Parthus `close' to GPRS solution

Irish computer chip designer Parthus is close to solving a problem that has stalled its rollout of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), the next generation of wireless technology. At the announcement of a 68 per cent annual increase in revenues last week, the company's chief executive Brian Long hinted the last hurdle - battery power - would hopefully be overcome later this year. GPRS allows high-speed Internet access via mobile phone; unfortunately, it also uses battery power at a similar rate. If Parthus' engineers can solve this dilemma, the company will truly enter the big league.

Elsewhere in the Irish technology sector, there was more gloom with the announcement that Internet Consultancy firm Nua was to lay off one-third of its workforce. The company hopes the 22 lay-offs will be temporary in the event of orders being placed in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, computer-maker Gateway said it was shedding 132 jobs at its Dublin plant and more cuts were planned. The company issued a profit warning on January 12th and said it would cut 10 per cent of its workforce worldwide. The job cuts are as a result of slowing computer sales.

Aol change: AOL Time Warner is reported to be shedding more than 2,400 jobs, or 3 per cent of its workforce, in several other sectors. The cuts are reported to be in the music and film sector, and in the online division AOL. The cuts are designed to boost earnings as promised to investors before the merger between AOL and Time Warner.

Copyrights: The European Parliament will vote tomorrow on amendments to a directive governing copyright laws in the EU. Music industry lobbyists have been trying to ensure that any new law will limit music swapping on the Internet to personal use only. The music industry says the directive's current wording is too vague and should incorporate more specific language in order to discourage Napster-like sharing of songs among a large group of people.

Ya-sue!: Nazi concentration camp survivors are suing search engine Yahoo! and accusing it of justifying Nazi crimes. The survivors' lawyer said Yahoo! had promoted Nazi war crimes and crimes against humanity by selling Nazi relics on its auction site. Yahoo! introduced a system several weeks ago to stop the auctioning of Nazi relics after it was put under pressure by a French court.

Rats are us: It has been reported that a new system is being tested in the US which will use websites and freephone numbers to give anonymity to students who wish to report fellow-students they consider to be dangerous or potentially violent. The system aims to pre-empt high school shooting incidents and arises out of an increasing belief in the US that the Internet is turning normal kids into killers. The system is being tested in North Carolina and it may be introduced across America soon.

What's up doc?: A new service linking the State's doctors on the Web is to begin this Thursday. Doctor-Doctor will inform members of urgent issues affecting their daily clinical practice, including drug withdrawals and vaccine recommendations. The service will initially be available on the Web at www.d2d.ie and will also feature e-mail alerts and WAP and SMS services in the near future.

Ireland.com traffic increases: The Irish Times's website ireland.com has recorded an increase of over 73 per cent in traffic in the 12 months from October 1999 to October 2000, according to ABC Electronic audit figures. The site recorded 17.8 million page impressions and the number of individual users increased from 620,000 in October 1999 to 1.3 million in October 2000. This represents an increase of over 100 per cent.

In brief... Newry-based firm First Derivatives won the Deloitte & Touche Technology Fast 50 awards last Thursday. . . An Irish Delegation will travel to the US this week to meet with policy-makers, regulators and blue-chip US technology companies in a US/Ireland e-commerce forum. . .

British-born academic M. Stuart Lynn has been appointed chief executive of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). . . Hackers blocked access to several websites owned by Microsoft with a "denial-of-service attack" on Thursday, one day after an internal error blocked access to the software giant's sites. . .