On the stroke of midnight, as we rang in 2019, Huawei announced the P smart 2019 and as a result, they had the first smartphone announcement of the year. Yesterday, Huawei announced another first as their new folding phone, the Mate X, became the world’s first certified 5G phone.
Whether or not folding phones are the next big thing, is still up for debate, but the Mate X is nothing short or a beautiful phone. Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, while cheaper, appears to be an unusual design misfire, while the Mate X looks sublime.
Coupled with the design innovation, Huawei has now confirmed that the Mate X is teh world’s first certified 5G handset.
5G certification is carried about by TÜV Rheinland, the same crowd behind that CE certification that devices must pass to be eligible for sale within the EU.
The Huawei Mate X utilises a Balong 5000 chipset. This single chip supports a broad spectrum including 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G meaning the addition of 5G to your new smartphone won’t mean it needs to be bigger at all. While refusing to compromise on design, the Balong 5000 chip also doesn’t skimp on performance with the chip being the first to achieve an industry-wide 5G benchmark of 4.6Gbps.
Basically, it’s really fast.
The Mate X is going to be an absolute beast and it might very well be the reason I come around to the idea of folding phones.
Watch this space.
When Will 5G Launch in Ireland?
You can expect to see 5G arrive in Ireland later this year. Both Vodafone and Three have been public in outlining their hopes to support this new mobile spectrum. Exact dates haven’t been confirmed though, so again – watch this space too.
I say it every year. Isn’t it an awful shame we lost Web Summit. Last week, it was announced that we’ve also lost MoneyConf, cancelled at relatively short notice, now to become part of the Lisbon Web Summit. Thanks be to jaysus we have Dublin Tech Summit again this April. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be taking a look at what’s on to look forward to, but today I’m going to start with space, space and more space.
A New Space: Moving Into the RDS
It’s partially a symbolic move but mostly a practical move. Dublin Tech Summit has received mixed reviews to date when it took place in the Dublin Convention Center and that’s simply because it outgrew the building. The first event wasn’t too bad, but last year proved to be too much for the event. With one floor closed off, Casey Neistat and a lot of students the whole event ground to a halt.
This year, Dublin Tech Summit moves to the RDS. Formerly the home of Web Summit, the RDS had it’s own problems, namly the WiFi which infamously proved to be a major pain point for CEO Paddy Cosgrave. Still, as a venue, the sheer size of the RDS was incredible for Web Summit. While you can expect to see only a part of the RDS being used for Dublin Tech Summit this year, the potential for expansion is what really excites here. That and there’s a lovely pub across the road.
Chris Hadfield: Extreme Leadership in Space
Up until a few years ago, if you were asked to name an astronaut, there’s a fair chance people could have only named Neil Armstrong. Nowaways there’s a very good chance that Chris Hadfield would also be the name on the tip of people’s tongues.
The former commander of the International Space Station will be at Dublin Tech Summit to discuss extreme leadership and to be fair, he’s well placed.
Hadfield is one of those really cool personalities too, so you can expect his talk to be jammers. To celebrate his appearance, here’s him singing in space:
Alyssa Carson: Bid to Become a Martian
Alyssa Carson is in one of the most unique positions on the planet. Just 17 years of age, Carson is training to be among the first humans to journey to Mars. It’s really not something to be taken lightly. Her eventual journey will be across nearly 65 million kilometers of space. It’s a lonely journey, but not neccessarily a one-way ticket.
Carson’s journey will be long and lonely, fraught with danger and lots plenty of personal sacrifice, but it’s her passion. Her talk on the Wednesday will be surely be riveting and not one to be missed. I’m intrigued to hear about the sacrifice and the mental state of someone preparing for such a harrowing journey.
Dublin Tech Summit takes place on 10 and 11 April this year in the RDS, Dublin. Be sure to throw us a follow on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram to keep up to date with the latest news from the event.
It might come as no surprise to people that we wouldn’t be the biggest fans of the church here at Goosed.ie, Martin has even wrote an article about using GDPR to leave the Catholic Church. But if we can use tech to leave, the church can use tech to their advantage too. That’s why it now looks like collection baskets may soon become a thing of the past!
