TechWire

Joost -- slow and slower

Joost is a great idea, but does anyone else find it's horribly slow? It takes literally minutes for anything to load on my newish PC...

Irish Ebay auction to star as novel villain

Few details as to what kind of villain, though. Hope it's not a paedophile. Full story here.

Thought for the day

Nine tenths of Ireland's national territory is beneath the Atlantic Ocean, and is "undeveloped, undiscovered and under water". (-- Marine Institute)

'Free TV boxes for NTL customers'

This is interesting. Like a lot of people, I've heard countless stories over the past few months about a "box" that "this guy I know sells and installs" which "gives you all the pay TV channels" for free (once you have subscribed to NTL's basic service). They call them Dreamboxes, Starviews and Nokia D-Boxes.

This guy seems to sell and install them for €250, though I've heard cheaper.

On Monday, there were reports in the papers and online of a company called Aertec that was successfully sued for €40,000 by Sky for providing hotels (including the Mercer Group) with Sky TV access for nothing. But is buying one actually illegal for a punter?

Great piece of viral marketing

Send your Bob Dylan message to someone.

Playstation 3 drops to €400

Looks like the heat of competition is getting to Sony. It has just announced that it will drop its price to €400 on October 10th in Ireland.

But the machine will have a reduced 40GB hard drive, only two USB slots and no multi-memory card port. It also won't be backwards compatible with PS2 games, unlike the 60GB version.

Top 10 downloaded songs: Britain v USA

Interesting to see the difference. (Source: Billboard.biz)

USA:

1 BAD DAY  Daniel Powter  Warner Bros.
2 YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL  James Blunt  Custard/Atlantic
3 PROMISCUOUS  Nelly Furtado Featuring Timbaland  Mosley/Geffen
4 CRAZY  Gnarls Barkley  Downtown/Atlantic/Lava
5 TEMPERATURE  Sean Paul  VP/Atlantic
6 UNWRITTEN  Natasha Bedingfield  Epic
7 SEXYBACK  Justin Timberlake  Jive/Zomba
8 OVER MY HEAD (CABLE CAR)  The Fray  Epic
9 HIPS DON'T LIE  Shakira Featuring Wyclef Jean  Epic
10 RIDIN'  Chamillionaire Featuring Krayzie Bone

Britain:

1. Crazy, Gnarls Barkley
2. Grace Kelly, Mika
3. Chasing cars, Snow Patrol
4. Umbrella, Rihanna FT Jay-Z
5. I don't feel like dancin', Scissor Sisters
6. Hips don't lie, Shakira
7. Patience, Take That
8. How to save a life, The Fray
9. Ruby, Kaiser Chiefs
10. Maneater, Nelly Furtado

Reality check of the day

"While the majority of [Irish] businesses have a broadband connection, 68% of businesses do not think that they operate applications which specifically require a broadband connection."
(Chambers Ireland survey of 611 businesses, July 2007)

Isn't it time to admit that the majority of us are too unsophisticated to 'get' broadband?