More than 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, 500 years of video watched on Facebook every day, and more than 700 YouTube videos shared on Twitter each minute, ensuring there is always video trending on the web.

With so much video available for viewing, we take a look at some of the viral videos that have caught our eye this week.

A Facebook update in real life

You know when Facebook up and changes everything on you one day and you just have to get used to it even though it’s terribly annoying and you already liked things as they were? Well, imagine what it would be like if Facebook could do that to your life offline. Bloody nightmare.

Uploaded: 11 May 2013

Australian reporter is pranked

Anchorman has taught us many things, but first and foremost is how to prank a newsreader. This Australian reporter fell for the old reading-anything-that’s-on-the-autocue trick while covering Chelsea FC’s Europa League title win in Amsterdam earlier this week.

Uploaded: 15 May 2013

Neosignal – Planet Online

This music video for ‘Neosignal’s ‘Planet Online’ imagines what it would be like if the internet was actually a range of children’s toys. Though the video delves into the seedier side of the world-wide web towards the end (not suitable for younger viewers), I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want a go of that Grumpy Cat racing game.

Uploaded: 15 May 2013

Deer Fare

Driving through Johnstown, Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening this CamTran bus driver picked up an unexpected guest when a white-tailed deer came smashing through the front windscreen. The driver – keeping exceptionally calm – slowed to a stop and opened the bus doors to let the joyriding deer loose and, reportedly, it walked away unscathed.

Uploaded: 15 May 2013

Scared kitten goes crazy!

From one alarmed animal to another. This little kitty was so interested in one lizard that he completely forgot about the other scaly lad next to him. But the reptile wasn’t to be ignored for long!

Uploaded: 7 May 2013

Labour pain simulation

To mark Mother’s Day in the US last Sunday, two rather foolhardy gentlemen thought it would be wise to test women’s ‘exaggerated’ claims of the pain experienced during childbirth. This Vimeo upload clocked up over 1m views in less than a week as eager viewers tuned in to watch them squirm.

Uploaded: 10 May 2013

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Secondary school teacher Luke Saunders is behind Studyclix. He has worked with a university friend Keith Wright, a web developer, to develop the website over the past four years.

A beta version of Studyclix was launched at the ASTI teacher convention in April of last year. Since then, Saunders says the number of users on the site has grown rapidly, with 136,000 unique visitors having visited Studyclix during the past 12 months.

He says that the site is also proving to be popular with teachers, with more than 3,500 post-primary teachers now using Studyclix as part of their daily teaching.

Study resources

On Studyclix, more than 40 Junior and Leaving Cert subjects are divided up into topics. For instance, if students are studying the Renaissance in History, Saunders says that Studyclix will give them access to all the past exam questions, marking schemes as well as relevant learning resources such as videos, notes and websites on that topic.

"Students can access all past exam questions, as well as marking schemes, sample answers, videos and free study notes," he says.

Having started teaching six years ago, Saunders says he came up with the idea for Studyclix after noticing how little the classroom had changed since he had sat his Leaving Cert.

"Studyclix.ie came form my desire to build a learning community that would make the lives of teachers and students easier."

The website is free for students to access some material, but there is a €20 fee if they want to upgrade to access all of the site's information.

This is a once-off payment of €20, which coves all of the subjects for one year, according to Saunders.

He claims that the site is popular when you compare it with the cost of grinds and revision courses. The site is free for teachers to use.

Daily users

Saunders says that there are more than 3,000 students who are daily users of Studyclix and he expects this figure to rise in the run-up to the exams in June.

As for the plans for Studyclix, Saunders and Wright are working away on the next version of the website.

"It will offer users increased interactivity and leverage rich media learning sources that are now available," explains Saunders.

They are also hoping to break into the UK marketplace to attract a share of its some 3.5m second-level student population.

“It was possible to send pins before, through e-mail, but we’ve made it even easier,” software engineer Sunny Rochiramani wrote on the Pinterest Blog.

Pinterest users can now send ‘pins’ (images) directly to friends and fellow Pinterest users from the web or smartphones, along with a message.

“Just tap Send from either web or mobile to send a pin,” Rochiramani wrote.

“You can send pins to fellow pinners (if you both follow each other), Facebook friends, or email contacts. We’ll show you the most recent people you’ve sent pins to for easy access.”

The recipient of the pin will see it in his or her notifications or in his or her email. If he or she repins, likes or comments on the image, the sender will receive a notification, as well.

This new feature will be rolled out over the next few weeks, according to Rochiramani.

The digital showcase at the Mansion House is taking place to coincide with the Open Innovation 2.0 conference that will run at Dublin Castle next Monday and Tuesday.

At the event, more than 20 new innovations will be on display so that people can interact with these new technologies.

The showcase will be broken into zones covering innovations for the home, work, schools, city, environment and garden. Each zone will include demonstrations displaying the innovation taking place in Ireland and internationally.

One of the big attractions is set to be a LEGO workshop at the forecourt of the Mansion House so that people of all ages can build their vision of the Dublin of the future. These 'Build The Change' LEGO workshops have already taken places in 10 European cities.

There will also be a giant interactive social media wall to allow people view and interact with social media commentary on the event and share ideas on how Dublin can engage more with digital technology.

Lord Mayor of Dublin Naoise Ó Muirí said that the event will allow people to experience how technology will affect them.

Some of the projects that will be on display will include the 'Behavioural Prediction' initiative that is being developed by Intel, ESB Networks, SAP and M2C.

The aim of the project is to predict a person's daily behaviour by analysing available data. There will be a demo showing how such predictions can be used to set a person's alarm clock, open and heat their car in the morning and set timings to switch on lights just before they arrive home in the evening.

Another demo that will be on display is CityWatch. Developed by Dublin City Council, Intel and Trinity College Dublin, the goal of the project is to allow citizens interact on issues such as making sure public services meet their needs and helping cities become more sustainable. It's all about using the power of the crowd to turn citizens into 'reporters' and to strive for a greener Dublin.

Other demonstrations will include a solution to predict which rooms are most frequently used in a home in order to heat or cool these rooms when needed and reduce energy bills.

There will also be an Irish developed solar-powered device on display. This device is targeted at teachers to allow them monitor temperatures and humidity levels in classrooms.

The showcase will kick off at 12pm on Monday, 20 May and will finish up on Tuesday afternoon at 5pm.

If you think back to 2003 there was a national disconnect when it came to the relevance of broadband, then a nascent enough technology before the advent of Facebook and YouTube and smartphone devices which have gone on to take over our lives.

Lack of understanding led to lack of imagination or inspiration. Hence no vision. The joke at the time was that politicians thought broadband was a 1970s showband and even esteemed telecoms regulators opined that the average citizen would never require more than 1Mbps or 2Mbps.

Zoom forward to now and the harsh reality is that if you don't have an internet connection you won’t be able to apply for a job in today’s economy, pay your motor tax online or make video calls to your farthest yet dearest via Skype to Australia. Companies like Apple and Amazon won’t employ Irish people to work from home in today’s economy unless than have at least 10Mbps connectivity and Irish firms’ ability to export depends on being able to transact and communicate at an equivalent level to their counterparts in Asia and the US.