We’ve all been there down the years, you’re sitting down doing your mini aerobics class throughout mass and bang, the collection basket comes out. Do you not want drop a couple coppers in to the basket or did you just simply forget the change? Well it could all be changing due to a new initiate that’s kicked of in 5 Dublin based churches.
Digital collection boxes
These digital collection boxes are basically the introduction of contactless card payments in place of the old basket for those of us who barely carry cash anymore. They have rolled out this initiative to tackle the decline in cash donations. It’s been reported that there has been a 19% decrease in donations between 2016 and 2017, with donations dropping from 2.4million from 3.1million the previous year.
“We are piloting a new payment method in a small number of churches, with card machines in place at the back of the church to allow parishioners to make a contactless contribution,”
Has this been done before?
Yes it has, the Church of England has been trailing it for a short while now and the early reports are indicating a 97% increase in donations since the introduction of the digital collection box.
Of course that means the Catholic Church have the euro symbols in their eyes and they have jumped right on the bandwagon.
“later this year we plan to roll out the ability for the majority of parishes to accept card-based payments using a parish payments system. This will cover many transactions such as offerings, pilgrimage payments and will enable parishioners to sign up for recurring contributions.”
Not ones to miss a trick, this new system won’t spell the end of the old wicker baskets that traditionally do the rounds. Now how this works is simple, you pick from one of four options and then either tap your card or phone and pass along. The device can currently handle 500 transactions before needing to charge.
From what we have seen so far, Irish churches will have a stationary device at the back of the church so you can donate before or after the service and in time we might see the mobile option replace the traditional donation method.
At the moment there are over 16,000 in the UK using the system and they aim of making portable card readers available.
It’s definitely an interesting time for the church as worshippers and donations have been drying up over the last couple of years but hey if you’re the church going type and you like giving them money here’s a modern solution that we assume will be rolled out nationwide in the near future.
Anthem only needed a couple of things to go right to be a success and at a glance, it’s one of the most highly polished titles we’ve seen from one of the biggest developers in the world. It’s a deceptive game in the sense that from the moment you see the world, it’s characters and scenery you’re blown away by how gorgeous everything is. Then you play the game. It starts strong, throwing you into the midst of an epic battle where aliens and humans face off in a battle to the death. What happens next is a disappointment, the new game smell wares off and you see the game for exactly what it is, a pretty but buggy and soulless game that fails to show BioWare’s unique storytelling ability.
The Story
Anthem is set on an alien planet where the human race are working towards survival thanks to exo-suit wearing warriors called Freelancers. On this planet, the aliens have shaped the environment using the power of the Anthem of Creation, a mystical energy source of sorts. These “Shapers” as they are known, have now done a runner and left all their Anthem-infused power tools still running, which causes all sorts of apocalyptic accidents that Freelancers are tasked with preventing.
Sounds exciting right? Well not exactly, the story feels like it’s half finished and even the well made characters can’t save it.
The Grind
After the initial mission you will find yourself in a place called Fort Tartis which is a small enclosed city, this is your home and main hub. You play as something called a Freelancer aka a warrior in a mech suit and this is where you return to make your upgrades, talk to NPC’s and pick up your contracts.
When you begin you’re going to be eager to talk to all the characters within the fort so you can get started powering up, gathering loot and get cracking with the storyline. And then it starts to go wrong. Levelling up is a slow and painful grind while the repetitiveness of Anthem starts becoming boring and tedious.
Missions start to blend together and you don’t get a proper grounding around the villain’s motives or the heroes hardships. This means you rarely have a clear understanding of what’s happening or why it matters.
Slogging Away
Here’s Anthem in a nutshell – grab a contract, do the mission, return to base, repeat. Anthem lacks a natural story progression that we have seen in games like Spider-Man and Read Dead and to be honest it would benefit massively from a clearer storyline, that way you’re not constantly jumping in and out of your base for things to do.
Playing with friends is also a bit of a bother. If they are in a different part of the story to you, they won’t make any progress by joining you on a mission. Why I do not know. Also, waiting for them to endlessly talk to NPC’s and constantly travelling back to base kind of takes the enjoyment out of playing with mates.
And finally, it’s just such a slog in my opinion. Around mid-way through the game gets bogged down with too many characters and not enough character development/relationship building. It becomes repetitive and that brings me onto the problem called the Tombs of the Legionaires.
