IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 6 October
06-10-2010
by Deirdre McArdle
UCC agrees to trial maths bonus points | Google refutes Oracle patent claims
The Irish Times reports the Government has had "no serious offers" to buy the 7,000 unused e-voting machines it purchased for EUR50 million eight years ago. The Department of the Environment has had about 20 expressions of interest about salvaging the equipment or putting it to alternative use, including from the Departments of Education and Social Protection; however, officials concluded the equipment was unlikely to be suitable for the purposes they had in mind. The Government will soon put out a tender seeking formal expressions of interest. Privately, officials are not hopeful of recouping a significant amount on the machines.
The paper also says that Nokia Ireland recorded profit before tax of EUR4.79 million in 2009, compared to EUR11.15 million a year previously, a decline of over 57 percent. There was a sharp rise in administrative expenses to EUR9.43 million in 2009, up 37 percent over the 12 months. Turnover for the year was EUR246.13 million, down 9 percent from the EUR270.89 million recorded in 2008.
The Irish Independent reports University College Cork (UCC) yesterday gave its conditional consent to the introduction of bonus points for higher level maths. The five other universities and the Institutes of Technology have already given their backing to the scheme, while a formal announcement is awaited from National University of Galway. UCC said that it would introduce bonus points on a two-year trial, while both University College Dublin (UCD) and National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM) have proposed a four year trial.
According to the same paper, Acision, whose technology is used by mobile operators to deliver almost a trillion text messages a year and which is part-owned by billionaires Dermot Desmond and Denis O'Brien, has raised USD100 million of new funding from its shareholders. Many of UK-based Acision's, management and shareholders are Irish, including chairman Larry Quinn and Atlantic Bridge backers Denis O'Brien, Bill McCabe, former Microsoft Ireland boss Kevin Dillon and former Goldman Sachs executive Paul Harvey. The company said the bulk of the capital would be used to fund acquisitions, partnerships, and capital expenditure agreements.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Toshiba plans to launch tablet devices in the US, Japan and elsewhere early next year, a top Toshiba engineer said in an interview. Last month Toshiba unveiled its Android-based Folio 100 tablet at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, saying it will be launched in Europe, the Middle East and Africa by the end of this year. Toshiba is the world's fifth largest maker of laptops as of the April-June quarter, according to research firm IDC, and said it aims to become a major player in the rapidly growing tablet market which has so far been dominated by Apple's iPad. Toshiba's new tablets, to be released globally early next year, are expected to run on Android, though details are yet to be finalised.
The paper also says Google has fired back at Oracle, denying that the Android operating system infringes Oracle's patents and copyrights and accusing the software giant of attacking the open-source licensing policies it used to support. Google has asked the US District Court for the Northern District of California to dismiss Oracle's lawsuit, filed in August, and also asked the judge to declare the patents in question invalid. Oracle has accused Google on seven counts of patent infringement and one count of copyright infringement associated with Java.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 