This time Yahoo! has snapped up PlayerScale, a cross-platform game infrastructure start-up that provides tools for games. Terms of the deal have not beend disclosed.

PlayerScale CEO Jesper Jensen said the company would continue to operate as usual, supporting more than 2,600 developers and 4,000 games.

“With Yahoo’s backing, we can crank out awesome products and improvements to our platform faster than ever before,” Jensen said in a post on his company’s website.

The acquisition seems to make sense given that Yahoo! has now signalled a move into casual gaming on iOS, Android, Facebook, the web, and even Xbox, VentureBeat reported.

PlayerScale’s platform helps game developers with pretty much everything they need to make their game platform work, such as payments, analytics and authentication. It doesn’t provide the game itself, however.

“Our goal has always been to help developers build the best possible games, without having to worry about building and scaling the infrastructure required to operate today’s biggest successes,” Jensen said.

The bike-friendly mode will provide cyclists with routes that avoid busy streets and use suitable bike paths, as well as providing time estimates for the route based on road types, terrain and the number of turns during the course of the ride.

Terrain mode will also give cyclists a sense of how much work their legs will have to do.

Cyclists will also be able to use turn-by-turn navigation with audio instructions from their smartphones.

As well as directions from Google, users themselves have added hundreds of kilometres of biking paths through Google Mapmaker.

“As the season of big bike races has started, why not check what route Google suggests for a historical stage of the Tour de France?” asked Kai Hansen in the Google Maps blog.

“For example, the bicycle route suggested by Google for the classic stage from Biarritz to Bordeaux keeps you on 206 beautiful, often car-free kilometres close to the Atlantic Ocean, compared to the rather boring 206 kilometres on the N10/A63 which is suggested for cars.”

The deal is the latest phase in a relationship that goes back to the 1990s, when the Tyndall Institute was the National Microelectronics Research Centre (NMRC), whose alumni include Intel Ireland head of research Leonard Hobbs, as well as Intel’s first female vice-president Ann Kelleher, who is responsible for Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group worldwide and is co-general manager of Fab Sort Manufacturing.

The contract will provide Intel with a commercial exploitation license to technology created through the collaboration with Tyndall.

The relationship involves experts working together on key challenges that the semiconductor industry faces in making chips more feature rich, smaller and cheaper. World leading experts from Intel and Tyndall look at specific problems and solutions by investigating next-generation materials, devices and photonics technologies for future electronic devices.

Moore's Law and beyond

Speaking at the renewal of the contract, the vice-president of Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group Dr Mike Mayberry, corporate vice-president of Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, described the relationship between Tyndall and Intel as pretty unique and said the collaboration involved focusing on atomic-scale microelectronics to photonics.

“I grew up reading science fiction, but now my job involves turning science into production,” Mayberry said, outlining his role in terms of keeping Moore’s Law on track by discovering newer ways to squeeze transistors and circuits into Intel chips.

Moore’s Law is the abiding principle at Intel whereby every 24 months the number of transistors on a chip doubles.

Mayberry said repeat Intel investment of US$1.5m into Tyndall is a testament to the success of the previous 2009-2012 programme.

“We enjoyed a highly collaborative engagement which produced some very useful learnings for us across a range of challenging topics in areas such as photonics, device modelling and new material development.”

In recent years, the Tyndall Institute achieved a number of world’s firsts, including the world’s first implantable radiation detector, the world’s first junctionless transistor, and the world’s fastest fibre-to-the-home network demonstrator, to name a few.

The research institute counts more than 460 researchers and engineers across 38 nationalities, as well as 134 students.

The University College Cork-based research organisation derives 85pc of its annual income from competitively won contracts.

Research discoveries have resulted in 200 peer-reviewed publications and more than 200 industry partnerships and customers worldwide.

At least nine start-ups have emerged based on Tyndall technology since 2004 and the group has been involved in more than 77 EU FP7 projects worth €38m.

Flexible ecosystem

The recently appointed CEO of Tyndall, Dr Kieran Drain, said: “The renewal of this collaborative research programme between Intel and Tyndall is an important validation of the work we carry out here at Tyndall.

“We have world leading researchers and world leading facilities engaged in delivering the best technology, knowledge and people to our partners. Renewing an engagement of this size is a clear indicator that we need to continue our strategy of delivering scientific excellence with a deep understanding of the issues involved in putting new materials and processes into practice in real devices.

“Tyndall operates a flexible ecosystem that houses both basic and applied researchers and strives to deliver solutions that are to the standards of a world leading semiconductor company like Intel,” Drain said.

The agreement, called the Galway Statement on Atlantic Ocean Cooperation, was signed at the Marine Institute on the second day of a conference on the Atlantic as a shared resource.

The new alliance will see the EU, the US and Canada team up for ocean observation and research.

The two main goals are to better understand the Atlantic Ocean and how to manage its resources in a sustainable way. Another research stream will be to study the interplay of the Atlantic Ocean with the Arctic Ocean, particularly with regard to climate change.

The move comes after the European Commission launched an action plan for a maritime strategy in the Atlantic area earlier this month.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny attended today's signing along with EU Commissioners, representatives from the US and Canada, as well as other smaller Atlantic coastal states.

Speaking at the Maritime Institute, the European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, said the economic potential of the Atlantic remains largely untapped.

"We probably know more about the surface of the moon and Mars than we do about the deep sea floor. This alliance can make a big contribution to meeting challenges such as climate change and food security," she said.

The agreement will seek to co-ordinate research into the Atlantic on a transatlantic basis. Areas that have the scope for co-operation include ocean observation, the sharing of data on ocean temperature, salinity and acidity, seabed mapping and the sustainable management of ocean resources.

European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Maria Damanaki said the alliance will build on the Atlantic action plan. And while the initiative will be of particular interest to five EU member states that have Atlantic shorelines – Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain and the UK – Damanaki said it will be open to researchers from all over Europe and beyond.

"The knowledge gained will be of benefit to all," she said.

Atlantic Ocean image via Shutterstock

The ‘Your Future City’ showcase had devices and technology for the home, workplace and classroom, as well as large-scale projects for cities and the environment as a whole.

David Boundy from Intel Labs Europe, who was instrumental in arranging the showcase, believes that a city has to be about its users, which are its citizens. He explained that the products and systems on show at the event were not solutions, per se, but rather the technology that can enable us to achieve a more harmonious and sustainable society.

