Two researchers from the Networks and Telecommunications research group at Trinity College Dublin received the best paper award at the European Wireless conference held in Munich this month. The paper, by Michael Peirce and Donal O'Mahony, Micropayments for Mobile Networks describes a new way of paying for mobile phone service by injecting payment tokens into the network while the call is in progress.
"This payment scheme will mean that, in future, people can use mobile phones without needing to have a service contract with an operator like Eircell or ESAT Digiphone," said Michael Peirce. "You'll be able to go into a department store, buy any phone you like, load it up with value and immediately begin using it anywhere in the world."
Fermat On The Record: Dr John Cosgrave, joint discoverer with Yves Gallot of the largest known composite Fermat number (see Computimes, August 16th) will give a public lecture The history of Fermat numbers from August 1640 on Thursday October 28th at 8 p.m. in Room €201, St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin. Yves Gallot will give a lecture on Friday, at 4.30 p.m. in the Salmon Theatre, TCD. Info - www.spd.dcu.ie/johnbcos/
Rule Britanni: Britannica's site last week on the first day the reference work was made available for free. The site at www.britannica.com got millions of hits on Tuesday after the publisher said it was putting all 44 million words online, gratis.
Internet World Event: The Net event of the year, Internet World Ireland '99, begins in the RDS on Wednesday with the aim of confronting the key online issues facing both the business community and the home user. There will be 30 free workshops as part of the business show, which takes place on Wednesday and Thursday. Over 100 exhibitors will be on hand to entertain and inform those attending the business exhibition and next weekend's consumer exhibition. Internet Business Services will be showing MezzoNet, a product that could offer Gaeltacht schools and businesses a complete Internet connection service that can switch between running in Irish and English. At the show on Wednesday, Indigo plans to launch a product that it says will make e-commerce "both simple and affordable" for Irish companies.
Info Town's Anniversary: Ennis is celebrating its second anniversary as the eircom Information Town and to mark the occasion the Best Practice Awards 2000 - a scheme designed to recognise and reward people in Ennis for outstanding achievement in IT - has been launched.
Book Writs: Amazon.com is suing barnesandnoble.com accusing it of illegally duplicating its patented online shopping feature. In the suit Amazon claims that barnesandnoble has copied its 1-Click technology.
Price Increase: When the new CD-Rom telephone directory finds its way into the shops it is expected to retail for £40 - a 100 per cent increase on last year - the Galway-based IE Professional has discovered. The increase is apparently because the CD now includes Golden Pages information. Hard copy directories are free.
Bush Whacked: Just one day after the George W. Bush campaign debuted a redesigned Web site, hackers defaced it, replacing a photo of the Texas governor with a red hammer and sickle and issuing a call for "a new October revolution".
Opening Up Encryption: The US government is considering relaxing export limits on computer source code for data scrambling programs in a possible move acknowledging the growing importance of Linux. The administration had originally intended to maintain current export limits on source code but, after announcing it would significantly relax many of its limits on already compiled computer encryption programs, companies complained that retaining the source code limit was unworkable.
IBM Seeks Formula: IBM plans to stop selling its consumer PCs in US stores early next year and focus on Internet sales, while it tries to find a way to make money amid plunging computer prices. The company will bring to a temporary halt the sale of Aptivas through most retailers until it comes up with a profitable retail formula, an IBM spokesman said.
Clued In Cluas: The online arts magazine, www.CLUAS.com, is playing host to original songs by unsigned Irish acts in MP3 and Windows Media audio formats. In addition to the tunes, each featured artist/band has a personal page with biographical details and a photo.
Net Gains: The US has experienced an increase of 50 per cent in the number of consumers with home Internet access bringing the total figure to 43 per cent in 1999. Even more dramatically the UK market has doubled its number of consumers with home access to 24 per cent in the same period, according to a PriceWaterhouseCoopers International Consumer Technology Survey carried out among 800 respondents in the US and Europe.
In Brief...MicroWarehouse has signed a deal with Xerox Ireland that is expected to increase that company's share of the printing products market in Ireland. . . Ocean has instigated legal proceedings against eircom in a dispute which relates to the refusal of the latter to provide capacity to the former for its Internet service, oceanfree.net. . . Corel is planning to launch a desktop version of Linux next month. . . First-quarter profits at Microsoft jumped 30 per cent, helped by continued strong demand for the company's Office 2000 and other business software. . .