Dithering and delay tactics during the boom years meant that little or no investment in fibre occurred when the nation had the cash (very few schools were built either) and the investment instead had to be made during straitened times.

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said as much during a visit to Ireland, and was scathing about the broadband mess Ireland found itself in. Schmidt said at the time: "You are behind on fibre to the home and you guys are late with respect to 4G rollout. France, Germany and the UK are already ahead of Ireland with respect to citizens and businesses connected to the internet. You just need to do it.

“There are many things that the Government can do, but the thing is it is hard to work with telecoms providers to get more broadband. But these are the roads of the future. There are very few things that are better use of your money that serves the citizens of your country."

The consensus view of organisations such as the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) - two of the world’s most reputable economically-focused intergovernmental bodies - is that faster broadband and specifically fibre optic networks are a very good thing for any economy.

One recent World Bank study of 120 countries found that for “every 10-percentage-point increase in penetrations of broadband services, there is an increase in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points.” Other research by McKinsey & Company similarly concluded a 10 per cent increase in broadband household penetration produces a rise of 0.1 to 1.4 per cent in GDP growth.

Booz & Company meanwhile suggested countries that have higher broadband penetration rates have achieved up to two per cent higher GDP growth than those with lower penetration rates.

A new dawn

Eircom is past the first hurdle on its €1.5bn plan to connect 1.2m homes to fibre by the end of 2014 with 300,000 or so homes now capable of being served with speeds of up to 70Mbps. Cable broadband provider UPC recently passed the 1m customer milestone and can serve 41pc of homes in Ireland with speeds of up to 150Mbps.

In the ensuing months 4G mobile broadband speeds will arrive enable computer and smartphone users to achieve wireless speeds theoretically up to 70Mbps in 70pc of populated areas across the land.

So things are finally looking good, right? Not necessarily.

Ireland Offline chairman Eamon Wallace argues that it would be dangerous to think that this progress can mean we can rest on our laurels. He also believes we need to avoid making the mistakes of the past in relying too heavily on wireless 3G connectivity to join the dots.

Wallace says Ireland should look at the example of Finland which declared internet access to be a legal right, enforcing telecoms operators to actually provide services rather than use “best effort” regulations to allow digital divides to emerge.

“Now that the excitement of the ‘eFibre’ launch is over we can see the launch of fast broadband has demonstrated the latent demand for decent broadband across the State. VDSL is delivered via fibre to the cabinet and finally copper to the user. VDSL is merely an interim step to what should be our ultimate goal: fibre to the home.

“The launch mostly touches on urban and semi-urban areas. Do we abandon rural users to their fate of being ‘not economically viable?’ If we were to undertake the electricity rollout of the last century would that have been abandoned partway through as ‘not economically viable?’

“We should learn from the lessons learnt in our countries most notably Finland and Estonia.”

One of the key issues is that Ireland will have to rely on European structural funds to deliver next generation infrastrcuture where telecoms operators fear to thread - aka where there is no business case for them to do so.

But the problem is the European Union’s decision in February to chop €7bn off the €9.2bn earmarked to meet the Digital Agenda goals of 100Mbps for half of Europe could impact on countries' ability to deliver on these targets in rural areas. European broadband projects had been counting on the €9.2bn digital part of the Connecting Europe Facility.

Wallace argues that Ireland's policymakers should be making use of the fact that currently experts employed by Eircom and other operators who are in the country right now to help implement the current fibre rollouts should be consulted to evaluate how the last 400,000 homes can be reached by fibre in a cost-effective, but technologically future-proofed way.

“The National Broadband Plan (NBS) should be to deliver fibre to X kms of every citizen (X = 10km/20km) and fixed wireless or other (better) technologies for the last kilometers if we are to approach the Digital Agenda for Europe obligations,” Wallace said.

He said that it is being increasingly whispered that the balance of the population can be served, in data terms, via 3G/4G LTE, that is, by an ‘over the air’ mobile wireless technology.

“Mobile is simply not suitable(for a number of technical reasons) to deliver the stated objective of a guaranteed 30Mbps to every citizen. Most of the country is too densely populated ( even in rural areas) for 4G to deliver reliable data communications. There is a built-in decrease in throughput as simultaneous connections multiply.

“The NBS ‘experiment’ shows that it's impossible to guarantee even 3Mbps, or even a reliable data connection, on mobile. The only areas suitable for 4G are probably remote valleys, National Parks and small islands offshore where the population density is low. Even then topography may limit the effectiveness.

However Fixed Wireless can deliver a minimum 10Mbps and much more cheaply than 3G/4G and 30Mbps more expensively and that only with a 60GB to 120GB data cap to customers that are out of reach of fibre,” he said.

It has been argued in the past that if Europe failed to invest in fibre it faces the danger of becoming an economic back water. Ireland worked very hard to shed that particular tag over the years.

Luckily, in Ireland's case, lack of vision and understanding has been replaced by a genuine effort to provide the country with the infrastructure it needs to be an economic force. And the achievement yesterday by Eircom in getting this far has to be given its fair dues.

But Wallace is absolutely right. We can't enable some communities and leave others behind. The time for experimentation is over and we have to work with what we know will work.

The digital age is an age of promise and every household and business no matter where they are located deserves to be able to participate. And it calls to mind the economic philosophy of Sean Lemass: "A rising tide lifts all boats."

Road ahead image via Shutterstock

So the dust has settled a little and we may hope that a new era in broadband provision will begin in Ireland, whereby the kind of speeds that are taken for granted in most civilised countries will be available in more places in Ireland than simply large towns and cities.

Eircom’s fibre plan involves an investment of more than €1bn and will in turn enable other operators to use the network to sell services to consumers and businesses.

The first phase, which went live yesterday, will serve about 300,000 homes, rising to 1.2m homes by the end of 2014.

Eircom's eFibre will offer download speeds of up to 70Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps. The service will start at €40 for consumers and €24.79 for businesses. Eircom yesterday began taking orders from customers in areas where the next-generation broadband services are available.

Fibre-powered broadband speeds are available to 300,000 homes and businesses in Clare, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Sligo, Wexford and Wicklow. 

However, this will still leave large swathes of the country – about 400,000 homes – that won’t be served by fibre services at the end of 2014 and this is where the Government will need to deliver on its promise to have a minimum of 30Mbps services available to all homes and citizens by 2015 and meet EU Digital Agenda targets set for 2020.

Platform competition becomes a reality in Ireland

In the meantime, you could say that Ireland is finally about to get a taste of 21st-century style broadband competition their counterparts in most European, North American and Asian countries have enjoyed for a number of years already.

Operators who up until now provided DSL services based on their own unbundled exchanges (LLU) and the resale of services off Eircom’s network (bitstream) will be able to compete in some way with UPC, which as a cable broadband provider has been able to ramp up speeds as high as 150Mbps.

UPC recently revealed that 41pc of homes in Ireland (1.65m homes) can receive speeds up to 150Mbps.

What the other operators will be offering

The new broadband services from Eircom can best be described as fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC), which means the fibre goes all the way to the street level with the last part of the journey of data from the cabinet to the home being by copper wire.

One of the original investors in LLU was BT, which exited the consumer broadband market a few years ago after forging an agreement with Vodafone which took over the DSL business.