This is essentially a side quest where you have to explore four different caves. Not bad, but to enter each tomb you need to complete a ridiculous amount of tedious tasks. Collect 20 chests, 10 collectables, beat 50 enemies and entry could be yours. I’ll pass. Such was the blowback from gamers towards BioWare, they changed the mission so that your actions in free play mode contribute to the lists once you reach level three. If you’re like me and you won’t spend much time in freeplay then it’s pointless. It’s really a shame because it’s a fine looking game, with promising aspects, it’s just not hitting the mark.
It’s not all bad
Really it’s not. It’s a brilliant looking game. The architecture and scenery are proper stunning while the wildlife around you is slickly done. It’s a complete 180 from the normal apocalyptic wastland vibe you get from most similiar games, namely Destiny 2.
Flying is also pretty cool and it makes travel a breeze. It feels a lot more free than the story ever does and the suits themselves are amazingly detailed with slightly different flying characteristics. It makes for a really nice experience and jumping about to reset yourself in battle will always have you cracking a smile.
So the flying and scenery are good, but it’s the combat where the game really comes to life. The combat visuals are something to see and when you start getting proper weapons, fighting is great craic.
So there’s four Javelin classes, you start as the Ranger and as you level up you start leveling up you unlock new suits. Every suit has it’s own different flying characteristics, abilities, strenghts etc and these are:
The Collossus: A slow, sturdy tank like machine
The Interceptor: A fast/agile melee machine
The weapons themselves are ranked by rarity and power which correlate its strength and with the addition of components and inscriptions you can customize and upgrade your suit. To be fair that is fun.
Money Money Money
Speaking about upgrading the suit, as per the usual now microtransactions are a big deal for Anthem. Any form of visual customization like emotes and cosmetics are going to cost you a few beans.
Speaking about upgrading the suit, as per the usual now microtransactions are a big deal for Anthem. Any form of visual customization like emotes and cosmetics are going to cost you a few beans.
Within the game you can purchase armour and materials using coins you collect throughout the game but you can also use microtransactions to get what you want. This is helped by the fact that gathering coins is a pain making it easier to just buy the upgrades if you wish. For example, gathering 40,000 coins can take over 10 hours.
Longevity
You can complete the campaign in about 20-25 hours roughly but realistically Anthem is going to be dependant on downloadable content to extend its lifespan. If they can bring out some fresh ideas and fix some of the bugs and problems then maybe it can spark some life back into the title and we can have something fun to play. However if things continue as they are then Anthems best bet is going to be having a small niche of dedicated players.
Goosed Verdict
It could have been an incredible game, but let’s call a spade a spade here. Anthem is just not up to scratch! Sorry but it is, I find you spend a lot of time scratching your head simply asking yourself “Why?” Just why is this game not what it should have been.
I don’t want to seem like I didn’t have any fun on the game but it just seems to lack the basic fundamentals of what a game like this needs to work. Players have begun boycotting the game in order to get a bug re-introduced that actually made the game better and that probably says all you need to know really. Anthem is flawed from start to finish and although I’d love to be proven wrong, I’m skeptical that they can do enough to get the players back on board.
The company behind Anthem, BioWare have already detailed some of the changes that will be coming in the new couple of weeks and months. As the game is a “live service game” we should expect that Anthem will change a fair bit, not unlike Destiny 2 or The Division. In fairness to BioWare they seem open to feedback and they are doing their best to respond to it as fast as possible, which is nice. Sadly they have lost me and I won’t be coming back and I imagine that’s the case for most people who have tried Anthem.
Remember our mate Brenny? He’s been on the podcast before and he’s one of the guys behind the brilliant CyberSmarties and GymGo. Well, this bunch of serial tech entrepreneurs are back again with their latest venture. Not going to lie their new company is a proper curve ball and it’s going to properly disrupt a market we genuinely have never thought off… Horse sales. So if you’re watching Cheltenham and have been thinking “Jaysus, I wouldn’t mind owning a proper pony” then now is your chance. So let’s have a gander and see what it’s all about:
What is HorseSales.ie
The Limerick based company has just launched Horsesales.ie, the first and only online auction platform to allow people to buy and sell thoroughbred horses to a global market from the convenience of their couch in a simple and cost-efficient manner. So if you’ve ever thought of buying a thoroughbred horse in time for Cheltenham now’s your chance…
How did they start up?
