Adrian Weckler

Bluesky is really glitchy lately, sometimes refuses to post or gets caught in a loop. Sad to see!

Microsoft seeks 60,000 staff cuts, maybe the biggest-ever tech layoff round. More than a quarter of its entire global workforce. US, UK, Canada and India. (Not Ireland.) Voluntary buyouts. AI, Copilot, finance, HR, Xbox, Windows + Devices.

New (slightly bigger, thinner) iPad mini. From €779. Which means you could get a new iPhone 18 Pro and iPad mini for… €100 cheaper than an iPhone Duo.

'The biggest heap of rubbish... stop using AI, start using local talent.’ Limerick councillors criticise council’s Christmas video, made by AI. We're going to see a lot more of this, folks. www.independent.ie/county/limer...

Should gardaí /police be allowed to break into WhatsApp messages to fight crime? Most people do not want the State accessing their encrypted messages, but a new Bill could extend surveillance powers to communications ‘whether encrypted or not’ www.independent.ie/business/tec...

Book launch

iPhone Duo review Pros - pocketable, great for watching video, near-invisible crease, Zoom call friendly, fun to use, premium build Cons - no Face ID, no telephoto camera, very high price, eSim only, slightly thicker/heavier than rivals

Breaking: Katie Zacharia is out as White House press secretary, a week after Trump announced her appointment on.wsj.com/4ssH7rz

Saorview, used by 13pc of homes, could be switched off as TV transmission review gets underway. --> Review on best use of the wireless spectrum (mobile usage may be better, regulator report says). Plus so many moving to broadband TV, with 100pc coverage by 2028 www.independent.ie/business/sao...

ChatGPT weekly users, Ireland 2025 - 1m 2026 - 2.5m “It’s half the people using the internet in Ireland.” - Sarah Friar, OpenAI CFO

Ireland's flagship AI summit opens with European Commissioner ducking questions from media about US live-streamed execution Henna Virkkunen (EU Commissioner, Tech Sovereignty, Security, and Democracy) walked out when asked about EU's approach to live-streamed executions

OpenAI hiring an extra 200 jobs in Dublin, its European HQ. On top of 250 announced just in July. Anthropic (main rival, also HQ'd here), is expanding out to 300 in Dublin. Ireland seems to be catching the big tech wave (and future big taxes?) -- again. www.independent.ie/business/ope...

We Irish buy more cheap (<€20) tech tat/crap than almost anyone else in Europe. And then we bin it within a month. (Says new EU wide survey) So is Temu (1m Irish customers) a cost of living godsend or a glut of disposable tech that fills up bins? www.independent.ie/business/iri...

Blacksod Lighthouse, mid-June, 4.50am

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Update from Asos: “Basic personal information including name and contact details may have been accessed. We do not believe that payment-card information or account passwords, were impacted. “Our website and app are operating as normal, with no current disruption to any aspects of our operations."

Weird that 3 US companies -- Apple (€4.1bn), Microsoft (€5.6bn) and Eli Lilly (€5.7bn) -- now pay for people's heating oil, pension increases and tax cuts in this Budget. Near directly. They file windfall taxes = we hike social spending and cut our income tax. Utter, depressing dependence.

Irish customers among those to get this push notification today, entitled “ASOS HACKED”... “Dear ASOS DPO and IT, we have full compromised the Snowflake instance. Engage with us, or we will leak it.”

Asos hacked -- customer notification contains apparent threat www.independent.ie/business/onl...

The €60,000 student job Irish tech interns now earn up to €60,000 (pro rata) at Google, Stripe, Squarespace et al A few months and they’ve paid off their year’s accommodation, tuition www.independent.ie/business/iri...

The Journal is launching a €50 (per year) paywall. (For "some" articles) www.independent.ie/business/the...

Ireland's DPC says AI firms unlikely to be permitted train data on private messages, because it would breach GDPR Likely a blow to WhatsApp, which launched Muse AI within WhatsApp in the US DPC says it also killed or delayed 9 AI services pre-launch www.independent.ie/business/blo...

What Rupert Murdoch told Mark Little right after buying his news verification startup Storyful for $25m "Let's go make some f***ing money.” Interesting stuff from Mark on today’s pod - his time at Twitter, AI, Elon, social media, missing TV, what comes next Big Tech Show from Irish Independent

The 'fair use' policy is up to 1TB, Lidl tells me. For casual use, that's way more than enough -- 10 hours per day of Netflix (HD) or around 5 hours of Netflix in 4K (I'm trying to look past fact that 1TB of "fair use", okay as that is, obv isn't "unlimited")

OpenAI reveals it leaked uploaded images its users thought would be private. OpenAI: “We have discovered 53 cases where images that people had uploaded were posted to image-hosting sites as links that weren’t publicly listed.”

Ex-CEO of Cubic Telecom, Barry Napier, has won a legal and planning battle to rebuild his demolished €7.5m waterfront home in Dalkey. www.independent.ie/irish-news/m...

Here are six settings you can/should change immediately on Revolut - transfer limit - anti-theft 'street mode' - disposable card - spending limits for cards - payment notifications - 'trusted merchants' check More detail: www.independent.ie/business/tec...

Revolut confirms that some Irish customers affected by new ‘third party’ data breach. It’s the second time this month that Ireland’s largest payments service is warning some customers of a risk to their personal data. www.independent.ie/business/rev...

AI usage daily, weekly, monthly (& never) -- Gallup poll of 37 countries eg Ireland -- 25% daily, 18% weekly, 13% monthly, 45% none

Biggest increase in AI usage in 'global north' countries? - Shopping Global south countries? - School

Ireland moves up to 3rd globally for use of AI (1st in Europe) -- per new global Microsoft study Saints and slop? Or peak productivity?

This is the kind of thing that fed pop theories like ‘my phone listens to me cos how else would it know all that for ads’ (Your phone doesn’t secretly listen to you for ads)