It’s apparent once again that virtual reality has finally reached the point to where it actually feels pretty real. Now we might not be so far away from a Lawnmower Man-like future.

[h/t: lleti via Reddit]

“Music first launched on Google Play in Europe in November 2012, and the fast rollout to more countries today is due to the multi-territorial licensing process, as recommended by the European Commission last year,” explains Google Play head of international music partnerships, Sami Valkonen. “We have 14 multi-territorial licenses for composition rights covering Europe and representing the vast majority of the world’s music, and have recently welcomed the members of AKM/AUME in Austria, SABAM in Belgium, SPA in Portugal, and IMRO in Ireland into our growing list of author’s society partners.”

Google is also launching Artist Hub in these countries. This is a platform for independent musicians to sell their music directly to fans. This is discussed a bit more here.

In addition to the five new countries, Google Play Music is available in the following European countries: the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

Irish bookie paddypower.com recently set up a betting page for Julian Assange. The site lists the various ways that Assange could escape the embassy and the odds going for each method. Some of the methods, such as a jetpack, are a little ridiculous, but that’s why the odds are set at 100/1.

Operator of the This Day In Wikileaks blog, M Cetera, has created a pretty awesome gif showing off the more interesting escape plans that Assange could employ to get out of the embassy. My bet is on an official Ecuadorian car, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a dramatic escape via hot air balloon or jetpack.

It’s highly unlikely that any of these will actually come to pass. Assange will stay holed up in the embassy until he is allowed to leave for Ecuador. The UK and Sweden aren’t going to let that happen. Ecuador is doing its best to rally other South American countries around Assange’s right to asylum, but much of Europe and the US remain opposed.

[h/t: Daily Dot]

Reuters is reporting that the office of the Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland is in contact with LinkedIn over the matter, and may begin an investigation. The office feels the situation is within their jurisdiction, which includes data theft. Reuters is quoting both the deputy data-protection commissioner and a spokesperson for LinkedIn’s London office as having confirmed that LinkedIn is keeping the Data Protection Commissioners Office “abreast of the situation.”

According to its website, the office of the Data Protection Commissioner was established under Ireland’s 1988 Data Protection act. The office upholds the principle that organizations that keep user data have a responsibility to keep the data private, safe, and secure. The Data Protection Amendment Act passed in 2003 updated Ireland’s data principles to include a European Union directive that declares individuals should “be in a position” to control their data. The Data Protection Commissioner upholds these rights and can enforce them by fining data holders who are malicious or irresponsible.

The rocks on the coastline of Ireland’s Aran Islands have been spotted so far inland that scientist thought only a tsunami could have had the power to transfer them. But new research published in the Journal of Geology has found that plain ocean waves and strong sea storms are responsible.

Geoscientist Rohadh Cox, and author of the publication, says the size of some of the rocks are “mindbogglingly stupendous”. One particular block they studied weighted an estimated 78 tons, was broken from its original resting place 36 feet above sea level and shoved farther inland.

In the study, Cox and his group of students took a set of maps from 1839 that identified the position of the boulders’ ridges. They then compared those with modern maps, which reveled that some of them had moved up to 70 feet in that time frame. The last tsunami to hit Ireland was in 1755, almost a hundred years before the original map was made.

Cox and his team used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of tiny clams living in the cracks of some of the boulders. This showed that they were removed from the ocean as early as 60 years ago.

“There’s a tendency to attribute the movement of large objects to tsunami,” Cox said. “We’re saying hold the phone. Big boulders are getting moved by storm waves.”

The image displayed is the actual Aran coastline, taken by Ronadh Cox and published in LiveScience.

The Referendum Commission is hoping to use the social network aspect of Facebook to pass the information along. The app will walk users through the steps of checking the register to make sure they are registered to vote, and signing them up if they are not. After that, users can share the fact that they used the app and encourage their friends to do so as well. Silicon Republic quotes the chairman of the Referendum Comission, Mr. Justice Kevin Feeney, as saying:

“It is particularly useful that users of this app can, with one click, tell all their Facebook friends about this and spread the word that they can check the register in a matter of seconds in this way. Every Irish citizen aged 18 or over on polling day is entitled to vote.”