The exhibition was open to the public from 20 to 21 May, with several thousand visitors of all ages passing through, and the feedback from the general public on interacting with these new technologies will inform its future usage.

Digital showcase at the Mansion House (part 1 of 2) 

Digital showcase at the Mansion House (part 2 of 2) 

‘Your Future City’ was held in conjunction with the Open Innovation 2.0 conference and also housed a special Lego showcase called ‘Build the Change’. This interactive exhibit had already travelled to 10 European cities before it reached Dublin, asking the next generation to build their vision of the future. Photos of these imaginative creations are available on our Facebook page.

IAB Europe represents more than 5,500 online advertising media, research and analytics organisations.

Kelly, who serves as the EU’s Industry Committee Rapporteur for the General Data Protection Regulation, gave a keynote to 500 internet industry delegates in Barcelona this morning at the 7^th  annual Interact conference on the proposed data regulation on businesses in Europe – the largest reform of data privacy law in two decades.

“We are making significant progress in the area of data protection regulation legislation in the European Union, balancing consumer privacy rights while also supporting innovation in electronic media. The Interact Congress award highlights how digital media technology has become a core element of business advertising strategy and investment,” Kelly said.

In describing the decision to award Kelly, the CEO of IAB Europe Kimon Zorbas said Kelly stands out.

“He met with stakeholders across the spectrum and introduced new and powerful privacy concepts that addressed shortcomings in the European Commission’s data protection proposal. Kelly's approach to dealing with privacy concerns demonstrates a deep understanding that the data-driven economy is crucial for growth and jobs in Europe, as well as the importance of balancing this with consumer trust.”

We interviewed Moore last year, just weeks after he sold his company TARGUSInfo to Nuestar for an estimated US$850m.

As we said at the time, if data is the oil of the 21^st century, then George Moore helped build the refineries. TARGUSInfo may be considered one of the first real cloud computing companies and certainly paved the way for the new IT industry revolution known as big data.

TARGUSInfo’s technology is used by companies like Facebook and Fortune 500 companies, like airlines, to ensure firms can analyse customer behaviour and anticipate their needs.

Louth native Moore left Ireland in the 1970s after winning a Ford Foundation scholarship and soon after that began working in Silicon Valley.

He founded TARGUSInfo with Jim Schaffer in the early 1990s to provide intelligent information services to businesses, ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.

Moore, a graduate of University College Dublin, was a board member of the Ireland Economic Advisory Board and the New Ireland Fund. In 2007, he received an honorary CBE from Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to the Northern Ireland economy and his international work for all of Ireland.

He was also a member of the Irish Technology Leadership Group.

Moore (62) died of a heart attack at his home in Great Falls, Virginia, on Wednesday. He is survived by his wife Angela, children Kerla, Gareth and Ashlyn, and granddaughter Fiona.

Google has already invested US$15m in Makani, which was founded in 2006 and is based in Alameda, California.

Rather than using fixed wind turbines, Makani is pioneering a new type of wind turbine that is attached to an autonomous wing, which is tethered to the ground. Air moving across the turbine blades forces them to rotate, driving a generator to produce electricity.

Earlier this month, the company carried out the first ever fully autonomous flight of its kite-type power system.

The tethered wing can fly between 250m and 600m in the air, where the winds are stronger.

Makani is testing a 30kW prototype of the product but is planning to develop a 600kW version. The company believes its technology will be able to produce power at up to half the cost of traditional wind turbines.

On its website, Makani said the Google acquisition would provide it with the resources to accelerate its development.

"The timing couldn't be better, as we completed the first ever autonomous all-modes flight with our Wing 7 prototype last week," the post said.

Google confirmed the acquisition in the following statement from Astro Teller, the director of Google X: "Makani Power's technology has opened the door to a radical new approach to wind energy. They've turned a technology that today involves hundreds of tons of steel and precious open space into a problem that can be solved with really intelligent software. We're looking forward to bringing them into Google[x]."

The Google X facility in California is already home to projects such as Google's self-driving car and the augmented reality eyewear Google Glass.

Systems and Materials Research Corporation had given NASA a demonstration of a food-based 3D printer making a chocolate pastry. The demo resulted in a six-month, US$125,000 grant for the company to build a prototype system.

The substrate the printer uses is what has whetted NASA’s appetite. For instance, the printer may include a tube filled with sugar, one filled with protein powder, and others filled with, say dried fruits and flavouring ingredients, GCN reported. What’s more, stored under the right conditions, the materials could last for 30 years.

NASA’s proposal summary said the idea is to “test a complete nutritional system for long-duration missions beyond low Earth orbit”. This could include a manned mission to Mars one day, according to GCN.

NASA also said the military could use a 3D food printer to provide optimal nutrition to soldiers at war, while reducing waste and logistical challenges.

One food item NASA is already eyeballing is pizza, because it’s made in layers and therefore ideal for printing.

On a larger scale, NASA and Anjan Contractor, owner of  Systems and Materials Research Corporation, envision 3D food printers being used to help end hunger around the world.

In its summary notes, NASA said the effective 3D printing of food, “may avoid food shortage, inflation, starvation, famine and even food wars.”

Food technology image via Shutterstock

The investment is supported by Enterprise Ireland and the expansion will bring total employment at Advant Medical to more than 130 people.

Based in Parkmore Industrial Estate in Galway, Advant Medical produces medical-device products for the minimum invasive vascular, Class III implantable devices and other medical markets.

Its customers include some of the world's largest original equipment manufacturers. Advant Medical's products are established across 25 international markets, including the US, Mexico, Italy, Germany, France and India.

With this €2.4m investment, the company is planning to expand its production capabilities and move to higher-value products and services to allow it to expand its reach in existing international markets and enter new markets.

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, TD, said the news that Advant Medical is expanding and creating 34 jobs is a sign of what is possible for Irish companies in this area.

Bob DiPetrillo, CEO of Advant Medical, said the investment would position the company to increase its international market share through device assembly and manufacturing capabilities.

"On our 20-year anniversary, we are delighted to have an opportunity to create more employment in the West (of Ireland)," he said.

VoiceSage said this latest round of funding will enable the company to respond to the growing market demand for its cloud-based customer communication technologies, with further investment in a range of R&D activities.

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Dublin and London, VoiceSage has developed technology to enable automated real-time customer conversations. Its cloud-based messaging product and services deliver more than 2m messages a day and are used by businesses serving more than 75pc of the UK population.

