The other tech stories of the week in short...

Forum on investment

The Irish Software Association has teamed up with the Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA) for a Software Investment Forum on April 16th in Dublin. IVCA chairman John Tracey, whose members have €700 million to invest over the coming years, said the event would give companies a chance to meet venture capitalists outside a formal fundraising process.

Listen to The Irish TimesBusiness Podcast at www.irishtimes.com/business/ podcast for more details about the event.

Tipperary IT students win award

A team from Tipperary Institute of Technology has scooped the top award in the 2010 Newstalk Student Enterprise Competition, which is run in association with The Irish Times.

The competition, which aims to test students' ability to work as a team while tackling ririsheal-life business issues, attracted a record entry of 350 teams comprising 1,400 students from the National College of Ireland and the State's 15 institutes of technology.

Call for data breach notification laws

A leading IT security professional has called for the introduction of data breach notification laws, which would force companies to reveal whenever they lose sensitive information.

Dr James Lyne, senior technologist with security software company Sophos, said such rules were "crucial" when data such as personally identifiable information or intellectual property was lost or stolen.

"Without notification of government and law enforcement, we'll end up in exactly the situation we're in, where people don't know if it [ the threat] is real or not," he said.