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What AI usage gets Irish students investigated and what happens next?

Marty
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What AI usage gets Irish students investigated and what happens next?

Irish colleges are heading into another academic year with students using AI tools more than ever, and with integrity policies that have been rewritten to deal with it. Across the country, universities, technological universities and private colleges have spent the last few years updating their rules on generative AI. Most draw on national guidance from the National Academic Integrity Network, which is facilitated by the Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI). Some have now gone further, naming AI wearables and agentic AI in their policies and reserving the right to investigate work after a student has graduated.

If you’re wondering whether you can get caught using AI in college, the short answer is yes, but probably not the way you think. National guidance tells lecturers not to rely on AI detection tools, and some Irish colleges have ruled them out entirely. Suspicion tends to start with something a lecturer spots in the work itself. It leads to a process where the student gets to explain themselves, sometimes out loud, before any penalty is decided.

The risk isn’t that writing happens to sound a bit like ChatGPT. It’s handing in work you can’t stand over, whether that’s a source that doesn’t exist, a claim that’s flat wrong or an argument you couldn’t explain if someone asked you to.

Do Irish colleges use AI detectors?

Colleges then to not use detectors any more. Even saying any more with an AI topic is weird for me, showing how fast this industry is moving. The national generative AI guidelines for Irish educators tells lecturers plainly not to rely on AI detection systems. The guidance says none of the available tools can reliably detect AI use and that they produce false positives, flagging human writing as machine-generated. It also points to data protection and privacy concerns and to doubts about how Turnitin’s own AI indicator should be interpreted. Several Irish colleges have taken that a step further and banned detection software from misconduct investigations altogether.

That matters more than it might seem. A student writing in their second or third language, or one who simply writes in a tidy, formal register, is exactly the kind of person a detector is likely to flag wrongly. To be honest, I think the sector has got this one right. A percentage score from a black box was never going to be fair grounds for failing someone.

That doesn’t mean nothing gets checked. Traditional plagiarism checks that match your work against published sources are still standard. That’s a very different job to guessing whether a paragraph was written by a machine. On a funny sidenote I remember in college being intruged by the fact some plagarism in is better when scores are returned. Because a perfect 0% score on plagarism meant you didn’t quote any source material at all. Showing the delicate nature of these emerging metrics in general.

What gets a student investigated for AI use?

A pattern of red flags in the work itself, rather than any single giveaway. Colleges generally need reasonable grounds before opening an investigation, and that concern usually comes from something a marker notices while reading.

Invented references are the classic giveaway. AI chatbots are notorious for producing citations that look perfect and don’t exist, complete with a real-sounding author, a plausible journal and a page range to boot. A lecturer who knows the field can check that in seconds. In a subject like law, where a made-up case name stands out a mile, it’s a fast route to a very awkward email.

Confidently wrong facts come a close second. The national guidance makes the point that these tools are built to write fluently, not to be accurate, and fluency doesn’t fool someone who teaches the subject for a living.

Then there are the physical traces of copying and pasting. Mismatched fonts, odd font sizes, inconsistent list styles and stray formatting all suggest a document stitched together from elsewhere. A sudden change in voice raises eyebrows too, whether that’s American spellings like “color” and “analyze” appearing in an otherwise Irish-English essay or vocabulary that jumps several levels above a student’s earlier work.

The rarest and most damning slip is a leftover prompt or chatbot pleasantry sitting in the submitted work. There’s no explaining that one away.

Thin, generic work that’s technically neat but says very little is the last common flag. On its own, that’s more likely to earn a poor mark than an investigation, which is its own kind of punishment.

And, there’s always the classic occurance of a student that wasn’t seen for most of the year suddenly being an expert on a topic. That’s an age-old red flag for something fishy in general.

Let’s not forget it can also all happen accidentally. You could have one piece of AI research summarising a topic for yourself pasted into a word doc that gets confused and mixed into your genuinely self-written work.

What happens if you’re suspected of using AI at college?

Being flagged is not the same as being punished. Every college runs its own process, but most follow a similar shape. It usually starts with an email to your college address setting out the concern, often with a copy of the work in question.

For less serious cases, that can lead to an informal chat and a reminder about good academic practice. Some colleges now let students accept responsibility for a minor first issue in exchange for a lighter outcome. Anything more serious moves to a formal investigation, which typically means a written statement from you and a meeting. You can usually bring a support person, though they generally can’t speak on your behalf.

Decisions are made on the balance of probabilities, meaning whether it’s more likely than not that misconduct happened. If you ignore the emails, expect the matter to be decided without you. Your students’ union can advise you on the process at your college, and it’s a good idea to talk to them early.

Why the oral defence is the real test

More and more, the deciding moment is a conversation. National guidance encourages lecturers to use oral questioning to check understanding where there’s a concern about a submission. Some colleges now write it directly into their integrity policies, asking students to talk through an essay, walk through their code or defend a design.

This is where a ChatGPT essay falls apart. If you wrote the thing, talking someone through your argument, your sources and why you made particular choices shouldn’t be a problem. If you didn’t, struggling to explain or build on your own work is strong evidence that it isn’t yours.

