← Previous Story Aalborg Handbold is the new Danish champion! Next Story → Csurgoi KK wins the bronze medal in Hungary after penalty shoot-out! international handball campKasper HvidtMakarska camp Legendary Danish goalkeeper Kasper Hvidt will be one of the world-class star at the 3rd International Goalkeepers Camp in Makarska (Croatia) next month. He speaks for Handball-Planet.com about season with “new” team in Kolding, but also his plans and energy which is one of the most part of his success:– I am very satisfied how we pushed season until the end (interview is made before the play off final with Aalborg). We started new project with new team KIF Kolding Copenhagen at the beginning of August, when four of us joined KIF Kolding (Jorgensen, Boldsen, Kim Andersson). We have difficult task that in only one week got ready for the season, so if you know that, I could be satisfied with our Play-Off final achievement. We failed to qualify for the EHF Cup F4, but the main reason is Kim Andersson injury. He has problem with shooting arm and that is the biggest reason why we weren’t in French Nantes – said Hvidt for HP….Former Danish “No 1.”, who got the great replacement in Niklas Landin, showed that he is still at the TOP of goalkeepers tribe with the title of the Best goalkeeper in Danish Championship:– I am very satisfied with my season and complete performance.Despite Kasper is 37, he is still far away from retirement…– It’s simply, I like to be on the goal-line. I don’t have problem to find energy. In my case, I think that most of the younger players have problem to follow me! I believe that my body is ready for another four years of TOP handball, so I don’t have any reason and plan for retirement.To become one of the greatest is tough job…– If someone wants to become TOP player and to make international career, a gift to catch the ball is just one part of all. You have to have a gift also to practice hard even it hurts and even you haven’t fun.HAPPY TO JOIN MAKARSKA CAMPThird summer in a row, small city of Makarska at beautiful Adriatic host will be a place of gathering the biggest names of the goalkeeping world.– “Titi” (Thierry Omeyer) has told me for the Camp during VELUX EHF F4 in Cologne last year. One of the organizers, MArio Caljkusic also made contact with me, but I couldn’t come last summer because I had already fixed plans. I am happy that I wlll be there this June.The “eternal question” is which school of goalkeeping is better – Scandinavian or Balkan?– I like the Balkan style, goalkeepers from there. It is hard to say, who is better. Fact is that you must have some style to stop the ball. Sweden and Ex-Yugoslavia began to work seriously with goalkeepers 30,40 years ago and that produced the result. That’s the reason why these countries have the best world’s goalkeepers and that will continue in the future.For the end, Kasper gives an advice to the young goalkeepers who will come to Makarska…– You have to work hard to become new Peric or Sterbik. I am happy to join Camp. It will be a great pleasure to work with legends as Dejan Peric and goalkeepers which are the future of our sports – concludes Danish handball guru.
Kasper Hvidt about Makarska Camp Pleasure to work with Peric and other
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10 things in tech you need to know today Since right after World War II, the president’s national security adviser has an unparalleled ability to influence events worldwide Contaminated tap water could lead to 100,000 cases of cancer in the US if people drink it their whole lives. Here’s how worried you should be. PLACED IS A new mobile “location analytics” company that builds visual 3D maps for advertisers showing where their customers are at any given moment based on signals sent out from their mobile phones.The company believes that knowing where shoppers are when they’re not actually in the store will help advertisers buy location-based mobile ad campaignsThe maps Placed produces show high “affinity locations” for a brands’ audience in any given metro areas.So far, the data is based on an opt-in panel 100,000-plus users in the United States who have volunteered to be tracked in exchange for shopping “incentives.” Their data is continuously mapped by Placed, based on GPS.The technology then adds a level of intelligent modeling, so that, for instance, if a person is equidistant from a Starbucks and a bar on a Friday at midnight, the model will show that the bar is the likely location of the user.Here are Starbucks loyalists in the Seattle area:Here are fans of McDonald’s, as located in Chicago:Dunkin Donuts in Boston:And Apple in San Francisco:- Jim EdwardsCredit for all images: Placed.comRead: Staffing levels in Irish advertising industry remain at pre-recession levels >More: This Mercedes ad for car suspension is very, very clever > Trump carries a wad of cash for tipping people in his back pocket instead of a wallet 
