10 tech stories you need to take with you this weekend
Ten nuggets of knowledge to take away for the weekend, including: start-ups and sex tech, Dublin on cloud 9 and RIP old Nokia.
1. Greetings from Palestine: a female founder in the Middle East’s unlikely start-up hub
On a visit to Palestine, Joseph O’Connor discovers a vibrant start-up community which is breaking boundaries by overcoming obstacles.
2. Amazon puts Dublin on Cloud 9 – online giant acquires former Jacobs factory
E-commerce and cloud giant Amazon may be planning to increase its data centre footprint in Dublin after acquiring the former Jacob’s biscuit factory on Belgard Road, Tallaght.
3. Cindy Gallop: ‘I want to be the Y Combinator of sex tech’
It isn’t just the Irish who are afraid to talk about sex, venture capitalists and financial institutions also tend to get a bit hot and bothered about the subject. That’s the view of Make Love Not Porn’s Cindy Gallop who wants to make sex one of the hottest areas of start-up activity.
4. RIP old Nokia, it was fun while it lasted
Nokia is dead. Well, the old Nokia mobile phone brand that we all knew and loved is dead, anyway, according to Finland’s Prime Minister. Microsoft’s decision to cull 7,800 employees in its smartphone group this week was the nail in the coffin.
5. .ie domains pass 200k milestone, but urban-rural divide haunts digital Ireland
The number of .ie domains registered has surpassed 200,000 for the first time. At the end of Q1, there were 203,217 .ie domains registered in Ireland, according to the IE Domain Registry.
6. Highs and lows of this week’s Irish tech scene
In Siliconrepublic.com’s careers round-up last week, we had nothing but good news. Jobs announcements, advice and praise for Ireland were all plentiful. This week, there were a few more ups and downs.
7. Meet Vortex, a robot that wants to teach kids to code
DFRobot has just put its latest gadget Vortex onto Kickstarter, seeking funds to bring its code-teaching robot to market.
8. 10 of the coolest maps on the internet
Every day, we are greeted with new and wonderful maps. Maps of road networks, maps of coastlines, maps of races – maps, maps, maps. Well here are 10 wildly different maps that you really should see.
9. Apple launches iOS 9 and El Capitan public betas
Apple’s newest operating systems, iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, have been released as public betas, allowing the public to get an early look at the new software and have a guiding role in its development.
10. PC market plummets almost 10pc in Q2 ahead of Windows 10 launch
The PC market suffered its sharpest decline in the second quarter of this year, plummeting 9.5pc on last year, according to Gartner. This was the steepest decline in two years and occurs just ahead of the launch of Windows 10 on 29 July.
Tech takeaway image via Shutterstock
