Perhaps anybody who wants one already has an account on Google+, but on the off chance that you’re looking for one, and don’t have one yet, here’s my invite code:
https://plus.google.com/i/PteJKIRsu4Y:VH5Q5d1PMLA
Just click on the link and grab yourself an account. Don’t forget to add me to one of your circles!
You may have heard that Green Parrot Pictures, the small Irish company specialising in motion video processing and enhancement has been acquired by YouTube, for an undisclosed sum. This acquisition has been covered by all of the leading tech websites, including TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and Techmeme, among many others, no doubt.
What you may not be aware of is that Green Parrot is headed up by Prof. Anil Kokaram, an Associate Professor in the Signal Processing and Media Applications (SigMedia) group in Trinity College Dublin, and an SFI Principal Investigator award holder.
Best of luck to Anil and the rest of the Green Parrot team.
On Wednesday, Google Research announced their Quarter 4 Research Awards, in which they awarded $6 million to academic researchers. Of the 112 awards made, two were made to SFI-funded researchers. The first to Dr. Tim McCarthy of the StratAG Strategic Research Cluster in the area of Geo/Maps. The second award was make to Dr. Alexandre Passant of the DERI Centre for Science, Engineering and Technology in NUI Galway in the area of mobile technology.
There are some well known and high profile academics in the list of awardees. I’ve noticed Prof. Peter Brusilovsky of the University of Pittsburgh and Prof. David Karger of MIT among the award winners. Peter is a former SFI E.T.S Walton Visitor Award holder, and David has acted as a panel reviewer for SFI in the past.
Congratulations to both Tim and Alexandre for a great result in the face of stiff competition.
Last week Google released two very important pieces of technology:
These two developments will hugely help to break Google-stored data out of the locked silo. Given that I have two laptops (Windows XP for work and a MacBook for personal use) and two smart-phones (Blackberry Pearl for work and Nokia N70 for personal use), keeping everything in sync is a nightmare. Ideally, I’d like Google Calendar and GMail to be the ultimate repository of my contacts and calendar, and that everything else would sync with that.
These developments will hopefully get us one step closer to that nirvana.
I’ve created a Google Group called Ideas/ERC Ireland to share and disseminate information relating to the national programme of education and assistance in applying for ERC funding within Ireland.
If you’re a member of the Irish research community (either an active researcher or a member of a University/IT staff) and have not received an invite, please feel free to contact me on stephen[dot]flinter[at]sfi[dot]ie to request an invite. If you’re not from within the Irish system at present, but are considering applying for ERC funding through an Irish institution, you’re also welcome to contact me.
There’s not much there at present, but we will be fleshing it out in due course as information and documentation is issued by the ERC.