Hils and MelsOkay so this one was taken last December, but it deserves an honorary inclusion. Source: AP/Press Association ImagesBo and MichelleThe first lady took this selfie with the Obama’s dog Bo back in August. Source: @FLOTUSSelfie with the ladsMinister of State for Foreign Affairs of The United Arab Emirates Anwar Mohammad Gargash, left, takes a selfie with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, aka The Lads. Source: AP/Press Association ImagesSelfie with a teacher in labour Source: @SpideyNikkaMost dangerous selfie everSun Sports reporter Kelly Nash just about avoided getting a clatter of a home run ball at Fenway Park while taking this selfie in April. Source: Kelly Nash via InstagramMore: These amazing selfies are the reason Justin Bieber is launching an app for selfies>Read: ‘Fail’, ‘twerking’ and ’404′: the top 20 words of 2013> LAST WEEK IT was ’404′ and ‘fail’, this week it’s ‘selfie’.The word for a self-portrait (preferably taken with a smartphone) has been named Word of the Year by the Oxford University Press, having burst from the confines of Instagram and Twitter into the mainstream.It was even added to the Irish language dictionary as ‘féinphic’.‘Twerk’, ‘binge-watching’ and ‘bitcoin’ were on the Oxford editors’ shortlist for word of the year, but the humble selfie beat them all.According to The Guardian the word was first used by an Australian blogger in 2002.Here are our favourite selfies so far this year…Astronaut selfiePosted on Twitter by ISS dweller Luca Parmitano, with the message “this sure beats any selfie I’ve done up to now”.Selfie with the PopePope Francis jumped in for this selfie with some Italian pilgirms at St Peter’s Basilica back in August.
WE’RE NOW WELL into the ‘12 Pubs of Christmas’ silly season and it seems people are finally starting to get vocal about their feelings towards it – which is no surprise. What once started out as a fairly harmless and inconsequential tradition between some groups of friends has now become something much more mainstream and faddish. It has become so commercialised in recent years that now it’s seen as ‘the norm’, much like dressing up at Halloween.In the last few years it’s been massively fuelled by the emergence of pop-up shops peddling those ridiculous Christmas jumpers with flashing lights, bells and the like. Larger retailers have subsequently got in on the act seeing the juicy profits that can be made. We are at saturation point. This can’t go on.It was quite funny – at firstYears ago when some ‘pioneers’ (used in the loose sense of the word) started wearing these quirky jumpers I have to admit that I found them quite funny – and it was, for a while. It was something new with a high novelty factor, but now it’s been so beaten to death it’s starting to make me feel nauseous. What this fad has effectively done is to turn the whole Christmas season into one giant stag party. They mill around the city centre totally pissed, leery, barking rules and generally just annoying everyone else who isn’t on their wavelength.It’s almost impossible to have a quiet pint now over the Christmas period without groups of boisterous and inebriated lads and girls coming in and taking the place over, knocking into everyone, spilling their drinks, shouting at each other and exiting promptly only to be replacing by another even larger and more annoying group doing exactly the same.I feel a growing sense of resentment and distaste towards it from a public who are getting fed up with the whole thing. I also saw some publicans are threatening to ban it from their premises. I hope more follow suit. Or better still have pubs that promote it and welcome it so the rest of us know to steer clear. A simple sign in the window ’12 pubs friendly’ would go a long way to clearing things up; they have their fun, the rest are left in peace.It’s just downright annoyingYes, Christmas is about meeting up with friends, having a few drinks, having good banter and maybe even getting drunk – but do we really need it to become this commercialised, clichéd, yobbish type event which is just downright annoying for all those not involved? It starts earlier and earlier every year. We have to endure almost four weekends of it now in the run up to Christmas. It’s tiring. It’s also dangerous given the amount of pint glasses that end up in the street and the amount of extra people it adds to already jam-packed pubs.I’m not a very prudish person despite what I say but I really feel this ‘12 Pubs of Christmas’ lark has gone too far. It’s cheapened the whole Christmas atmosphere that the rest of us hold dear and look forward to every year. It’s really lowest common denominator kinda stuff – there, I said it. What do you think?We’re interested in your ideas and opinions – do you have a story you would like to see featured in Opinion & Insight? Email opinions@thejournal.ieRead: 12 pubs of Christmas feeds into Ireland’s problem with alcohol, says charityRead: 12 people who were defeated by the 12 pubs of Christmas
