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The Irish Times has stopped charging people for reading its content online, and launched a new irishtimes.com website. The redesigned irishtimes.com aims to reflect the changing demands of online readers. The simplified and improved structure of the site is intended to keep pace with internet-user demand by helping readers find what they want quickly.

The new site is planned to bring readers easily from one story to another on related topics, or related websites, and it will develop many multimedia features. The restoration of The Irish Times title online is designed to make the newspaper the dominant media website in Ireland in the 21st century. The change from a subscription model to a free newspaper on irishtimes.com is a further instalment in the biggest editorial development programme in the history of the newspaper, embarked upon last February with the redesign and modernisation of The Irish Times and the launch of new supplements.

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written by Coolgarriv

Power failures at UEFA’s International Broadcast Centre in Vienna interrupted coverage of last night’s semi-final match between Germany and Turkey. The BBC, one of many broadcasters affected by the loss of the UEFA host broadcaster’s feed, put up a BBC One fault caption and switched to Radio 5 Live audio during two outages: one for seven minutes at 57:15 into the match, and a second that started in the 76th minute prevented viewers from seeing Germany’s Miroslav Klose score a goal.

“All countries across the world receiving the feed lost pictures and sound,” said a BBC spokesperson. “We had people ringing up to ask what had happened, but it was more reaction than complaints.” RTÉs Bill O’Herlihy also stated that it was happening all across Europe

“The television signal in the International Broadcast Centre for the Germany-Turkey game has been interrupted several times in the second half due to technical reasons which are currently being investigated, in particular to evaluate the impact of the violent electrical storm over Vienna at that time,” said UEFA.

written by Dave

Saturdays Lotto draw looks set to be almost €18m after there was no winner of last night’s €17m jackpot.

The winning numbers were 9, 25, 26, 31, 33, 41. The bonus was 42.

There was no winner of the €350,000 Lotto plus one either. The numbers were 14, 15, 17, 35, 36, and 45, bonus 33.

There was also no winner of the €250,000 Lotto plus two draw . The numbers were 3, 9, 12, 18, 27, and 34. The bonus was 36.

written by Dave

The GAA’s Central Hearings Committee has upheld the 24-week suspension handed down to Kerry captain Paul Galvin. Galvin attended the committee meeting on Monday night at Croke Park and was unsuccessful in having the ban reduced. His suspension will run from 15 June.

In a high-profile incident, Galvin knocked the referee’s notebook out of his hand in the Munster semi-final against Clare and remonstrated with a linesman following his dismissal. Galvin now has the option of taking his case to the Central Appeals Commitee.

Meanwhile, ahead of Sunday’s draw for the first round of the All-Ireland football qualifiers, the GAA has announced that the first team drawn will have home venue provided their ground meets safety requirements. 16 teams will enter the draw.

written by Coolgarriv

Sky will drop the price of its Sky HD box next month as part of a rebranding exercise designed to more closely tie its high definition PVR product to the long-standing Sky+ name.

Sky HD, for which boxes currently cost between £199 and £249 with a Sky HD subscription, will be known as Sky+ HD from July 1. At the same time, the cost of a new box will be dropped to £150, the same as that charged for a standard definition Sky+, when taken with the £10 per month “HD mix”, the new name for the Sky HD subscription package.

Sky+ HD boxes will continue to cost £399 each when purchased without subscribing to the HD mix. Pricing for a standard definition Sky+ box will also be altered, with a new box costing £150 for new and existing customers except where it is taken with multiroom or broadband services, where the price of a customer’s first Sky+ box will drop to £75.

Sky+ standard definition boxes purchased without a Sky subscription will continue to cost £199.  Sky has made a concerted effort to push the Sky+ brand in a major outdoor, television and online campaign featuring a variety of celebrities, including Sir Michael Parkinson, explaining how they use its personal video recorder functionality.

written by Dave

Women are smashing up their homes in order to exercise, says insurer. Wii Fit is causing unprecedented damage in living rooms across the nation, with nearly a fifth of polled women admitting they have got carried away with it. Flower pots, television sets and even pets have all been affected by the high kicks and hula hoop exercises that are a part of Wii Fit. In a poll conducted by insurer Sheila’s Wheels, women admitted they had caused an average of £6.55 worth of damage in the last year. They claim that equates to a national bill of £20.1 million, according to The Telegraph.

written by Coolgarriv

Ryanairs transatlantic spin-off will offer “beds and blowjobs” to premium class customers, airline boss Michael O’Leary told a stunned audience this week. His comments came on a whistlestop tour of three German airports, in response to questions about plans for a longhaul airline.