In February, the company announced a 32pc growth in sales for the second half of 2012, with a stream of new companies investing in its technology.

Companies that have deployed VoiceSage's technology to target their customer communications over the past year include Airtricity, Argos, Homebase, Littlewoods, QVC and Eircom.

"VoiceSage is a leading innovator in customer communication solutions. They have already won an impressive client base and this investment will enable them to expand their business further," said Jennifer Condon, head of International Services and Software at Enterprise Ireland.

Graham Brierton, chief technology officer at VoiceSage, said the company is delighted to have secured the backing of Enterprise Ireland.

"This investment will allow us to accelerate our technology development to meet the growth that market analysts predict," he said.

Fjord specialises in creating digital services and experiences for customers, such as new ways to shop, communicate, collaborate, and even manage their health across platforms, including mobile devices.

Under the deal, Accenture can expand the digital and marketing capabilities it offers its clients, as well as be better able to help chief marketing officers and digital leaders create customer experiences and bring them swiftly to market.

“In today’s environment of digital disruption and heightened consumer expectations, the battle is for consumer engagement, and Accenture and Fjord together will offer a deep blend of skills and expertise to help clients deliver innovative experiences that bridge marketing, commerce and service,” said Brian Whipple, global managing director of Accenture Interactive.

The Climate Gathering is following on from a meeting of international climate experts that took place in the Burren, Co Clare, at the end of February.

The three-day Dublin event is being organised by the Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament and the Climate Gathering, an initiative of Green Foundation Ireland.

The goal of the Dublin Climate Gathering will be to answer questions on how to bring about a low-carbon revolution using the internet as a key driver.

In the vein of open innovation, the event's organisers believe change can happen when there is collaboration between civil society, business, government and academia.

While people have already signed up for the event, the organisers are seeking input from other thinkers from the worlds of science, technology, politics and culture for their perspectives.

Those who are interested in taking part in the Dublin Climate Gathering may email their ideas (200 words on what you would like to bring to the gathering and why you would like to be there) before 3 June.

The event will kick off on 17 June to complement the European Commission's Digital Assembly that is taking place in Dublin in the same week.

Image of Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin via Shutterstock

Paul Griffin, who previously worked in the construction industry, and his colleague Declan Leonard, an IT manager by profession, started up the company.

Griffin got the idea after being startled awake by his phone’s alarm one morning and once he regained his composure decided there had to be a better and more gentle way to be woken up.

He sparked on the idea of a wristband device that would vibrate gradually to wake you up.

The device would communicate via Bluetooth with a smartphone app that would enable the Zband wearer to set the alarm for him or her to be woken up or for discreet reminders during the day.

Despite having the idea, it took three years for it to become a reality as the duo dealt with feature creep and the practicalities of manufacturing and distribution.

Rather than cram the app with loads of different functions, Griffin explained that they settled on it functioning primarily as an alarm.

Turning an idea into reality

Leonard developed apps for both the Android and Windows Phone platforms.

“I had the idea in summer 2009 but in January 2010 I decided to do something about it and began checking out patents. Declan thought it was a great idea and decided to come on board.”

The Zband consists of a rubber wristband into which a small electronic device with a microUSB port can be placed. On the front of the device is a single button with a LED light that indicates communication with smartphones.

When the alarm goes off on any given morning, the device will vibrate. To set it to snooze just tap the device once, but to turn the alarm off just keep your finger on the button until it vibrates four times in quick succession in response.

“The handstraps are made in Taiwan and we get the electronic components manufactured in New Zealand. We assemble and ship the final product in Ireland and we have so far shipped the devices to 30 countries, everywhere from Singapore to Sweden,” Griffin explained.

The Zband retails for €39.99 and Griffin said an iOS version is likely to be added over time.

“At the moment we are focused on Windows Phone and Android. Apple run a closed system when it comes to hardware and we’d need to access their Bluetooth systems for compatibility and so that will take time.

“We will add new features and services over time. We operate out of Dublin and now employ three people, which isn’t bad going since we started shipping on 10 February.”

Griffin said he is also mulling over new retail and distribution channels. “We are talking to people in Ireland, South Africa, Australia and Singapore,” he added.

This time last year, Catrina Carrigan didn’t know how to code. “It was something I always would have assumed was too hard,” says the Dublin teenager. But then in July, she started going to weekly, free CoderDojo sessions at DCU and she learned how to write code with the help of volunteer mentors. Within a couple of months, Carrigan had developed a website to help users learn how to play musical instruments, an idea she had for her “coolest project” with CoderDojo that summer.

“It’s a music instrument website with a piano, guitar and drums made with HTML, CSS and JavaScript,” explains Carrigan, who wrote the code for it when she was 15. “I had seen pianos online before so I knew it was possible, so I started with that and then I added the guitar and drums. It was a challenge to build but it helped me learn a lot, and the mentors at CoderDojo helped me with any problems I had.”

Teaching others

Fast forward to today, and Carrigan’s idea and website have grown wings: not only is the code being used in DCU’s advanced CoderDojo class to help other young people develop their programming skills, but it has also been picked up for computing education in the United Kingdom, as CoderDojo mentor Noel King explains.

“Catrina’s ‘coolest project’ inspired a new game to be created at CoderDojo called Piano Rock Star,” he says. “Then earlier this year I was talking to Intel UK, and they mentioned a collaboration with e-Skills UK to define a short course on algorithms for the Behind the Screen project, and they asked us if we had any ideas. They loved the Piano Rock Star so we have been working on building a short course around it to teach algorithms in UK schools. They understood the fun, excitement and engagement this game offered, but also that it also offers some great learning objectives.”

Role model

King describes Carrigan as a “great role model” to emerge from CoderDojo, a movement that originated when co-founder James Whelton (then a teenager himself) started a computer club in Cork. That club quickly went global.

“After only a few months of programming HTML, CSS and little JavaScript, Catrina developed this really fun project for the CoderDojo Coolest Projects Awards, effectively enabling you to create your own rock group from the comfort of the internet - quite simply it rocked,” says King, who works as a software developer with Paddy Power.

“At CoderDojo, we always love to spread across learning boundaries and when you create a project that you can personalise to people’s interests - in this case learning how to program a fun game that also teaches you how to play your favourite song on an instrument. This can really engage people in tech at a creative and exciting level, and they want to learn more. This is what Catrina achieved and why we are so proud of her project and the inspiration she has generated from it.”

