The Big Tech Show

Electricity bills. Fuel costs. Diesel hikes. Streaming prices rises. Most of us are currently drowning under inflationary pressure that is ramping up our cost of living. Can tech help? Sort of. Adrian Weckler and consumer journalist Siobhan Maguire discuss ways that tech can help to cut your bills.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some mock them, others worship them. But non fungible tokens – NFTs – look here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. If you’ve a passing interest, how might you get started? How might you separate the real thing from the scams? And why are so many damn celebrities trying to sell you one?To explain all of this, Adrian is joined by Lory Kehoe, the newly-appointed director of NFT Success at Coinbase, and who is also the founder of Blockchain Ireland as well as being an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ireland has had relatively thin layers of protection against cyber attacks and IT threats. But after a catastrophic attack on the HSE, the state beefed up Ireland’s National Cyber Security Centre, doubling its staff and increasing its remit. Will it be enough? Or does Ireland remain dangerously exposed? What are the threats now from a Ukraine-centred cyber war?Joining Adrian Weckler to discuss this is the newly-appointed director of the National Cyber Security Centre, Richard Browne.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who watches over the biggest tech firms in the world? Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner. This week, we talk to Helen Dixon about the challenges her office faces, criticism she has received and some of the biggest issues on how big tech intersects with our lives.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How does your bank rate when it comes to keeping your everyday transactions safe and reliable? What are the larger cybersecurity challenges we’re now facing? Our guest on the show today is Paul Swift, Bank of Ireland’s Head of Technology, Media and Telecoms Sector.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

According to authorities here, ‘romance scams’ cost victims an average of €18,000 each. How do they happen? Who are the perpetrators and the victims? If you’re on a dating app, what should you avoid?Adrian is joined by the cyber-psychology researcher and lecturer, Dr Nicola Fox Hamilton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last month, Stripe co-founder John Collison told me something I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to.“A starting salary in some software engineering jobs is more than €100,000,” he said.“I don't think this has leaked its way out into the popular consciousness here… There’s a career conservatism in Ireland.”Indeed. This week, the Big Tech Show decided to tease this out. Are software and tech graduates the new mega rich class? If so, what wider effects on society are we starting to see from this? Will conservative, middle-class parents now say things like ‘help! My daughter, the software engineer, is drowning?’And what are the effects on things like rents and house prices? If the premium rental residential areas in Dublin start filling up mostly with engineers and other tech graduates, do we risk creating the type of bland, homogenised cultural atmosphere that has made cities such as San Francisco into the boring, vanilla-flavored metropolitan areas?Joining me, Adrian Weckler, to discuss all of this is Stephen Kinsella, the newly-tenured professor of economics at the University of Limerick and that institution’s director of Immersive Software Engineering.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re all going to die.The question is: what happens to our social media accounts when we do?Who gets the photos in them? The documents? The DMs?Is it different for Facebook and, say, iCloud?Can your Whatsapp account be claimed by someone as an inheritance?And what about other important online accounts you have, like Microsoft’s OneDrive or Google Drive?Is there anything you can do in advance to prepare?Or if you’re a family member of someone recently deceased, how do you go about trying to get access to a social media account that might have an important piece of information or document needed to settle an ongoing probate or legal issue?Joining Adrian to talk about the answers to these questions are Susan Murphy, a solicitor with makemywill.ie and Damien Mulley of Mulley Communications.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Adrian Weckler recently learned how hard it can be to quit a gambling app. He signed up to one, LivescoreBet, just to watch a football game. But it wouldn’t let him delete his account. Six times he asked, six times he was refused. He then signed up to other betting apps to see whether they were any better. Most allowed him to bet using his credit card through apps such as Apple Pay or Revolut, even though betting apps aren’t supposed to allow credit card betting. What, he asks, must it be like for those with gambling addiction? Adrian discusses the scant regulation in Ireland and other elements of the issue with former gambling addict (now a counsellor) Tony O’Reilly and Prof John O’Brennan.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A few years ago, an ambitious young entrepreneur made a big claim: she was developing technology that could diagnose illnesses from a drop of blood.Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos dazzled investors with her pitch, dressing up like Steve Jobs and talking a perfect game.As we now know, there was no ground-breaking technology. Holmes, who was faking it rather than making it, has now been convicted on several counts of fraud.The episode, which captured the imagination of the world, has shone the spotlight on a darker side of startup ethics – how far can you stretch your startup’s claims of potential when looking for money? Is it still okay to fake it until you make it?Joining Adrian to compare stories and discuss the issue is seasoned startup advisor Donal Cahalane.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.