The airline will fly people in economy class across the Atlantic for €10, while those in premium class will pay €4,000 to €5,000 for “beds and blow jobs,” Mr O’Leary said. His local spokeswoman then began to choke on her glass of water while the Ryanair man added “surely you have a word for blowjobs in German,”according to local press reports.

An airline spokesman yesterday confirmed Mr O’Leary’s comments. “The spokeswoman mentioned in the article was Anja Seugling, sales and marketing manager for Germany, Switzerland and Austria,” he added. “We confirmed at the press conference yesterday that the proposed Transatlantic Service will have a very low-cost economy cabin with seats priced from €10 one way, and a very high quality business class, providing better service than BA or Virgin.

“The working title for the business class service is ‘Beds and Blowjobs’.”

written by Coolgarriv

The latest data from the telecom regulator, ComReg, shows that some 25m text messages are sent in Ireland every day. New figures also confirm that mobile phones are continuing to overtake landlines as the most popular method of making calls in Ireland. In the first three months of this year, there were almost 100,000 new broadband connections, bringing broadband penetration in Ireland to almost 23%.

ComReg’s Quarterly Report on the electronic communications market also shows that total broadband take-up grew by 12% in the quarter, with the help of new mobile broadband subscriptions. Other findings in the report show that we sent 12% more text messages in January, February and March this year than in the same three months last year. And there are now 5.4m mobile phone connections in Ireland - a penetration rate of 121%. That rate puts us very much in line with the European average, but well behind Italy where the rate has reached 151%.

Just over half, or 52%, of the overall voice traffic on Irish phones is now carried on mobile networks and 2% is carried over the Internet. In the first three months of the year the average length of use each month fell slightly to 227 minutes, meaning that every minute just over 38,000 people are speaking on their mobile phones.

written by Dave

Now fully on board with Blu-ray, Paramount Pictures has launched its own “Blu-ray Support and Information” web site, featuring information about the format, the latest news from manufacturers, and currently available and forthcoming movie releases from the studio.

Additionally, there seems to be space for some sort of support, though at present Paramount recommends users contact their equipment manufacturer.

It doesn’t feel like a complete site yet, but it at least shows a level of commitment to the high definition disc format from Paramount.

link: ParamountBluRay.com

written by Coolgarriv

Liverpool will make an improved offer to sign Aston Villa captain Gareth Barry after having a second bid - believed to be £13m - turned down. Rafael Benitez is poised to go back to Villa in a renewed attempt to bring the acrimonious saga to a conclusion. The £18m-rated 27-year-old has told Villa he wants to sign for Liverpool. Liverpool hope to sell Xabi Alonso to Juventus to help fund the deal, but have yet to receive a serious offer.

Villa had received two offers from Liverpool for Barry, but boss Martin O’Neill told BBC Sport their latest bid had been turned down, forcing Benitez to go back again in another attempt to finally sign his top summer transfer target. “The offer that Liverpool have made is just not acceptable,” O’Neill told the BBC. “It might be difficult [to keep hold of him]. He said he would fancy going to Liverpool and that’s a big setback.” “It’s very frustrating,” said O’Neill. “We finished sixth last year and he was a major part of that. “He’s been a splendid player for us for some considerable time and we want to try and improve because the club are capable of doing that. “But if Manchester United are struggling to keep hold of Ronaldo then the rest of us are in a bit of trouble. “It’s difficult but if we have to go on without Gareth Barry then we’ll still have a go.”

Villa are said to be holding out for at least £18m, which could pose a problem for Benitez. The Anfield boss has admitted he is expecting to have a reduced transfer budget as a result of the feud between American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. We have the spine of the team and we just need others in other positions, “If we had a lot of money to spend it would obviously be better,” Benitez said on the club website. “But if we don’t, it doesn’t matter. “It is not about buying the most expensive players, it is about buying the right players and we can sell some players to get the others we need. We have the spine of the team and we just need others in other positions.”

written by Coolgarriv