WHAT IS HAPPINESS – and how can you get more of it?The team behind indie comedy How to be Happy took to the street of Dublin to find out just that…Uploaded by HowToBeHappyMovie
The 25 highest-paying companies in 2019 Facebook is launching a $149 camera that sits next to your TV and lets you video chat with your WhatsApp and Messenger friends (FB) The 737 Max will be the safest plane in the skies once it starts flying again Apple discontinued last year’s Apple Watch Series 4 after announcing its brand-new watch — here’s how to decide between the Series 3 and Series 5 (AAPL) BEFORE THE AMERICAN invasion, before the Russian war, and before the Marxist revolution, Afghanistan used to be a pretty nice place.An astonishing collection of photos from the 1960s was recently featured by the Denver Post.Amateur photographer, and college professor, Dr. William Podlich took a leave of absence from his job at Arizona State to work with UNESCO in Kabul, bringing his wife and daughters with him.Later, son-in-law Clayton Esterson revived the later doctor’s photos and put them on the web.The response was amazing. Esterson told the Denver Post:Many Afghans have written comments [on our website] showing their appreciation for the photographs that show what their country was like before 33 years of war. This makes the effort to digitize and restore these photographs worthwhile.Esterson has kindly given us permission to reproduce Dr Podlich’s photographs here on TheJournal.ie.
NELSON MANDELA’S WIDOW Graca Machel has given up her right to half his more than €3 million estate, an executor of his will said today.The Nobel peace laureate, who died last December, left several assets to his third wife on condition she forfeited her right to half the €3 million estate.“I confirm that Mrs Machel has formally and in writing accepted the benefits bequeathed to her in the last will and testament of former president Mr NR Mandela,” executor Dikgang Moseneke told Sapa news agency.Mandela and Machel had been married for 15 years “in community of property”, which under South African law meant she had the right to half his estate.However, executors said in February she would receive four properties in her native Mozambique as well as cars, art work, jewellery and other assets if she forfeited that right.South Africa’s first black president left money to his children and grandchildren, donations to educational institutions he attended and to his party the African National Congress.Mandela spent 27 years in jail before becoming head of state after the first all-race elections in 1994 and his politics of forgiveness and reconciliation made him a global peace icon.He married Machel, the widow of Mozambique president Samora Machel, in 1998.Mandela died on December 5 and was buried 10 days after in his rural boyhood home of Qunu after a state memorial service attended by dignitaries from around the world.© – AFP 2014Mandela’s €3 million – the details>
AROUND ONE IN SEVEN college students who applied to the grant processing body SUSI for a third-level maintenance grant are still either without payment or a firm decision on whether they are eligible for a grant, it has emerged.Of the 69,361 students who filed grant documentation to SUSI this year, 9,912 have either been approved for a grant but have yet to receive it, have returned incomplete information, have returned supplementary information on request, or are having a final decision currently processed.The figures were revealed by the chief civil servant at the Department of Education, Seán Ó Foghlú, to the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee yesterday.Ó Foghlú, who admitted the grant processing regime at SUSI was unsatisfactory, said SUSI had a current staffing level equivalent to 69 full-time workers – said the number included 2,164 students whose applications had been approved, but who had not yet been paid their grant.4,176 applicants had returned incomplete applications, he said, while a further 3,181 had submitted supplementary documentation after being asked to do so by SUSI.Despite the large number of outstanding applications, Ó Foghlú said only 391 applications were now with SUSI “for processing”, meaning there were thousands more grant applications still to be considered by its staff.In addition to the 9,912 above, a further 6,859 people who had yet to respond to requests from SUSI to submit further documentation supporting their grants.It was assumed in these cases that the students had begun to fill out a grant application form online, and then opted against completing it, knowing that their household income levels meant they were ineligible.SUSI has been forced to treat those applications as ‘live’, however, as it cannot tell whether those students still intended to complete an application or had entirely abandoned it.If those applications are discounted for the total number, SUSI has still to complete