NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 3 September
03-09-2008
by Deirdre McArdle
Arris pumps EUR4.5m into Cork facility | Apple hints at new iPods
US-based Arris Group, which develops and manufactures voice, video, and high-speed data products for the global cable TV industry, is to make a strategic R&D investment of EUR4.5 million in its facility in Cork. The investment will focus on high-value video products that are increasingly being introduced into cable networks around the world to provide the increased capacity needed especially for unicast video services. "With the additional investment, we will develop solutions across a number of areas that will allow us to increase our production output significantly, reliably and to the highest degree of quality," said Charles Cheevers, Arris CTO, Europe. "This requires significant R&D in new techniques to manufacture high speed RF-based video and data products and to create new test technologies and platforms to meet the increasing technology and cost expectations of our customers worldwide." Arris Ireland is based at the Cork Airport Business Park and employs 52 people.
Business communications provider Colt has announced the appointment of Brady Rafuse as managing director for its Major Enterprise Division. Based in London, Rafuse will be responsible for expanding Colt's Major Enterprise business. Brady has worked in the communications industry for more than 20 years.
Electrical retailer DSG International, which owns Dixons, Currys and PC World, has said its like-for-like sales in the 16 weeks to 23 August dropped by 7 percent from the same period last year. Total sales increased by 4 percent for the period. In the UK and Ireland, total sales fell 3 percent, with like-for-like sales dropping by 7 percent. The company said conditions remained tough across Europe. "The economic backdrop in which the group operates remains difficult across Europe, and we are managing costs and stock levels accordingly. We remain very cautious about the consumer outlook," said DSGI chief executive John Browett, in a statement.
Apple has piqued journalists' interest with news of an event on 9 September. The event invites didn't give much away, however; they simply featured the silhouette of a man dancing while wearing an iPod, and the words "Let's Rock". Rumours have been doing the rounds of new line of iPods. Traditionally Apple stages events in September or early October to announce new iPods or other consumer products in time for the Christmas season. Separately, Apple is working with music-industry partners to develop "interactive albums" for devices such as the iPhone and the iPod Touch. These albums will provide liner notes, lyrics, photographs and other material to supplement music available on the iTunes Store, a person familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, Google has unveiled its revamped Picasa photo-sharing site. The new-look site features a face-recognition facility called "name tags" to help users automatically tag and group photos together based on the people in them. The new Picasa also features a more user-friendly interface and a location utility that uses Google Maps to let you pinpoint the location where your photos were taken.
Purchases made via mobile devices, contactless NFC (Near Field Communications) transactions and money transfers will together generate transactions worth over USD600 billion globally by 2013, according to Juniper Research's mobile payments study. The report revealed that while the mobile payments market is currently dominated by digital goods purchases such as ringtones, music, games and infotainment, there are three high potential markets that offer major new opportunities for the future: contactless NFC, mobile money transfer and physical goods purchases via mobile devices. Western Europe, the US and the Far East & China (the top three regions for mobile payments) will account for over 70 percent of the global money transfer value by 2013.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 