It’s smart for the Irish government to realize that not everyone will see a traditional advertising campaign. It’s possible that the commission saw how ineffective their fall advertising campaign was for some demographics, and decided to look at other options. That campaign relied on television commercials, such as this one, featuring a lovely accent:

What do you think? Is the Irish government more technologically savvy than other western democracies, or will they simply be laughed off of Facebook? Leave a comment below and let me know.

(Silicon Republic via AllFacebook)

europe-v-facebook, a pro-transparency advocacy group in Europe, alleges that Facebook missed the deadline to make those changes and is calling for users to file complaints to the European Commission in Brussels in order to put the pressure on Facebook to make the changes it agreed upon.

According to the DPC’s report, Facebook was given until the end of the first financial quarter of 2012 to make changes to user privacy and the site’s data use policy. The changes would be meant to improve the understanding of the site’s policies for users while also granting users the ability to make informed decisions with regard to how their information is used. However, europe-v-facebook is alleging that the end of first financial quarter for 2012 occurred on March 31st, which would indeed put the company past the deadline.

Going from the statement from Facebook’s IPO filing, the company’s financial year is on a quarterly schedule that would have seen the end of the first quarter on March 31st, which would validate europe-v-faceook’s claims that Facebook did in fact miss the deadline to implement the changes to its privacy practices.

From a post via europe-v-facebook’s site, the group claims to have been in contact with the DPC regarding Facebook’s apparent lapse. “The Irish authority has told us in a phone call yesterday that they hope to find a solution with Facebook by the end of April,” the update says. “There won’t be any consequences or penalties for breaching may aspects of the law and the deadlines set up by the authority.”

When asked for comment, a spokesman from Facebook provided the following statement:

Facebook Ireland is investing a huge amount of effort to ensure we are making progress against all of the commitments we made during the audit. We have a constant dialogue with officials working for the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, who are responsible for overseeing the work we are undertaking, to reassure them of our progress. We recently reported to them that we have implemented some of their recommendations ahead of schedule and that we expect to meet all the Q1 aspirations over the coming weeks.

[Via TechCrunch.]

While the U.S. version of the contest is open to entries until March 23rd, Google Ireland has just announced the winner of this year’s competition as 18-year old Patrick Horan, a student from St. Munchin’s College in Limerick. Patrick’s design, titled “Turning Back Time”, was voted best out of 300 entries submitted by students around the country under the theme of “I wish…” and will be featured as the official Google Doodle for a full 24 hours beginning today at www.google.ie.

“Many of us look towards the stars to make a wish,” Patrick said in his Doodle’s description. “I wish I could turn back time to see our world in past times. My Doodle shows the mechanisms inside a clock slowly turning back the hands of time making my wish come true.”

Horan was a finalist in last year’s contest with his Doodle, “Letting My Imagination Flow”, which was based on the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh. He was beaten out by 6-year old Layla Karputz, however, who won with her design “Love Google”.

As part of the prize package, Patrick received not only an award at Google’s headquarters in Dublin, he also got a new laptop for himself and his teacher and €10,000. Interestingly, this is the second winning Google Doodle to emerge from St. Munchin’s, as the 2009 winner–Evan O’Sullivan Glynn–was also a student there.

This year’s theme for the U.S. contest is “If I could travel in time, I’d visit…” The winning Doodle will appear on the Google homepage on May 18th and the lucky artist will receive a $30,000 scholarship, a $50,000 technology grant for their school, and will be featured on a special edition Crayola box.

Apparently, Nike is among the former group.

The sportswear giant has released two new sneaker styles in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day which are beer themed: The “Guinness” and the “Black and Tan”. Although it hasn’t been reported if those are the official names of the shoes, they were being marketed as such in online shops and ads last weekend after their release. However, a search of ThePremierStore.com, an online retailer which carries Nike products, showed no results under those search terms.

The company has apologized for offending Irish communities with the sneaker name, which, according to one writer for the L.A. Times, “would be akin, in some circles, to naming a sneaker the Taliban or the Nazi.” In a statement to the Telegraph, a representative for Nike had this to say:

“This month Nike is scheduled to release a version of the Nike SB Dunk Low that has been unofficially named by some using a phrase that can be viewed as inappropriate and insensitive. We apologise. No offence was intended.”