The company works with other operators in the market on the infrastructure level and has been urging the Government to pursue the gap-funded model that has made Northern Ireland the most fibre-dense region of Europe, ahead of Germany, France and the UK.

A spokesperson said it will be offering services based on access to Eircom’s new fibre network following careful testing.

“BT is planning to launch this product to our wholesale and business customers, subject to the completion of a successful trial to ensure this product is fit-for-purpose for our customers,” the spokesperson said.

Vodafone, for its part, will go live on Monday with new fibre-powered services where users will be able to choose standalone fibre-powered broadband or a combination of phone line and broadband packages. Packages will start from €30 per month and will come with speeds of up to 70Mbps.

Vodafone Ireland consumer director Marcel de Groot said customers will be able to upgrade from Monday at no extra cost and that various discounts will apply for new and existing customers.

Packages start at €30 for 20GB broadband usage at speeds of up to 70Mbps, €35 for unlimited broadband usage and speeds up to 70Mbps and broadband packages with mobile, landline and international calls starting at €40 rising to €47.50 and €55.

“Customers can now choose from a range of new fibre-powered broadband packages,” de Groot said.

“You only pay for what you need and most packages come with unlimited broadband usage. Keeping the plans simple allows the customer to be in control, choosing a plan that fits their needs without compromising on quality or speed.”

Magnet will begin offering its new Fatpipe broadband services, which also provides up to 70Mbps services, to an initial 250,000 homes with a further 250,000 homes that will be passed later this summer.

As well as the VDSL services, Magnet also offers pure fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services to around 28,000 homes that can get up to 100Mbps speeds.

The advent of FTTC competition from Monday has been welcomed by Magnet CEO Mark Kellett.

“Magnet fully embraces Eircom’s national network upgrade. It’s a really positive step for the Irish broadband market as it will offer a more consistent, reliable and high quality network to a greater percentage of the population.

“For Magnet, the upgrade extends our reach and allows us to provide a high quality service of ‘fibre all the way’ to more consumers and businesses nationwide - close to 80pc of homes in Ireland by the time it’s finished in 2014.

“Magnet is currently the only alternative telco offering services on Eircom’s fibre pilot in Sandyford, Dundrum and Wexford. We’ve been engaged from the outset in the development of this service and leveraging the experience we’ve gained in deploying fibre networks in Ireland and the UK,” Kellett said.

Other operators, including Digiweb, Sky, Imagine and others are likely to reveal their bundles and packages in the coming days as platform competition based on fibre networks finally becomes a reality in Ireland.

Broadband image via Shutterstock

The Minister for Small Business, John Perry, TD, led the four-day trade mission involving 40 Irish companies. It was focused mainly on the engineering, electronics and software sectors.

Perry said the trade mission was very important in terms of deepening Ireland's trade and economic ties in central and eastern Europe.

While in Prague, Perry witnessed the signing of several business contracts. Over the next three to five years, the Irish companies that forged new deals with Czech partners are expected to bring in additional revenues of more than €13m.

The Irish companies involved include the electronic payments provider 3V Transaction Services, Waterford company PPI Adhesive Products, booking technology firm BookAssist and Dublin-based Realtime Technologies.

On the second leg of the trade mission to Poland, Irish firms agreed contracts and alliances worth an estimated €4m. The companies involved include the Mullingar-based Technical Engineering Group (TEG), which confirmed contracts worth €350,000 with pharmaceutical companies based in Poland to provide tooling for blistering machines.

Cylon, a developer of building energy management systems, signed a contract with BCM Poland to supply its solutions for a project with an international retail chain that has stores in Poland and Russia.

Mayo company Portwest and Dublin firm Playprint also signed contracts. Meanwhile, the architectural firm A+D Wejchert and Partners Architects is set to open a new office in Warsaw.

Kevin Sherry, Enterprise Ireland's head of international sales and partnering, said there are significant opportunities for increased trade and partnerships between Ireland and Poland and the Czech Republic.

‘Let’s Play’ videos feature recorded footage of a user playing a video game along with their commentary. Many YouTubers have amassed thousands of followers with this type of content, like Zack Scott, who currently has more than 200,000 subscribers.

But Scott – and other Let’s Play-makers, known as LPers – revealed this week that Nintendo had issued content ID match claims on videos that featured its video games.

These claims can be made by copyright holders and, if upheld by YouTube, allow them to block playback of these videos in certain regions (or even worldwide), or let them monetise the video through advertising. Revenue from this advertising goes directly to the copyright holder and the content creator is prevented from making money from the video.

This is the route Nintendo has taken with its content ID match claims, monetising user-generated videos for its own gain. In a statement to Game Front, the company explained it would not exert these rights on all videos, just the lengthier ones. “For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips,” the statement read.

Who owns Let’s Play content?

Nintendo believes it has done a kindness by not blocking these videos outright, since they feature its intellectual property, and this move apparently comes as part of its drive to encourage fans to share content across social networks, but only in “an appropriate and safe way”.

Scott and other detractors don’t see the move as gracious, though. On his Facebook page, he wrote, “I think filing claims against LPers is backwards. Video games aren't like movies or TV. Each play-through is a unique audiovisual experience.”

Scott attests that his play-through videos help to promote Nintendo’s games, but in light of its recent actions, he has decided to no longer play its games. “I won’t because it jeopardises my channel's copyright standing and the livelihood of all LPers,” he added.

Nintendo 3DS gameplay image via Barone Firenze/Shutterstock

The news comes months after Jobs Minister Richard Bruton, TD, announced reforms of the work permit processing system that will see a 50pc increase in the number of employment permits granted over the coming year in the ICT sector and reduction of 33pc in the processing time for employment permits.

The figures were produced by Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy who welcomed the development but said more needs to be done.

“A specific technology visa has yet to be introduced but in the Action Plan for Jobs for 2013 steps were made by the Government towards making it easier for people with relevant technology skills to come and work in Ireland.

“Since April 2012, 27 applications for the Start-up Entrepreneur Programme and 10 applications for the Immigrant Investor Programme have been received. Fourteen applications have been approved under the Start-up Entrepreneur Programme, seven applications have been refused, one applicant gained an alternative status and the remainder are still under consideration. Three applications have been approved under the Immigrant Investor Programme and the remainder are still under consideration.

“To date, the total investment committed under both programmes is of the order of €10.5m and is projected that 270 jobs will be retained or created on foot of these investments in the ICT, recycling and financial services area. In addition, two organisations, one educational and the other a charity, are receiving substantial endowments to support and develop their activities.”

Murphy said these numbers are positive and demonstrate the benefits of a more targeted and competitive visa regime.

“That said, the numbers could be a lot better if we dedicated more resources to the schemes and made them more competitive. This would involve quicker processing times, lower financial thresholds for participants and more rigorous approach to potential investors and start-up companies abroad,” Murphy said.

Lightbulbs image via Shutterstock

Capita has opened a new 45,000 sq-foot office on Grand Canal Square in Dublin to accommodate its growth, and most of the new jobs will be based in the city.

The UK company, which runs IT and administrative services for other companies and the public sector, is seeking both professionals and graduates to fill the new positions. The new jobs are in fund administrations, loan administration, asset management and recovery, and support services for the life and pensions industry.