The flip side is evidence that works in your favour. Draft histories, version logs and research notes showing how a piece developed are exactly what investigators want to see. Writing in Google Docs or Word with version history switched on costs you nothing and could save you a lot of grief.

What are the penalties for using AI at college in Ireland?

Penalties vary by college and by how serious the case is, but they generally scale in levels. At the lower end, a first minor issue might mean the work is marked as normal and you’re sent on academic integrity training. Next comes a reduced mark or a zero for that piece of work. Serious or repeat cases can mean a zero for the whole module, a referral to a disciplinary committee or, for professional courses such as nursing or teaching, a fitness to practise process. A previous finding on your record usually pushes a new case up a level.

Most colleges allow appeals, but on limited grounds and within tight deadlines, so read any decision carefully the day it lands. Punishment will also vary between the likes of a more casual assignment for a class versus an end of year of course submisson.

Colleges can look back further than you think

The change most students will miss is that some Irish colleges no longer tie investigations to when an assignment was marked. Marks are treated as provisional until an exam board ratifies them, and some policies now reserve the right to investigate after a student has finished their course or received their award. That essay you got away with in second year isn’t necessarily done and dusted.

Definitions have widened too. Newer policies talk about unauthorised use of AI tools in general rather than just chatbots, with some naming agentic AI and wearables with built-in AI. That takes in the likes of AI-powered smart glasses, which have gone from gadget-blog curiosity to high-street product in the space of a couple of years.

How to use AI at college without getting into trouble

Check what’s allowed for each assessment, acknowledge whatever you use, and never submit anything you can’t explain. Using AI isn’t automatically misconduct. The national guidance frames the breach as submitting AI output as your own work without acknowledgement or without permission to use it. What’s permitted can change from one module to the next, so read the assignment brief and any AI statement from your lecturer before you start.

Beyond that, verify every reference yourself, keep your drafts, and be ready to talk through every line you hand in. Steer well clear of the “assignment help” services that turn up in your DMs and social feeds, too. Since 2019, QQI has had the power to prosecute anyone who facilitates cheating, with fines of up to €100,000 or up to five years in prison.

Every college sets its own rules, so the first thing to read this term is your own college’s academic integrity policy. QQI’s academic integrity resources for students and educators are a decent starting point if you want to see the national picture.

There is also a funny little thing to consider here too. Whether you end up in an office job, building decks or coding websites, or out in the field, the chances are you will be using AI at some stage. It could be part of your workflow or taking over tasks completely. The overall goal for everyone should be to ensure that AI is expanding your intelligence and abilities, not replacing it completely.

Why your IKEA CO2 readings don’t match, and how to fix them

Marty
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Why your IKEA CO2 readings don’t match, and how to fix them

IKEA’s ALPSTUGA has quickly become the go-to cheap CO2 monitor for smart home tinkerers, and plenty of owners are running into the same head-scratcher. I myself have been using a Airthings CO2 monitor at home for years, in my office, to make sure I have good air to stay sharp. But if you buy two or three, line them up on the same shelf, and each one reports a different CO2 level, sometimes hundreds of ppm apart. The natural assumption is that something’s broken.

For the most part, it isn’t. The ALPSTUGA is a €29 air quality sensor that shows CO2, PM2.5 particles, temperature and humidity on a small display, and doubles as a clock. It runs on Matter over Thread, so it slots into Apple Home, Google Home, Alexa, SmartThings or Home Assistant through a Thread border router, or through IKEA’s own DIRIGERA hub. The mismatched CO2 numbers come down to how the sensor inside works and how it calibrates itself, and the fix is mostly patience and fresh air. I’ll get to exactly what to do shortly, but the why comes first because it changes how you should be using the thing.

Why IKEA ALPSTUGA CO2 sensors show different readings

New ALPSTUGA units haven’t finished calibrating when you first plug them in, and even once they have, the CO2 sensor is a budget design that trades precision for price.

Inside is a SEN63C sensor module from Sensirion, a Swiss company with a solid reputation in this space. The catch is how it measures CO2. Proper CO2 monitors use NDIR (non-dispersive infrared) sensors, which shine infrared light through a sample of air and measure how much of it gets absorbed by CO2. That’s the gold standard, and it’s what you’ll find in the likes of the Aranet4 or AirGradient ONE.

The ALPSTUGA uses thermal conductivity instead. A tiny heater warms up and the sensor measures how quickly that heat escapes into the surrounding air. More CO2 changes that rate slightly, and the sensor works backwards from there. It’s cheap and tiny, which is how IKEA gets a CO2 monitor down to €29, but it can’t tell which gas caused the change, it leans heavily on temperature and humidity readings to correct itself, and it’s noisier as a result. Sensirion itself says the SEN63C’s CO2 measurement doesn’t meet the requirements of indoor air quality building standards like RESET and WELL. That tells you where it sits.

How ALPSTUGA calibration works

Sensors like this rely on automatic self-calibration. The sensor assumes that at some point it’ll be exposed to fresh outdoor air, which sits at roughly 400 to 420ppm, and uses its lowest readings as an anchor for everything else. Until it has that anchor, the numbers drift.

