Thanks to Bernie Goldbach for reporting this. Obviously we don’t need the CEO of Google to point such things out, but it’s nice to see an important figure from the web lend his weight to the argument for a better broadband infrastructure. Living in Longford and Leitrim over the past four years I am all too painfully aware of the extremely poor communications infrastructure in Ireland.

ERIC SCHMIDT, CEO OF GOOGLE, visited Killarney last week, and suggested Ireland invest more in communications infrastructure. Schmidt believes broadband capability is a precondition for economic growth in the next 10 years. But not the kind of over-the-air sprinkling that the Irish government currently endorses.

“The right thing to do is to light up Ireland with fibre, and to do that systematically over a 10-year period.”

via Inside View: What Eric Schmidt Thinks Ireland Needs.

The government talks about decentralising but if it really wants to do that it needs to sort out a proper broadband infrastructure. Of course it goes beyond decentralisation – it’s a pure economic fact now – Ireland needs hyper-connectivity at hyper-speed to stay competitive, attractive to investors and businesses considering locating here, and, well, so many things.

The National Broadband Scheme is a complete joke. I’m personally in a situation where I am strongly considering taking my ass out of the back of beyond and to somewhere where I might get reasonable and reliable connectivity. It’s a horrible thought that it might come to that, and doesn’t exactly help small rural communities develop at all.

I’ve fought with shit internet connections ever since I moved out of Dublin, going from dial-up, to capped broadband, to unbelievably shit wireless, to semi-decent wireless which turned shit (they assure us it will get better next week). All of this time I’ve struggled to beat my 1mbps connection which I first experienced in Toronto in 2001. That’s 8 years ago. What’s the story?!

The below image shows ping times on our connection – the slower the ping, the slower the connection. How shit is that.

Smoke Ping results - Last 10 days

The next image shows our inexorable decline in decent connection since May of this year. Nice to have paid €90 per month for such a wonderful service – oh and don’t even say 3G to me, I wouldn’t go near that if you paid me.

Smoke Ping results - Past 12 months

I’m just getting annoyed now. I’m going to stop thinking about this and get back to work. Just needed a little rant. Sure, soon I’ll be in India and Cambodia. Maybe they’ll have the infrastructure sorted out when I get back (I doubt it).

Warren Daly has just done up a lovely new ambient mix set for free download over on Invisible Agent – grab the download now!

I forecast this will get some repeated playing on my part (being a bit of an ambient junky) – great work Warren!

The latest AgentCast from Warren Daly is a smooth blend of minimal electronic textures and floating ambient soundscapes.

It includes delicate trickles and singing reverberations from Arovane, Japanese composer Hirohito Ihara (a.k.a Radicalfashion), Pete Namlock and Robert Rich to name just a few.

Warren generally concentrates on mixing Electro and Techno but in this instance he covers many distinctive and elegant styles of Electronica and awakens a multitude of emotions, highlighting his diverse and innovative abilities.

via Warren Daly – DJ Mix / AgentCast – Ambient, Downtempo, Electronica – Invisible Agent.

I’m really happy to hear this news. Whilst the body is saying that it’s not compulsory for manufacturers to sign up to this system, I really hope that all mobile phone manufacturers will. Sony Ericsson have announced they’ll launch the universal charger in the first half of 2010.

I remember when Nokia launched their new phone charger – suddenly I had a phone for which the countless old chargers I had were redundant. It really seems incredibly pointless. In fact, I think I ended up buying a new charger for the first time just because I had left my only charger at home.

With the new universal charger there is a situation where, if widely adopted, you won’t have to worry about visiting a friend and not being able to charge your phone, buying a new phone won’t write off your old chargers, and in theory we’ll see a lot less electronic waste.

Industry body the GSMA says that 51,000 tonnes of redundant chargers are generated each year.

Currently most chargers are product or brand specific, so people tend to change them when they upgrade to a new phone.

However, the new energy-efficient chargers can be kept for much longer.

The GSMA also estimates that they will reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 13.6m tonnes.

via BBC NEWS – Universal phone charger approved.

I just hope that the new charger, with its energy efficiency, will not actually draw power when it’s plugged in with no phone attached – something that irks me about current chargers.

ITU Press Release

A remarkably interesting look at the possibilities for fundamental changes in the way we interact with computers, from the premise that multi-touch technology is the way of the future, and the fact that as humans we’ve been equipped with tools that can handle extremely complicated tasks. What are those tools? Hands.

I see Mr. Miller’s point: the incredibly old model of controlling your computer with a single point of interaction -  the mouse and it’s pointer – has been around so long that people just accept that it’s the best/only way of interacting with a computer. The time is night, however, that this interaction should change.

The video below is a concept, and idea put together to promote debate and innovation. There’s no product for sale. Still, I think it’s a very worthwhile watch and whilst the desktop interface may seem quite alien I think it achieves its purpose, namely getting our brains thinking about what is possible.

