The Big Tech Show

Mark Little is one of Ireland’s most recognisable media technology figures. From being an anchorman on RTE television to founding Storyful to becoming boss of Twitter in Ireland, he has seen the business from all angles.Now he’s back with a new venture that aims to reinvent app-based news. Together with former journalist and Facebook executive Aine Kerr and ex-Storyful collaborator Paul Watson, Little has launched ‘Kinzen’.Adrian sits down to talk to Little, Kerr and Watson about the problem they’re trying to solve and what lies ahead for the news business.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When do comedy and technology mix? Why is social media so much to the fore in critical analysis of current events? This week, Adrian chats to a contemporary master, David Schneider, about the role of comedy and social media in our daily lives. Schneider is one of the writers and actors on seminal British comedy series such as 'The Day Today' and 'I’m Alan Partridge’.Adrian also catches up with Lory Kehoe, the Irish boss of the blockchain specialist company, Consensys. They discuss some of the applications for blockchain in business today and whether it cold have a role in creating new economic models for the media industry.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a week that saw the resignation of the Minister responsible for the National Broadband Plan, Adrian asks some blunt questions about whether the whole rural rollout plan is going to be delayed and, if so, for what reasons. Adrian is joined in analysing the whole sorry saga by the Irish Independent’s political correspondent, Laura Larkin and the Sunday Independent’s business correspondent, Michael Cogley.Adrian also catches up with Oisin Hanrahan, the Dublin tech entrepreneur who raised almost €100m for the US online service firm Handy Technologies, after the company was sold to Nasdaq-listed Angi Homeservices.And Adrian gets a hands-on look at the latest range of updated Amazon gadgets, from the Echo speakers to the new Echo Input, as they prepare to launch into the Irish market.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you ask for money for your startup?That’s the question that Adrian put to Peter O’Malley, the co-founder of a new startup that has raised €1m from a variety of ‘business angels’ that include Paddy Cosgrave, CPL boss Anne Heraty and former Paddy Power chief Breon Corcoran.Is there a difference between approaching ‘friends and family’ and business contacts? What sort of plan do you need to have in place?Peter talks about his own experience and how he and co-founder Galen Lowney realised that there was space in the market for their startup, Advisable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you ask for money for your startup?That’s the question that Adrian put to Peter O’Malley, the co-founder of a new startup that has raised €1m from a variety of ‘business angels’ that include Paddy Cosgrave, CPL boss Anne Heraty and former Paddy Power chief Breon Corcoran.Is there a difference between approaching ‘friends and family’ and business contacts? What sort of plan do you need to have in place?Peter talks about his own experience and how he and co-founder Galen Lowney realised that there was space in the market for their startup, Advisable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian talks tech and politics with Tommy Collison, an Irish transplant to Seattle. Tommy brings us up to date on where tech and politics intersect in Silicon Valley.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With almost two weeks of rigorous testing under his belt, Adrian Weckler assesses the iPhone Xs and Xs Max . Is the screen on the Xs Max too big? Has battery life improved? Is the Xs now the best cameraphone, or is Huawei’s P20 Pro still in top spot? And can that big, big price be justified, or is it worth waiting for next month’s iPhone Xr?Adrian also meets Jamie White, the young Dublin entrepreneur who set up Start Summit and Leading Social, a marketing agency specialising in social media strategies for big companies.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian reports from Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California where he was on hand to test out the newly-launched iPhone Xs Max, Xs and Xr phones.The big talking points are around that new 6.5-inch screen, a whopper by Apple’s standards.But the other surprise feature came in the shape of the new Apple Watch Series 4’s ECG sensor and ‘fall detection’ feature.Separately, Adrian talks to the futurist Lucie Greene about how the big tech companies are likely to affect our lives in coming years.Greene is the author of 'Silicon States: The Power and Politics of Big Tech and What It Means for Our Future'.Greene gives a glimpse of a dystopian near-future while avoiding much of the over-egged hysteria that sometimes compromises work in this genre.Voting via block-chain or emergency services on demand (with 'surge pricing' models built in) may be on the way, she says, as Silicon Valley ramps up its designs on cities and towns.Greene also takes a look at the political manoeuvres of big tech companies and their founders, from how Uber and AirBnB riles up local communities to the once-likely presidential ambitions of Mark Zuckerberg.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian Weckler talks to the global IT security celebrity and virus hunter Mikko Hypponen.Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, says that we should be taking threats from North Korea a lot more seriously than we do.He also explains why, in the hierarchy of worst malware outbreaks in recent years, Petya was probably worse than Wannacry.And he hears how Adrian is guilty of perpetuating one of the stupidest security practices in Ireland today.(Hypponen is one of the keynote speakers at this year’s Dublin Information Sec 2018, taking place in the RDS on October 15th.)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian talks to Daniel Gross, who grew up in Israel and went to Silicon Valley as a teenager to seek fame and fortune through the famous accelerator, Y Combinator.He set up a company called Cue and sold it to Apple for a reported $35m in 2013 before going to work for the tech giant. Last year, he left Apple to become a partner in Y Combinator and now he’s a founder of Pioneer, which says that it is looking for ‘lost Einsteins’ or talented young people who aren’t getting a chance in life.His thesis is that there’s massive potential in young people who are missing out because they don’t come from the ‘right’ background.Pioneer is being backed by Patrick Collison and the famous investor and former Netscape founder Marc Andreesen, who are both helping to fund it.Adrian and Daniel talk about his life, what inspired him and why he wants to help people get ahead.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.