Inside View from Ireland: Hashtagging Sunday News

IT FELT LIKE DECEMBER when I paged through three Sunday papers because some recurrent themes kept pounding on my head. Everywhere you turn in Ireland, there are threats of strikes, prospects of lower wages and a rising tide of discontent. I'd hashtag those sentiments in my review of current affairs.

#wages The Taoiseach and his ministers will have their pay cut before Christmas. That's the lead headline of the Sunday Business Post (SBP) and a talking point on weekend radio. Lead from the top. "Spending cuts to hurt pay" is on the top of the SBP fold and it's also on the front page of every Sunday broadsheet in Ireland today. Unions will reject wage cuts but when they strike, Irish citizens provide photo opportunities by driving north of the border to avail of cheaper prices there. It's hard for unions to win over the masses when they conspire to drive business out of the country.

#frugality Amarach Research reveals a typical adult would save if he or she won a €10,000 windfall. The upcoming Irish budget (set for this week) looks like it will include grants for retro-fitting older homes with energy-saving tech. We need some external wall insulation, zone controls for heating, internal skins, and solar panels so we'll watch the Finance Minister wink those things our way. It's not like we can get those efficient technologies any other way because Irish banks have run out of easy money. The cash flow is hurting media outlets as well and leading journalists point to paywalls coming next year for their titles.

Sunday Business and Technology

#innovation The Electricity Supply Board thinks the majority of cars on Irish roads in 2035 will be electric. I'd like one in 2010 but don't think I'll get a grant for it. Professor Donald Fitzmaurice believes Ireland should be more creative at making companies emerge from university research. He would certainly add Cauwill, Calom and coClarity to his listing of poster children of Irish university success stories. I feel honoured to have chatted with their founders before they won industry awards for innovation. When looking at innovated presentations of data, the iPhone Road Weather app wins this week's award for helpful information display. You can get all the data by viewing the NRA.ie website itself but the iPhone App makes the data pretty. Maybe everyone in Ireland who wants to lay claims to innovating Ireland out of despair should be made to present their strategy in the form of an iPhone App. How compelling could the hospitality, construction and retailing sectors look when viewed on the first screen of many taxpayers? It will be a long recovery coming if Ireland banks its hopes on those three sectors popping the country out of its funk. That said, some clever geo-aware machine intelligence would elevate the play of hotels, fitters and shops. That's what I'm seeing in Foursquare.

#gear Here are the things I'd buy after reading the SBP today:

-- Iomega Storecenter ix4. Mainly because it knows how to act like a server and it has gigabit circuitry inside.

-- Sony Vaio X. Because it's light and thin with a profile that would fit inside a five-year-old's backpack.

-- iPod Touch 64GB. A whole lot more capability than the most muscular iPhone. The phone part of the iPhone is one of its weakest parts anyway.

-- Kodak zi8. The best camcorder if you're on a budget and need external mic input.

#tips I learn interesting time-saving ideas every month after reading Computers in Business. Some months I write small items for the publication too.

-- Connect with iiba.ie if you really need fast Facebook and iPhone App development during the Christmas holiday season.

-- Use Fring on your mobile phone if you want to slice your charges. But know you need to consider your power management and appreciate that some people want to reach you with caller ID, something Fring squelches.

Direct link to audio: http://podcasting.ie/qik/091206.mp3