Digital rights campaigners have criticised the appointment of a former tech industry lobbyist to a top role in the Data Protection Commission (DPC), who regulate Big Tech, claiming it undermines trust in the data watchdog.
Former Meta lobbyist Niamh Sweeney was appointed as one of the three data protection commissioners leading the State regulator last month.
A number of groups criticised the decision in a letter to Government, claiming Ms Sweeney’s appointment raises questions about the independence of the DPC, given her past work for the tech industry. Jack Power has the details.
If you have opened an electricity bill recently and done a double-take at the total, you aren’t alone. Although energy prices have fallen from their peak, they are still running above what they were before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 – and as recent moves by energy companies show, prices are set to move higher.
Smart home technology can not only make your home more secure, but it can also help you be more energy efficient, with a little up-front investment, says Ciara O’Brien.
It’s backstage of a wrestling arena and Michael Collins, with Wolfe Tone by his side, cuts a passionate promo against the British. Elsewhere, Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls enter a ring and stare each other down.
These are just two of the examples of viral clips in recent weeks generated using OpenAI’s Sora or another video creation artificial intelligence tool. Sora has proven to be an enormous hit and it’s easy to see why.
These videos, while still not exactly accurate representations of the people involved, have far less of the uncanny valley nature of previous deepfakes. In essence, they have high production values. We should be really worried, writes Emmet Ryan our weekly tech column.
Sensors are the unsung heroes of modern life. They keep us safe, alerting us to everything from fire, flood and house intrusions to low blood sugar levels and slow punctures. But alerts without action are useless, and this is where monitoring centres come in.
Enter AI voice technology. With more sophisticated text-to-speech and speech-to-text capabilities – and the technical know-how of software engineer Mark Harkin – suddenly there’s another option: an AI voice agent that can do the heavy lifting on the thousands of repetitive, low-risk alerts that tie up human call-takers for most of their working day, writes Olive Keogh.
Neither hide nor hair, notes Cantillon, has been seen of RTÉ’s 2024 annual report, which is now on track to be published significantly later this year than in recent memory.
I like Bluetooth tags. My AirTag – an Apple product – saves me a considerable amount of time in the morning because I never have to wonder where my keys are. If they are missing, I open the app, tap on the item and follow the noise.
On the one occasion that I’ve actually lost my keys outside the house (I put them down on a shelf in Penneys and wandered off to pay) I was able to track them down within minutes of realising: still on the shelf, under a pile of Wednesday T-shirts.
If you aren’t familiar with Bluetooth tags, here’s how it works: you link the tag to your phone via an app, which allows you to see its last updated location and activate its ringtone if you need to track it down. Ciara O’Brien test drives the Chipolo Card and Chipolo Loop.
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