its processing of almost 16 per cent of grant applications – with many students now six months into their college year.The figures given to the committee were correct as of February 24.Aside from the financial difficulties that delayed grant payments cause, they also cause administrative difficulty for both students and colleges – as many students hoping to receive grants would not have paid their ‘student contribution’ fee of €2,250, because grant recipients have it paid for by local councils or VECs.In some colleges, however, students who have not fully paid the contribution fee are not considered to have fully registered, and can therefore be barred from using facilities like libraries.January: Student grant backlog almost cleared (but 21k told applications were incomplete)
FORMER LEICESTER TIGERS star Lewis Moody has paid tribute to Geordan Murphy, saluting his friend and long-time team-mate as “a fantastic rugby player of unmatched ability.”Murphy, 35, confirmed today that he will retire at the end of the season when he will take up a coaching role with the Tigers’ backroom staff.A famous alumnus of Newbridge College, Murphy joined Leicester in 1997 and went on to forge a club career that was as decorated as it was loyal, making more than 320 appearances in 16 seasons at Welford Road which included seven Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups.“His natural talent and gifts to the game, the skill set he had was just remarkable, like nothing else I’ve ever seen on a rugby pitch,” Moody told TheScore.ie.“It is awesome playing this sport with guys who are incredibly talented and with guys who have unique ability, but then one of those guys being your one of your closest mates as well is even better. It gives you added impetus to play for each other and rugby creates those sort of special moments.” (©INPHO/Billy Stickland)Playing alongside Murphy there was no shortage of special moments and from the very start, Moody caught a glimpse of that exciting natural flair which his young Irish friend possessed in abundance.“It was probably the first game I ever played with Geordan, against Coventry away in 1997 or ’98 I think. It was an old school game of rugby — dark, miserable, wet evening in Coventry.“We had a scrum and the ball got passed back and missed the fly-half and somehow found its way to Geordan who was still at full-back. As the forwards were getting up from the scrum, Geordan decided to line up a drop goal from the half-way line.I just remember Darren Morris as he struck the ball going ‘Noooooo’ and then half-way through its flight he turned and went ‘You little… good lad, good lad.’ The ball sailed straight through the posts and I think at that point we all realised that we were watching the arrival of someone quite special.He adds: “There was one other game in particular I love to remember in Welford Road. I can’t remember the team we were playing, I think it was one of the Scottish teams, it might have been Glasgow.“They took a crossfield kick out of their 22 to their winger and Geordan was playing full-back. As the ball was bouncing along the ground, Geordan was sprinting at it flat out and so was the opposing winger.“I don’t think any of us knew what he was doing. We were thinking how the hell is he going to pick the ball up because he’s flat out, he’s going to run past it. At full sprint, he chipped the ball straight into his hands and went around the winger and offloaded to someone else.“It was one of the most incredible pieces of skill I’ve ever witnessed on the pitch. Any of the players who saw it that day, they’ll never say that there was a more skillful player that they played with.(©INPHO/Billy Stickland)“The one thing that always impressed me was his consistency under a high ball. If you had a high ball in any game, wherever you were, he would always come down with it. Certainly at Leicester that was why he was picked week in week out and then he had the added bonus of pace, agility, the ability to find a gap and put someone else through it, and then the ability to do something mesmerising that would make you think: ‘Holy shit!’”At international level, Murphy made his debut in 2000 and went on to win 72 caps for Ireland. But he was robbed of what could have been the crowning moment of his career — a place at the 2003 World Cup — by a cruel leg break in the final warm-up game against Scotland.“I was sitting in the hotel, we were playing Wales in a warm-up game that afternoon. Having to watch one of your mates go through an injury like that just before you’re about to take the pitch is pretty horrific. I remember frantically calling his brother, his girlfriend, his family just to check if he was alright.That was a tragedy because he was in absolutely scintillating form. Without wanting to overstate the point, I think he was probably one of the best full-backs in the world at that time and it was an absolute tragedy that the world missed out on an opportunity to see Geordan at the peak of his powers.He added: “I always think in an Irish jersey, and the team he played in that time, we never really saw the best of him. Maybe in 2001 to 2003 we saw glimpses of it but he was never used enough because Ireland played a fairly restrictive game in the early 2000s which is why we never saw the same impact or skill level that we saw week in, week out at Leicester.”