IKEA’s ALPSTUGA instructions say it can take up to 12 hours after plugging in before the CO2 reading is accurate. The same instructions warn that readings may be off at altitudes of 1,500 metres and above. Carrauntoohil tops out at just over 1,000 metres, so that one isn’t a worry here.

The bigger problem is a room that never gets properly aired out. A bedroom with the windows shut all winter never shows the sensor a true fresh-air level, so it anchors itself to the wrong number and every reading after that is skewed. That’s why units in different rooms, or units unboxed on different days, can disagree so wildly. Treat the 12 hours as a minimum; some units take a day or more to settle down.

How to calibrate your IKEA ALPSTUGA CO2 sensor

There’s no calibration button or setting, so the job is giving the sensor what it needs to calibrate itself.

Start by plugging it in and leaving it alone for at least 12 hours, ideally a full day. Don’t move it between sockets or unplug it during that time, because every restart kicks off the settling process again, and a freshly powered unit can briefly show nonsense readings (including 0ppm) while it gets going.

Next, give it fresh air. You’ll hear the advice to bring the sensor outside, and the principle is sound, but IKEA says the ALPSTUGA is for indoor use only, shouldn’t sit in direct sunlight and is rated for 0 to 40 degrees. An Irish back garden in October ticks none of those boxes. The better approach is opening the windows wide in the room it’s in for a good 20 to 30 minutes, ideally with a through draught, or placing it on an inside windowsill beside an open window, out of the sun. Do that once or twice over the first few days, then keep airing the room at least weekly so the sensor keeps finding its baseline.

If you want to compare units, only do it after they’ve all settled, and put them side by side for a few hours rather than glancing at them once.

If one sensor is still way off after a week of that, a factory reset forces a fresh start. Press and hold the system button for 10 seconds, or until the red light stops blinking. Bear in mind you’ll need to pair it with your smart home setup again afterwards.

One practical note on power. There’s no USB-C cable or plug in the box, so budget for IKEA’s €5 SMÅHAGEL power supply kit or use a decent USB-C charger you already own, and give each sensor its own spot where it won’t get unplugged every time someone needs to charge a phone.

How accurate is the IKEA ALPSTUGA CO2 sensor?

Accurate enough to tell you when a room is getting stuffy, not accurate enough to take any single number as gospel. It’s not a medical grade product.

Sensirion rates its standalone thermal conductivity CO2 sensor at plus or minus 100ppm plus 10% of the reading. Assuming the ALPSTUGA performs in the same ballpark, a reading of 800ppm could really be anywhere from 620 to 980ppm. Two perfectly healthy sensors could sit 360ppm apart and both be within spec. On top of that, the readings bounce around by dozens of ppm from minute to minute, even in an empty room with nothing changing.

So stop staring at the number on the display and look at the trend. This is where the ALPSTUGA is class. Pipe it into Home Assistant or your smart home app of choice and you’ll see the curve climb through the night in a bedroom with the door shut, then drop off a cliff when a window opens. The warning light kicks in at 1,000ppm, which is the level IKEA says indoor CO2 shouldn’t exceed, and that’s a perfectly useful nudge to crack a window.

Should you still buy one?

Yes, if you understand what you’re buying. For spotting stuffy rooms, building automations that switch on a fan or remind you to open a window, and getting a general feel for air quality around the house, nothing else comes close at this price. Having particle, temperature and humidity readings in the same box makes it even harder to argue with.

That said, if you need numbers you can rely on, for a home office you’re trying to keep within a specific range or for anyone in the house with respiratory concerns, save up for an NDIR-based monitor like the Aranet4 or AirGradient ONE. They cost several times as much, and that’s the price of precision.

The IKEA ALPSTUGA smart air quality sensor costs €29 from IKEA Ireland, with the USB-C cable and plug sold separately.

Revolut launches facial recognition payments in UK

Marty
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Revolut launches facial recognition payments in UK

Revolut has switched on facial recognition payments in the UK. Pay with Smile went live today, letting Revolut customers settle a bill by looking at a till instead of tapping a card, phone or watch.

The mechanics are simple. Customers opt in through the Revolut app, and the feature checks their face against the verification selfie they took when they first signed up to Revolut, approving the payment without a wallet, phone or card in sight. It’s live in the UK from today, with 0% merchant fees on every Pay with Smile transaction and triple RevPoints for the customer paying this way. I’ve grown to like RevPoints, so that alone would encourage me to try this.

The whole thing runs on Revolut Register, a new two screen hospitality till with a built in eSIM as a connectivity backup, and Revolut is offering merchants their first terminal for £349.50 + VAT, about half the usual £699 + VAT, a special offer available until 31 December 2026. There’s no Irish price or date yet. Indeed Pay with Smile is UK only for now, with no word yet on an Irish rollout, but I’ve asked.

Revolut’s own privacy documentation for the feature says the camera converts a customer’s face into a one off, encrypted facial embedding that’s deleted immediately once the payment is authorised. A separate copy of the checkout photo is kept for fraud and dispute handling under Revolut’s normal data retention rules, and customers can freeze or fully withdraw from Pay with Smile at any point, which wipes the stored biometric template. If the face match fails, the customer is simply offered their card, phone or the regular Revolut Pay app instead.

