The Big Tech Show

Twitter is an angry place. It can drain your natural sense of goodwill and manners.This week, we look at how to behave on the world’s narkiest social network.Adrian is joined by Victoria Turk, features editor of Wired UK and author of the international hit book, ‘Digital Etiquette’.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Politicians like to say that elections are won on doorsteps. But most of them now spend almost as much time on their Facebook pages and Whatsapp groups.But who is policing Facebook and messaging groups for misinformation, planted false stories and algorithm-gaming?It’s not the BAI. It’s not the telecoms regulator, Comreg. And it’s not the Irish Press Council or Press Ombudsman. Unlike broadcasting or print, there is no official policing for fairness, accuracy or balance.Invariably, it comes back to the companies themselves.This week, Adrian is joined by Damien Mulley, founder of Mulley Communications, to look under the hood of how targeting works on social media during an election campaign. Mulley talks about an experiment he ran where he was able to target a handful of influential TDs and their political advisers for a couple of euro using Facebook’s ad system.And the two discuss the darker side of the political system and what it can throw up by way of trying to skew political debate online.Techniques have moved beyond the creation of outright false headlines claiming that a particular candidate has been endorsed by the Pope.Modern methods can be subtle and sophisticated, playing off algorithms. This includes getting dozens, or hundreds, of people to swarm online, all leaving comments under a news article or candidate post. Or to search repeatedly for a candidate’s name in an attempt to skew the search engine’s algorithm.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trinity College Dublin has a €1.1bn plan to build a new high-end innovation district’ plan that would see the cream of academic and industrial talent come together.The government is to consider putting €150m into the 10 year plan. The resulting five-acre space near Dublin’s Silicon Docks hopes to create a new super-hub for engineering, scientific and tech research, mixing academic stars with multinationals and venture capitalists.Dublin, the college says, should have its own equivalent to Boston’s Kendall Square or London’s Crick Institute.But is the plan a bold new template for the next stage of Ireland’s industrial ascension? Or is it another symbol of a two-tier city where the super-successful push ordinary citizens out? Could it be both?Adrian sits down with TCD’s chief innovation and enterprise officer, Dr Diarmuid O’Brien to find out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this podcast, Adrian and Donal O’Donovan (Irish Independent business editor) continue to look ahead at some of the big tech trends, services and products that are set to make a difference in 2020.As usual, Adrian makes a couple of calls on what he thinks will and won’t pan out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s the last week of 2019 (and, depending on your view, the decade). Instead of looking back, we’re going to make some predictions about what you can expect to come at you in tech over the next year.Adrian is joined to discuss his predictions by Donal O'Donovan, Irish Independent business editor.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian and Buzz.ie editor Mark Kavanagh list the best tech gadgets of the year.These include phones, headphones, smart speakers, cameras, smartwatches, drones, laptops and desktop PCs.The two also look forward to what is expected in 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some Irish tech firms prosper, some go bust and a great many simply run as a going concern.But there is a small number of Irish companies that still get talked about as ones with ‘potential’, even when they’re ten years old and bringing in millions.Ding, the Dublin-based firm that lets people top up their mobile phone credfit, may fall into this category.The company, founded by Mark Roden, has done pretty well to date. It has annual revenue of €38m based on over €500m of phone top-ups through its system. These come via deals with over 500 mobile operators and availability through 600,000 retail outlets.But talk to anyone in the Irish tech industry and it’s still discussed as something yet to see its finest day. Roden himself sets this tone, saying it hasn’t quite fulfilled its ambition. This week, Adrian sits down with Roden to talk about what he thinks the company should do next.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Almost two in five Irish people are leaving themselves open to a likely data breach by not updating their passwords.This week, Adrian sits down with Brad Brooks, CEO of OneLogin. The two talk about online security and why one in five Irish adults haven’t updated their passwords in over two years.One factor in understanding the lack of security hygiene over passwords in Ireland may be a professed level of annoyance that Irish people say they feel at online security measures.Almost a third of us get frustrated by the familiar Captcha random image and number generator system, while nearly one in five get irked by one-time passcodes via text or email.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you cope when your startup fails?The issue of mental health among founders isn’t widely discussed.This week, Adrian talks to Eamon Leonard, the popular Irish startup founder who found it tough going after one of his companies failed.Eamon talks candidly and honestly about the difficulties he had when things didn’t work out.He also talks about the new company he has co-founded, Boundless, and recounts the eye-opening tale of how he was ripped off by fraudsters when trying to buy equipment for a side-business making whiskey.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While the world tries to decide whether political advertising should be allowed on Facebook, the company has quietly chosen Ireland to try out a new privacy feature over almost all ads.‘Off Facebook Activity’ will let you cut off advertisers from your Facebook identity, either individually or in total.The idea is to address a problem that came into sharp focus in the Cambridge Analytica scandal -- what happens to your personal data outside your Facebook sessions?The new Off Facebook Activity tool will show you the apps and websites that connect to your Facebook profile, usually for the purposes of advertising, and will let you wipe that slate clean. You can then choose not to let Facebook use your general browsing activity to show you personalised ads.Will people use this tool, or just ignore it as they do for many of the privacy settings that services such as Facebook introduce?That’s a question that Adrian puts to David Baser, a senior product director at Facebook responsible for the new Off Facebook Activity tool.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.