A digest of the top business technology news stories from the past week, beginning with the news that Sláinte Healthcare is to create 80 jobs.
Sláinte Healthcare to create 80 jobs in 2014
Sláinte Healthcare is to create 80 jobs in software engineering, testing, business analysis, client administration, finance and marketing in 2014.
The international healthcare technology company provides software to drive efficiencies and cut costs in hospitals and healthcare organisations by enabling them to migrate to paperless systems.
Headquartered in Sandyford in Dublin, Sláinte Healthcare currently employs more than 90 people across its offices in Ireland, the UK, Middle East, and Australia.
Revenue Commissioners warns taxpayers about phishing emails
Ireland’s Revenue Commissioners is warning taxpayers about fraudulent emails that seek personal information regarding a tax refund and claim to be from the Government agency.
The phishing emails – fake emails to trick people into revealing personal or financial information – bear the subject line ‘Claim Your Tax Refund Online’ or ‘Tax Return For Year 2012’. These emails have not come from the Revenue Commissioners, the agency said, and they may be forwarded to webmaster@revenue.ie.
The agency advises anyone who has provided their personal information in response to the phishing emails to immediately contact their bank or credit card company.
E-commerce security player Trustev raises additional US$500k
Just months after raising US$3m in one of the largest seed-funding rounds in Europe, Cork-headquartered fraud prevention start-up Trustev has raised a further US$500,000 in investment from Notion Capital.
Trustev uses a proprietary algorithmic engine to analyse and compare multiple dynamic data sources to independently verify a user’s identity on e-commerce sites – a digital fingerprint, so to speak.
The latest funding will be used to accelerate the development of Trustev’s anti-fraud and identity verification technology for e-commerce merchants.
More Irish banking customers using mobile banking
The use of mobile banking has increased among Irish consumers, with 29pc of them now accessing their current accounts via their mobile phone compared to only 10pc in 2012, a survey by Accenture suggests.
The internet is the most popular channel for Irish banking customers at 80pc, while only 11pc of consumers use the telephone to conduct their banking.
Management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company Accenture commissioned the digital banking online survey of 4,009 current account customers across Ireland and the UK. The annual Current Account Customer Survey includes 630 respondents from the Republic of Ireland.
Global internet traffic from tablets is less than 5pc, says StatCounter
While reports on the surging popularity of tablet computers over traditional desktop and laptop models would have consumers believe these slates are fast becoming the go-to computing devices, figures from StatCounter reveal that usage isn’t quite that high.
“The perception is that tablets are proliferating and replacing traditional PC and laptop machines so we developed our research platform to isolate tablet usage stats,” said Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter, an independent web analytics firm. “In reality, we found that tablet internet usage globally (from November 2012-2013) at less than 5% is still relatively small compared to desktop and mobile.”
StatCounter’s research arm, StatCounter Global Stats, found tablet internet usage worldwide in November 2013 was just 4.8% – far behind the 19.1% coming from mobile and the dominant force of desktop clocking 76.1pc.
Commission proposes single charger plan for notebook computers
In a move to cut down on e-waste, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has published a new standard proposing a single charger for notebook computers.
It is estimated that the total e-waste related to all kinds of chargers of ICT devices exceeds half a million tonnes each year, equal to around 500,000 cars.
The new IEC technical specification covers critical aspects of external chargers for notebook computers, including their connector, plug and interoperability with other devices.
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