Carrigan, who is now 16, is still a CoderDojo regular, and she is glad to see her idea being developed for education. “It’s very exciting,” she says. “Doing this project is how I learned how code so I hope it will help teach other people.”

And is there another coolest project on the cards this summer? “Yes,” says Carrigan. “I've been asked to make an app for a hospital so I'll probably use that for my project this summer.”

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

The advertisement uploaded to the WindowsVideos YouTube account places a Windows 8 tablet (the Asus VivoTab Smart, to be exact) next to the iPad and has Siri – or, more likely, a Siri impersonator – highlighting what the iPad can’t do that the Windows 8 tablet can.

The format even pokes fun at Apple’s well-known iPad mini commercial unveiled last year.

At the close of the comparison, which boasts of Windows 8’s constantly updating live tiles, multitasking capabilities and Office software, the prices of the two devices show the most stark difference between them.

A link in the video’s description directs users to a Windows vs iPad comparison site, which pits the Apple tablet against the Dell XPS 10, HP Envy x2 and Microsoft’s Surface RT, as well as the Asus VivoTab Smart.

Curiously, Microsoft has left its flagship Surface Pro out of these comparisons. Perhaps because, in terms of price, this is one where the iPad will rank a clear winner.

The new jobs will be created over the next three years with the majority of them - 50 positions - based at Cubic’s new Sandyford headquarters in Dublin with the remainder deployed across the world.

In less than 10 years Cubic Telecom has evolved from a start-up based in Cork specialising in voice and data roaming services to a licensed telecoms company in its own right, providing software-defined network services to more than 500 mobile operators and some of the top Fortune 100 OEM manufacturers of smartphones, tablets and notebook computers.

The company’s technology effectively provides anytime, anywhere in the world voice and data coverage for device owners by turning a SIM chip into its own operating system.

Cubic’s management team boast more than 200 years’ worth of telecoms industry experience and in terms of intellectual property the company has developed more than 340 APIs.

Cubic Telecom CEO Barry Napier – who as well as announcing the jobs is currently cycling across Spain as part of the CyclingBuddy 300-mile challenge to raise money for families affected by autism – explained that the investment represents Qualcomm’s second investment in Cubic.

“Our goal is to become the single source provider for smart mobile connectivity for the OEM computer manufacturers who want to take all the hassle of connecting to voice and data networks out of their devices.”

He said Cubic is embarking on product development projects for three out of the five top computer OEMs in the world.

“We serve both the telecoms providers and the OEMs by putting in core network architecture and real-time billing engines via a software layer. We can create any type of billing solution on any device for any carrier. This is effectively software-defined networking and everything can be changed on a device or an app over the air.”

Napier is also chairman of BPI Telecom, one of the top 300 companies in Ireland with revenues in excess of €137m.

“We are excited to be investing in a company so well positioned for rapid growth based on their highly innovative network and strong go-to-market relationships with leading smart device manufacturers looking to embed Cubic Telecom’s low-cost data connectivity technology into existing and future products,” said John Flynn, managing partner at ACT Ventures.

Globally licensed carrier that serves carriers and OEMs

Cubic Telecom has its origins in Cork and was started in 2005 by entrepreneur Pat Phelan, who has since left to lead e-commerce security player Trustev.

In 2010, Cubic Telecom became a GSMA-licensed carrier in its own right and has partnerships in place with major operators, including Vodafone, Digicel and Sprint, to name a few.

Napier explained: “The ultimate objective is that when a consumer buys a device – be it a tablet or a smartphone – there is no messing, they can get connected straight away. This also allows major media brands to deliver apps that provide consumers with connectivity and messaging as part of licensing deals with carriers.

“Traditionally, carriers looked at the SIM card as a connection device – we’ve flipped that and turned the SIM card into its own operating system that can include a mobile wallet. The end game is a simple model that allows users to pay, connect and go. If you fly into China we will already have a relationship with operators there so you don’t have to worry about changing settings on your device.

“The reality is that the hardware devices are changing faster than the network’s capability. We keep the core technology fresh and relevant and by connecting to their RAN (radio access network), as a white label we get things done. At no stage will you see our branding on the side of a Formula One car, instead we will align with an operator, a device maker or a content provider and allow them to better serve their customers,” Napier said.

Welcoming the announcement, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, TD, said:  “With this announcement by Cubic Telecom of a successful funding round and new jobs we are once again seeing a great example of the strength of Ireland’s indigenous ICT sector. The Government’s Action Plan for Jobs specifically targets the ICT sector, which has already added a total of more than 11,000 jobs since this Government took office. I am determined to ensure that, with the right supports from Government, companies like this can continue to start up, grow and create the jobs we need.”

Also commenting on the investment, Imran Karim, head of investments at TPS, said: “TPS is impressed with the capability of the Cubic Telecom Platform, with more than 340 APIs, which will give OEMs real-time data on customer consumption with no minimum monthly contracts.

“The traction Cubic Telecom has made internationally with both mobile operators and OEMs firmly underpins the need for this service in market. To have investors like Qualcomm Incorporated, Enterprise Ireland and ACT highlighted that this is a company which is serious in their space,” Karim said.

Wireless signal image via Shutterstock

The company supplies gluten-free, dairy-free, yeast-free and wheat-free products to Dunnes Stores, Tesco, Supervalu, and Aer Lingus.

Delicious employs nine people in Cork and is creating a further nine jobs over the next two years as a result of the investment.

Cork BIC co-ordinated this investment round which saw Delicious raise the €175,000 from members of the Boole Investment Syndicate to support its product line and international expansion.

Denise O’Callaghan founded Delicious in 2007, following her father’s diagnosis of coeliac disease.

O’Callaghan started the business after she recognised there was a lack of good-tasting, gluten-free food products on the market, despite almost 50,000 people in Ireland alone diagnosed as having coeliac disease.

As a result, she made the decision to leave her job in Dublin and return to Cork, where she set up the Delicious bakery.

“We decided to establish the business in Cork as we have family support here but also, Cork has the highest concentration of coeliacs in Ireland,” O’Callaghan said.

“The business has gone from strength to strength and we are now in a situation where we have outgrown our current premises and need a larger bakery to facilitate our growth. We also want to look at new markets, such as the UK, which is why we sought investment at this time. The business planning advice we received from Cork BIC when preparing for the investment process was vital.

