The Big Tech Show

This week, it’s a panel show to discuss some of the big issues of the week: the iPhone 13’s potential satellite capability, Google Ireland’s delayed return-to-the-office mandate, the latest VC figures and whether you should use video on or off during Zoom calls. The topic of whether billionaires serve any purpose is also debated. Adrian is joined by the Irish Independent’s Jon Ihle and Reach’s Mark Kavanagh.

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This week, Adrian talks to Mike Fisher, the CTO of the giant online retailer Etsy, in the wake of that company's €1.3bn acquisition of Depop.
Fisher is one of the most experienced CTO's around, having been a previous engineering VP of Paypal, among other roles.

The two talk through a number of issues, spending a lot of time on what makes a good or a bad engineering culture and whether or not tech staff are likely to come back to offices any time soon.

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This week, Adrian hosts a spirited discussion about whether Apple is right or wrong to scan photos from your iPhone to iCloud for potential child sexual abuse imagery.

He is joined by UCD's director of digital policy (and former Irish Council for Civil Liberties representative) Elizabeth Farries and Alex Cooney the CEO of CyberSafeKids Ireland.

The whole thing raises some big questions. What is the moral difference between scanning a phone and a private online account for child abuse imagery?
Why wouldn't Apple do the same for other types of illegal content in future? And why wouldn't countries now put more pressure on them to do so?

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Conal Henry has had an interesting journey through the business and telecom worlds. From being commercial director of Ryanair, he built up Enet’s business around Ireland before joining the National Broadband Plan and then leaving to set up his own company, Fibrus Networks, which raised over €100m.

That Belfast-based firm won a €200m contract to roll out part of Northern Ireland’s answer to the National Broadband Plan. Now he’s targeting rural broadband in England.

Adrian and Conal discuss a range of topics, from the return of mobile roaming in the UK to why satellite will never match fibre in terms of broadband quality.

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Is the new commercial 'space race' between Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and (the relatively poor) Richard Branson anything to celebrate for humanity? Or is it just one big egomaniacal episode?

This week, Adrian and TCD professor Louis Brennan chew over some of the deeper questions around this year's commercial space launches.
Is there a point to paying between €250,000 and €22m to go a few dozen kilometres up in the sky?

What is the endgame for this activity and what use might it be? Are any of the principals really interested in saving our species through space exploration? Might they not spend a few quid to help stop the destruction of Earth instead?

Adrian and Louis also differ on whether they would take a seat on one of the spaceflights, if the opportunity arose.

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You’ve seen and heard it from every science fiction movie or TV programme. You’ve heard it from scientists and philosophers.

So are we living in a multiverse? Is there a version of you that’s a billionaire? Or a mass-murderer? Or a talking frog?

Or are we, like Elon Musk insists, living in a simulation created by some other intelligent species?
To talk about some of these big philosophical, technical and scientific questions, Adrian is joined this week by Dr Mark Mitchison, recently appointed as assistant professor in quantum science at Trinity College Dublin.

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Should Ireland follow Norway in bringing in a law that would make it mandatory for online influencers to disclose that they have digital altered images of their faces or bodies when promoting products? And if so, should it stop there?
Should digitally-enhanced derrieres or dermatological features be admitted more widely, to give impressionable teens a truer idea of what is real and what isn’t?

Adrian is joined by three experts in their field — Instagram makeup influencer Niamh Martin (‘Nima Brush’), YouTuber Clare Cullen (‘Clisare’) and Irish Independent columnist Tanya Sweeney.

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Will tech companies flee Ireland if it abandons its 12.5pc corporate tax rate? Will the pipeline for new ones dry up?

Adrian is joined by UCD business lecturer (and former IDA executive) Emmet Oliver and Irish Independent business reporter Sarah Collins to discuss the issue.

Is the 12.5pc drive an about global equity, European jealousy or both? What will Ireland have to offer tech companies over other countries if the 12.5pc rate is uniformly introduced? How important is it relative to other infrastructural issues here?

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Can a pub pass work in Ireland? This week, Adrian talks to Irish ex-pat Zoe Healy Jensen, now living in Denmark. She explains how QR codes have been successfully integrated into everyday life in the Scandinavian country, allowing her and other vaccinated people to enter restaurants and pubs with little fuss.

Goosed.ie’s Martin Meany also joins the conversation to talk about the background and context of QR codes.

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This week’s topic is Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite broadband service that some believe is the future for rural areas that have been deprived of broadband connectivity.
But with the National Broadband Plan slowly being rolled out to every rural home here, does Starlink realistically have any role to play? Who would pay two to three times the price of a fibre connection for Starlink’s dish and monthly fees when it only delivers a fraction of fibre’s speed?
Adrian is joined in discussion by Rory Fitzpatrick, CEO of the National Space Centre and Brian Flanagan, a retired business consultant who has been testing Starlink’s service from his home in Blackrock, County Dublin.

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