NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 9 March
09-03-2010
by Cian Ginty
Irish firm launches iPhone payment app | Start-ups poised to create 900 jobs: EI
Dublin-based online payment services firm WorldNet said it has released what it claims is Europe's first iPhone credit card processing application. The app, named WorldNet VT, acts like a credit card terminal allowing retailers to process customers' cards. WorldNet said it is designed to work over 3G or Wi-Fi and can be used on an iPhone 3G or an iPod Touch. It added that as both Vodafone and O2 will be selling iPhones from later this month the app will have over 500,000 potential business users in Ireland and the UK. It is now available to download from the Apple App Store for EUR4.99.
Minister for Trade and Commerce, Billy Kelleher, said Enterprise Ireland supported the establishment of 73 high potential start-up companies in 2009 including 45 software and services companies. Enterprise Ireland said the companies are an integral part of the Government's blueprint for the 'smart economy' and claimed the 73 start-ups would create over 900 jobs over the next three years. High potential start-ups are defined as companies which are based on technological innovation, are likely to achieve significant growth in three years with sales of EUR1 million per annum, are export oriented, and are led by an experienced team.
Dublin- and Galway-based Digital Documents Direct (3D) and UK-based Xeretec Office Systems said they have agreed to a merger. The merged group will be named 3D Xeretec, and will become the Irish branch of the Xeretec Group. According to the company, the merger means Xeretec will be the largest document technology reseller brand in the UK and Ireland. It will be headquartered in Wokingham, England, and the Irish locations will remain open. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
E-payment provider Realex Payments said it has signed a deal with online casino and poker operator 32Red to support its card processing of its users' transactions. Realex Payments said the deal will see it providing payment processing for 32Red across a variety of products, currencies, regions and card types. In January Realex signed a similar deal with internet gaming and gambling software provider, Cryptologic.
ThinkIrish.ie, a site aimed at promoting Irish brands, has been launched by retail entrepreneur Jonathan Stanley; accountant Eamonn Freaney; Paul McArdle of The Panel; Peter Kruseman of Mindstars; and Alan Graham, a marketing executive. The group claim the online campaign will help generate 20,000 jobs if people switch EUR20 of their weekly spend to Irish goods and services. ThinkIrish.ie features what the organisers say is the first online directory of Irish products that will allow consumers search for Irish alternatives for the everyday products they buy.
Social networking site Facebook has warned users about meeting people they have met online after a sex offender was convicted in the UK of kidnapping, raping, and murdering a teenage woman he reportedly met on Facebook. The social networking website said people should use extreme caution when contacted over the internet by people they do not know, and said it echoed police advice not to meet people they've met online unless they know for certain who they are. Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman Chris Huhne criticised Facebook for not including the Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre's button on the website. The centre offers advice and allows content to be reported to UK police.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 