“The scale and ambition of the company’s investment in Ireland, and the announcement of their plans to employ 800 more people over the next three years, is a major vote of confidence in Ireland,” said Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, TD.

“This announcement highlights the progress that is being made in restoring confidence and attracting investment and jobs into Ireland.” 

Robbie Hughes, Capita’s country manager, said the new office allows the company to consolidate a number of business units in one location, as well as providing room for future growth.

“We have grown consistently in Ireland in recent years and, as stability is restored to Ireland’s financial position and its international reputation, we believe there is opportunity for continued business growth, on both a domestic and international front,” Hughes added.  

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is so far only available as a 16GB model in the UK and Ireland, but what’s actually available to users is significantly less than this. In fact, the feature-packed smartphone leaves users with about 9GB of storage.

Some S4 owners contacted the consumers affairs show Watchdog about the issue of ‘bloatware’ clogging up their storage capacity and Samsung responded it would review its customer communications on this issue. Samsung also pointed to the phone’s micro-SD slot that can expand storage up to 64GB. However, unlike previous Galaxy devices, apps can’t be stored to the micro SD, only files, like images and video.

Samsung has since said it is now looking into how it can make more storage available to S4 users. “We are reviewing the possibility to secure more memory space through further software optimisation,” a spokesperson told CNET UK.

Meanwhile, at Google I/O, the Android-maker announced a new version of the Galaxy S4 that will come with stock Android software. If leaving out Samsung’s TouchWiz UI frees up a significant amount of space for users, Google could have a highly competitive device on its hands.

Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Minister Richard Bruton, TD, and Minister for Small Business John Perry, TD, today also launched a public consultation inviting interested parties to make submissions as part of an assessment of the current environment for entrepreneurial activity.

Within the Action Plan for Jobs 2013, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation has committed to publish a National Entrepreneurship Policy Statement in Q4 of 2013. The main deliverables of the project are to outline key recommendations and actions to support entrepreneurship for inclusion in the 2014 Action Plan for Jobs.

The announcement comes as recent research by the Central Bank shows that 67pc of all new job creation comes from businesses in the first five years of existence. New policies to better support and encourage more entrepreneurship and start-up activity are central to the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs.

First-stop shops in every county to support entrepreneurs

In launching the new forum and public consultation, Bruton said: “Supporting entrepreneurship and start-up activity is a central part of our Action Plan for Jobs, and since taking office we have introduced a range of changes to support greater activity in this area, including a microfinance scheme and credit guarantee scheme to provide better access to finance, as well as establishing a network of first-stop shops in every county to make it easier for businesses to access supports.

“It is now time to develop the next phase of our plan, and that is why I have asked Sean O’Sullivan to chair a forum to advise on new policies, as well as launching a public consultation so everybody’s voice can be heard on this issue. Effective consultation with interested parties and stakeholders will ensure that the issues we prioritise are the right ones, and we will publish our plan by the end of the year.”

Dragons’ Den star O’Sullivan is credited with contributing to two of the biggest trends in computing: as co-creator of the term cloud computing, and the introduction of street mapping on computers.

He is co-founder and managing director of Avego, a 55-person cloud technology firm with offices in the US and Ireland.

O’Sullivan is also managing director of SOSventures International, which boasted returns averaging 27pc over the past 15 years. His first company, MapInfo, grew to a US$200m public company, and popularised street mapping on computers. Among his successful investments to date are Netflix, which announced 1m users in Ireland and the UK in just several months, and Harmonix, creator of Guitar Hero.

Commenting on the new forum, O’Sullivan said: “Entrepreneurship is about creating something from nothing, about growth and change and the kind of disruption that improves people’s lives. It is effectively a kind of magic that impacts the entire economy. We need to look at what the government can do to draw out this magic, to support it and develop it, and where necessary to simply stand aside and let people get on with it themselves. I am expecting we will deliver some substantial recommendations out of this forum and consultation process.”

Disclosure: SOSventures is an investor in Siliconrepublic.com

Quick action buttons will appear next to certain messages in users’ inboxes, depending on their content. For example, an invite email will have an ‘RSVP’ button, or an order confirmation will have a ‘Track Package’ button.

These buttons will let users take action on an email without even opening it up.

Another common email being optimised by Gmail is the good old flight confirmation. When these emails are opened, flight information will be displayed across the top of the message, letting users know at a glance their departure and arrival times, terminal and gate details, and if there are delays that will affect them. This information bar also includes a link to flight check-in.

^{Gmail inbox with quick action buttons}

Much like Google Now tries to anticipate your searches based on information it knows about you, Gmail will use the information in your emails to predict the actions you might want or need to take. It’s about streamlining the email experience and could lessen the time it takes to manage your inbox and complete tasks.

Google Now has also been improved on, with more cards added and a desktop version created.

^{Email opened in Gmail with flight information}

Quick action buttons will roll out to Gmail users over the next few weeks and the Gmail team hopes to expand on their functionality going forward, inviting developers to create actions for their emails.

Google also announced that its Google Wallet payments service (available in the US only) will be integrated with Gmail, allowing users to pay others by email. Payments can be transferred by simply clicking ‘Attach Money’ in the email composer, just as you would to attach a document or a photo. These payments are free to bank accounts connected with Wallet while others will incur a small transaction fee.

^{Google Wallet integration with Gmail}

The infographic published by Photoworld on Visual.ly provides a flowchart of questions to (cheekily) help a Facebook user choose the optimum profile photo.

The infographic subtly points out some dos and don’ts when it comes to choosing a Facebook profile photo. For example, do not post a profile photo of scenery (“Seriously? Go hang it in a gallery where people will care”) or a shot of an ultrasound of an unborn baby (“WTF!? This isn’t really what Facebook is for”).

Profile photos the infographic gives a thumbs-up to include those that feature an exotic animal, such as a bird of prey, and Instagram shots from a night out - so long as the subject isn’t pulling a duck face.

Run Computer, Run @ Glitch 2013 takes place from 24 May to 13 July in the Rua Red arts centre in Tallaght, Dublin.

The three-week festival includes a symposium with thought leaders and top curators in the field of new media art on 20 June, and a screening of Oh Internetz!, a showcase of motion graphics, animations and shorts.

One of the exhibitions will feature digital artworks from 30 international artists for viewing and interacting with on a specially designed website, as well as onsite at the gallery. Visitors to the exhibit will be able to scan augmented reality markers on the gallery walls either with a device of their own or a tablet supplied by the gallery.

Workshops open to the public include silkscreening, collaborative GIF making, 3D printing, papercraft and home recording and production.

IT Tallaght’s Creative Digital Media Show will also take place during the festival.

This year’s festival is the most ambitious and largest Glitch event to date and is curated by Nora O Murchú, post-doctoral researcher at CRUMB, University of Sunderland.

The deal could be just what Yahoo! needs to be relevant in youth markets and, according to AllThingsD, the talks are “serious.”

No deal has yet been struck but the strategic value of such a deal cannot be underestimated. Acquiring Tumblr could give Yahoo! new spectrum for online advertising, not to mention social cachet with the 18-24-year-old market.

The price tag on Tumblr could be as high as US$1bn, based on the company’s valuation in recent funding rounds.

The company has so far raised US$125m in venture capital and is currently valued at around US$800m.