While the term can be viewed as offensive by some, others wonder whether the uproar is justified, since the people at Nike who decide on names for their various lines don’t usually include such political terms in their research. Their main focus is to make sure there are no copyright infringements. A report about the incident on IrishCentral.com has spawned quite a few comments which both support and vilify the company’s decision. One commenter had this to say:

“I say wear them proudly! The only place a “Black and Tan” belongs is underfoot! Every time you kick a ball or pound them down by dancing them into the ground, hold that vision of divine retribution finally having its day! Purely symbolic, of course!”

Twitter has similar mixed reactions.

Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Outrage-as–Nike-issue-Black-and-Tan-sneaker-line-for-St-Patricks-Day-142180103.html#ixzz1pBrtZLwj

This isn’t the first controversy that Nike has been involved in; 2006′s ad campaign, which featured soccer player Wayne Rooney with a painted cross on his torso, drew fire from Christian groups.

You can watch a video about Nike’s apology for the “Black and Tan” below.

Unfortunately, it appears that these efforts were in vain as Minister of Research and Innovation Sean Sherlock has confirmed that the European Union (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2012 was signed into law according to a post on the Irish Labour Party Web site.

Now that the bill is signed and made law, Sherlock urges Irish citizens to move onto better things. What better things? He says to “focus now on making Ireland a model of international best practice for innovation, and ensuring that our copyright laws facilitate the achievement of this goal.” As part of this renewed focus on innovation, Sherlock also announced the next stage of the Copyright Review Committee, which seeks to update Ireland’s copyright legislation in the name of “removing barriers to innovation.”

Sherlock admits that there was a bit of concern over how vague the bill was and that it might be abused by content holders. He assures the citizenry that the High Court, who will be in charge of any legal cases brought forth by this bill, is receiving “significant guidance” from the Euroepean Court of Justice. Any cases regarding this new law will have to abide by certain rules:

Freedom to conduct a business enjoyed by operators such as ISPs;

The absolute requirement that an ISP cannot be required to carry out general monitoring on the information it carries on its network;

Any measures must be fair and proportionate and not be unnecessarily complicated or costly;

The fundamental rights of an ISPs’ customers must be respected, namely their right to protection of their personal data and their freedom to receive or impart information.

Sherlock made a lengthy statement about the law and what it means for the Internet industry in Ireland. I think it’s appropriate to reprint his statement in full:

“I believe that in Ireland we must build on our very substantial achievements in the creative and digital media industry, and become a model of international best practice for innovation in this area. Ireland is home to some of the world’s most innovative Internet companies, and we are determined to grow our reputation as a location where smart people and smart companies can innovate in this fast-moving arena.”

“On many previous occasions I have outlined the reasons why it is necessary for us to proceed to sign this Statutory Instrument in order to ensure compliance with our obligations under EU law. As there are clearly many diverse interests, it is important that interested parties come together and work in a constructive way to map the path forward. For this reason I am particularly anxious that the consultation paper launched today is studied and comprehensively responded to by all interested parties.”

“The challenge now is to examine what measures we can take to develop Ireland’s laws in this area in such a way as to provide the greatest possible encouragement for innovation in the creative and digital industries to take place here.”

“This is a very complex area of law, which affects industries that are developing at lightning pace, and where the interests of many diverse and changing parties interact with each other. My ambition to make Ireland a model of international best practice in this area will not be easily achieved, and as this debate develops I urge all interested parties on all sides to come together and work in a constructive and realistic way to the benefit of all.”

“In that context, I am happy to launch the consultation paper of the Copyright Review Committee. I am committed to reviewing and updating the Copyright legislation currently in place in order to strike the correct balance between encouraging innovation and protecting creativity. This paper has been prepared by the Copyright Review Committee in response to submissions received and public engagement. I urge all interested parties, including information providers and ISPs, innovators, rights holders, consumers and end-users, to study it carefully and engage in a constructive debate on all the issues.”

“This is a valuable opportunity for all interested parties to express their views and to make a meaningful contribution towards shaping the future development of Irish copyright law. I am confident that the work being carried out by the Copyright Review Committee, with the interaction and input of the interested parties, will result in establishing Irish copyright law on a firm footing to encourage innovation, foster creativity and meet the challenges of the future with confidence”.

There’s sure to be more protests and outrage at the signing of this bill. Its opponents are not going to go down without a fight.

Speaking of fights, angry citizens have already taken to Sherlock’s Facebook page to protest the law.

What do you think? Does Sherlock make a compelling argument in regard to the need for new copyright laws? Or do you think this was the wrong way to go? Let us know in the comments.