Tech shorts

Today's other stories in brief

North to benefit from £48m broadband plan

A £48 million broadband infrastructure project has been announced for Northern Ireland. BT and the Northern Irish Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment are jointly funding the project, with BT investing close to £30 million and the department funding the remainder. The project will see upgrades to equipment across 166 exchanges and the introduction of new technology to increase broadband speeds across Northern Ireland over the next 18 months.

Under the terms of the contract, urban areas should receive a minimum downstream speed of 10Mb/s while rural areas will receive 2Mb/s. It is hoped that many businesses will receive speeds in excess of those benchmarks.

Will e-mail be killed by other technologies?

E-mail is in danger of losing its prominence as a communication medium as collaborative technologies and cloud computing continue to be developed, a conference organised by the Society of Information Technology Management in Northern Ireland has heard.

Erik van Ommeren, of IT services company Sogeti, told delegates that collaboration and cloud computing are a natural fit for communications in the new global business environment.

"Cloud computing and Software as a Service [ SaaS] when deployed with the newer collaborative technologies will increasingly be used as a more cost-effective and efficient approach to harnessing the power of IT," he said.

RTÉ radio digital onslaught

RTÉ is expanding its digital radio network one year after it first launched its digital radio service. Digital radio has been available to listeners in the greater Dublin area, Cork and Limerick city since last year's launch. The second stage, which aims to be completed by Christmas, extends the coverage to counties Kildare, Laois, Louth, Meath, Offaly and Westmeath. The rollout will mean that 52 per cent of the population can now access the service.

 Dingle marina and surrounds to enjoy Wi-Fi access in hotspot

Wi-Fi network operator Bitbuzz has announced the launch of an open area hotspot in Dingle, Co Kerry, the company's first such hotspot.

Bitbuzz has developed an outdoor wireless mesh solution to provide the Wi-Fi access. The project was conducted in collaboration with wireless systems integrator firm iLink.

The network will provide internet access to visitors and residents at the marina and the surrounding area in Dingle, a popular tourist destination.

Mcor 3D printers 50 times cheaper

In an article titled Cheaper 3D Printer Aimed at Schools and Small Businesses which we published on November 13th, it was stated "The Mcor system prints detailed 3D models on plain A4 paper in a way that is claimed to be 50 per cent cheaper than existing technologies." Mcor Technologies points out its technology is up to 50 times less expensive to run than rival technologies and not 50 per cent less as stated.

Norkom to supply software to CNP

Irish-listed company Norkom is to provide French insurance company CNP Assurances with financial crime and compliance software. The decision by CNP to expand its financial crime protection comes as the Third EU money laundering directive for the insurance sector comes into force. The software will enable CNP, one of the largest personal insurers in France, to detect and manage suspicious activities globally.

Google offers compromise over pay sites

Google has offered publishers a way to attract paying subscribers without having to remove their content from Google news search results, after Rupert Murdoch and others accused it of profiting from their news.

The web search giant said it would adapt its so-called First Click Free program to prompt online readers to register or subscribe to a news provider's site after reading five free articles from that publisher in a day.

Google said the update would allow publishers to focus on potential subscribers who were accessing a lot of their content regularly. - (Reuters)