Interestingly Apple have just launched the “Magic Mouse” ¹, which is a mouse whose entire surface doubles as a touch interface, with support for multi-touch interactions. You can see it in action over on the Apple website.

Anyway, back to the 10/GUI video. Enjoy.

This video examines the benefits and limitations inherent in current mouse-based and window-oriented interfaces, the problems facing other potential solutions, and visualizes my proposal for a completely new way of interacting with desktop computers.

via 10/GUI on Vimeo.

In a slight follow-up to my recent post about the Windows 7 Launch Party video, below is another awful awful Microsoft advert for “Songsmith” – again, I don’t recommend watching all of it.

Microsoft Songsmith

By the way, the ’strangely enjoyable’ part of my title refers to the second video below. Steve sent me this link and, in some weird way, I find it strangely compelling. Maybe it’s just the contrast, or maybe it’s because it’s stupidly late and I’m completely trashed.

Songsmith does Nirvana

Thanks Steve, this has somehow made my night. I think you’re right – I should get Songsmith and this whole film composition malarky will become much easier.

In a nerdy way, humour is alive and well and it’s a very good thing to see the piss being well and truly ripped out of Microsoft’s “Launch Party” video, which, must truly be one of the all time worst moments in video.

I’ve included the Microsoft video below the piss-take, but if you do watch it, well, don’t watch the whole thing, it really is painful watching, and it doesn’t get better as it goes along.

Windows 7 Torrenting Party

The video originally appeared on Funny or Die.

Microsoft’s Original Launch Party video

Here’s a very handy little tool for quickly showing what folders are using up all your hard drive space.

It’s a bit light on the feature front, but does exactly what I needed it to do – which is highlight orphan folders that are eating space which I know I don’t need.

It’s an added plus that it doesn’t need  installation – just runs from the extracted download folder.

FolderSize is another in a relatively long line of similar tools (our favorite is the previously mentioned WinDirStat), but it boasts a couple of nice features that sets it apart from most.

First and foremost, it’s portable, which means it’s the perfect app to throw on your PC repair kit thumb drive. Second, where some of these tools can take a while to analyze your hard drive usage, FolderSize seems to run really fast and light. On the downside, it’s not as feature rich as most of the alternatives, and you can’t drill down through the results or even open folders in a new Explorer window from its interface. You can, however, zoom in and out on the window for a closer look at folders using your mouse’s scrollwheel.

via Lifehacker: FolderSize Displays What’s Eating Your Hard Drive Space.

Application website: http://foldersize.codeplex.com/

This sounds like pretty big news to me – Nokia are claiming that Apple have infringed on their intellectual property and could be liable for a license agreement settlement for every iPhone model since the iPhone was introduced in 2007.

The ten patents in suit relate to technologies fundamental to making devices which are compatible with one or more of the GSM, UMTS (3G WCDMA) and wireless LAN standards. The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007.

via Nokia – Press Releases.

Image by Wolanka

All you WordPress fans will be glad to hear that the frequently updated and marvellous WordPress is soon to release a new update, WordPress 2.9.

I’ve had a look at the beta on a test install and there’s a few really nice features.

1. Image Editing
   Yep, they’ve introduced an image editor – something that will, no doubt, prove extremely handy for both myself and clients that have sites run off WordPress. It’s a fairly basic editor – crop, resize, rotate, but that’s all I’d really want it for. Simple and fast!
2. Post Thumbnails
   There’s been innumerable ways to alter WordPress to include a thumbnail image in your post-excerpt, they’ve now decided to build this functionality into the core. I think this is great as it will make life a little easier.
3. Easy Embedding
   WordPress 2.9 is now going to support a facility called oEmbed, which is sort of like an open embedding framework supported by a number of large content distributors around the net. There’s a detailed post about it over on Viper Bond’s ¹ website: Easy Embeds for WordPress 2.9
4. Trash
   Not sure about deleting stuff, but annoyed that it’s taking up your screen space? Now WordPress has a “trash” function!

They’re the major new features as far as I can make out – there’s a whole rake of other improvements which will be fully detailed on the WordPress Codex page for the 2.9 release.

Tomorrow marks the launch of “School Yard Food Yard“, a new market that’s happening every Sunday in Ranelagh, Dublin 6.

An exciting new Sunday food market called “the School Yard Food Yard” is being set up by a group of enterprising market traders and local producers who have come together to breath new life into an old and neglected market at the rear of Ranelagh multi-denominational school. The market will be open on Sundays from 10am to 3.30pm.

It sounds like they have a really good crop of organic and homemade treats, delicacies, and other food stuffs.

The launch will have music, face painting, and a variety of other entertainment. Check their website for the exact location.

School Yard Food Yard launch poster