(Joe Giddens/EMPICS Sport)“There are sides of Geordan’s character that people don’t see. He’s an ultra-laid back bloke. He doesn’t take anything too seriously in life, he’s very relaxed about everything.“That’s not to do him a disservice and say that he’s not professional because he’s incredibly professional when it comes to his training and his analysis on the game. I’ve never met anyone that has a better understanding of how the game works.“He’s an intelligent rugby player and he’s an intellect of the game. He understands how the game works and how he can make a game work to suit the team which is why I’ve always tried to give him a bit of a nudge in the direction of coaching if it were possible.”Smooth transition: At Leinster, succession planning breeds success
A FRENCH DECKHAND today admitted he was lucky to be alive after escaping with bite wounds when a crocodile latched onto his head in northern Australia.Yoann Galeran, 29, had swum out from shore to retrieve a moored dinghy after dark at Nhulunbuy yesterday when the two-metre saltwater croc attacked, grabbing him by the head and rolling him in the water.“I just feel that I’ve been lucky and I just think if it was a bigger crocodile, I maybe wouldn’t have any head,” he told ABC radio.“I was swimming, and maybe four or five metres from the boat, I just feel like rocks hitting on my head and something strong and I just realise (it was) a croc,” he added.“I just had the feeling that if I want to fight for my life, I just need to move all my body as much as I can.“He just hit me on the top, on the left side, and on top of my neck and tried to push me down in the water. I punched him anywhere.”After fighting off the beast, he managed to scramble to safety aboard the dinghy and make it to shore where he was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment to bite marks to his head, neck and shoulders.Children playing in the areaA Northern Territory police spokeswoman said: “So very lucky that he managed to swim away. It could have been a lot more dire, the outcome.”Saltwater crocodiles, which can grow up to seven metres long and weigh more than a tonne, are a common feature of Australia’s tropical north.They have been protected since the 1970s and their numbers have increased steadily since, along with the number of human encounters.Galeran said children often played in the area where he was attacked and urged authorities to capture the crocodile.“I think they need to do something with him, probably kill him,” he said.- © AFP 2013.Read: Filipino town goes into mourning over death of killer crocodile>
.@ciaranmullooly “There is no doubt that we will have a win for @gabmcfadden2014” in the Longford-Westmeath bye-election. #lw14— Fine Gael (@FineGael) May 24, 2014 If Coppinger and McFadden win a seat it will be a big win for women in politics, meaning there will be more female TDs than ever before. Source: Women for Election/Twitter THERE ARE TWO by-election counts taking place – one in Dublin West and one in Longford Westmeath.The official results of the second count in Dublin West show that there are just eight votes between Sinn Féin’s Paul Donnelly and the Socialist Party’s Ruth Coppinger.The first count showed Ruth Coppinger at 5,977 votes – 21 per cent. Source: Fine Gael/Twitter
Yay!Read: Less than a quarter of candidates running in the local elections are women>Read: Women of the west urged to take first step into political life> Source: Lisa Hand/TwitterOver in Longford Westmeath, the final tally showed Fine Gael’s Gabrielle McFadden had 25 per cent of the vote.Meanwhile Fine Gael tweeted: We could have 2 new women TDs by the end of the day, bringing the number to 27, the highest ever!— Women for Election (@women4election) May 24, 2014
THE MINISTER FOR FINANCE has said he has no desire to interfere in the interest rates charged by banks to mortgage holders – saying banks must be allowed to operate independently in order to make a profit for the taxpayer.Michael Noonan yesterday dismissed opposition calls for the government to intervene and ask commercial banks to lower their variable mortgage interest rates, following the ECB’s decision to cut its benchmark rates earlier this month.While the ECB’s cut takes immediate effect for tracker mortgage holders, some banks had raised their variable rates only days earlier – purportedly because the lower rate on tracker mortgages means they must charge extra interest elsewhere to maintain profit levels.Noonan said the Central Bank had been asked if it wanted the power to manage the interest rates of retail banks, and had insisted it didn’t want such powers – as keeping interest rates artificially low might encourage banks only to lend to the ‘safest’ corporate clients.