This is a pretty striking ad by Telecom Italia. (via Joi Ito/Mikhail Esteves
It’s a nice ad, but life rarely works out as well as that, and we overestimate the capability of technology to solve human problems. There might not have been video links, but there was radio during World War II, and it didn’t stop the war.
Smart Telecom, a relatively small company is getting into the residential telephone infrastructure game in Ireland in a big way. They’re doing a deal where you get line rental plus 2-megabit broadband for EUR 35 including VAT. The same package with the incumbent (Eircom) would cost you well over EUR 100. This is the first serious challenge to Eircom’s dominance of the residential last-mile marketplace in Ireland.
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Ryanair has gone all wooly and customer-service and is beginning to embrace big-airline style policies. Well, not really, but they have actually softened up their terms and conditions. According to a post on boards.ie they now offer accommodation and food where a flight is cancelled and it’s their fault.
The Provisional IRA issued a statement on Tuesday warning that it was stopping decommissioning. Mainstream politicians didn’t shake with appropriate fear, so they issued another statement yesterday, just to show they were really serious.
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There is a big debate in Ireland about toll roads. A lot of people are very angry about the amount they have to pay, the toll plaza queues they have to endure and the fact that a lot of the cash is going into private hands. Senator Shane Ross’s website contains links to some of the on-line debates.
However, the government and private bodies involved are completely failing to engage. They aren’t participating and they are pretending they aren’t paying any attention.
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An Irish company, from Cork is featured in today’s Guardian for building cheap houses. A pity they couldn’t build some of these in Ireland.
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Comreg published the results of its consultation on postcodes in Ireland. They’ve received a lot of expressions of support for the idea.
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Aircoach, an Irish coach operator now lets you buy your tickets online and have them sent to your mobile phone. They are giving a 50 percent discount on airport tickets if you buy 30 online at a time. That’s a pretty good incentive to be a geek on the bus.
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A city is like a computer program – special care has to be taken to make things as easy as possible for new users. The new signage on the South Quays at Talbot Bridge in Dublin is a step towards making Dublin easy for visitors to get around.
This is a completely new type of sign for Dublin, and it has a number of good features. There are clear directions to common tourist destinations in Dublin. It isn’t festooned with advertisements. It is highly graffiti-proof. Best of all, it isn’t supposed to look twee and olde-worlde.
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Media Lab Europe (MLE) which was a joint venture between the Irish government and MIT is closing down as it can’t get any more money.
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