Once upon a time I visited their old office space in O’Connell Street in Limerick and geniunely this is how they work. Come up with an idea, write it down and stick in the idea jar until their current project is complete. Now with CyberSmarties fully operation, itchy feet set in.
They have realised that the bloodstock industry was well behind the mark when it came to its use of technology, especially when buying or selling horses. Their idea was to use modern technology to make a market that was more efficient and all around easier. They have about as much of a background in horses and horse auctions as I do so they had to go out and travel the length and breadth of the nation speaking with trainers and breeders to see what they needed.
How do customers sell and how do I buy?
Horsesales.ie seems fairly simple and straight forward to use. To sell a horse all the owner has to do is register with the platform and fill in the details that include – uploading pictures of the horse, pedigree etc, choose your length of auction and your reserve (does not have to be seen) and guide price. The Buyer registers to bid and Horsesales.ie verify them as a legitimate buyer. A Bidder can go and see the horse while the auction is running.
Interestingly enough, they also have their customer service team on hand throughout the process and auctions to help you get used to the sales process. Once the auction is over, they liase with all parties to complete the sale (all of which are subject to a veterinary test)
The cool techy stuff
Horsesales.ie is all about efficiency, convenience and value for money. In today’s world, time is money and your mobile is effectively your office. So that means they needed to use technology to create a platform that would allow a breeder, trainer or owner could conduct all their sales business from their phone without leaving their yard and more importantly, their horse doesn’t have to leave their yard. The online element to buying and selling horses is already something new and it also opens up a global market, depending on where the vendor wants to sell.
Sellers won’t have to wait for traditional closed or public auctions to sell. This means less travel and transport cost as well as reducing costs for keeping the horse on site for longer than they would like, plus their own cut is a lot smaller than traditional sales companies in this space.
On the platform, there are three techy touchpoints, Syndicates, VR and TV.
The Syndicates
VR
HorsesalesTV
Goosed Verdict
Personally, I won’t be popping out to buy a pony anytime soon but it’s a very interesting concept to solve a problem in a very niche market. I’ve seen a number of companies looking at platforms of a similar ilk for buying and selling cars at auction but horses are a different game altogether. Horsesales.ie use of virtual reality to add an extra dimension is one of the first uses of VR I’ve seen for sales, rather than entertainment or gimmick. I like this because in recent experience we have all been hung up on AR to improve online purchasing for obvious reasons but it seems that VR might still have a future after all. I’m very interested in seeing where this technology goes and what other industries, auction or not, begin seeing VR as a viable tool to improve their online purchasing experience. Now Horsesales.ie, any chance of doing this for I don’t know, say buying/renting houses online or remove the payment element and we make dogrescue.ie. Just saying.
Lord above I love a good tech keynote. Nothing beats a new product launch. But what the bloody hell does Apple have to launch in March? Their phones are selling away and there are no MacBooks or iPads due to be launched? My money is on a Netflix competitor.
What to Expect From Apple’s March 25th Keynote
Let me start with what you’re very unlikely to see. Any gadgets. I’m afraid if you’re hoping to iPads or MacBooks or folding Apple phones, you need to get your hopes and cut them way down.
No. Instead, Apple is starting to move into the services space.
You might have read my opinion in the Irish Times recently where I described the fragmented ecosystem consumers now find themselves in when it comes to entertainment. Disney will start their own service, pulling content from Netflix and now it would appear that Apple will launch it’s own streaming service.
Apple Video Streaming
Apple wants to directly take on Netflix and Amazon Prime with their own video streaming service and content creation platform, and they’ve been putting their money where their mouth is.
In typical Apple style, it’s all very quiet and hush hush so that’s pretty much all I have so far on this. The only other rumour is that Apple will also launch a Netflix style service for news too. To be totally honest, Irish consumers need not get too excited at all because all of these potential announcements have a pang of “not going to hit this island any time soon” off them.
The Apple Showtime even will take place on March 25th 17:00 GMT.