The timing is a little awkward, but almost certainly deliberate. Pay with Smile arrives just over a week after Revolut had to tell customers that personal data, reportedly including the verification selfies taken at sign up, had been handed to fraudsters posing as a government agency, as covered in our report on the Revolut data breach that reached Irish customers.

Wallet free, phone free checkout has an obvious appeal. I’ve been here before with a contactless payment ring, and the convenience of tapping a bit of jewellery instead of digging around for a card is real. A face is a different proposition again. You can take a ring off, freeze it in an app, or leave it at home. Your face goes everywhere with you, breach or no breach.

There is no timeline for Ireland, as I’ve said, UK based Revolut customers who want to try Pay with Smile can opt in through the app today.

FM27 rebuilds the interface FM26 broke

Marty
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FM27 rebuilds the interface FM26 broke

Sports Interactive dropped the first Football Manager 27 feature deep dive this week promising a clearer interface and smoother navigation, and my first reaction was mild dread rather than excitement. That reaction is earned after Football Manager 26 arrived with almost identical language about efficiency and clarity, then launched to Steam reviews that dipped into mostly negative territory, with the interface among the most common complaints.

But lets put my optimistic had one for the new video, presented by associate game director Remy and senior features manager Ant. It’s the first of several planned feature deep dives ahead of FM27’s launch in November later this year, with the exact date still to be confirmed. Rather than a cosmetic refresh, Sports Interactive have built this one specifically around navigation, reworking how menus, screens and messages behave so managers spend less time hunting for the right tile and more time running a club.

On paper, most of what’s shown here answers the exact complaints FM26 players have been making for a year. Whether it survives contact with a real save file in November is a different question, and one I’ll come back to. But at least we can start hoping.

What actually changes in FM27’s navigation

The headline change is that navigation now lives entirely in two menus fixed to the top of the screen, a primary bar for your core areas and a secondary one for everything else, clubs, leagues and the wider footballing world. Tiles are no longer doing double duty as navigation, so screens can be built around what’s actually useful to see rather than what’s clickable. Windows and pop-ups have largely been converted into full screens too, so you always know where you are and don’t need to close something down just to keep moving. Each core section, squad, tactics, recruitment, training and club, now opens straight into its relevant screen rather than a generic overview, cutting a chunk of the clicks FM26 became known for.

Control panels and colour coded messages

Each main section now carries what Sports Interactive call a control panel at the top, a single place to run a team meeting, adjust budgets, review staff advice or delegate responsibilities, rather than digging through separate menus for each one. Messages get the same treatment. They’re colour coded by type, and a scout report or transfer offer now sits inside the message itself rather than behind a tile you have to open. A flood of transfer interest from other clubs becomes something you can act on straight from your inbox instead of something you click into six separate times.

Deeper customisation, from screen size to shortcuts

FM27’s interface is also built to recognise your setup, scaling tables and lists to make the most of whatever screen and resolution you’re on, whether that’s a laptop or a 4K monitor. The preferences menu gains new scanning modes, one for denser information and one for bigger UI elements, on top of the default view. You can swap tiles via dropdowns on the Portal and other screens, drag and reorder a bookmark bar that now carries text labels, edit your own keyboard shortcuts, and choose which screen you land on within each section instead of defaulting to an overview. The same tile-swapping logic is promised for the match screen too, with more detail saved for a dedicated match engine deep dive still to come.

It could be the path away from FM26

The scepticism here isn’t manufactured. Sports Interactive built its FM26 pitch around efficiency, familiarity and predictability, language that reads almost word for word like what’s being promised again for FM27. That game shipped with a UI plenty of players found genuinely worse to navigate than what came before, on top of a rocky first outing for the Unity engine, and the review scores reflected it.

None of that makes FM27’s specific changes bad ideas. In fact, it largely makes them neccesary and a sign of hope.

Full screens instead of pop-ups, messages you can act on directly, a control panel instead of buried menus, these target real, named complaints rather than vague marketing language. But a studio that made the same pitch twelve months ago and missed is one to judge on the beta, not the trailer.

The TL;DR

This is the right list of fixes. Tiles no longer gatekeeping navigation, fewer clicks to your actual job as a manager, messages you can act on rather than click through, and a UI that finally seems designed around different screen sizes rather than one reference monitor. If Sports Interactive deliver on it, FM27 addresses the single biggest complaint about FM26 in one go. For anyone who abandoned their FM26 save purely out of navigation fatigue, this is the deep dive worth paying attention to. For players who never touched FM26, most of this will read as sensible design rather than a comeback story. Football Manager 27 is set for a November 2026 launch, with a match engine deep dive and further feature reveals still to come, detailed further in Sports Interactive’s official FM27 announcement.

Frequently asked questions

When does FM27 come out?

Football Manager 27 is confirmed for November 2026. Sports Interactive haven’t announced the exact date or platform list yet.

Does FM27 fix Football Manager 26’s interface problems

The first feature deep dive targets FM26’s most common complaints directly, fewer clicks, full screens instead of pop-ups, and messages you can act on without opening a tile. It’s a promising direction on paper, but FM26 was pitched in similarly confident terms before its own launch went badly.