In 2007, David Karp, CEO of Tumblr, and former Tumblr CTO Marco Arment started the company. In its first two weeks, Tumblr notched up more than 75,000 users. Arment left in 2010 to focus on Instapaper.

As of last month, New York-headquartered Tumblr had more than 102m short-form blogs on its network.

Blog image via Shutterstock

When you look at the sea, what do you see? Possibly not too much from the surface, but from a chemist's perspective the organisms that live in and around the sea - from the coast to the deep - are a potential treasure trove of weird, wonderful and maybe even clinically useful molecules. And Dr Margaret Rae is looking for them.

She and her colleagues in the Beaufort Marine Biodiscovery Project plumb the depths and comb the beaches for marine life in the search for 'bioactive' molecules that could be of use for tackling microbes, inflammation, human diseases and maybe even cancer on dry land.

Have chemistry degree, will travel

Rae didn't start out as a marine researcher, though. Her background is squarely in chemistry, and her initial degree from University College Dublin has been a passport to various types of jobs, including analysing water quality, working on eco-friendly electronics, a PhD in Portugal on the chemistry of fullerenes, troubleshooting software and hardware in the chemical industry and setting up a quality system for adult human stem cell use at the Regenerative Medicine Institute in Galway.

But eventually chemistry research lured her back into the lab, and she became involved in the Marine Institute's biodiscovery programme, a €7.23m initiative that involves Queen's University Belfast (QUB), University College Cork and NUI Galway, where Rae is now a research fellow at the Ryan Institute. “Ireland has huge coastline and a seabed area 10 times that of the island itself - the programme seeks to explore the biodiversity within our marine national assets,” she explains.

The goal? To find bioactives, or molecules that have a biological effect in an organism, such as a human, animal or plant. “Normally, what we want is a specific effect,” says Rae. “So we will be looking for something that will kill harmful bacteria or cancer cells, or perhaps that has anti-inflammatory effects and maybe can help to prevent neurodegeneration.”

To the sea

But why go looking in the marine for such chemical usefulness? In part it's a numbers game, according to Rae. “In terms of evolution and differences and metabolic pathways, there's a greater diversity in the marine than on the terrestrial part of Earth,” she says. “And because of this diversity, the likelihood of encountering compounds that are unknown on land would be much higher.”

Some types of organisms are well known as particularly rich chests of potentially interesting chemicals. They include sponges, seaweeds, microbes, echinoderms (such as sea stars), cnidarians (sea anemones, corals, hydra) and many more, and Rae and her colleagues collect them from the shore through to the deep - though she admits her sea legs are not that used to expeditions on the open seas. She recently spent three weeks aboard the RV Celtic Explorer, and while she relished the chance to go, three weeks of seasickness was hard to stomach.

“It's something anybody working in the marine environment has to put up with,” she says. “But overall it's a great opportunity to get on the Celtic Explorer - when I was training as a chemist I never thought that I would be getting out and doing these things.”

Back on the beach, there are also interesting molecules to be found, and Rae works with taxonomist Dr Svenja Heesch to harvest seaweed specimens. “It really puts you in touch with nature,” says Rae, who is struck by the colours when she's out on the beach. “For bench scientists like myself in a lab, you get used to that clinical sterile-looking laboratory and then you go out in the field - the first thing that hits me is the colour, the lovely blues and greens and yellows and oranges and browns. It really is something really different.”

She also enjoys the start-to-finish cycle of discovering an active molecule: “I can go out there and get my samples whether on the coast or out at sea, then I can do an entire workup on those specimens from collection through to extraction right up to partitioning, fractioning, trying to find and isolate the bioactives,” she says.  

With such an elaborate workup it's really necessary to keep track of everything and Rae works with another colleague, Dr Helka Folch at QUB, to ensure that all the data generated by all biodiscovery scientists - all the specimens, their locations, habitats, extractions, fractions, and bioassay results are stored and can be queried at any time. “Helka is guardian over the database, a gargantuan task,” says Rae.

Bioactive hits

So far, Rae and her colleagues have identified several interesting bioactives from marine species. “We have found around 10 extracts that would have some form of anti-cancer activity, and we are particularly interested in two or three of those, where we are seeing very specific anti-cancer activity,” she says. “We have also found anti-inflammatory activity and within the [Beaufort] partnership we have found anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and some bacterial quorum sensing for extracts and compounds.”

When they find a bioactive of interest the next step is to isolate more of it and work out the molecular structure with Prof Deniz Tasdemir and her team of scientists at NUI Galway. “If it's very interesting and not enough can be sustainably harvested, we follow up and see whether or not the compound could be artificially made in the lab,” says Rae.

And while it can be time consuming work to harvest samples, rush them back to the lab to preserve the potential biomolecules and then comb the extracts for biochemical activity, seeing a positive result keeps the interest stoked, she notes. “When you get that initial 'hit' of a bioactive in an extract, you get really enthusiastic all over again.”

Women Invent Tomorrow is Silicon Republic's year-long campaign to champion the role of women in science, technology, engineering and maths

The ITLG’s annual Silicon Valley shindig was held this week at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

The certificate represents official recognition from the Irish Government of Barrett's Irish heritage and the contribution he has made to Ireland during his time as Intel CEO.

Barrett joins a host of prominent recipients of the certificate, including US President Barack Obama, former US president Bill Clinton, actor Daniel Day-Lewis and more recently actor Tom Cruise.

Gerry Staunton, Consul General of Ireland, presented Barrett with the certificate and recounted the role Barrett played at Intel.

Barrett, as CEO, led the diversification and expansion of Intel's manufacturing capacity, which enabled the company to respond to the boom in demand for high-technology products and helped it retain its dominant position in the manufacturing of microprocessors.

Intel has invested more than €7bn in Ireland and in the process has transformed its facility in Leixlip, Co Kildare, into one of the most technologically advanced manufacturing plants in Europe. More than 4,500 people work at the Leixlip campus and in addition, there are more than 200 people employed at Intel Communications Europe in Shannon, Co Clare.

As a percentage, how much of your annual IT budget goes on security?

That’s always a good question. To be honest, it’s nearly impossible to quantify as very often, security is taken out of several different budgets. For example, you could look at firewall admin, putting in new security rules – that would fall to the IT network guys rather than the information security team per se. Likewise, we have mainframe sec rules and that would come down to the mainframe team.

Indicative percentages would be between 4 and 8pc. That’s seen as a ballpark figure and, in my personal opinion, I’d say we’re within that threshold.

If you’re looking at security spend in the financial services sector, there’s been a number of high-profile incidents worldwide. I think that’s brought the focus back on security and that’s resulted in the purse strings being loosened.

You recently deployed mobile device management (MDM). Why did you do it, and how did you go about managing the project?

We recognised there was a requirement to facilitate these devices. As part of the bank’s digital strategy, we’re looking to become technology-driven to a large extent and to try and deliver as much value as we can to our customers and our users, and there’s no doubt that tablets and smartphones can drive productivity. But like all new business initiatives, they need to be reviewed and facilitated in a secure manner.

Once we identified mobile device management as a key issue, what we had to do was review the capability of these devices – then at that point you can develop a technical appendix and test the devices against this. We ran a proof of concept to validate that we can meet our security requirements. That enabled us to validate our security configuration so that it worked as expected ... It’s a cyclical process – you can go back and revise your policy based on what you’ve learned in the real world.