I still remember a few years ago when Apple killed the headphone jack. It was for the iPhone 7 and I thought it was absolutely ludicrous. But wireless headphones, earphones and earpods got to the point where I’ve admitted it’s time to kill the headphone jack altogether, even though the latest Samsung phones actually haven’t.
Anyway, the guys over at Soundcore were kind enough to send over a pair of Liberty Air earpods for me to test out and despite the number of audio options I have right now, they’ve quick become a personal favourite.
Who is Soundcore?
You may or may not have heard of Soundcore. There’s a bigger chance you’ve heard of their parent company, Anker. I’m a massive fan of these guys because they never let up on quality. Their cables are brilliant, their speakers are whopper and they even have the Nebula brand, responsible for making one of my favourite gadgets in the world; the Nebula Capsule Projector.
Their also after creating what I personally believe could be the future of personal electronics charging.
Soundcore, like everything Anker does, has set out to create incredible audio products without the incredible prices you often see on the high street.
So, now that you know who Soundcore is, let’s look at the Liberty Air.
Design Inspired By Apple AirPods
You don’t have to look too hard to find out what inspired the design of the Libery Air.
An only lovely photo of me modeling the Soundcore Liberty Air
The Liberty Air have clearly been designed to mimic Apple AirPods, except of course they’re black, not white.
Apple marketing for AirPods
Again, I was critical of the AirPods when they launched because they just looked like a pair of regular Apple earphones with the cable cut off. I thought they just looked silly to be honest. Every now and then I eat humble pie, and this is one of those times. The Liberty Air earbuds are one of the most comfortable pairs of earbuds I’ve worn. They remain light, but secure meaning they’re great regardless of whether you’re in the gym, walking around town or sitting in the office.
Also falling under the design heading is the clever touch controls build into each earbud. I don’t think they are totally intuitive, but with a couple of days used, you’ll soon be a pro when it comes to the touch controls.
A double tap on the right earbud will pause or play music and also answer or end a call, should one be incoming. A tap and hold will skip onto the next song while doing the same on the left bud will skip back a track. Double tapping on the left will activate your smart personal assistant of choice.
The clever thing about the touch controls is having call controls on the right. If you want to wear just one earbud in, it has to be the right one but this does mean the buds double as a handsfree kit.
Liberty Air Audio Review
It’s funny. Twelve months ago, I said I wanted to start reviewing audio products more even though I really don’t consider myself to be much of an audiophile. In that twelve months, I’ve tested out Sony wireless buds and been terribly disappointed, been blown away by Bose QC 35 II, knocked for six with the quality of E’nod Audio Buds and am also working on reviewing a few pairs of Jabra audio products. Basically, I’ve finally played with enough audio products to know what’s good and what’s tripe.
From a noise cancelling point of view, the Liberty Air earbuds don’t offer a massive amount of suppression. The flip side of this is that they pack a huge punch in the audio side of things which means the audio experience is brilliant. Brilliant to the point where people shouting at you in the office can go completely missed, ending with them throwing things at you to get your attention. Based on a true story.
The only other thing worth mentioning here is the connectivity quality. Thanks to Bluetooth 5.0, you’ll experience little or no connectivity issues. Sure, if you’re an Apple user you won’t get the fantastic connection that you get with Apple AirPods, but seriously, this is as close as you get without the sillit price.
Buds Battery
There’s a par for the course when it comes to wireless earbuds. You get about three hours continuous use and a charging case which has an additional three charge cycles. In a review, coming soon, I’ll let you know how Jabra goes beyond the expected, but Soundcore goes even further.
Soundcore Liberty Air and charge case
On a single charge, the Liberty Air earbuds will give you five hours continuous use and the battery pack gives another twenty hours. For me, I’ve yet to be caught without power because the slightly longer battery life and bigger charge pack means there’s more time for me to remember to charge everything. Honestly, it makes a big difference.
Liberty Air: The Verdict
So first of all, they looked a little silly but to be honest, the Liberty Air are incredibly comfortable. The audio quality is brilliant and connectivity is incredible regardless of your device type. Everything about the Liberty Air seems to strike a chord. One thing I’ve omitted so far is the price.