What’s new in FM27’s navigation and menus

Navigation moves entirely into two top menus, tiles are decoupled from navigation, core sections open straight to their relevant screen, and each area gets a control panel gathering key decisions like budgets, team talks and staff delegation in one place.

The €500 Dyson toothbrush has had a rocky launch

Marty
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The €500 Dyson toothbrush has had a rocky launch

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Berlin launch of the Dyson CameraJet – a €500 smart toothbrush that promises to us cameras, AI and specially designed toothpaste and mouthwash, to improve your dental hygeine. It set the media world alight as the technology and, honestly, the price, left jaws gaping. But expensive can still be good, so how has the CameraJet fared? Online reports suggest it’s been mixed at best.

Issues with the Dyson CameraJet

If a toothbrush were to cost me €500, I would expect it to be pretty good. Because for that price, I could go get my teeth cleaned professionally 5 times a year. While I’ve yet to get my hands, or teeth, onto the CameraJet, there have been online reports of somewhat “widespread” issues with the toothbrush.

Multiple owners reportedy found liquid in the battery compartment within the first few days of normal use. The suggestions is that a seal on the battery compartment or overall waterproofing is inadequate.

Potentially linked, is units that have failed completely within a few short weeks of use. This has been reportedly accompanied with a red-critical fault light flashing.

Others have claimed that the accuracy of the water jets in the toothbrush are poor, leading to water spraying around the bathroom. My own dentist told me in passing that he has doubts about how any water jet could clean to the level needed to compare to flossing. I have promised him a look if a unit lands in.

All of these reported issues have come from various countries including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, suggesting it’s not a localised issue either.

Dyson repsonse to CameraJet issues

A Dyson spokesperson told Goosed that there is a known issue and that “the issue relates to a small number of early batches. Customers who have questions about their product, or who experience an issue, should contact Customer Service for support. Where a customer has an impacted unit we are providing a full refund”.

There were rumours that Dyson had seen such backlash that the company stalled production for a full relaunch, but these seem to be somewhat unfounded as Dyson’s spokesperson also said the company was “seeing some shortages of supply as [they] are in the process of scaling up production, but [they] expect the next wave of product to be available in the coming weeks”.

Early adopters often feel like they are in the trenches with new technology, but it’s genuinely surprising for an engineering-focused company like Dyson to have such a significant launch go a little pear-shaped. Time will tell if the Dyson CameraJet can ever live up to, and justify, its €500 pricetag.

Can you lose your driving licence on an e-scooter in Ireland? Not on a legal one

Marty
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Can you lose your driving licence on an e-scooter in Ireland? Not on a legal one

A court in Tullamore, Offaly has thrown up a question I’ve had since laws were introduced and tightened up on electric scooters in Ireland. What happens if you break a law on an e-scooter and you also hold a driving licence?

A man was fined €500 and disqualified from holding a driving licence for three months after being convicted of using an e-scooter with no front or rear lamps on the R402 in Edenderry on 20 December 2025. Read on its own, that sounds like a warning to every rider. For a compliant e-scooter, though, Irish law was written so that offences on a powered personal transporter shouldn’t cost you your licence, and that includes drink riding.

The headline isn’t a warning about e-scooters. It’s a warning about riding something the law doesn’t treat as an e-scooter at all.

What happened in Tullamore?

The Garda told the court he’d seen the man on the scooter numerous times through the night, and stopped him as he was going into his property. The scooter was seized, and fixed charge notices were issued but went unpaid. The judge imposed the €500 fine and the three-month disqualification from holding a driving license, with six months to pay.

The man also had a previous conviction for using a scooter with a fitted seat, which is where the €300 fine in the story came from. That’s the earlier case, not this one. The report doesn’t say which law the judge used to disqualify him, and that’s where it gets interesting.

No, and that’s deliberate. The 2023 Act took powered personal transporters out of the definition of a mechanically propelled vehicle, the category that covers cars and mopeds. A legal e-scooter is a single-person vehicle, capped at 25kg and 20km/h, with a motor of no more than 400W and no seat. The reasoning behind the change was that disqualification should only apply where the vehicle involved is one that needs a licence.

That includes drink riding. Riding a powered personal transporter while intoxicated is an offence with a fine of up to €2,000, and the drink driving offences that carry disqualification only apply to mechanically propelled vehicles. Because no driving licence is involved, no penalty points attach either. That’s a serious fine, but it isn’t a driving ban.

So why was he banned from driving?

My take on the story is that his scooter wasn’t a legal one. A lights offence on a moving scooter isn’t among the offences that trigger automatic disqualification, so this looks like a discretionary ban. Courts can disqualify for offences connected with a mechanically propelled vehicle, and a scooter that fails the PPT definition, say because someone has fitted a seat, becomes exactly that. His earlier seat conviction points in that direction. Now, I’d like to see the court order before saying it as fact but it would make sense.

There’s a second case that backs this up. In January, an Offaly man was disqualified for three years for intoxicated driving and two years for having no insurance on an e-scooter, and fined €200 for having no driving licence. Insurance and licence offences only apply to motor vehicles, so that court must have treated the scooter as one. Neither report tells us what made those scooters non-compliant, so I’m not going to guess.

