Ged Carroll

Category: ireland | 愛爾蘭| 아일랜드 | アイルランド

Céad míle fáilte – welcome to the Ireland category of this blog. This is where I share anything that relates to the Republic of Ireland, business issues relating to Ireland, the Irish people, or Irish culture.

Given that I am Irish, a number of these posts are more personal in nature and based on observation when taking time out to see the family. If I am honest about it, there is less of these posts than there should be. Life gets in the way and I don’t get to the home country as much as I would like.

Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Aer Lingus launched a new advert that I thought was particularly notable that might appear in branding as well as Ireland. It is a small market of seven million or so and doesn’t have that many distinct brands.

Or if there was a new white paper from UCD (University College Dublin), that might appear in ideas and Ireland. If there is Irish related subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.

  • Hilton Worldwide + more

    Hilton Worldwide

    Hilton Worldwide Files for an IPO – Euromonitor International – interesting analysis of their business. Hilton Worldwide can trace its history back to a Texas hotelier in the early 20th century. It expanded to New York in 1943. Hilton Worldwide was one of the first users of computing with its centralised hotel booking system. It also pioneered the airport hotel with the first Hilton Worldwide airport property at San Francisco airport. Hilton Worldwide is being taken public by private equity company Blackstone.

    Consumer behaviour

    Selling to China’s digital divas: Microsoft – Campaign Asia – 18-34 year old women in China own on average just under 5 digital devices, the most popular being a smartphone

    Edelman Trust Barometer – The Emerging Markets Supplement – I’ll dig into this and there maybe a post with more detail here later

    DailyTech – Generation Y Wants iPhones/Tablets, Not Cars – imagine American Graffiti without the drive-in or the cars, but with iPads and iPhones

    Design

    Thuraya SatSleeve | Thuraya – reminded me of the OmniSky wireless sleds that used to clip on the back of Palm devices

    Gadgets

    Alcatel’s Crazy Idea: A Remote for the Smartphone – I don’t think that these are so crazy at all, having context dependent peripherals

    How to

    Matt Cutts Answers Whether Or Not Nofollow Links Can Hurt Your Site – nofollow links don’t hurt your search ranking

    Ideas

    Mutual Mobile | trend report on automotive – (PDF)

    Ireland

    TDs and Senators get reality check on mortgage arrears – The Irish Times – not really that surprising

    Luxury

    2013 White Paper on Travellers – The Rise of Social Travel | Group M & CIC Data – on Chinese travellers

    Media

    Sina Made Enterprise Weibo Verification Available for Singapore Companies — China Internet Watch

    When aggregators attack: Techmeme’s headline-rewriting is just part of a larger shift — paidContent

    Riptide: what really happened in the news business – great paper on the collision of digital technology with journalism and news gathering since 1980 (PDF)

    Online

    Twitter makes IPO plans official: files confidential S-1, but expected value is about $14B — Tech News and Analysis – that this is a confidential filing means the company’s annual revenue is less than $1 billion. Usually when companies announce plans to go public, they have to file an S-1, the securities filing that companies use to provide details about their planned initial public offerings. Under the JOBS act of 2012, however, companies with less than $1 billion in revenue can file confidentially.

    @ twitter: We’ve confidentially submitted … – why use a press release when this will do

    LinkedIn CEO: We’re aiming for 3B profiles and a map of the world’s economy | VentureBeat – reminds me of doing Yahoo! knowledge search press briefings with Jeff Weiner; similarly grand vision

    Retailing

    Chaos Reborn: Kowloon Walled City Rebuilt as Arcade | WebUrbanist – this is so cool

    Security

    NSA Spies on International Bank Transactions – SPIEGEL ONLINE – not terribly surprised

    VPNs caught in Cameron’s porn filter – O2 network lists privacy service as adult content | TechEye

    Google security exec: ‘Passwords are dead’ | Security & Privacy – CNET News – 2-part verification etc

    Software

    Cloud Phones Threaten iPhone Android – Business Insider – standard app versus web argument. The question is whether it will open up the market to a multiplicity of smartphone OS’ or just a few winners

    Wintel destined to eventually fail, says Acer founder – many downstream players moving to Google eco-system… For an ecosystem to have a chance of growing and staying strong, it must have leadership adopting strategies that allow all partners to earn profits. – Surprised Stan Shih was that blunt about their relationship with Microsoft

    Wireless

    Microsoft Nokia merger: Android Lumia had been built | BGR – of course they would, you have development teams doing all kinds of things like this, but it doesn’t mean that Nokia was ready to capitalise on it

    CannyVision – The most forward-thinking Apple yet – interesting speculative analysis

    How significant is Apple’s deal with Docomo? 66% of ex-Docomo users left to buy an iPhone – The Next Web – potentially cut churn by 66%?

