IN THE PAPERS
In the papers 29 August
29-08-2007
by Sylvia Leatham
New blog exposes Ireland's bad drivers | Yahoo defends role in Chinese dissident arrests
The Irish Times says that Eircom has posted a pretax profit of EUR655 million for the 12 months to the end of June. Read the details of Eircom's results on ENN.
The paper also says that Ryanair has finalised a five-year deal with Hostelworld.com to provide accommodation offers on the airline's website, as reported by ENN on Tuesday.
The same paper reports on an international conference on suicide in Killarney, Co Kerry, where the role of the internet was discussed as a key topic. Read more on this story on ENN.
The Irish Independent says that mobile operators are preparing to undercut each others' roaming charges in a bid to attract new customers. The EU deadline for a cap on roaming charges does not come into force until the end of September, but O2, Meteor, Vodafone and Three are all bringing in their new charges this week.
The paper also reports that shares in PC maker Acer fell sharply on Tuesday, one day after the Taiwanese firm announced its plan to acquire US-based Gateway for USD710 million. The deal will make the combined company the world's third-largest vendor of personal computers, but analysts said the deal may be overpriced and Acer could be paying too much to expand its market share.
The Irish Examiner reports on the launch of a new blog aimed at chronicling the bad habits of Irish motorists, ShiteDrivers.com. "If it does something to highlight the problem of bad driving then it will have served more than its purpose," said founder Niall O'Keeffe.
According to the Financial Times, George Reyes, Google's first and only chief financial officer, is expected to retire from the internet company by the end of the year. Google said on Tuesday that Reyes had informed it of his intention to retire, but would stay on to help in the search for a successor, with an orderly transition expected by the end of December. Reyes is understood to be stepping down for personal reasons and will pursue other interests.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Yahoo has said its Chinese subsidiary had no choice but to follow local laws when it handed over private information about political dissidents that led to their imprisonment. In April, a lawsuit was filed in federal court in California on behalf of Chinese dissident Wang Xiaoning and his wife Yu Ling, alleging that Yahoo gave private information about Wang to Chinese authorities that led to his detention. In a motion to dismiss the case filed Monday, Yahoo argued that it cannot "be held liable for the independent acts of the [Chinese government] just because a former Yahoo subsidiary in China obeyed a lawful government request for the collection of evidence relevant to a pending investigation."
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 