Web log

By MARIE BORAN

TWiST Ireland

Technology blogger Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups, part of the extremely popular This Week In . . . tech podcast family. TWiST is coming to Ireland this September when, in association with entrepreneur consultancy firm ThousandSeeds, there will be a search for Ireland’s best and brightest start-ups. Applications close on August 20th and those entering are invited to submit a one minute elevator pitch in video or written word. The top three companies are selected to pitch live via video link to TWiST studios in Los Angeles.

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NanOlympics

See geek humour at its best from the Crann nanoscience research institute at Trinity College Dublin. Crann scientists have a lark as they go on a fictional campaign to get the “spacist” Olympics 2012 committee to permit tiny carbon nanotubes to compete in the games. “NanOlympics” supporter Clive keeps a straight face as he extols the sporty virtues of graphene, which is 200 times stronger than steel. It makes you realise how passionate these young researchers are about science.

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From cloud to concrete

If you’ve ever found a dog-eared book on a park bench or left a good read behind in a bustling cafe, then you’ll understand what Dead Drops is all about. This is a form of street art that takes file sharing from the cloud to concrete, literally. Berlin artist Aram Bartholl started this in 2010 when he cemented an empty USB stick into a public wall in New York. The idea is that people come along with their laptop and drop files or copy some; it’s peer-to-peer anonymous file-sharing but offline.

deaddrops.com/

Wireless exhibition

In the spirit of using technology to share ideas, knowledge and information, this is a fantastic free application that allows anyone to create an open wireless network and share files with passersby. Simply create a folder on your desktop with pictures, text or video you would like to share. UnCloud allows you to create an “exhibition” with this folder. Go to a cafe, launch the app and wait for people to access your exhibition. They can even leave comments. Meanwhile, the rest of your files remain protected from view.

[ www.intk.com/uncloud ]