“The business angels in the Boole Syndicate have been incredible. They not only contributed funding but if I ever have an issue or a question, I know one of them will have the answer. They all bring something different to the table and their combined expertise and advice is helping us to confidently take the next step in our expansion,” O’Callaghan said.

Can you outline Blackrock Clinic’s IT, in broad strokes?

We have roughly 650 users on site and that’s between clinical and non-clinical staff. We have roughly 300 thin clients, approximately 20-30 workstations or laptops, and then we also have a large community of GPs and consultants that we provide IT services to – that would be in the hundreds. They use their own devices but we give them a website with patient test results and images. They are in essence our customers because they’re the ones who refer the patients to us, and we are looking at improving our links between them.

What does your role involve: is it hands-on or do you take a more strategic view of IT?

It’s a combination of both. There are seven of us in the IT department and everyone does have their own area of responsibility but you’re expected to get stuck in, say if there’s a paper jam in a printer. There’s no strict demarcation; you can’t say, ‘that’s not my job’. Then I also deal with IT strategy, projects, and project management.

How much time is given over to each and will that change?

Not enough! [Laughs]. It would be about 30/70 hands-on to strategic. Do I see that changing over time? No, I don’t actually. I’d say it will stay because the team size isn’t going to change and our work is increasing [laughs]. But I don’t see that as a bad thing.

How can IT deliver real value in a hospital context?

We can definitely add value, but you need to be careful about what investments you make.

Electronic patient record has been one of our strategic tracks – to get paperless. I don’t think we’ll ever get there but we are working a long way towards that. It’s not like going out and buying Microsoft Word. You need to know what you’re trying to achieve with it. There’s a huge amount of process and culture change if you’re going to go down that road.

We would see IT as adding a lot of value and [also] saving a lot of money for us. The hospital almost has to invest in technology for technology’s sake. For example, in radiology before now, we printed out films and patients had to bring them back for their next visits. There wasn’t a business case to put in a radiology system but to be more of a leading-edge hospital and offer better service to patients – competing for business with other hospitals.

The likes of an electronic patient record is going to be hugely expensive and I’m not sure it will save a huge amount of money but it will allow us to do a lot more, provide better service, and attract doctors. A lot of the consultants operate in more than one hospital.

Offering the consultant more of what he wants – being able to treat his patient quickly and easily, and if he can be helped with clinical decision-making – all helps us to attract more consultants to us. We are a business: we’re a private hospital, and by attracting consultants, that’s how we make money.

On that point, the clinic recently announced healthy profits, so will that have a positive effect on your IT budget?

We don’t have an IT budget per se; it is on a case-by-case basis. There is an IT strategy and we have a couple of IT strategic tracks, so any projects have to fit into those before they’re even accepted. But we would then look at the process here – it’s not a case of us getting, say, €10m every year. For example, if we have to invest a million now and save €4m over the next few years, then it’s a no-brainer.

What has been the hardest challenge since you started in your role?

I’ve been here for nine years and some of the challenges are from the business side: to get them to think of projects on their own rather than IT, and that we are part of the project team, we’re not there to lead the project. That would be a challenge.

With the consumerisation of IT – I hate the cliché – everybody has an iPad or iPhone ... Let’s say the hospital might want a new system for endoscopy – but it won’t be touchscreen, it’s difficult to integrate into the lab system. And I’m thinking: how can you balance that against being able to buy an app from an app store and the user knowing how to use it?

People’s expectations of what IT can do are changing, and their expectations are getting harder and more demanding – that’s no bad thing but it does make things more difficult.

Do you think that day is coming where mobile devices will be more pervasive at the clinic?

Absolutely, I think in five years’ time the hospital will be a completely different place. I can see huge advantages to offering a lot of those services out to the consultants and clinical and admin staff.

One of our aims is to make everything context-sensitive. So, if I’m a consultant and I’m in theatre, or on the ward, the system shows me a different set of information.

You recently upgraded to Palo Alto firewalls – can you tell me about why you did that, and what were the outcomes?

It was trying to give us more visibility on what people were doing in the hospital. It’s always a balance between having everything very secure and allowing people to do their jobs. The old firewalls weren’t as granular as the new ones. We can now do URL filtering, and see specific traffic going out through the firewall.

We have two firewalls on auto failover between the two, just to give us a backup. It allows us this redundancy.

And presumably that’s tied in to your security policy?

Yes. We block access to Gmail and Hotmail but a lot of places use Gmail as their mail server. We were able to allow one consultant specific access to the UCD mail servers. So, you can have a blanket ban but you can allow specific instances where they’re appropriate. Now it’s more roles and rights-based. It give us much more control about what we allow in and out.

How important a consideration is IT security?

Security is obviously of critical importance and every project we look at has a specific security element to it. A primary example would be replacing a laboratory system – we think of security in evaluating solutions and how it’s implemented, as well, because we provide access to other hospitals, and GPs [also] need access. Security sits across a lot of what we do, and we have a person dedicated to security in our IT team.

It’s really important for the hospital that we protect the information we have – primarily to protect the patient and also for our own data protection compliance. If we’re shoddy with patient information, no matter how good we are as a hospital, people are going to think twice before coming to us.

What IT projects are you planning for the future?

We’re replacing our backend servers, two SANs, our database console: we’re putting in Microsoft System Center [IT management tool], and updating our backup and recovery. It covers everything – it’s a huge, broad sweep in IT that will allow us to change what we do, and we’ll spend less time firefighting and more time suggesting things the hospital can implement.

Once that’s finished, how close will you be to your ideal state, from an IT standpoint?  

By the end of the year we should be in a really good position to do a lot more for the hospital and we will have an ideal infrastructure in place to do that. We certainly will have laid the foundations for doing a lot more.

We’ve been working towards this for a while. We’ve been putting in a medical-grade network, wireless access everywhere in the hospital, there will be barcoding in a lot of what we do, such as patient labels and wristbands. All this has been done keeping in mind the strategic tracks we’ve been working towards.

When the time comes [for a new initiative], we’ll be able to say ‘yes’ because we’ll already have done this and this.

It is a great area to work in. We’re building a new hybrid theatre at the moment and when you see the imaging technology and what can be done for interventional surgery, the fact that in real-time you can track what’s being put into people, to be part of facilitating that is just fabulous.

It sounds a bit contrived but up until I worked here I worked in financial services, and here you feel like you’re making a difference. It helps you focus on what you’re actually trying to do. A lot of times you can sit in a server room and you can forget there are patients being treated.