Obviously, mobile device management is a high-profile topic and there are a number of enterprise solutions. We reviewed three of the mainstream solutions and checked if they met our needs as a product. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel or increase our spending unnecessarily so we needed to see that the solutions were as close a fit with our existing technology. The easier it is to embed with your current systems, the better.

When we chose a vendor, we did a proof of concept: a pilot with a small subset of users. That was hugely valuable. Until you’ve released a solution in the wild – even in a controlled environment, you get a huge amount of valuable data – you can’t have a true understanding of what you’re dealing with.

When you put it in place, how did it change your security posture?

We implemented it in Q4 last year and it’s one of these issues I’m certain every organisation has seen it where you’ve got your smart device. They’re going to be out there anyway and used. Our attitude was, we’d rather facilitate users but do it in a secure manner rather than sticking our heads in the sand and say we don’t support it.

In terms of our security posture, we’re quite satisfied with our chosen solution. It wasn’t about product limitations so much as scenarios we didn’t consider, and you only become aware of potential issues when you see it in the wild.

How do you strike a balance between security and usability, when too much of the former is often a block to people being able to use it?

To give you an example, if a user is using a smartphone or a tablet for both business and personal purposes, there’s certainly a balance to be reached. Our attitude was: we’re going to segregate the corporate element and make sure all of our controls were in place over the corporate partition but have less stringent controls over the personal section, such as personal photos on their smartphones.

Basically, we created a clear segregation between business and personal use, and we put a complete block on exporting files outside the corporate element of the device. If you’ve got a corporate email or file, it sits within those rules.

We have a number of controls in place – the devices are configured to automatically check in to the MDM server on a regular basis. If they miss a check in, we initiate the corporate wipe. We also have a 24-hour support line, so if a user is away or travelling and a device is lost or stolen, they can call and get the device wiped then and there. They can choose if they want the device fully wiped or only a wipe of the corporate information.

Can you give an example of a security project that really worked, and what were the factors that made it a success?

What makes security a success is that there aren’t headline instances. An example ties in with the mobile device management: that gave us the platform to develop a new outlet, the Lab, or Learn About Banking, in Dundrum Town Centre in Dublin. It focuses on our self-service banking offerings, and future services we have, and how customers can use their smartphones or tablets.

We’re also using that as a learning environment so it’s two-way. We also want to let them tell us what their banking needs are. The Lab lets us showcase what we think is innovative and we’re also trying to learn from the customer. Coming back to the MDM, we can demo our services that are now available as mobile apps. We couldn’t have launched this project if we hadn’t a mobile device management solution in the first place.

What lessons have you learned over the years about security?

Certainly user buy-in is essential. If you don’t have that, not only are you going to suffer in terms of support, but if it’s a new system, you don’t see it used successfully. But it’s important the staff need to understand what’s expected of them. There’s no point in giving them an encyclopedia of security controls. We try and centralise our controls as much as possible, for example, centralised key management – saving people from having to remember individual passwords for specific items. 

Executive sponsorship is also hugely important. You need weight behind any project that involves significant change.

Another one would be around avoiding production pilots. If you are trialling a new system, there needs to be a test. What you can’t do is put something in a production environment [because then] you can’t amend it. I’d definitely advise people to try and avoid that.

Lastly, I know the terms ‘rogue user’ or ‘insider threat’ are bandied around, but I’m of the opinion the vast majority of incidents are related to users trying to do their jobs and making a genuine mistake. It’s our job in security to make it more straightforward for them.

After the ATM hack in New York, the likes of the PCI standard were criticised. How much of security involves ticking a compliance box when that might not be the most secure option?

The compliance box as such is a specific part of a more holistic approach to security. I don’t think you can be more secure by simply implementing PCI or ISO 27001, but what they can do is put you on the correct road. They get you thinking about the right procedures and potential issues. If you’re simply going to look at PCI or ISO on its own, it won’t make you more secure. You have to look at the wider picture.

The ATM hack is a perfect example of us moving away from what a crime is in the 21st century – it’s no longer about guys with guns robbing banks: that was a team of cyber-attackers running the whole thing. We have to be aware of that and build our security posture with that in mind.

How is security seen by senior management: is it essential to have, or just a cost to be managed or is there competitive advantage to be had by implementing new policies or systems?

To be honest, I think we’re moving away from the old perception of security as being an inhibitor to doing business. Nowadays it’s genuinely seen as a positive. One of our objectives is not to be seen as the ‘no’ men, but to help the business to innovate and to do what they have to do in a secure manner. And in terms of the Dundrum project, all our inputs were taken on board and we got the support on that.

In any project for any organisation, if you can get in early doors and you’re there through the lifecycle, that’s better than having to retrofit the security at the end, which will give you a serious headache.

David Cahill will be speaking at a morning seminar on Data Protection at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin next Wednesday, 22 May.

The Irish start-ups that have been chosen to pitch at next Wednesday's event include BusyMoos, a booking engine for beauty treatments; Trustev, the new Cork-headquartered company that specialises in social fingerprinting technology to prevent e-commerce fraud; and Marino Software, a designer of apps for children.

Feargall Kenny, who heads up the New York-based executive search firm Glenborn, is behind New York Digital Irish. So far, two meet-ups have been held in New York, one in January and one in March.

Digital media forum

Kenny said the focus of the group is to provide a forum for Irish expats and Irish-Americans in the digital media arena.

"It's also to build a bridge between those folks and the digital community back in Ireland."

At Wednesday's event, Kenny said each of the start-ups will be doing a fast pitch to the audience about their innovations and what they are looking for - be it employees, partners or investment.

"With the two events that we have held so far the idea is to have two firms from Ireland and two firms that are run by Irish expats or Irish-Americans here in the States," he explained.

The two US start-ups that are pitching at New York Digital Irish next week are BestBuzz and BlueLink Marketing. Founded by Irish American Carrie Layne, BestBuzz is a mobile marketing and loyalty platform, while BlueLink Marketing is pioneering a new approach to search engine marketing and is run by Irish expat Brendan Delaney.

Making US connections

For Irish start-ups, the idea is to hook them up with Irish expats and Irish-Americans who might be interested in connecting them with their digital networks.

Elaine McGarry is the founder of BusyMoos, one of the Irish ventures that will be pitching at next week's event.

Founded in 2012, BusyMoos is a booking engine for everyday services in the health and beauty sector. The company was also a participant on Launchpad programme at the NDRC last year.

McGarry said BusyMoos is now running online booking trials with businesses in Dublin.

The start-up is going after the female market because it is specifically women who make repeat appointments with businesses, such as beauticians and hairdressers, according to McGarry.

BusyMoos has recently taken on a developer who is based in New York. McGarry said the strategic plan is to start targeting the US marketplace once the company's base testing is over.

"There are 25m appointments made in the beauty sector every day in the States so there is a larger market for us," said McGarry.

BusyMoos is now looking for funding to build out its system.

"We're hoping to make connections in New York who will help us roll out our service once we have funding on board," added McGarry.

As for the New York Digital Irish, Kenny said the plan is to create a digital mission to New York for Irish firms. By this, the goal would be to bring up to 20 Irish companies to New York for an intensive three-day affair on doing business in New York, he said.