“We want the banks to be profitable again, to protect the investment that the Irish taxpayer has put in,” Noonan insisted, saying profitable banks could ultimately be sold off so that the taxpayer could recoup its massive investment in them.While this meant some mortgage holders would be faced with higher interest rates, Noonan was “mindful of the costs to the general taxpayer, who owns most of the banks”.After Pearse Doherty pointed out that the government had intervened in November 2011 and encouraged the banks to drop their rates, Noonan said the banks at that time were far more reliant on emergency funding from central banks.Banks were now less reliant on that funding, and their interest rates now also reflected deposit rates, the costs of market funding, the competitive environment, and the bank’s own funding arrangements.Separately, Noonan defended his decision to abstain in a vote at the Bank of Ireland AGM on whether to approve Richie Boucher’s pay of €843,000.The minister said he had written to Bank of Ireland asking it to respond to the recommendations of the Mercer Report before the end of April, and that he didn’t consider it appropriate to either support or oppose the bank’s own arrangements in the meantime.He added that the State only owned 15 per cent of the bank’s shares, meaning its stance did not dictate the outcome of the vote.Read: Gilmore says AIB mortgage hike is “a commercial decision”More: Permanent TSB to overhaul mortgage interest rates for new customers
PLACING CHILDREN INTO adult psychiatric units has been described as “inhumane” by Fianna Fáil’s Spokesperson on Children. Robert Troy said the practice was a “damning indictment of our child protection system and should set off alarm bells in Government”.The Longford-Westmeath TD was responding to the findings of a new report conducted by Dr Susan Finnerty, assistant inspector of mental services, which found that 83 children were put into adult psychiatric units last year, despite guidelines forbidding it.According to the findings, more than 40% of the children were aged 16 or under.In 2011, the Mental Health Commission issued guidelines saying that the practice should be ended by the end of the year.Breach of human rights“This is an obvious breach of these children’s basic human rights and it is a gross exploitation of some of our most vulnerable citizens,” Troy stated.Locking children into adult institutions is potentially a breach of article 5 of European Convention on Human Rights which stipulates that someone’s liberty can only be restricted through proportionate means.Troy said that the practice also “calls into question the worth of the Children’s Referendum”.“What was the point of setting down in statute the basic rights of children if we can’t even treat our most vulnerable ones humanely?”Mother-and-baby homesReferencing the recent revelations surrounding mother-and-baby homes, he said the State has “learned nothing”.Over the last number of weeks we have been seen and heard of how the state historically and brutally neglected the most vulnerable women and children. Unfortunately it seems we have learned nothing and continue to let children be treated inhumanely.He said that the issue does not come under the remit of the newly established child and family agency Tusla.“[This] reinforces the point I have been making that the cost for an independent investigation into mother and baby homes should not come out of current budgets. The vulnerable children of today should not he made suffer for failures of the past,” Troy added.Helplines: Aware 1890 303 302 (depression, anxiety) Childline 1800 66 66 66 (for under 18s) Samaritans 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org Pieta House 01 601 0000 or email mary@pieta.ie – (suicide, self-harm, bereavement)
Teen-Line Ireland 1800 833 634 (for ages 13 to 19) Console 1800 201 890 – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement) Read: Unsuitable treatment for children in mental health unitsRead: Children in State care being ‘placed in danger of abuse and exploitation’
Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images#SAVILE: 28 reports into the abuse carried out by TV presenter Jimmy Savile were published by the UK Department of Health. Savile visited hospitals in order to abuse some of his victims, with the visits dubbed a “boost to morale” to staff.#PHONE HACKING: Former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks says that she feels ‘vindicated’ by her acquittal by a London court on charges of phone hacking.#SUPERSIZE ME: The large soda is safe in New York after a court ruled against the city’s proposed ban on the drinks.INNOVATIONGoogle is rolling its wearable watch out. It is shiny and we want one. [TheJournal.ie]Want a job in this pub? You can apply through Snapchat [TheJournal.ie]The API for Gmail was released today. Here’s why that matters. [Geek.com]PARTING SHOTWhen Washington DC decriminalised possession of marijuana, House Republicans were mad. So mad, in fact, that they may have legalised the drug completely – by accident.First published 9pm INTERNATIONAL Bank of Ireland sold €250 million worth of mortgages to an unregulated entity The radical change in the Galway property market was outlinedIt was revealed an ambulance carrying a patient caught fire over the weekendAn Irishman accused of Real IRA gun-running will face a retrial in LithuaniaAn online ad company announced 100 jobs and got the Taoiseach to pose for a selfieChanges to the Free Travel Scheme were ruled out by Joan Burton
Protesters set up shop outside a Dublin TD’s houseIt was revealed the ex boss of Coillte got paid €88,000 for three months’ work NEED TO CATCH up? TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of today’s news… Pictured this morning at the Fruit Market, Dublin 7, dance group Tardigrade launches Tiger Beer’s sponsorship of Tiger Dublin Fringe. The partnership launch and festival sneak preview will take place on Wednesday the 2nd of July and culture fans can apply for tickets to the event on www.tigerexplore.com Source: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall IrelandIRISHAn 8-year-old girl was killed in a car crash in CorkThe final Labour leadership hustings got under way
Top of the bill is a a holiday for two in the exotic European cities of Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg including dinner with the party’s MEPs.There’s also a number of other prizes on offer including: a ‘high-tech’ video recorder with an autographed copy of ‘Charles Haughey’s Ireland’a case of champagnea crate of vintage winea Waterford Crystal vouchera selection of best-selling cassette tapes, including a copy of ‘The Spirit of the Nation’ – the speeches of Charles Haugheya man’s suit from Louis Copeland a new Calor cooker with a turkey voucher – just in time for Christmas. a pre-Celtic Tiger helicopter trip from Dublin to the French restaurant Le Jardin where, after a Sunday lunch, you will be chaffeur driven back to the capital. Posh, or what? IT’S CHRISTMAS 1987 and what better way to spend it then having dinner with the Taoiseach.This week the outstanding Irish Election Literature published a programme produced by Cairde Fáil – friends of Fianna Fáil – for a Christmas dinner held in the Burlington Hotel in December 1987.‘Dinnéar An Taoisigh’ looked like a fabulous night altogether with a slap-up meal, a raffle, and cigars.The programme includes a big picture of our then dashing Taoiseach as well as a list of top raffle prizes:
The menu for the evening is a sight to behold with minestrone soup to start, beef for the main with horseradish sauce, broccoli ‘au beurre’ (‘with butter’ for the uneducated amongst you), carrots vichy and creamed potatoes.For dessert there is fresh fruit meringue followed by tea and coffee and of course, cigars.The programme booklet includes a full page for your autographs from Fianna Fáil ministers and the like but alas it is unfilled in this particular copy of the programme.Hat tip to Irish Election Literature Read: Haughey government decided ministers should get a safe and shredder in their homesRead: Charles Haughey wanted to meet Saddam Hussein in 1978 – Saddam declined
Streaming music subscription service Spotify has been trying to cut its way through the licensing red tape barring it from entering the American market for, well, forever now… but it looks like forever’s about to get a little longer. It is now almost definite that Spotify will miss their promise of launching in the United States by the end of the year, having reportedly failed to sign even a single US licensing agreement with any major label, despite a whole year of negotiations. What’s the problem? Well, as usual, industry greed coupled with unrealistic expectations. Reportedly, the music industry is demanding twice the conversion rate of free to paid users that Spotify can currently boast. According to Spotify’s figures, 750,000 of their 10 million users have opted to pay for the company’s full catalog, which strips the advertisements from Spotify’s service and also allows users to stream music through Spotify’s array of mobile apps for Android and iOS. 750,000 paying customers for a service that has been in Europe for a couple of years isn’t a conversion rate that is making the likes of the RIAA happy: they want to see a 15% conversion rate before they ink a deal with Spotify. In the meantime, iTunes (and a future version of iTunes in the Cloud) is seen as a less risky business strategy. Unfortunately, my guess is that if Spotify can’t break into the US market this year, they’ll never make it over to the States: both Google and Apple are likely to launch their own services next year. The window’s closed.
