NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 8 February
08-02-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Boston Scientific cuts Galway jobs | AIB to refund customers after 'error'
Boston Scientific has announced that it plans to cut its Galway workforce by up to 175 positions, reports RTE. The medical devices firm, which employs approximately 3,000 people in Galway, said it remains strongly committed to its operations in Ireland. Last June Boston Scientific announced a EUR91 million investment in Galway, creating 45 jobs, followed a month later by a EUR21.7 million investment at its Cork facility.
AIB has said it will have to refund an estimated EUR4 million to around 40,000 customers. The bank said it had "identified an error in relation to the classification of some customers' accounts resulting in incorrect charges being applied". Some accounts were incorrectly categorised as business or personal. "This incorrect classification may have arisen over a number of years and could result in incorrect fees and charges and/or interest being applied to customer accounts," AIB said in a statement. The bank has begun writing to potentially impacted customers and will contact all impacted customers about the matter before 31 December 2010.
Vodafone and Samsung have launched the Samsung Blue Earth "eco-friendly" mobile phone on the Irish market. The handset has a touch-screen design, low energy consumption and solar panel charging. The body of the handset is made from recycled plastic bottles. Users can turn on an 'Eco mode' to set screen brightness, backlight duration and Bluetooth to an energy-efficient mode, and an 'Eco walk' function allows users to see the number of trees that have been saved by walking instead of driving. The phone costs EUR79.99 on postpay and EUR259.99 on prepay.
Photocopier and document management giant Xerox has completed the acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services, a business process outsourcing (BPO) firm. ACS will initially be branded 'ACS, A Xerox Company'. It will continue to be led by Lynn Blodgett, who has been elected by the Xerox board of directors as an executive vice president of the corporation. Blodgett will report to Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox. The deal, valued at USD6.4 billion, was first announced last September.
Almost one-third of computer users with up-to-date antivirus software are still infected with malware, according to a study by UK security firm SurfRight of over 100,000 of its customers. Over three-quarters of users had an up-to-date antivirus program installed, but 32 percent of those were found to be infected with malware. "Our research shows that traditional antivirus software cannot keep up with cybercriminals. Despite all their efforts, it is often days or even weeks before some suppliers of antivirus programs release a solution to a new threat," said Mark Loman, founder and CEO of SurfRight. The company advised users to scan their PC regularly using a different security vendor to their regular one, to gain a second opinion.
Staying with security news, online daters have been warned about the risks of identity theft and scams when using the internet to look for love. UK security firm BitDefender said online users should be "extremely careful" when signing up with online dating sites. It advises online daters to only use sites with explicit privacy policies, to supply as little information as possible and to use a nickname or alias instead of a real name. Another precaution is to use an alternative e-mail account, and not to reveal sensitive private data such as home or work addresses or phone numbers.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 