Another plan is to create a "virtual advisory board" to guide Irish firms in the digital space that are entering the US marketplace.

New York Digital Irish has a LinkedIn page for start-ups that wish to find out more.

The new Google Maps interface demonstrated at I/O does away with the sidebar and makes all maps full-screen by default with additional information overlaid on the map view. The entire map is interactive, too, and updates as you use it.

For example, a search won’t bring up a list of places but instead will instantly label results on the map. Clicking on a location will then highlight the roads and routes most relevant.

This interactivity will become more sophisticated the more it learns about individual users, so in this way the new Google Maps will encourage users to engage more with Google’s services, rating locations and writing reviews.

The new Google Maps also better showcases the vast catalogue of imagery Google has from all over the world, from 360-degree panoramic Street View images, to integration with detailed 3D images from Google Earth (available only through WebGL-enabled browsers, like Chrome).

Though it was not announced when the new Google Maps will be made available to users, you can request an invite through a preview website.

Aspiring game developers and professional developers are being invited to enter the Dilbert competition organised by Corona Labs, the makers of the Corona SDK, one of the world’s largest mobile development platforms.

Thousands of apps have already been created on the Corona SDK, including Bubble Ball, which was developed by a 14-year-old and received more than 16m downloads from the Apple App Store.

Corona Labs' Eric Schwertzel told Siliconrepublic.com that under the competition, Corona Labs will provide potential game creators with everything they need to create the mobile game, including Dilbert artwork and a consumer-friendly development platform for game developers of all skill levels.

He said the competition will be judged by a team that will include Adams.

Schwertzel said that what the judges will be looking for will be a game that shows Dilbert inside his familiar working environment, pursuing his vendetta to crush bureaucracy, grasp modern working life and evade office politics.

“We were talking with Scott about creating an iPhone game originally and he suggested that we do a contest. It’s very rare for a publisher of anything as successful as Dilbert to open up its assets and go out on a limb.

“Initially, everybody was scared about putting our art assets out there, but Scott trusts people and thinks it will help excite an interesting in coding skills and coding jobs.”

Opportunity of a lifetime

Schwertzel said the competition is open to everyone. “If you are under 18 you have to get parental consent but we believe a lot of people under the age of 18 have the best ideas.

“We’re offering them the chance to come up with a creative game that normally a large publisher wouldn’t take the chance on.”

Schwertzel said the Dilbert judges are looking for a game that would get an  MPAA ‘PG’ rating that isn’t offensive, vulgar or would have any other disruptive or unlawful content.

“The bigger picture is what is going on in the marketplace. Consumers are more interested in short games or episodic game titles on consoles.

“Rather than a publisher trying to go into video-game creation, we think that enabling a one or three-person team to achieve a lifelong dream is the better road to follow.

“Corona SDK supports Android and iPhone platforms and most of the games in the App Store and the Google Play store are built on our SDK. If you have a good game idea then you’ll find that the majority of the engine has been built for you, these are tools that weren’t available two or three years ago,” Schwertzel said.

“We want people to take the character of Dilbert and his cohorts and embed it in a game. The winner will get to demonstrate the game to Scott Adams and if he thinks it's good enough, it will get published on the major app platforms and will potentially be featured by a major phone manufacturer on a future device.”

Schwertzel said Corona Labs will also be giving away 10 one-year Corona SDK Pro subscriptions, as well as smaller prizes, like iTunes gift cards.

A spokesman for Dilbert outlined the potentially life-changing opportunity the competition offers.

“Whether you are a 14-year-old curious about coding or whether you are an IT professional looking for a job, this is an opportunity to get discovered overnight, get exposure all over the world and make a name for yourself.”

To enter the competition and download the artwork and everything else you need to make your Dilbert game, click here.

The Health and Life Science Trade Summit was hosted by HealthXL, the accelerator programme for new ventures in the digital health space that is being run by Startupbootcamp in Dublin.

Patrick was at yesterday's event along with Therese Murray, the president of the Massachusetts Senate, to explore new collaborative opportunities around digital health. They were joined by Pamela Goldberg, CEO of Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and Dr Susan Windham-Bannister from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.

Patrick spoke about how everyone should have access to affordable and quality healthcare.

"To deliver on that goal, we must invest in innovative solutions, new technologies and global partnerships," he said.

Murray said that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts recognises the value of early stage innovators to develop healthcare solutions. She said the group was excited to meet the teams based at HealthXL to explore ways of collaborating together.

Seven companies that are pioneering innovations in the digital health space are currently engaged in the HealthXL programme. The accelerator is based in the Trinity Technology and Enterprise Campus at TCD.

The seven teams are an eclectic mix, hailing from Ireland, Canada, Australia, Africa, Finland and the US.

They include the Australian start-up goACT, which is developing software solutions for mental health professionals and their clients, and Ghana start-up ClaimSync, which is pioneering software to automate patients' records and process medical records electronically.

“My neck is sore and my back is sore,” Hadfield told a news conference from Houston, Texas, where he is undergoing medical tests and physiotherapy after his stint aboard the orbiting outpost.

He said he feels like he played a hard game of rugby or full-contact hockey yesterday.

Hadfield, who had served as commander of the International Space Station, also mentioned feeling dizzy and like he’s walking on hot coals because there are no callouses on his feet.

Raffi Kuyumjian, the Canada Space Agency’s chief medical officer and Hadfield’s flight surgeon, said Hadfield is dealing with temporary problems as he readjusts to gravity. They include shuffling his feet when he walks, soreness in his back, difficulty walking around corners and sometimes even bumping into corners.

In a statement, Kuyumjian said Hadfield feels dizzy and finds it challenging to walk up or down stairs. Also, his manual dexterity is a bit off.

Hadfield has also lost some bone density in his hips and back, Kuyumjian said, since those bones lost calcium in weightlessness.

“Astronauts typically lose 1pc of bone density per month while in zero gravity. This is similar, but not as severe, as the osteoporosis that affects the elderly,” said Kuyumjian, who added that Hadfield will likely recover most of that bone density loss in about a year.

Although Hadfield feels like an “old man”, he is in good spirits and is looking forward to the “rejuvenation” process, Kuyumjian said.

While aboard the International Space Station, Hadfield conducted scientific experiments and delighted his social media followers with photos and videos.

At a time when technology has never been more paramount to the business world, the shortage of ICT skilled workers has become a global problem. At the time of writing, there are some 5,000 ICT job vacancies in Ireland and more than 700,000 unfilled ICT positions across Europe.

It emerged in December that Fidelity Investments is to create 200 new jobs in Dublin and Galway involving a diverse mix of technology, back office operations and enterprise services skills.

The president of Fidelity Investments Ireland, Travis Carpico, said the company has sought inspiration from a programme developed in Ireland 10 years ago called GIFT.

GIFT is understood to have set the direction for a current programme known as Leap.

Today, the financial services giant employs more than 650 Leap and GIFT graduates worldwide, some 200 of them trained in Ireland and who occupy senior technology and management positions in the global company.

Fidelity operates the Leap programme out of Ireland and Raleigh, North Carolina, in the US.