The universe's current age is about 14bn years old. According to NASA, these two colliding galaxies will eventually form one super-giant elliptical galaxy.

Dubbed HXMM01 and located around 11bn light years from Earth, the two galaxies are collectively producing stars at a rate of about 2,000 suns a year. Our own Milky Way, in contrast, churns out about two or three suns a year.

The total number of stars in both galaxies equals about 400bn suns. The galaxies are linked by bridge of gas, indicating that they are merging, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

To detect the two galaxies, scientists used images from the Herschel space observatory, which recently finished three years of universe observations.

Follow-up observations were performed using several telescopes on the ground and in space, including the Keck Observatory and the Submillimeter Array at Mauna Kea in Hawaii and the Hubble space telescope.

A study describing the findings from these observations has been published in Nature this week.

"This monster system of interacting galaxies is the most efficient star-forming factory ever found in the universe at a time when it was only 3bn years old," said Hai Fu from University of California, Irvine, who led the Nature study.

Fu's team predict it will take about 200m years to convert all the gas into stars, with the merging of the two galaxies set to be completed within a billion years.

"We're looking at a younger phase in the life of these galaxies - an adolescent burst of activity that won't last very long," said Fu.

Seb Oliver, an astrophysics professor at University of Sussex who was involved in the research, said the scientists were very lucky to spot this extreme system in such a critical transitional phase.

"It shows that the merger of gas-rich and actively star-forming galaxies is a possible mechanism to form the most massive ellipticals that are observed in the young universe," he said.

At its Citrix Synergy event in Los Angeles, California, today, Citrix introduced the latest version of XenDesktop, version 7, which enables any Windows app to function intuitively on mobile devices.

It also launched the latest version of XenMobile Enterprise Edition, which includes Worx Mobile productivity apps that include email, calendar, contacts, secure web browsing, and file-sharing, as well as apps like GoToMeeting, GoToMyPC and Podio for team collaboration.

The company also launched new content sharing functions for ShareFile, including a new built-in mobile content editor.

Citrix also introduced new ShareFile sharing options with Microsoft Windows Azure.

“Now more than ever, IT decision-making is being shaped by the forces of BYOD (bring your own device), personal cloud services and a millennial generation with new ideas about where, when and how work is done,” said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer with Citrix.

“By providing powerful cloud solutions, we are helping our customers embrace mobile workstyles to succeed in a dynamic and mobile world.”

Cloud working image via Shutterstock

According to Engadget, preorders were cancelled after poor sales reports from the US proved less than encouraging.

A&T is understood to have slashed the cost of the HTC First device, launched alongside Facebook Home more than a month ago, from US$99.99 to just US$0.99 on contract.

In early April, EE announced it would be the exclusive UK carrier to sell the HTC First with access to 4G speeds five times faster than 3G speeds.

The news comes amid an extremely rocky spell for HTC. Delays in the launch of its flagship device, the HTC One, have hit the company hard, resulting in just a US$2.8m profit from Q1.

In addition, the company has been rocked in recent days by the news that its Asia CEO Lennard Hornik is departing the company.

But all is not lost.

Informed sources say the HTC One Mini, a lower-cost version of the HTC One with a 4.2-inch screen and 720p resolution, is rumoured to be arriving in Europe in about a month's time, which may well make up for the lack of any HTC First device.

The plane's pilots and co-founders André Borscherg and Bertrand Piccard are attempting a coast-to-coast flight of the US over the next few months. That's before they set their sights on a solar-powered flight around the world in 2015 with the Solar Impulse HB-SIB - a plane that is currently being built.

Earlier this month, Solar Impulse completed the first leg of its trans-American journey, flying from San Francisco, California, to Phoenix in a flight that lasted 18 hours.

The flight from Phoenix to Dallas, which was piloted by Borscherg, lasted 18 hours and 21 minutes, with the plane landing in Dallas at 1.08am (CDT) on 23 May.

On the next leg of its journey, the plane is destined for St Louis, Missouri, in early June, before flying to Washington, DC, and then landing in New York in early July.

The aircraft has a 63-metre wingspan - equal to that of an Airbus A340 - but weighs just 1,600kg. Solely powered by the sun, the plane captures the sun's rays via its 11,628 solar cells to drive its four electric engines. The plane's lithium polymer batteries, which weigh 400g, are also charged to enable nighttime flying.

In 2010, Borscherg piloted Solar Impulse during a 26-hour flight to achieve the longest and highest flight ever carried out by a solar plane.

Open Innovation 2.0 has been a conference and technology showcase to promote more open and collaborative approaches to how society and economy innovates.

Siliconrepublic.com was there to cover all of what Open Innovation 2.0 had to offer: interviews with high-profile delegates, the Innovation Luminary Awards, the Better Cities competition, and children’s extraordinary Lego creations of cities of the future at The Showcase in the Round Room of the Mansion House. Photos of the creations are in an album on Siliconrepublic.com’s Facebook Page.

Open Innovation 2.0 has been part of Dublin’s Innovation Festival and Ireland’s EU Presidency. The event has been organised by Intel Labs Europe, Trinity College Dublin, the EU Commission, and Dublin City Council.

Silicon Republic is proud to have been official media partner of Open Innovation 2.0.

Siliconrepublic.com’s coverage of Open Innovation 2.0:

Irish Times CIO Johnny Ryan on the digital future of newspapers (video)

Chief innovation officer of The Irish Times, Dr Johnny Ryan, revealed a multi-million euro investment in newsroom technology is on the way, as well as a strategic bet on the future of advertising that will best place the 154-year-old newspaper to triumph in the digital age.

Inspiration and humour fuel organisations - Jasper Roos of ABN Amro (video)

ABN Amro’s chief inspiration officer Jasper Roos talks about the value of inspiration and humour in keeping organisations at the top of their game.

Interview with Intel researcher Chris Woods on the future of the cloud (video)

Intel researcher Chris Woods believes we are at an interesting time in the cloud revolution and predicted the onset of proxy devices in homes and cars that provide cloud consumers with backed-up versions of the internet.

Encourage entrepreneurship for economy’s sake, Kumardev Chatterjee says

The only way Europe can emerge from the economic doldrums is for society to encourage young people to be more entrepreneurial, Kumardev Chatterjee, founder of the European Young Innovators Forum told Siliconrepublic.com.