At just €120 and €50 less than Apple AirPods, the Liberty Air are the perfect AirPods alternative. They also come in both black and white, just in case Apple white isn’t your thing.
If the price of AirPods is just too much and you want something which arguably delivers a better audio experience, give the Soundcore Liberty Air a try.
It used to be so simple and quaint. You open your email and lo and behold there is an email from a Nigerian prince who needs your help dispersing his $30 million inheritance. Alternatively, you may have been contacted by the super helpful “Microsoft” engineer who wants to fix your computer, because it has a really bad virus. Oh how we miss the gentle ways of years gone by.
These days, with the explosion in social media platforms and millions of us using and interacting with them on an hourly/daily basis, scammers are much more sophisticated in how they approach you and steal your money. Facebook and two of the biggest social media apps which they own and operate, Instagram & WhatsApp, are hitting the headlines lately for all the wrong reasons, namely scams. So what are most common scams on these platforms and how do we protect ourselves ?
Facebook Scamming
Since (Facebook) time began, scammers have been actively seeking ways of using the platform to scam you. These scams take many forms but some of the most common and frequent are the following.
Facebook charges. A common scam is a message appearing in your thread that Facebook will start charging soon for their service. If you don’t pay up, then your account will be deleted. Helpfully, it also proves a handy link to the website where you can pay using your credit card details and equally handy for the scammers, access to your money.
The Fake Personality Ad. Last year, British money expert Martin Lewis threatened to sue Facebook over fake ads purporting to be from him and duping people into entering their credit card details on fake sites for non existent financial advice. He’s not alone, many fellow personalities and large news organisations are also being faked with scammers offering get rich schemes via reputable looking websites.
The SOS message from a Friend. This is a relatively common scam but surprisingly effective. A message appears from someone on your friends list saying they are in some kind of trouble abroad and need you to wire them some money urgently. What happens next is fairly obvious, but let’s just say you will be wondering why your next credit card bill has gone through the roof.
Instagram Scamming
Hang on, isn’t Instagram mostly a platform for people to post fabulous pictures of themselves in (mostly) imaginary poses, alluding to an equally imagined and fake life ? Or for “Influencers” to advertise products that will make you as fabulous and beautiful as them? Yes, it’s all that, although in fairness it’s also a bit of fun and harmless in a superficial way. However, lately it’s also a magnet for scammers. Here’s some of the most common scams doing the rounds at the moment.
Money Flipping. Here you get a message from an unknown person promising a get rich scheme or investment advice with guaranteed returns. These scams prey on people’s trust by posing as legitimate bankers who can divulge their “top secrets” for a small fee. Other scammers ask for a fee upfront with a guaranteed return within 24 hours. It eventually leads to the scammer requesting additional money to release your “profits”, potentially turning a small loss into a bigger financial hit.
Free Trial Scam. Here a message appears in your thread with an offer for a “free trial” of a product with just the requirement to confirm a valid credit card number to verify your age or guarantee you access to the “limited” supply of free products. Usually this results in you being charged for shipment of your “free” product or worst, your credit card being used nefariously for much larger frauds.
Fake Ads scam. Wow, a genuine Rolex watch reduced from $10,000 to only $100 today, with only a limited supply of 10 watches. Of course you are going to buy it. The usual caveat applies. If it sound too good to be true, then it usually is. Which unfortunately will be true, when the plain package that arrives weeks later contains an obvious and really bad Rolex watch rip off.
WhatsApp Scams
Roughly 65 billion messages are sent each day amongst 1.5 billion active WhatsApp users. So it’s easy to see why scammers are targeting this app with increased virulence lately.
The “WhatsApp Gold” scam is where you receive a message purportedly from a friend that is warning about a video or link about updating to “WhatsApp Gold”. The scam is that the WhatsApp Gold message(which does not exist btw), is really a means to get you to follow the link provided and enter your personal & credit card details, with the obvious fraudulent follow-up.
Another scam is the spreading of misinformation via messages, essentially like the old fashioned chain emails of years gone by. It may not be financial fraud but it can lead to deadly consequences. In India recently, innocent people were being killed by mobs who were acting on malicious and incorrect information spread via WhatsApp.
So is it really Facebook’s fault?