If you look at the recent history of video games then you will notice one stand out fact. While many game engines and games have embraced Microsoft’s DirectX for PC games, id Software and John Carmack have stuck with OpenGL.The reasons for this were explained by Carmack as far back as 1996 in one of his famous .plan updates. While Carmack saw DirectX, and in particular Direct 3D as having an edge in some respects, he dismissed it as as “horribly broken” API but admitted that it would “suck-less” with every new version.That apparently turned out to be true and it seems as though John Carmack has now become a DirectX fan. The reason why is not down to Microsoft wooing Carmack in any way. No, the way to John Carmack’s heart is through technology and innovation, and that’s exactly what Microsoft has seemingly done.OpenGL has had new versions released over the last few years, but where it has fallen behind is in innovation and features. Originally it set the bar, but DirectX caught up and then carried on innovating with every version. It has reached a point where OpenGL + extensions can still offer up a decent API, but DirectX is basically better.If a number of respected figures in the games industry said this then it would probably pass under the radar of everyone except other developers. But when John Carmack talks about technology and preferences everyone listens because he has always been at the forefront of graphics technology. This is proven just by looking back at what Carmack and id have achieved with their own game engines and the forthcoming id Tech 5.Microsoft shouldn’t start celebrating yet, though. Even though Carmack prefers DirectX he won’t be using it any time soon. Although he could easily port the final game executables of id titles over to the API, the engine and its tools are all using OpenGL and that’s not a code base Carmack wants to sit down and change over to DirectX just for the sake of it.What this does suggest, however, is that id Tech 6 may be the first id Software DirectX-focused engine.Read more at Bit-gamer.net
Amazon may soon become a player in mobile payments using near-field-communication (NFC) technology. NFC, already used in some credit cards, allows users to simply tap their mobile phones to pay for goods or services while also being able to receive loyalty points or other retail information on their handset. If Amazon is truly looking at utilizing NFC technology they would be in good company. Other well-known adopters including Microsoft, Apple and Google are already planning to offer their own NFC solutions via software, devices, or services of their own. AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless have also indicated their interest in this new market through a joint venture named Isis.Why are there so many companies looking to get into mobile payments or NFC related services? They’ve seen the predictions by Gartner and ABI Research indicating that by 2014 340 million consumers will use mobile payments for transactions totaling $245 billion. Some of these payments may be powered by NFC as handsets with the technology begin increasing in number and are expected to double in 2012 from 35 million shipped this year.AdChoices广告Servicing mobile payments is nothing new to Amazon since they have already introduced a service called Amazon Payments which allows consumers to send and receive money online or through their mobile phones. Most would agree that NFC mobile payments would be a natural extension of this service. In addition to NFC mobile payments, Amazon is also looking at NFC-based marketing services allowing consumers to tap the NFC tag of a product located in a retail store to find it on Amazon’s website.No final decision has been made by Amazon to officially enter the NFC mobile payment market, but Bloomberg cites one of its sources who say that a decision is expected in the next three to five months.Read more at Bloomberg