    China approves new iPhone for all its networks – Rethink Wireless – an engineering feat certainly and potentially better for roaming, but don’t hold your breath for a China Mobile deal. China Mobile has more to gain by holding out for longer

    Xiaomi Turns Profit on Sales of IPhone-Beating Handset – Bloomberg – bad news for Nokia and Samsung

  • One time pad + more news

    One time pad technique

    In surveillance era, clever trick enhances secrecy of iPhone text messages | Ars Technica – kind of like the one time pad technique, but created on the fly. The one time pad (OTP) is an encryption technique that cannot be cracked, but requires the use of a single-use pre-shared key that is no smaller than the message being sent. In this technique, a plaintext is paired with a random secret key (also called a one time pad).

    Culture

    Richard Goodall Gallery Contemporary Art – prints by Central Station Manchester

    Ireland

    10 things a cyclist notices about rural Ireland – The Irish Times – interesting comments on changing society

    Luxury

    Not to be Overlooked – Japanese Outbound Tourists to Europe – Analyst Insight from Euromonitor International

    Media

    Yahoo to close its blogging service, | Marketing-Interactive.com– an interesting move, I will talk about this in more depth

    BuzzFeed has a Medium problem | PandoDaily – media models challenged

    What’s Bad About TV? Just Ask Apple. | Light Reading

    Retailing

    Facebook Pulls Physical Gifts From Gifting Program: Guess Why

    The Kids Aren’t All Right, and Neither Is Abercrombie & Fitch – Businessweek – part-time jobs aren’t what they used to be

    Security

    Feds Back Away From Forced Decryption … For Now | Threat Level | Wired.com – courts are not buying into the government’s theory that encryption is evidence of criminal behavior – more security related content can be found here.

    Of Course Teens Think About Privacy, They Have Parents – The Atlantic

    Software

    G2 Crowd – interesting aggregated opinions

    Steve Ballmer and the Art of Managing a Monopoly : The New Yorker

    In historic vote, New Zealand bans software patents | Ars Technica – interesting how this will fit in with the Trans Pacific Partnership

    Android’s Hugo Barra Departs Google for China’s Xiaomi – AllThingsD

    Why Google brought its app store to Iran, and what it could mean for Syria – the Obama administration has followed a pattern of gradually relaxing export restrictions worldwide

    Communities Dominate Brands: Ballmer Aftermath Part 1 – Future of Microsoft, especially in mobile

    Ballmer Departure From Microsoft Was More Sudden Than Portrayed – Kara Swisher – News – AllThingsD

    Technology

    Chip daddy: Moore’s Law is about to be repealed, but don’t blame physics • The Register

    Wireless

    3UK scraps roaming charges – only four years after abolishing it. It was called 3 Like Home rather than Feel Like Home but the principle was the same

    Samsung Announces colorful Galaxy Tab 3 built for kids — GigaOM – I really like the design off this, looks road warrior proof

  • Jamie Hewlett + more news

    Jamie Hewlett

    Jamie Hewlett was not someone that I would have associated with luxury menswear brand Dunhill. Dunhill have been creating interesting content for a number of years, that used to be accessed through an iPad application and their own site. This interview with Jamie Hewlett is brilliant. Hewlett’s talent as a comic creator developed early with him working in the studios of Bob Godfrey. Godfrey is famous to UK TV watchers for the cartoon series Rhubarb & Custard. After college Jamie Hewlett was recruited for Deadline magazine, which is where his iconic Tank Girl creation was formed and his relationship with Damon Albarn of Gorillaz.

    Jamie Hewlett submarined during the 1990s when the underground became mainstream drawing Get The Freebies. Eventually Jamie Hewlett teamed up with Albarn to provide the visual look of The Gorillaz.