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musk-ship

To Mars with Musk – Or Are We Forgetting Something?

Last night, the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, presented his vision for ‘Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species’. If you missed it, you can see the full presentation here as it was streamed live, or check out the short animated overview below of The SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System. It’s an ambitious plan (you can download the slides here) and […]

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Thoughts as Twitter Turns Ten

Ten years ago today, the first tweet was sent. It was a time when lots of people were excited about something called ‘Web 2.0’, which was a kind of shorthand for “trying to figure out where the Web is taking us now”. There was a lot of talk about blogs and podcasts. There was something called Technorati, […]

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"So you just plug in a USB cable and then - whoosh!"

A €1200 Phone Charger? Yes, But It’s a Magic Phone Charger!

Those wacky physics-bending guys from Steorn are back! It’s free lunches all round, and unlimited energy for everyone! Well, not quite everyone. Not exactly free either. The Irish Times reports that the Dublin company is taking orders for its first product, after 15 years of research and more than €20 million invested. The product: well it’s a big clunky phone […]

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Dr Joseph Roche

Mars One – Why Ireland Should be Proud of Joseph Roche

I’ve written about Mars One before. In principle it’s a reasonable idea. Sensationalist headlines have focused on the one-way, lifetime commitment required of the participants but, under the right circumstances, it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable sacrifice in order to make history. That’s probably what Dr Joseph Roche was thinking when he signed up. A serious scientist, Joseph was in it for […]

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Video thumbnail for vimeo video Basque Domain .eus

Are Domain Names the new Flags and Emblems?

There’s been some interesting talk lately about national and cultural domain extensions. Scotland may have rejected independence in yesterday’s referendum, but for those who’d rather not use a .UK domain name, .SCOT opens for general availability on Tuesday next. For the Welsh there’s .CYMRU and .WALES, .GAL (Galicia) will have general availability in November, and .CAT is already well […]

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Celebes crested macaque (Macaca nigra) looking to a camera. (Stock Photo)

Who Made Wikipedia the Judge on ‘Monkey Selfie’ Copyright?

If a monkey picks up your camera and takes a selfie: who owns the copyright? Well, clearly not the monkey. Everyone agrees that a monkey is not a person under the law, and cannot ‘own’ property – intellectual or otherwise. Many would agree with photographer David Slater, who travelled to the habitat of the Crested Black Macaque in Indonesia on […]

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Why Paddy Cosgrave is Wrong about Irish Universities and Grade Inflation

Paddy Cosgrave says he thinks Trinity degrees are worth more than those from other universities because of ‘grade inflation’. But the research he quotes says Trinity’s grade inflation is as bad, if not worse. Yesterday, The Summit announced that it is creating 40 new jobs.  But cheers turned to boos, when it emerged that the operator of […]

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