IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 8 December
08-12-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Facebook to create new Dublin jobs | BoI suffers ATM glitches
The Irish Times reports that social network Facebook is to create 100 jobs at its Dublin base next year. Facebook will grow staff numbers at its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) headquarters in Dublin by one-third over the next year, a spokeswoman for the company said. The company currently employs 200 people in Dublin, working in advertising, multilingual sales support, finance, human resources, user operations and development. It is understood the new positions will be gradually created across these areas over the coming 12 months.
The paper also says that Caribbean mobile operator Digicel has completed a USD300 million corporate bond offering. The transaction by Digicel Ltd was a reopening of the 8.25 percent senior notes due in 2017. These were first issued in December 2009. Colm Delves, Digicel Group chief executive, said: "The funds will be partly used to fund further expansion in Haiti where we have achieved good year-on-year growth."
The paper also notes that staff at Andor Technology have received a bonus of two months' salary on the back of a record year for the business. Latest financial results show the Belfast firm enjoyed one of the best financial performances of its 21-year history in the 12 months to September 2010. The company, which manufactures high-performance scientific digital cameras, increased its adjusted pretax profits by 50 percent to a high of STG7.1 million in the period. Andor's decision to share its success with staff represented a STG1 million bonus pool for its workforce.
The paper also says that Newry entrepreneur Brian Conlon has raised STG3.6 million by selling shares in First Derivatives, the specialist financial software consulting company he founded 14 years ago. In a regulatory statement to the London Stock Exchange, the board of First Derivatives confirmed that Conlon sold 869,706 ordinary shares, which represent approximately 5.5 percent of the company's issued share capital.
The paper also says that the ranking of Irish students in literacy and maths has fallen dramatically in the latest OECD survey. On reading levels, Ireland has slipped from fifth place in 2000 to 17th place, the sharpest decline among 39 countries surveyed. In maths, Ireland has fallen from 16th to 26th place, the second steepest decline among participating countries. Ireland is now ranked as below average in maths. The Department of Education said it was surprised by the alarming decline in literacy standards. It said a comparative analysis of Junior Cert papers over the past decade had revealed no sharp decline in academic standards.
The Irish Independent has a similar but separate story. The paper says an explosion of televisions and games consoles in Irish children's bedrooms has gone hand-in-hand with a decline in reading standards. By the age of 12, more than six in 10 children have a television in their bedroom, and the figure rises when they move into their teens, according to research from the Educational Research Centre (ERC) in Drumcondra, Dublin. Another study found that more than one-third of nine-year-olds had a video games console in their bedroom in 2009. The more likely a child is to have a TV in the bedroom, the less likely the house is to have a supply of books. Research shows that watching a lot of television is likely to affect children's performance in school.
The paper also reports that bets placed over the internet will be hit with a 1 percent betting tax from next year. The Government expects the additional tax could eventually generate as much as EUR20 million a year for the Exchequer.
The same paper says that hundreds of people queued at Bank of Ireland ATMs around the country on Tuesday after the machines started dispensing cash people did not have in their accounts. BoI spokeswoman Mary Brennan confirmed people had been able to withdraw more money than they had in their accounts. She warned the customers would be "liable" for the extra cash they took out but added that BoI hadn't decided how it would go about recovering the money. Earlier, the bank was forced to apologise after a separate technical problem meant customers were unable to withdraw cash on their ATM cards.
The Financial Times reports that sales of Microsoft's Xbox games console are rapidly overtaking those of the Nintendo Wii, boosted by the new motion-sensing Kinect controller, according to analysts. Ahead of official figures on Thursday from the NPD research firm, analysts at Wedbush Morgan Securities expect sales of 1.075 million Xbox 360 consoles in November, up 31 percent on a year ago, compared with 975,000 Wii sales, down 23 percent. They expect 650,000 Sony PlayStation 3 units sold, down 8 percent year-on-year.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google has demonstrated the first laptops running on the company's upcoming Chrome operating system. The computers use operating system software that is based largely on Google's Chrome Web browser. The laptops are designed primarily to run web-based applications. The Chrome OS devices boot up in a matter of seconds, but they will have limited capability when users aren't online. "We're delivering nothing but the web," said Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president who led the Chrome team, at a launch event in San Francisco.
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