Whoa! Metallica meets the batmobile! Check out the new '3' logo -- the rebrand for Hutchison Whampoa 3G. As they're going to be our biggest 3G provider in Ireland, guess we'll be seeing this on billboards and adverts before (too) long...
12:23:00 PM  #   your two cents []

Tech industry job losses may be slowing, according to a new report.
11:44:05 AM  #   your two cents []

Pedant's corner: At the moment I'm reading the wonderfully quirky novel Down There by the Train by Canadian Kate Sterns; thoroughly enjoyable, a writer who makes the pun an engaging literary device, among other things. Very hard to describe this book -- a cross between Dickens and Mervyn Peake is an attempt by some reviewers, but that makes it sound heavy going when it's really a delight. One little misstep, though: she introduces a character, an Irish priest, who is supposed to have moved to the island location of the story in 1910, having just graduated from Trinity College.

This would not only have been unlikely but probably impossible -- Trinity was founded by Queen Elizabeth the First as a Protestant outpost in a Catholic country. And by 1910, though Trinity itself would have accepted Catholics as students, the Catholic church would excommunicate any Catholic who went there, so a matriculating priest is quite unlikely! Indeed, Ireland's past president Mary Robinson quite famously had to get a special dispensation from her local bishop to attend law school at TCD in the late 60s/early 70s. The church only withdrew this restriction in recent decades.

11:27:50 AM  #   your two cents []

Mobile Junkies Reshaping Society?. Futurist Howard Rheingold's vision has 'smart mobs' changing the world order. His new book is a rambling but intriguing treatise on the subject. Also: An audio interview with the author. [Wired News]
11:17:10 AM  #   your two cents []

Drivers rehearse before they race. Computerised versions of race tracks are helping drivers hone tactics. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY]
11:16:24 AM  #   your two cents []

Better PCs With Plastic Magnets. Mix the quantum theory of spintronics with plastic magnets, and what do you get? Researchers testing ways to combine the two are hoping for cheaper, faster, smarter computers. [Wired News]
10:35:55 AM  #   your two cents []

Dave Winer picked up this great line from Alan Reiter's wireless data weblog: "As I've said, the hardest substance on Earth isn't a diamond, but the thick, dense skulls of wireless data marketing executives at cellular companies." Heh! This is a great blog for those into wireless, looking at conferences, WiFi in airports, pricing models, strategy, just about everything you can imagine, with links to excellent stuff too. A good awareness of the European market and differences with the US, something often missing in US-based commentary. Also this is quite accessible if (like me) you are really interested in the ideas and strategies but aren't a pure techie.

10:33:57 AM  #   your two cents []

Microsoft eases copy protection in XP. OS will let users record TV shows onto CDs, DVDs [InfoWorld: Top News]
9:52:07 AM  #   your two cents []

Guerrilla Warfare, Waged With Code [New York Times: Technology] "They are computer scientists who have principled causes," said Ronald J. Deibert, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto who has studied the activities of such groups and runs the Citizen Lab, a political science technology laboratory that supported Mr. Villeneuve's work. "They are developing technologies not for commercial purposes, but for political purposes."
9:51:13 AM  #   your two cents []

Cellphone-controlled robot debuted by Fujitsu [bOing bOing]
9:50:35 AM  #   your two cents []

Big Hopes for Commuting by Bike [New York Times: Technology] The industry has been slow to recognize the commuter market because many of today's executive decision makers and designers are former racers, according to Felix Magowan, president of Inside Communications, which publishes VeloNews, a cycling newspaper. "Racing bikes and mountain bikes are great," he said. "But it's like using your downhill skis to go to work."
9:46:38 AM  #   your two cents []

N. Ireland Leaders May Lose Power [AP World News]
9:43:38 AM  #   your two cents []