![Uprise: phone and watermelon](https://www.siliconrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/weekend-takeaway-shutterstock_387481690-718x523.jpg)
Essential weekend reading, including: start-ups at Uprise, lifetime of Apple devices and Ireland from space
Ten nuggets of knowledge to take away for the weekend, including: start-ups at Uprise, the lifetime of Apple devices and Ireland from space.
1. 20 exciting Uprise start-ups to watch out for
Uprise’s third start-up festival returns to Amsterdam from 20 April, gathering European founders, entrepreneurs, academics, businesspeople and the general public for a two-day event.
2. ESA releases beautiful mosaic image of Ireland from space
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released what many would agree is a rather beautiful image of Ireland from space, featured as a multi-coloured landscape.
3. This globetrotting Galway teen is helping Parkinson’s patients free their feet
19-year-old Galway entrepreneur Edel Browne is developing Free Feet technology to help people with Parkinson’s disease.
4. DCU UStart Student Accelerator now open for applications
The DCU Ryan Academy’s UStart Student Accelerator Programme for entrepreneurial students is now taking applications for the 12-week course, which starts in June.
5. Microsoft sues US government over data snooping requests
Microsoft’s data centres in Ireland could be back in the eye of the storm as the software giant sues the US government over secret requests to seize emails.
6. SEAI reveals dates for Smart Home Hackathon in May
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has revealed it is to host a three-day hackathon this May, focused on the developments of internet of things (IoT) smart home technology.
7. Bluetooth co-inventor Sven Mattisson: ‘50bn IoT machines is just the start’
In 10 or 15 years, there will be 50bn connected machines on Earth – all part of the internet of things world – joined together through technologies like Bluetooth, co-invented by Sven Mattisson two decades ago.
8. Apple has revealed the average lifetimes of its flagship devices
In laying out its global environmental goals and a new Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) campaign, Apple has said it assesses on average three years of use for each iPhone and iPad and just four years for Mac products based on energy usage patterns.
9. Researchers create working single-atom engine in world first
It seems engineering things the size of atoms is all the rage these days, as a team of Swiss researchers announces it has found a way of creating a functioning engine using a single calcium atom.
10. Apple may rename OS X ‘MacOS’ in keeping with overall brand strategy
Apple could be about to rebrand its Mac operating software as MacOS, signalling an end to the OS X generation and ushering in a next generation OS for Macs.
Weekend takeaway image via Shutterstock