What this means if you ride one

If your scooter is a legal one, your licence isn’t what’s on the line when you get something wrong. Your wallet is. If it’s been modified, seated or unlocked past 20km/h, the law stops seeing a scooter rider and starts seeing a driver with no insurance, no registration and no licence for that vehicle. That’s where disqualifications come from.

Lights are the plainer lesson. Front and rear lights are a legal requirement on an e-scooter, and they must be on at night. Most e-scooter offences are dealt with by a flat €50 fixed charge, and the Government has announced that will double to €100, though that isn’t in force yet. The unpaid fixed charge notices are the part of this case I’d take away as a rider.

The TL;DR

The headline made this sound like a warning to every scooter rider, and it isn’t. If you ride a legal e-scooter, the licence in your wallet isn’t the thing at risk, the fine is. If you ride something modified, the law will treat you like a motorist, and then it really is. I’m not giving out about the court here. I just want the reasoning on the record, because I’m reading the statutes, not the judgement, and I’m not a lawyer.

If you’re not sure whether your scooter counts as legal, the specs and rules are all in our guide to electric scooter laws in Ireland.

ZuckOff app can detect Meta smart glasses nearby

Marty
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ZuckOff app can detect Meta smart glasses nearby

A new phone app called ZuckOff is trying to answer a question more people are asking in public, which is whether the person beside them is wearing camera glasses. It scans for the Bluetooth signals that Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta and Snap Spectacles give off, then tells you a pair is nearby and roughly how far away. It is free on iOS and Android, it comes from an independent developer, and it has no connection to Meta, Luxottica, Ray-Ban, Oakley or Snap.

A paid Pro tier adds alerts when the app isn’t open. Every detection rule in it comes from a capture of a real pair of glasses, which matters a lot for how far you can trust it, and I’ll get to that shortly.

My take is that ZuckOff is a clever and refreshingly honest stopgap, but the fact that anyone needed to build it says more about Meta’s glasses, and the privacy issues, than about the app.

How does ZuckOff detect smart glasses?

The ZuckOff app listens for the Bluetooth advertising packets that glasses broadcast and matches them against a catalogue of known signals. Those packets carry manufacturer codes and service identifiers, and ZuckOff looks for specific ones. I had been playing with this myself with a GeeekPi nRF52840 MDK USB Dongle. It’s amazing how much stuff you can sniff out when you think nothing is on.

For example, when you see the code 0x0D53 points to Luxottica, which covers Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta. The code 0x058E points to a Meta Platforms Technologies wearable, 0x03C2 points to Snap Spectacles, and the service identifier 0xFD5F is registered to Oculus VR. Product names such as Spectacles, HeyCyan, VisionPro and VistaView are also picked up, though at lower confidence.

The catch is that the catalogue is only as good as the hardware the developer has been able to get hold of. He says he owns only a few pairs, so he is asking anyone with camera glasses the app doesn’t list to email a short scan capture. He will also take hardware on loan and send it back once it has been recorded, and he is open to working with privacy groups. That is a sensible approach, but it does mean newer or obscure glasses may slip past.

What can’t the ZuckOff app tell you?

It can’t tell you whether anyone is recording, and the developer says so plainly. A detection is not proof that a camera is capturing anything, and a quiet scan is not proof that nobody is filming.

Glasses are loudest when they power on, pair or leave the case. Most pairs keep advertising while worn, so you can usually hear them, but a few standalone models stay silent. Signal strength gives a rough distance and no direction, so in a busy room you learn that a pair is somewhere close, not whose face it is on. That is a real limit, and it is the one to keep in mind before you go accusing a stranger of anything.

Why the recording light was never enough

Meta’s answer to bystander privacy has always been the small LED that lights up when the glasses capture photos or video. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, which regulates Meta in the EU from Dublin, questioned whether that light gives people enough notice when the first Ray-Ban glasses launched here. If you ask me, it doesn’t despite the glasses themselves being an amazing piece of technology. Meta has since added tamper detection on newer glasses, so they should refuse to capture if the light has been covered.

That helps, but it still relies on you spotting a small light on someone’s face in whatever lighting you happen to be in. A Bluetooth scan doesn’t depend on that, which is exactly why an app like this has found an audience. That said, it is a workaround for a design problem. Phones already warn you when an unknown tracker is travelling with you, and a similar system built into the operating system for camera glasses would do the job far better than an app you have to remember to open.

Is ZuckOff worth installing?

Yes, if you regularly spend time somewhere filming worries you and you accept that it gives you a hint rather than an answer. The free version does the core job, and Pro only makes sense if you want background alerts. If you’re genuinely concerned and someone nearby is wearing camera glasses, asking them is still the surest way to find out.

The Goosed verdict

ZuckOff is a small, honest tool that does one job with clear limits, and I like that it doesn’t oversell itself. It won’t stop anyone being filmed and it won’t catch every pair, but it gives ordinary people a way to check something that Meta’s own hardware makes hard to check. If you own camera glasses the app doesn’t list, the developer would like to hear from you, and you can find the details on the ZuckOff smart glasses detection app page.