Many will argue that because Facebook also own Instagram & WhatsApp, they should be held accountable when a scammer uses their platform or apps to perpetuate a crime.
Facebook will respond that it is proactively monitoring for these scams and removes and blocks them are soon as they are spotted. Their view would be they can’t be held accountable for the actions of others on their platform, be these actions nefarious or not. However, let’s get real for a moment. Facebook is a huge corporate organisation with billions of users globally and is the de facto social media platform with huge influence and control over our online and social media activity. With this influence and control comes a duty of care to it’s users to do all it can to help protect them from fraudsters and criminals. People place huge trust in Facebook when they upload so much personal information about themselves. It this trust is broken, be it Facebook’s direct fault or not, people will turn away in droves. Facebook presumably knows this and the need to do a lot more if they are to avoid the fate of earlier competitors such as MySpace or more recently Google+.
How do I help Protect Myself?
Unless you plan to turn off your computer, throw your phone away and go live in a cave in Donegal, you will need to get yourself clued up on how to avoid becoming a victim of these scams, even if you don’t even use any social media. Here are some good links to information on how to spot scams and protect yourself:
Even typing that headline felt ridiculous, but I’m sure for many it would be quite the challenge. Hell, I’d struggle too. But if you can, you could win yourself free flights for a year in the JetBlue All You Can Jet Pass competition.
JetBlue is an American airline and they’ve come up with one of the most ridiculous Instagram competitions I’ve ever seen. The airline will give three competition winners the All You Can Jet Pass, which means free flights for a year to destinations including North America, Central America and the Carribean.
The reason their competition is a bit ridiculous is because they make, what on the surface appears to be, a rake of bot accounts. The competition requires the public to delete all of their Instagram posts and publish just the competition post on their feed until 8th March.
It’s a really bizzare competition, but it’s an interesting concept. Could you give up all your Instagram memories in exchange for a shot to win the #ALLYOUCANJETSWEEPSTAKES? Giving up some posted memories, likes and comments for the chance to make loads more sounds like a no-brainer, right?
Not sure if winning would be of much value for Irish people, but feel free to check it out.
We all remember privacy policy gate, right? In the build-up to GDPR coming into power in May 2018, companies lost the plot and destroyed our inboxes with privacy policies. Thankfully, according to a report by the Data Protection Commission of Ireland, public knowledge around data protection has gone far beyond an email inconvenience.
Here are some of the key findings from the DPC’s first annual report which looks at 25 May to 31 December 2018.
The Public’s Concern With Data Protection
The report’s findings show there’s been a significant increase in how the public view their data protection rights. During the period of the report, 4740 valid breaches of data security were recorded versus 2795 in 2017. It’s no coincidence this increase accompanies the introduction of GDPR as the people now realise that companies and organisations have a responsibility to protect the personal data of people who trust them.
My own example is another way GDPR can be used to take back control of your own personal data. In short, I looked at the Catholic church as an organisation who has my personal data without my consent. So I raised it with the DPC. I’m still waiting for this to be resolved, but it’s moving in the right direction, an indicator that people really could take back the power when it comes to their own personal data.
Helen Dixon: Data Protection Commissioner
The Irish DPC is fast becoming the hub of data protection in Europe. The Data Protection Commissioner, Helen Dixon, believes “the rise in the number of complaints and queries demonstrates a new level of mobilisation to action on the part of individuals to tackle what they see as misuse or failure to adequately explain what is being done with their data.”
GDPR has made a massive impact with Dixon stating “Although we are still in the stage of having to bust some myths and misunderstandings that have built up around the GDPR, we feel very optimistic about the improvements we will see in Ireland in personal-data-handling practices over the next few years.”
Data Protection Case Studies
Perhaps the highlight of the report is a collection of case studies which really helped me to understand just how far-reaching GDPR is. In here, you’ll be able to read about how Currys took a customer’s email address for the sending of a receipt, but then this email was used for marketing. There’s also a mention of how Ryanair sent customer details to another customer with the mistake being found out when the two customers ended up talking about the incident.
We’ve reached a stage now where, thanks to GDPR, people have somewhere to go when they fell their data rights have been infringed upon.
I know you didn’t wake up this morning thinking you’d read a data protection report, but those case studies really are interesting. Give it a go, you might like it.
