In Short

Today's other stories in brief

B of I upgrades web services

Bank of Ireland has introduced a range of new services for its online banking customers, following a €10 million investment.

The 650,000 registered users can now make payments to more than 40 countries, top up mobile phones, set up third- party beneficiaries and amend or cancel standing orders.

New version of Xbox for family

Microsoft has introduced a family-friendly version of its Xbox video game console which comes with five classic games and will retail for about €280.

The Xbox 360 Arcade comes with the five best-selling games from the online Xbox live service, a wireless controller and a HDMI connection for HD TVs. To achieve the lower price, it has just 256MB of memory.

Data's VMware certification

Data Electronics, the provider of technology outsourcing and managed services, has become the first hosting company in Ireland to be certified by VMware, provider of virtualisation software. It will be able to reduce the number of servers its customers use by converting physical machines into virtual machines.

Eircom backs WiFi access

Eircom has announced that its new and existing broadband customers will get six months of free access to almost 1,100 hotspots in hotels, restaurants, pubs, airports, payphones and sports grounds around the State. Existing wireless subscribers will get the six months free automatically, while other broadband users need to sign up at www.eircom.ie/hotspot.

84% e-mail is spam - report

The weekly spam report from consulting and technical services company IT Force has found that 84 per cent of e-mail in circulation last week was spam. Of the 230,250 messages received by IT Force and its clients, more than 193,500 were unsolicited commercial e-mail or spam.

Interest in data protection rises

The Irish Computer Society has seen a 10-fold increase in demand for its new certified Data Protection Practitioner course following recent revelations about data leaks.

The course, developed in consultation with the Data Protection Commissioner's office, will start in November.

IT Alliance wins €1m contract

Technology services firm IT Alliance has won a €1 million contract with Vodafone for the provision of testing services for a number of its software systems. Under the terms of the 12-month contract, a number of IT Alliance staff will be based at Vodafone's offices and will manage the testing of software systems upgrades.

Ice Broadband offers free calls

Customers of wireless broadband provider Ice Broadband in Tipperary are now being offered free phone calls.

Executive chairman Fran Rooney said: "Our customers enjoy high-quality broadband and free phone calls locally, nationally, to the UK and US. There is no catch."