10 K-dramas coming to Netflix in 2027, led by the zombie sequel I’m most excited about

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10 K-dramas coming to Netflix in 2027, led by the zombie sequel I’m most excited about

I was massively frustrated with Netflix lately. The sheer price of it and the fact I now have a home lab filled to the gills with entertainment. So I floated the idea of cutting, the increasingly extortionate, monthly cost of Netflix from our household budget. Little did I know that my other half had gone deep into K-drama and that Netflix is full to the brim of Korean dramas.

So Netflix is going nowhere in our house because it has a packed Korean line-up on the way for 2027, with a zombie sequel, chaebol succession wars, casino thrillers and a hotel for the dead all in the pipeline. These are ten of the K-dramas coming to Netflix in 2027 that look strongest, and it won’t surprise anyone which one I’m most excited about.

Most are Netflix Originals, with a broadcaster drama or two arriving on the platform as well. Netflix has only pencilled in windows for a handful of them, so the dates below are reported windows rather than confirmed premieres.

K-dramas coming to Netflix in the first half of 2027

My pick is All of Us Are Dead season 2, the high school zombie romp finally coming back. It goes first, and the rest follow in rough release order.

All of Us Are Dead season 2

All of Us Are Dead season 2 is expected in early 2027, with a January to February window reported, although Netflix hasn’t put an exact date on it. Netflix’s own All of Us Are Dead season 2 production announcement describes the first season as one of its most-watched non-English series of all time, charting in the Top 10 in more than 90 countries.

Season two follows Nam On-jo, now a university student in Seoul who is still struggling with the trauma of Hyosan High and the friends she lost. When a fresh wave of infection hits the city, she is thrown back into a fight for survival without the people she once leaned on. Park Ji-hu returns in the lead, with Yoon Chan-young, Cho Yi-hyun, Lomon and Lee Min-jae also in the cast.

Filming reportedly wrapped in February 2026, which fits an early 2027 release. That is roughly a five year gap since season one, and fans have been giving out about the delay for ages, which is fair enough. To be honest, this is the one I’m most excited about, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

Kin and Sin

Kin and Sin is a Netflix noir set on Jeju Island and is reportedly landing in March 2027. It follows three rival families, the Bu, Yang and Ko clans, all fighting for control of the island. The Bu family runs pig farming and horse racing, the Yangs have moved into real estate development, and the Kos, once powered by casino money, have lost much of their influence. Han Suk-kyu of Dr. Romantic leads, alongside Yoon Kye-sang, Chu Ja-hyun, Yoo Jae-myung, Kim Jong-soo and Ko Du-shim.

Nightmare

Nightmare is an SBS drama arriving on Netflix as it airs, with a first half of 2027 premiere expected. Kim Nam-gil plays detective Kim Tae-yi, and Lee Yoo-mi of Squid Game plays Jang Kyu-eun, a victim support officer who designs nightmares for criminals the courts can’t touch. Offenders who slip through the legal system get trapped in inescapable nightmares instead of a cell, which makes it a sci-fi crime thriller with a proper hook.

Love Bait

Love Bait is a psychological romance thriller reportedly due in May 2027, with Woo Do-hwan and Chae Soo-bin in the leads. The story pairs Kwon Chae-u, the psychopathic heir to a powerful conglomerate who has never understood human emotion, with So Yi-yeon, an arborist who no longer believes in love. As their lives tangle together, the question is whether either of them can change.

The Dealer

The Dealer comes from the Squid Game team. Netflix confirmed production on The Dealer casino crime series with Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk as executive producer.

Jung So-min plays Geon-hwa, a casino dealer whose plans fall apart after a housing scam, and who ends up entering the casino’s Texas Hold’em tournament to win her money back. She can reportedly spot lies after a drink, which is a handy skill at a poker table. Ryoo Seung-bum, Lee Soo-hyuk and Ryu Kyung-soo round out the lead cast, and Choi Young-hwan makes his directorial debut.

Buy King

Buy King is a ten episode chaebol drama about a family succession war over a multi-billion conglomerate. Ju Ji-hoon of Kingdom and Lee Jun-ho of Typhoon Family lead, with Space Sweepers director Jo Sung-hee behind the camera. The two play uncle and nephew rivals, one ruthless and hungry for power and the other a cold strategist, so the conflict is baked in from the start.

Men of the Harem

Men of the Harem is a 16 episode fantasy romance starring Bae Suzy as Latil, who is thrown into power after her father’s mysterious assassination. She has to marry to secure her sovereignty of Tarium, and instead of choosing one consort she picks five young men from different walks of life for her harem. Shin Seung-ho, DEX, Kim Dan and Yoo Jung-hoo are in the cast, and Latil still has to solve her father’s murder while keeping the peace at home.

Grand Galaxy Hotel

Grand Galaxy Hotel is a fantasy romance from the team behind Hotel Del Luna, and Netflix’s Grand Galaxy Hotel production announcement confirms the writers Hong Jung-eun and Hong Mi-ran and director Oh Choong-hwan are back together. Lee Do-hyun plays Eun-ha, the moody new owner of a hotel that comforts the souls of the dead after the previous owner vanishes, and Shin Si-a plays the only human on staff, a manager who isn’t afraid of ghosts. Lee Soo-hyuk plays a grim reaper and Lee Su-hyun plays a mysterious woman.