Dublin Declaration sets out a new business model for the European Union (video)

A new 10-point declaration drafted at the Open Innovation 2.0 conference at Dublin Castle is to be presented to the president of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso. The Dublin Declaration aims to make the EU more nimble in terms of turning research and technology into actual job creation.

How CERN is working with the ICT industry to find solutions for the Large Hadron Collider

We talk to Bob Jones, who heads up CERN’s openlab project, a partnership between CERN and ICT companies to drive forward data-intensive solutions for the needs of the scientific community working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator.

Digital economy is actual economy, IIA CEO and award winner Joan Mulvihill says

Joan Mulvihill, CEO of the Irish Internet Association, talks about what it means to be a recipient of an Innovation Luminary Award.

Glen Dimplex CEO on the future smart grid and energy storage (video)

Sean O’Driscoll, chief executive and chairman of the Irish group Glen Dimplex, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of electrical heating technology, talks about the future of the electricity industry and how it is on the cusp of change, plus energy storage and enabling the smart grid.

Knowledge triangle must surround entrepreneur, Alexander von Gabain says (video)

No matter what, the entrepreneur must always be at the centre of the knowledge triangle, says Alexander von Gabain, chairman of the governing board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

Amenities review app takes top spot in Open Innovation – Better Cities competition (video)

DubCred, an app to rate and review Dublin City’s amenities and that also rewards users, has netted its creator Barry McAdam first prize in the Open Innovation – Better Cities competition.

McLaren’s Peter van Manen: 'the future of Formula 1 is data-driven' (video)

Peter van Manen of McLaren Electronics opens up about how technology innovation developed by the McLaren Formula 1 team has been translated into powerful solutions in transport, communications and healthcare.

Intel CTO predicts next generation of PCs will challenge standalone tablets (video)

Intel’s chief technology officer Justin Rattner has predicted that the arrival of the next generation of PC devices that will run energy frugal processors like Intel’s forthcoming Haswell chip will lead to a rebound in demand for PC devices, like ultrabooks and hybrids.

Innovation Luminary Awards celebrate innovation leadership

The CEO of the Irish Internet Association Joan Mulvihill is among luminaries such as physicist Stephen Hawking and space skydiver Felix Baumgartner after having received an award for innovation leadership.

Interview with Alexander Osterwalder of Business Model Canvas fame (video)

Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas is today employed by companies worldwide, from Ericsson to General Electric, but it all began as a PhD dissertation back in the mid-Noughties.

Innovation can overcome economic setbacks - Mikko Huuskonen of the Finnish government (video)

Mikko Huuskonen from the Finnish government talks about the importance of innovation and how small countries can use innovation to overcome economic adversity.

Innovation can enhance productivity out of research - DG CONNECT's Bror Salmelin (video)

Open innovation will lead to vast improvements in productivity out of research, said Bror Salmelin, an adviser at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Communications, Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT).

Intel’s Martin Curley: we will need two Earths to support human life (video)

Intel vice-president and director of Intel Labs Europe Martin Curley warned that at the present rate of consumption, we will soon need two Earths to sustain human life. For this reason, he said the pace of innovation to reduce energy consumption and create a smarter, more sustainable planet is critical.

SolarPrint and Intel demo energy harvesting device at innovation event

Dublin solar cell technology company SolarPrint is showcasing a new light-energy harvesting multi-sensing device for CO2 and temperature control within buildings at the Open Innovation 2.0 conference in Dublin. The Dublin start-up has teamed up with Intel labs Europe to create the device.

Innovation about execution, not just invention, says EIT’s Alexander von Gabain

As the innovation elite began to converge on Dublin for the Open Innovation 2.0 conference, Ann O’Dea caught up with one of the visitors, Alexander Von Gabain, who believes Europe is still missing a trick when it comes to the lucrative biotech sector.

Dr Stephen Hawking says world needs a more sustainable trajectory

Celebrated physicist Dr Stephen Hawking has warned that in light of the world surpassing 400ppm (parts per million) of carbon dioxide – the highest in 2m-3m years – the world needs to move to a more sustainable economic trajectory.

PrivacyChoice’s flagship product is a consumer web app called Privacyfix that addresses web users’ privacy concerns.

The award-winning browser plugin allows users to manage their privacy settings across Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and thousands of other websites.

A single personalised dashboard lets users see what companies are tracking them online, which websites may share personal information and which have experienced data breaches in the past.

Privacyfix is available in the US for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, with Microsoft Internet Explorer and other international markets to follow. It will also be made available this year for iOS and Android, extending privacy protection across smartphones and tablets.

“Our two companies share a vision of empowering consumers to manage their personal information and preferences as they live out their lives online,” said John Giamatteo, COO of AVG Technologies.

“This is a key part of our commitment to delivering privacy, protection and performance software solutions across multiple platforms and devices.

“We believe in allowing consumers to take control of their online privacy and this acquisition is a perfect demonstration of the active steps we are taking to support this vision,” Giamatteo said.

It’s complicated image via Shutterstock

Havok is making the production engine free across the leading mobile development platforms without commercial restrictions on company size or revenue.

Project Anarchy will include Havok’s Vision Engine together with access to Havok’s suite of physics, animation and AI tools used in franchises such as Skyrim, Halo, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted and Skylanders.

The free download will also include game samples and tutorials to help the mobile development community hit the ground running.

Havok CEO David Coghlan said: “We’re consistently amazed by what the AAA industry creates with our technology and we’re really delighted to be able to offer these professional grade tools to mobile developers for free and we look forward to supporting the mobile game development community to make some stunning games with the technology over the next few years.”

Havok will launch an online community to proactively promote and support developers through all stages of production via a dedicated Project Anarchy website to encourage free sharing and collaborative development of extensions and customisations by the community.

Recently added to the list of free-to-ship platforms for Project Anarchy is Tizen. Tizen is an open-source, stands-based operating system supported by leading mobile operators and hardware manufacturers for devices including smartphones, tablets, netbooks and connected devices, including smart TVs.

3D sci-fi image via Shutterstock

The report, which was revealed today at the College of Computer Training, Dublin, claims there are more than 4,500 immediate vacancies in Ireland’s ICT sector and that these jobs are not being filled because candidates do not have the skills required.

While these positions range from entry level to expert level, many of them require intermediate-level skills that FIT believes can be obtained through six to 24-month long training programmes.