The six-month long programme is designed to accelerate the development of recent IT graduates in business, professional and technical skills. As well as programmes focused on mainframe development, technology infrastructure and engineering, participants also learn the soft skills they need to accelerate their career development, including presentation skills and business etiquette.

Fidelity is currently in the midst of recruiting 25 open slots for the next Leap class which starts in September, with participants graduating in March 2014.

The financial services player works collaboratively with the career centres at colleges and universities across Ireland, including NUIG, UCC, UCD, DCU, UL, Trinity College Dublin and NUI Maynooth.

Hardware skills to soft skills and business etiquette

“We are in Ireland 17 years now and one of the issues that emerged was how do we bring in new graduates and talent? The idea that was embarked upon by the Irish management team 10 years ago was to come up with a repeatable, formalised programme to onboard people and give them the training and skills they need to do a better job.

“The idea started to gain traction and globally, to handle the skills shortage, Fidelity turned to Leap, which is now run out of a base in North Carolina.

“We find it is really important to continue the programme in Ireland, too. Ireland is a place with skilled talent and a stable workforce capable of doing cutting-edge work and pursuing higher-end projects.

“By exposing people to higher-level projects and giving them the right responsibilities they will stay with you.

“This is unique in a world where the economy is not growing fast enough and the workforce is ageing. It is critical to devise the right programmes to encourage young workers to come on board.

“When I started out in the business world there wasn’t even email – but today’s digital natives have been using Twitter since they were teenagers. We are fortunate to be able to leverage this formulised curriculum that goes beyond technology skills to include business skills.

“It is great to see a training programme developed in Ireland resonate and go global. Every year we take in 225 to 250 graduates, including at least 25 in Ireland and we very much see this as an investment in the future.”

Carpico said that participants are typically integrated into existing teams within Fidelity rather than being sent on side projects.

As well as the Leap programme, Fidelity workers lecture 5,700 secondary students every year to introduce them to business, economics, entrepreneurship and the importance of education in positioning them to be part of the global economy.

The financial services giant also funds paid internships for Irish third-level students and is funding 10 DCU Access scholarships, which result in a typical 96pc employment rate.

TouchWiz is the front-end touch interface developed by Samsung that appears on its Android devices, just as HTC overlays its Android stock with HTC Sense. While some users are happy with the Samsung-made interface, die-hard Android fans prefer to run the operating system as was originally intended by its creators, which is what you get with Google’s range of Nexus hardware.

But, seeing as Samsung is the most popular Android smartphone provider in the world, it’s a smart move for Google to launch its own version of Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, with a stripped-out stock Android interface. This way, Google likely hopes to get its unadulterated Android experience into more hands.

Google’s version of the S4 will run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and it has been promised that any updates to the system will be rolled out to users promptly.

A 16GB unlocked version of Google’s Galaxy S4 will cost US$649 on Google Play in selected markets. (Unfortunately, Ireland is not one of the markets where devices can be purchased through Google Play.)

Ashmore received a US$10,000 App Store Gift Card to commemorate this milestone.

Yesterday, Siliconrepublic.com reported that Apple was within hours of reaching the 50 billionth app download. Only in January the company reported passing the 40bn mark.

“Apple would like to thank our incredible customers and developers for topping 50bn apps downloaded,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice-president of Internet Software and Services.

“The App Store completely transformed how people use their mobile devices and created a thriving app ecosystem that has paid out over US$9bn to developers. We’re absolutely floored to cross this milestone in less than five years.”

Apple launched the App Store as an update to iTunes in July 2008 with just 500 apps for the iPhone, which was launched almost exactly a year earlier in 2007.

Today, the App Store has more than 850,000 apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod devices.

Some 350,000 of the apps are native to the iPad.

“We were blown away with our success on the App Store back in 2008,” said Rich Riley, CEO of Shazam, a music ID service.

“And almost five years later we continue to be amazed with how much people love using Shazam on their iPhone or iPad. With the App Store, we can effortlessly provide users with updates that give them great new features while making it easy for new users to discover and download Shazam for themselves.”

Apps cloud image via Shutterstock

The ECDL programme was established in 1996 to promote computer literacy. Since then, more than 13m people in more than 100 countries have received ECDL certification and, today, a major revision of the programme was launched to reflect new technology and labour market requirements.

Changes include the introduction of ECDL Profile, which allows candidates to build a profile of modules to suit them. This profile can be built up over time as candidates discover new skills they might want to add to their repertoire.

A range of 15 modules is now available, including Online Collaboration and IT Security.

“The programme has evolved many times since it began in 1996, and I believe it continues to stay true to its intended and original purpose: to provide skills for work, and skills that work,” commented Jim Friars, chair of the ECDL Foundation.

ICS Skills, the national licensee of ECDL in Ireland, welcomed the launch of the new programme, which will be available to all schools from September 2013.

The new ECDL programme will rolled out across 55 countries over the coming months.

Gartner predicts that 4.4m IT jobs will be created globally by 2015 to support big data, but only one-third of these positions will be filled. Meanwhile, the International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that, by 2020, there will be 10 times as many servers and enterprise data centres will be managing 14 times as much information, but there will only be 1.5 times as many IT professionals.

“This trend is creating an IT skills gap which can only be filled by adapting our undergraduate and post-graduate education programmes,” said Jason Ward, EMC’s director for Ireland, Scotland and UK North. Along with SAS, EMC has partnered with the Irish Management Institute and UCC on a recently launched master’s in data business and diploma in data business in its efforts to address the shortage of talent.

“Colleges should now move to develop more programmes covering the increasing role that the combination of IT, data, services, economics, innovation, business models, analytics and strategic data management play in the success of an organisation,” added Ward.

Big data is growing by up to 40pc annually and it is the Government’s intention to make Ireland a leader in this field, but Ward believes new thinking in education is needed to produce capable graduates.

“Our colleges can sometimes produce programmes that are over-specialised, particularly at undergraduate level, when they perhaps should be giving students the freedom to explore interdisciplinary courses and then figure out where their strengths lie,” said Ward. “For example, data scientists need competencies across a range of areas, including maths, computing, science and sociology. New college programmes need to reflect that diversity.”

Graduates image via hxdbzxy/Shutterstock

Bjergegaard, who started his first business when he was 18, co-authored Without Losing: 66 Strategies for Succeeding in Business While Living a Happy and Balanced Life with Jordan Milne, who is also the co-founder of the online art marketplace Zatista. In the book, they propose 66 strategies to help people build successful businesses while also managing to lead a balanced and happy life.

To compile the book, the duo talked to 25 entrepreneurs and business leaders from around the globe and shared their insights about how people can improve their business efficiency without compromising their personal lives.

Such role models who feature in the book include David Cohen, the founder of the start-up accelerator TechStars; Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake; and Sophie Vandebroek, chief technology officer at Xerox.

Bjergegaard's past experience of working 15-hour days at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company would appear to have led to his own personal epiphany and was part of the inspiration for the book.

He said he was no longer cheerful and enjoying life as he should have been.

After quitting his job at McKinsey, he co-founded Rainmaking, a company that launches start-ups and builds up such ventures before exiting them. Since it was set up in 2006, Rainmaking has launched 15 start-ups. Rainmaking is also involved in setting up the Startupbootcamp accelerator, which has start-up programmes in Dublin, Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Haifa and London.