paid tribute to the workers at the site. "It is a great testament to the team here in Dublin that we are able to announce the creation of further jobs at PayPal. Our European business continues to grow and I am proud to be able to once again support Irish job creation."
E-learning start-up RendezVu, which is basd in NovaUCD, has won the 2009 David Manley Emerging Entrepreneur Award. Founded in 2008 by Paul Groarke and Garrett Hussey, both ex-Baltimore Technologies employees, RendezVu has developed a next generation learning platform to provide immersive education for languages and other subjects using virtual world and gaming technologies. RendezVu's prize for winning the award is EUR10,000 in cash and over EUR100,000 worth of mentoring and consultancy services from blue chip companies.
Microsoft on Thursday released a security update to patch what industry reports are now calling the "Google hole", as well as seven other flaws. In all, the patch resolves eight vulnerabilities, and has been rated "critical" by Microsoft. As with Microsoft's regular monthly security bulletin, the update will automatically download when a user reboots their computer. For manual updating, Microsoft is directing users to its website. For more information on the patch, click here.
The Chinese government has hit back at US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a speech she made about internet freedom on Thursday in Washington. In her speech Clinton said that the US is to make free access to the internet a foreign-policy priority. "Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world's networks... They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world." Clinton urged US media companies to "take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance". While she didn't mention China specifically, she did say that Washington expects China to investigate Google's charges that recent cyber attacks were made from China. The Chinese government responded saying that the insinuation that China restricts internet freedom "is harmful to China-US relations". Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said: "We urge the US to respect the facts and cease using so-called internet freedom to make groundless accusations against China."
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 