TechWire

Pure Telecom buys Irish satellite broadband outfit

More upheavel in the troubled satellite broadband market. Following Aramiska's collapse last week, YTS hears that Pure Telecom has just taken over Ildana Teoranta, a smaller satellite broadband firm with a handful of customers. However, the company also runs 45 group broadband schemes around Ireland. "We've been looking for something out there for a while," said Paul Connell of Pure.

Hornby's new digital train sets

Choo choo! Or should that be bleep, bleep? Hornby, the choice of generations of grandads, is going all digital with its latest incarnation. The hobbyists' choice will show off its new digital collection at a European toy fair later this week. "This new type of digital control harnesses the latest in modern technology," says Hornby's website over a Hobnob biscuit. "No need for masses of wires. The user drives each locomotive directly and with precision." Eeh. By gum.

Eircom lands Starbucks wifi account

Eircom has landed the Starbucks wifi account, YTS hears. So far, the monster coffee chain has four locations, all in Dublin, with its latest branch about to open in Harcourt Street.
Meanwhile, Eircom has informed us that it now has 696 active hotspots around the country. It also claims that a further 214 hotspots are "agreed and pending completion". This breaks down into 79 cafes, 104 bars, 147 hotels, 26 B&Bs, 202 payphones and 5 airports. But are hotels and B&Bs really "public hotspots"? Are payphones? Perhaps the real figure should be 188 (696 minus the hotels, payphones and B&Bs). Nevertheless, that still puts the telco out in front in the Irish wifi leagues, ahead of O2, BT and Bitbuzz.

"Honest" Irish not downloading much illegal music, says expert

The High Court has ordered Irish ISPs to release the names of 49 people thought to be downloading music illegally. Irma, the music labels' organisation, is delighted. But how many Irish people are actually serious music-downloaders?
A look at the statistics pages of either the Irish Internet Neutral Exchange or the .ie Domain Registry says not many. They show a huge drop-off in internet activity after 6pm, when people go home.
"The peaks and troughs indicate we're an honest nation," said Nick Hilliard, head of operations at Inex. "If there were serious downloading going on, it would be a lot closer."
The stats also indicate that we only really use the internet at work. "In other national exchanges they the daily peaks and troughs are only out by about 20 per cent," said Hilliard. "In ours, it's about 500 per cent."

The PDA for the factory life

Work is fun. Or so Casio thinks. Its strange new IT-600 PDA is actually a stock-taking device first, phone and camera second. So when you're finishing counting the boxes of glue at the end of the warehouse, take a picture and share it with everyone on Flickr. Or something like that. Available through distributor PC Cubed.

Bye bye Aramiska broadband

Aramiska, the satellite broadband company, has announced it is pulling the plug on its service. The company has a few hundred customers in Ireland.
The company today sent out the following e-mail to its customers: "We regret to inform you that Aramiska and its services are shutting down and the company will be unable to provide you with internet access after today, 27th of January 2006."
Its customers have reportedly reacted with anger at the short notice, while its company's rivals have swung into action to hoover up the business. "We're getting calls from all over Europe at the moment," Digiweb's John Quinn told Yourtechstuff. "We've no idea yet how many customers we'll get from them."

iPod undies

Valentine's Day is a mere 18 days away. For the truly desperate, iAttire presents a range of iPod undies for the special person in your life (and their MP3 player). Just make sure you have something else, too...

3 Ireland: WePay Brits, but not Irish

3, the 3G mobile phone operator, has "no plans" to bring its new get-paid-as-you-talk system to Ireland. The operator's British subscribers are now paid by 3 to use its network through a system of refunds. Called WePay, if a punter receives a call or a text from another 3 subscriber, a couple of pence is credited to his phone account. But a spokesman for 3 Ireland told us that this isn't in the offing for Irish subscribers. Meanwhile, there have been quiet rumours circulating the industry about a possible hook-up between Eircom and 3, following the telco's failure to bag a 3G licence.

Don't buy MacBook Pro, says consultant

The MacBook Pro, Apple's new Intel-powered laptop, is best avoided, according to an Irish IT consultant specialising in Macs. "I'll be telling my clients to hold off until at least the Autumn before looking at it," said Don McClave. "It's a new system and there are likely to be issues with it at first." There has been some criticism from Apple users about the Macbook's reduced specifications on features such as screen resolution and DVD functions.

New broadband prices from Eircom

Eircom has bumped up its DSL broadband speeds while cutting some of its prices. Its 1MB, 2MB, 3MB and 4MB products all rise by 1MB download speed (except for one package, which gets a 20 per cent price cut instead). Upload speeds have also doubled, albeit in most cases from a measly 128k to 256k. Its entry-level time-based broadband, much criticised by internet lobbies, stays at 1MB up and 128k down but drops to €20 per month. The new speeds and monthly prices are:

Speed                 Monthly cost
1MB (128k up):      €30
2MB (256k up):      €40
3MB (384k up):      €55
4MB (384k up):      €108
5MB (512k up):      €205

Go on, ya Vaio

Sony has a few new Vaio laptops out today. The one we have our eye on, purely for its light weight (1.24kg), is the TX2. Its screen has LED (a first for a laptop) and claims to be able to represent "true black", an impressive feat if actually true. It also claims 7.5 hours battery life, running on an Intel Pentium M chip. We're not sure yet how much it costs, but the old TX1 was €2,350 to €2,650, depending on specification. Other new laptops released include the powerful A600 (€1,850 to €2,650) and the FS400 (€1,100 to €1,550).

Review: Creative's new MP3 speakers

Looking for external MP3 speakers? You can spend as little as €15 or as much as €300 (check out these Bose beauties) in Irish shops. For €100, there's Creative's new Gigaworks T20. Having hooked it up to an iPod last night, we're happy to report that it gives high(ish) end sound without a subwoofer, an item usually de rigeur to achieve passable bass. Crucially, there was little blare distortion when we turned it up to 11. This is impressive for 14 watts per channel. It's available widely in electronics retailers.

Ebay for O2.ie... Maybe

O2 Ireland is "in negotiations" with Ebay to put the auction website on its i-mode Wap service, a spokesman has told Yourtechstuff. The service is about to go live on O2's British i-mode portal. I-mode is a shopping portal technology imported from Japan by O2 to rival 3G. Current services on O2's i-mode-compatible phones include BuyandSell, Car Buyers' Guide and Daft.ie. O2 is expected to roll out 3G services later this year.

F***ed Google (dot com)

Here's a website for Google-watchers -- FuckedGoogle.com (motto: "Please God, Just One More Bubble".) We're unsure whether this is from the same people who brought us fuckedcompany.com (a website that chronicled job losses and bankruptcies in the tech sector during the dot com bust), but it's fairly amusing reading, albeit with a slightly maniacal edge.

Dell.ie's new telly-loving PCs

Dell is getting right on board the 'media centre' (ie computer-telly hybrids) bandwagon with its two latest arrivals. The Dimensions 5150C and 9150 both sport Microsoft Media Center (sic) 2005 and Intel's Viiv technology, which features dual core chips. According to Dell, both PCs boot up extra-quickly in an effort to emulate 'turning on' a normal TV. The machines are able to stream the inbound TV signals to 10 other computers around the house. Which is a bit ambitious, considering that well under half of Irish households have even one computer. The 5150C is €990, while the 9150 (which has a 1GB network card) is €1,040 from Dell.ie.