The Big Tech Show

Creating start-ups is hard. -- few of them succeed. 

This week, Adrian talks to two Irish co-founders, people at very different stages. 

Des Treanor is the co-founder of one of Ireland’s most successful ever start-ups, Intercom. 

Ian Kehoe is the co-founder of a new online media business company, The Currency. 

Both have different perspectives, motivations and challenges. 

Adrian asks both about particular issues that crop up and how they get over them.

For more from the Big Tech show you can visit the show page at:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-big-tech-show/

The Big Tech show is in association with Magnet Networks.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian reviews the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro Max. Although smitten by the new cameras on the updated handsets, he thinks that the unsung feature that will sell the iPhone Pro and iPhone Pro Max models is the impressive new battery life, up to five hours per day longer than last year’s iPhone X models. 

He’s joined by John Kennedy, former founding editor of SiliconRepublic.com and now editor of ThinkBusiness.ie, a business information platform run by Bank of Ireland. 

“After a week using the new iPhone 11 Pro Max, I would upgrade to it for two reasons,” says Adrian. “The cameras and the battery life. When it comes to cameras, I’m slightly biased. For me, the camera system on a phone is about half the reason I choose it. Apple claims that battery life on this model is up to five hours longer than last year’s X Max and it feels like it.”

“I know that battery life has always been a pain point for iPhone users compared to some flagship models from rivals. So this is actually a very big deal, especially for power-users or business people relying on it as a workload tool. If anything, Apple is underplaying it.”

For more from the Big Tech show you can visit the show page at:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-big-tech-show/

The Big Tech show is in association with Magnet Networks.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian looks at some of the nuts and bolts of starting a company with a couple of entrepreneurs who have succeeded and failed several times.

From choosing a place to work to asking for money from friends and family, Adrian gets the insights from Voxgig and Nearform founder Richard Rodger and serial startup activist Dave Cunningham.

For more from the Big Tech show you can visit the show page at:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-big-tech-show/

The Big Tech show is in association with Magnet Networks.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the Big Tech Show, Adrian Weckler looks at 5G not from the point of view of speed or connectivity but health. It’s been an issue bubbling under, in rural areas especially, as to whether mobile phone radiation is safe.

The regulators say it is but there are some campaigners who don't believe that is so. Are they mere conspiracy theorists or is there more to it?

To find out, Adrian spoke to Tom Butler, Prof of Business Information Systems at UCC, who believes in the dangers, and Prof Kevin Curran from the School of Computing at Ulster University, who believes that if the dangers were as bad as people were claiming it wouldn't have gone unnoticed.

For more from the Big Tech show you can visit the show page at:
https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-big-tech-show/

The Big Tech show is in association with Magnet Networks.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian sits down with a specialist from St John Of Gods, Professor Colin O’Gara, who says he is seeing more and more people brought in for addiction to video games.
Adrian asks Prof O’Gara about the scale and depth of the problem, its effects and how to diagnose it.
The two also discuss possible treatments for the problem, including the kinds of medication prescribed.
And Adrian asks Prof O’Gara to put the issue into context with established medical addictions, such as gambling, alcohol and drugs.
In an era when Irish teenagers are competing globally in esports competitions, how should Ireland deal with the clinical side of it?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian tackles the thorny issue of mobile and broadband operators which advertise "unlimited" services that actually have hidden limits.
He sits down with the head of the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI), Orla Twomey, to ask why that organisation allows such a misleading situation to exist.
Orla tells Adrian that while the situation is being reviewed, there is a rationale for allowing operators to advertise unlimited services that have limits.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian sits down to find out what, if any, big ideas Dell Ireland's new country manager has.

Mark Hopkins starts off defending some industry jargon before expanding into why he thinks tech will have a bigger impact on our education system.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian sits down for a long, in-depth discussion with Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon on why she stopped the government from making its Public Services Card into a national identity card through the backdoor.
After years of controversy, this week her office ruled that the PSC card cannot be used as a necessary form of identification for services outside the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection.
The move effectively puts a halt to any plans the government had of making the Public Services Card a ‘national identity card’ through stealth.
“The Department does not have a legal basis for processing personal data when it's in the case of a person who's seeking to avail of a service with the public sector body other than the Department itself,” she tells Adrian.
However, she stopped short of saying that the Public Services Card must be scrapped.
“Any cards that have been issued, their validity is not in question by anything we've found in this report,” she said.
“They can continue to be used in the context of availing of free travel or availing of benefits that a person is claiming from the Department.”
Dixon qualifies this by saying that the PSC can be used voluntarily by a citizen as a valid proof.
“If someone optionally brings their public services card to renew their driver's license, there is no issue with that. But what we're saying is that it must be an option. A public sector body cannot now require someone who doesn't already have one, to go and procure one in order to avail of their service.”
The PSC has been criticised by civil liberties groups who claim it is an attempt by the government to create a national identity card by stealth.
Earlier this year, UN special rapporteur on poverty, Professor Philip Alston, said that the PSC “runs the risk of becoming a centralised database containing intimate, personal information” that was unsafe.
Government ministers have repeatedly claimed that the PSC is a protection against fraud, identity theft and helps to cut costs. They say that the card simplifies identity registration for public services and reduces the need for duplicate forms and the repetition of processes.
However, Dixon tells Adrian that the PSC as currently constructed is overarching and is sometimes being used without good reason or legal justification.
“An example is the Department of Education’s appeal system around school transport,” she said.
“It now says that you have to procure a PSC card to make an appeal. It’s very difficult to see why that’s a requirement.”
Dixon also tells Adrian that she has opened a new investigation into the owner of The Huffington Post, Techcrunch and Yahoo. The Irish DPC office is now probing Verizon Media, formerly known as Oath, around complaints that its online media properties do not give users choice around online ‘cookies’ that track user activity online.
Meanwhile, Dixon tells Adrian that her office’s first major GDPR decision relating to a multinational tech firm looks set to be about Whatsapp.
“I expect that file to land on my desk in the next fortnight,” she said.
However, it is then likely to take “months” to arrive at a formal decision due to a statutory process of “examination and analysis”.
Dixon’s office currently has 61 statutory enquiries underway under GDPR law, 21 of which are focused on tech multinational firms. These include Facebook (8), Twitter (3), Apple (3), Whatsapp (2), Instagram (1), Google (1), Linkedin (1), Quantcast (1) and Verizon Media (1).
Under GDPR law, the Irish DPC can fine a company up to 4pc of its annual turnover.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After October 31st, will pensioners still be able to travel on a free pass around Ireland? Will online shops based in the UK be able to process customer information from Irish shoppers?

It’s in serious doubt, says the guest on this week’s podcast, Castlebridge’s Dr Katherine O’Keeffe, an expert on data privacy.
Adrian and Katherine go deep on why a no-deal Brexit spells chaos for many ordinary activities you wouldn’t have thought of.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian sits down with Cillian Kieran, who recently scooped €3.8m in seed funding for his privacy-focused software startup called Ethyca.

The two discuss possible solutions to today’s privacy problems.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.