The village of Athea in Co. Limerick, in the middle of an ancient wetland on the Limerick/Kerry border, is earmarked as Ireland's first wholly community-owned electronic village shop and cultural centre on the Net. The e-commerce shop will be called all-ireland-village.com while the virtual culture centre will be called Cairde Duchais. The Athea community has organised a non-profit company, All-Ireland Village Ltd., to boost the disadvantaged area. It is hoped that the building of the e-commerce site can begin immediately.
Gates Open: More than 100 chief executives of the world's largest companies were treated to dinner at Bill Gates' lakeside Seattle mansion. The 2nd. annual `CEO summit' was an opportunity for Microsoft to win friends and influence people in the midst of its present travails. But Windows 98 will still ship on June 15 to first-time buyers and on June 25 to upgraders.
Felix Unhappy: Felix Somm, former head of Compuserve in Germany was convicted by a Bavarian court of spreading pornography over the Internet. The decision will probbaly be appealed as many German legal experts feel that an Internet Service Provider should not be held liable for banned material under the terms of last August's German federal multimedia law. A German Social Democrat MP called it "a catastrophe for cyberspace".
`Byte' Bites Dust: The wonderful 23-year-old computing magazine, Byte, with an estimated 500,000 avid readers is to cease publication after the July issue. One distressed reader said the news was comparable to the demise of Princess Di or Frank Sinatra. CMP Media bought Byte and other magazines from McGraw-Hill recently. Let's hope for a late reprieve. Please!
Planck Makes Galileo Permanent: A 300-page work by Galileo Galilei (1546-1642) on the theory of motion is the first of a series of historical manuscripts to be put on the Internet by Germany's Max Planck Institute. Written in Latin and Italian, it includes drawings, calculations and initial drafts. The original is kept in the Italian national library, which together with the Max Planck Institute and its Italian counterpart plans to offer direct access to significant scientific documents. The Galileo manuscript is at www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
Dual Band Mobile: The first phone to allow mobile users to use the same handset across Ireland, continental Europe, the US, Canada and Asia has recently been launched on the world market by mobile phone retailer Person To Person. The Bosch World 718 is designed for use on both GSM900 (as used by Ireland's two networks, Eircell and Esat Digifone) and GSM/PCS1900 networks (as used in the US; the UK uses 900Mhz and 1800 Mhz frequencies). Users of the World 718 can also `roam' on 105 networks (covering 63 countries across Europe and Asia) which have roaming agreements with Eircell.
Domino Effect: Lotus Domino topped the annual EMMS (Electronic Mail & Messaging Systems) Readers Poll as Best Messaging Product ahead of Microsoft Exchange in 2nd. place.
Comit Lands: is a new Internet mailing list for staff and volunteers of community and voluntary organisations in Ireland (North and South). email susan.odonnell@dcu.ie describing your community, voluntary or non-profit organisation and your community IT project.
Wric's Place: Wric (Web Registration of Ideas and Concepts) has created a site to register and protect ideas or concepts recorded on the WRIC system in encrypted form. They may be in the form of song (words and music), text, graphics or Sound. It hopes to stamp out plagiarism worldwide: www.rwric.com
TNS Takeover: Transaction Network Services has announced that it has, through its Irish subsidiary TNS Ltd, acquired a 50% interest in Atos Ireland Ltd for $1.8 million.
The Force With EPS: EPS Software, one of Ireland's leading software companies, announced last week its plans to create more than 100 new jobs over the next three years. EPS Software is now operating in Europe after securing the sole European agency business for Force, a Lotus Notes sales force automation product.