The key areas where employers are noticing a skills shortage are mobile development, web development, games development, networking and infrastructure, platform administration, creative digital media, CRM, programming technologies, contact centre support, cloud computing and virtualisation, and project management.

As well as technical skills, employers are seeking soft skills, such as written and verbal communication, leadership, teamwork and customer focus.

Building a talent pipeline

FIT, an initiative led by the tech industry, provides training programmes for the long-term unemployed to gain marketable technical skills. “We have been increasingly concerned at the growing skill shortages in the sector while recognising an increasing and untapped opportunity to create a talent pipeline comprising those job seekers with transferable skills from declining sectors,” said FIT CEO Peter Davitt.

Filling the skills gap is becoming more urgent in order to prevent multinational companies from reallocating these jobs to other bases.

If Ireland can produce more skilled candidates in these target areas, the country would be even more appealing for foreign direct investment.

“We are seeing a worldwide increase in demand for ICT skills,” said Minister for Training and Skills Ciarán Cannon, TD. “While we cannot create a supply of highly skilled ICT professionals overnight, through the development and ongoing implementation of the joint Government-Industry ICT Action Plan, Ireland has been at the fore in taking measures to build the pipeline of high-level ICT graduates.”

The Minister of State for Research and Innovation Seán Sherlock, TD, announced the new funding at the Science Gallery in Dublin this morning.

The €6.9m investment is being made through SFI's Technology Innovation Development Award (TIDA) programme, in collaboration with Enterprise Ireland.

The 62 research projects that are set to benefit from the funding hail from Trinity College Dublin (TCD), University College Dublin, NUI Galway, University College Cork, Dublin City University, Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, Tyndall National Institute, NUI Maynooth, Dublin Institute of Technology and University of Limerick.

Sherlock said the funding would enable the research teams to take the first steps in developing new discoveries and inventions with commercial potential.

"Today's funding announcement will help deliver the commercialisation of excellent research taking place in Ireland in a range of areas, such as ICT, big data, medical technologies and food," he said, adding that these are areas of significant employment.

Some of the research being funded is the development of new drugs for cancer treatment and diabetes; research to develop genetically modified crops tolerant to drought; new ways to detect Alzheimer's disease; and smart networked sensing systems in agriculture.

SFI's director-general Prof Mark Ferguson said each submitted project went through a "rigorous" review process.

"Ultimate selection was on the basis of the quality and novelty of the proposed innovation, its potential impact and its fit with the national research prioritisation areas," he said.

To give a taste of some of the projects, Prof Manfred Hauswirth at NUI Galway is developing software to integrate public and private data with an intuitive user interface to support retail business planning.

Prof Mathias O Senge from the School of Chemistry at TCD is developing new drugs for cancer treatment based on a technique called photodynamic therapy. This is a non-invasive treatment that involves the interaction of light with photosensitiser molecules used to target the cancer.  

Twitter was reported to be testing a two-step security solution following a hack on Associated Press last month, which used the @AP Twitter account to falsely report attacks on the White House. The AP hack was just the most recent in a long string of similar attacks on media outlets like the BBC, Reuters, NPR and CBS.

Two-step verification is already employed by the likes of Google, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo! and Dropbox, and offers an added level of security as a username and password – which can be obtained through phishing attacks or other breaches – are not enough to gain access to accounts.

Twitter’s log-in verification requires users to register a phone number with their accounts for them to be enabled. Once this is done, users can opt to receive a six-digit code via SMS that will have to be entered when they want to log into Twitter.

If users need to sign into Twitter on other devices or apps, they will need to visit their applications page to generate a temporary password in order to authorise that application for log in.

In a post on the Twitter Blog explaining the new security options, product security team member Jim O’Leary says more security enhancements are in the pipeline.

Kim Dotcom claims copyright infringement

One user that’s not happy with this new development at Twitter is Kim Dotcom, founder of Megaupload (now Mega). Dotcom claims intellectual property rights for the two-factor security measure, and tweeted yesterday: “Google, Facebook, Twitter, Citibank, etc. offer Two-Step-Authentication. Massive IP infringement by US companies. My innovation. My patent”.

As proof of his claim, Dotcom then tweeted this US patent from 1997 (filed under his original name, Kim Schmitz) that describes a method and device for authorisation in data transmission systems employing a transaction authorisation number or comparable password.

Though he believes in sharing knowledge and ideas for the greater good, Dotcom says he is considering suing the companies that infringe his patent because of his legal problems with the US.

The German-Finnish entrepreneur is facing extradition from New Zealand on charges of online piracy and copyright infringement by the US Department of Justice. He was arrested in January of last year and an extradition hearing is scheduled for August.

Dotcom says Mega’s assets are currently frozen and defending his company will cost more than US$50m. In order to raise this money, he wants to bargain with companies he says are infringing on his IP rights. “Google, Facebook, Twitter, I ask you for help. We are all in the same DMCA boat. Use my patent for free. But please help fund my defence,” he tweeted.

As a fundraising alternative, Dotcom is also offering to sell the worldwide license for his two-factor authentication patent, apparently valid in 13 countries, including the US and China.

Founded in 2011, Huggity has come up with technology to allow brands and sponsors to engage directly with an audience at sporting events and concerts through social media platforms.

Huggity secured the €600,000 funding from the AIB Seed Capital Fund and Enterprise Ireland. The company is planning to fast-track its international scaling strategy and to create 16 new positions at its Dublin base by the end of the year.

The new roles, which will bring Huggity's headcount to 22, will be in the areas of business development, customer support, marketing and the development of new products.

The company's core product is FanPic, a panoramic, high-resolution crowd image taken at a venue during an event.

Once a FanPic is posted online, users can zoom into the crowd photo, find themselves and friends, and then share a branded message with friends and family on Facebook, Twitter or via email.

The company has worked with events and brands such as the Euro 2016 qualifiers, English football clubs Liverpool and Manchester United, the FAI and the IRFU.

Huggity has also worked with MTV, Aviva, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swatch and the Qatar Foundation. The company sells through partners in the US, Brazil, Australia, Norway, Poland, Turkey and Belgium, and is also in discussions with a reseller in India.

CEO Mike Sikorski said the investment will allow Huggity to focus on increasing its international reach and building new products.

"The objective behind Huggity is to combine our photography, technology and marketing skills with our love of sport and music to create a positive experience for fans and a powerful engagement tool for brands, venues and artists," he said.