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Green R&D; in Ireland – An Overview
Green Energy in Ireland With so much happening in the green-energy research field in our third-level institutions, Ireland is genuinely staking its claim as the home for green tech. Carmel Doyle reports With the race on to progress Ireland’s green-energy portfolio to meet our 2020 energy targets and to create a cleaner, smarter economy. An increasing array of researchers in universities and institutes of technology (ITs) around the island are focusing on the renewable energy space to harness Ireland’s wave, wind, solar and bioenergy resources. Professor Fionn Murtagh, director of information, communications and emergent technologies at Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) , says there is a lot of awareness of the potential of green-energy research…
Read MoreSmartphones to Account for 50pc of All Mobiles Sold in 2010
Despite declining mobile handsets sales in 2009, smartphones continue to represent the fastest-growing and most profitable segment of the mobile handset market. Volume sales were to grow by 33.5pc year-on-year in 2009 and by 36pc in 2010, said Informa Telecoms & Media. However, the importance of the smart-phone segment is underlined by the fact that, although they will only account for 27pc of the total number of handsets sold in 2010, they will represent more than half (55pc) of the value of the total mobile handset market. Beyond that, they will account for almost two thirds (64pc) of the market in terms of profitability. “The strong volume growth rate and high…
Read MoreSocial Network for Guitar Lovers Goes Live
Update: Currently the DBTwang website is no longer online. A new online social network aimed at guitar lovers and collectors has gone live. DBTwang seeks to become the world’s largest online guitar database where collectors and guitar fans globally can interact, but also protect their guitars and share their history. By logging onto dbtwang, guitar lovers can view individual profiles of guitars with details of their history and an online guitar photo gallery where they can show off their prized possessions and check out what other collectors have. Users also can ‘follow a guitar’ and converse with its owner. The website so far registered over 1,000 guitar enthusiasts. The majority…
Read MoreWireless Wonderland For Irish Business
The coming year will see businesses across Ireland embrace the wireless broadband revolution, but issues of security still need to be addressed. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock or are a total technophobe, the importance of broadband to your business, from the point of view of using the internet to sell goods, provide information to customers and spot market opportunities, cannot have gone unnoticed. The problem, however, for Ireland is twofold. In the first instance, not all firms that are aware of the power of online communications have been adequately served with internet services, and those that want high-speed service often cannot get it for reasons of geography. Secondly,…
Read MoreYouTube Ad Yields Irish Nightclub 867,000 Hits
The first business in Ireland to make use of the pre-roll format of advertising on YouTube has achieved more than 867,000-page impressions – smashing the previous record held by Libertas during the Lisbon Treaty Referendum campaign. Pre-rolls are 20-second commercials that run before the viewer sees their selected video. The format has performed exceptionally well to date outside the Irish market, especially in the UK and the US. However, this is the first time it has been activated in Ireland. The new format was used first in Ireland by new Temple Bar club venue Alchemy, and it has broken records in the new media space with its launch campaign in…
Read MoreSchools to Close as Teachers Vote for Industrial Action
Irish Teachers Are Important To The Next Generation ASTI – Protect Education Standards in Ireland Both primary and secondary schools across Ireland will close on 24 November after teachers from the three primary teachers’ unions voted in favor of industrial action in protest over potential public-sector pay cuts in the upcoming December Budget. The result was announced by the ASTI, INTO, and TUI trade unions shortly before lunchtime today, and the news was not well received by teachers. Many are looking for other options, including expanding their own education, in order to help make ends meet in their own homes, as well as being a more valued asset in the community. This includes…
Read MoreNAMA delayed by at least two months, says Fine Gael
The Government’s National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) may be delayed by at least two months as EU Commission approval is required before the new agency can go ahead, Fine Gael said today. The Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan TD confirmed to the Seanad today that EU Commission approval is still required before NAMA can start up its operations. This will cause a lengthy delay of at least two months before NAMA is up and running, according to Fine Gael Seanad Justice Spokesperson, Senator Eugene Regan. Regan also said that not only had the Minister confirmed that the NAMA Bill must be formally approved by the Commission, so too must the…
Read MoreE-commerce Benefiting From Economic Crisis, Says Expert Report From OECD
While the Irish and global retail sector is being pulverized by the ongoing recession, a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that e-commerce has fared well during the economic crisis and has seen continuing growth in many countries. According to the ‘ Empowering Consumers in E-Commerce ’ report, part of the reason for the improved fortunes of e-commerce is that as consumers have become more cost-conscious, they are increasingly going online to compare products and save money. In the US, for example, while most sectors were experiencing a downturn in the first quarter of 2009, online retail sales for 80 retailers rose by an average of 11pc. Similarly, the French electronic commerce and distance selling…
Read MoreMark Little Announces One-Year Leave of Absence: Key Details
RTÉ Prime Time presenter, Mark Little, has announced he will take a year’s leave of absence to pursue a project combining digital media and global journalism. His leave of absence will begin in the New Year. In a statement issued today, Little said the rise of social media platforms like Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook provides journalists an opportunity to change how they report the world. “I would like to take a more direct role in that transformation,” he said. “Unfortunately, that means taking a break from my work with Miriam and the Prime Time team, who have been like a family to me. In particular, I would like to mention…
Read MoreElan/Biogen announce Tysabri’s use in cutting Crohn’s hospitalisations
Irish pharmaceutical firm Elan and its US partner Biogen have today announced that their multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri has been shown to significantly reduce the rate of hospitalisation in patients with moderate-to-severe Crohn’s disease. The data was presented at an oral session at the American College of Gastroenterology Annual Scientific Meeting in San Diego. “Hospitalisation accounts for a large proportion of the cost of Crohn’s disease management,” said Corey Siegel MD, director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Centre, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Centre in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and lead author of the analysis. “Therefore, we were encouraged to see that Tysabri reduced hospitalisation rates, particularly in the more difficult-to-treat subsets of patients…
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