IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 5 August
05-08-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
UPC grows Irish customer base | Say hello, Wave goodbye: Google
The Irish Times reports that the Garda identity parade may be replaced with a system of video images accessible by computer. The proposed change is contained in the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which will be considered by the Dail after the summer recess. The plan was approved at a recent Cabinet meeting which backed Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern's proposal to provide a statutory basis for video identification. The system would involved recording an image of a suspect and then showing it to a witness along with other images of persons who resemble the suspect, drawn from a large database of such images.
The paper also says that Facebook has been asked to remove photographs of daredevil stunts at the Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare amid fears they could encourage visitors to attempt similar feats. The administrators of the Facebook page, who claim it was set up for fans of the Cliffs of Moher, have been criticised for displaying photographs of people hanging over the 700ft cliffs, while other pictures show visitors walking and cycling along a narrow ledge. Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience director Katherine Webster said: "I believe that there is a lot of confusion among Facebook users and some of the fans of the other page have connected to it mistaking it for the official page of the visitor centre."
The Irish Independent says that Carphone Warehouse is to be the title sponsor of The Appys, an awards programme for mobile application development and design. For more details on the awards, go to www.theappys.ie.
The paper also notes the launch of Eightytwenty/Interactive, a marketing agency focused on providing "experiential" advertising to consumers. The company is the brainchild of PR professional David O'Leary and was born out of the firms Pareto 3D, Sector 7 Branded Entertainment and Eighty:Twenty. "We run the business on social media marketing, digital marketing strategy and design, and experiential marketing," said O'Leary. "Experiential marketing is not necessarily a term that was in use ten years ago but the advent of Facebook and Twitter and so on has made it essential to successful campaigns."
The Irish Examiner reports that a crackdown on an internet banking fraud gang saw Gardai seize computers and documents at a Meath home. Six people were arrested in London by British police, including one man with an address in Navan, Meath. A follow-up search by Gardai at his home saw members of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation seize computer equipment as well as documents. The crime gang are suspected of stealing up to STG3 million by ripping off personal banking details. Banking sources confirmed the raid had found no evidence of customers of Irish banks robbed of their money.
The paper also reports that cable TV provider UPC saw its Irish customer base rise 8 percent to 742,400 in the second quarter, compared with a year earlier. UPC said its broadband customer base in Ireland increased 40 percent to 170,000 in the quarter. The company has 78,000 phone customers in Ireland and its digital TV subscriber numbers increased 12 percent year-on-year to over 366,000 in the quarter.
According to the Financial Times, internet firm AOL posted a big loss in the second quarter after taking a USD1.4 billion goodwill impairment charge. The impairment charge was related to a gain in the deferred tax asset from the sale of the Bebo social networking site and a drop in its stock price. AOL posted a second-quarter net loss of USD1.05 billion, or USD9.89 per share, compared to a net profit of USD90.7 million, or USD0.86 per share, a year earlier. Excluding the charge, AOL's profit would have been USD0.66 a share. Revenue fell 26 percent to USD584.1 million, on the back of a 27 percent decline in advertising revenue and subscription fees from its dial-up internet service.
The paper also says that Google is putting an end to its ambitious Wave project, an online collaboration service that it once hailed as a potential replacement for e-mail. The service, launched a year ago, will be closed at the end of this year, although the technology behind it could be used in future Google projects, the company said. "Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked," said Urs Holzle, lead Wave developer, in a blog post announcing the closure. The service was deemed too complicated by many users.
The Wall Street Journal reports that chip giant Intel has agreed to a series of restrictions as part of an antitrust settlement with US regulators. The US Federal Trade Commission said the settlement prohibits Intel from using threats, bundled prices, discounts or other tactics to deter computer makers from buying chips from competitors. The settlement also covers graphics processing units and chip sets. The settlement also prohibits Intel from modifying its chips or manipulating benchmark tests in ways that hurt the performance of competing products, or from deceiving computer manufacturers about the performance of non-Intel products.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 