Long Vacation

Long Vacation is a 12 episode romance with Choo Young-woo and Lee Se-young. It follows Devil No. 3375, who arrives in a seaside village in the south of Korea on a reward vacation, meets a human woman called Lee Deul-pan and falls in love. Along the way he discovers emotions he didn’t know he had and has to face a dark and painful past.

Fall In! Love

Fall In! Love is a 12 episode office romance with a role reversal at its centre. Park Hyung-sik and Park Gyu-young lead, and the story follows Jung-seok, the polished CEO of an outdoor camping brand, whose ordered life is thrown when his former military superior A-mi, known as “Viper”, joins the company as a rookie employee. She was once a legendary Special Forces officer and is now struggling to find her feet in civilian life, and in his office.

Which K-dramas coming to Netflix in 2027 should you watch first?

Start with All of Us Are Dead season 2, and if you haven’t seen season one, sort that out before it lands, because the sequel picks up with Nam On-jo carrying everything that happened at Hyosan High. Season one is a 12 episode watch, so there is plenty of time.

After that, pick by mood. Kin and Sin and Buy King are the power struggles, The Dealer and Nightmare are the crime thrillers, Love Bait is the darker romance, Men of the Harem, Long Vacation and Grand Galaxy Hotel are the fantasy romances, and Fall In! Love is the office rom-com. Netflix still has more Korean titles to announce for 2027, so expect this list to grow as firm release dates arrive.

What to watch on Netflix Ireland right now

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What to watch on Netflix Ireland right now

I’ve been giving out a lot about streaming services lately, even asking if we should all start sailing the seven seas. But knowing that won’t be for everyone, the easy to stream platforms like Netflix are important too. Here’s a quick summary of the films, series and documentaries people in Ireland are watching right now. Every title has been checked as streaming on Netflix in Ireland as of Sunday 20 September 2026.

New films and documentaries to watch on Netflix Ireland

The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist

I really enjoyed this. Well, as much as you can enjoy it. This is all about the world of AI that’s exploding around us. The good and the bad. It added to my knowledge on AI and reframed some bits in my head too. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said it was the motivator behind Trump’s AI Force.

This is my current must watch, but I guess I’m tech-biased.

Untold: RayGun – Breaking Badly

You’ll watch a lot of this through the gaps in your fingers. RayGun was the viral Australian break dancer that failed big time at the Olympics. This documentary gives some insight into what was happening behind the scenes. I don’t believe some of the people aren’t planted because they are off the wall.

The Whisper Man

The Whisper Man is a crime thriller based on Alex North’s bestselling novel, and it landed on Netflix on 28 August. Adam Scott plays Tom Kennedy, a widowed crime writer whose young son Jake goes missing in a town still haunted by a serial killer known as the Whisper Man. Tom ends up leaning on his estranged father, a retired detective played by Robert De Niro, who put the killer away years earlier. Michelle Monaghan and Michael Keaton round out the cast, and James Ashcroft directs. It’s the pick if you want something tense for a dark autumn night.

Why Did I Get Married Again?

Tyler Perry’s third film in the Why Did I Get Married? franchise arrived on 9 September, sixteen years after Why Did I Get Married Too?. The couples reunite for a destination wedding in Italy, as Marcus and Angela’s daughter prepares to tie the knot, and old tensions resurface as the kids turn out to be a lot like their parents. Perry is back on screen alongside Taraji P. Henson, Jill Scott, Tasha Smith, Michael Jai White, Richard T. Jones, Lamman Rucker and Sharon Leal. It runs to just under two hours.

Best of the Best

Best of the Best is a coming-of-age comedy about two best friends at a prestigious university who enter the cutthroat world of collegiate Bollywood dance. Hasan Minhaj co-wrote it and stars alongside Maitreyi Ramakrishnan from Never Have I Ever and Priyanka Kedia, with Lena Khan directing. It landed on 18 September, so it’s the freshest film on this list.

Turning Point: Generation 9/11

This is the fourth entry in Brian Knappenberger’s Turning Point documentary franchise, released on 2 September to mark 25 years since the September 11 attacks. Rather than retell the day itself, it follows people shaped by the aftermath, including children who lost parents, journalists who started their careers covering the War on Terror, and young Afghans and US Marines caught up in the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. It runs to around 96 minutes.

Untold Mr. T: I Pity the Fool

The latest instalment of Netflix’s Untold documentary strand arrived on 8 September and traces how Laurence Tureaud became Mr. T, long before the gold chains, the mohawk and The A-Team. Scott Weintrob directs. Mr. T has been publicly critical of how the finished film portrays him, which adds an interesting layer to watching it.

Death of the Pastor’s Wife

Absolutely wild stuff this. Why is it always the relgious ones that are so wild.

This three-part true crime series looks at the life of Mica Miller, wife of pastor John-Paul Miller in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Using never-before-seen footage and accounts from her friends and family, it explores allegations of control and manipulation, the events leading up to her death in 2024 and the fight for answers that continues. It’s a heavy watch, and it comes from Julia Willoughby Nason and Mike Gasparro, the co-directors behind Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal and American Murder: Gabby Petito.

Instadocs: The Decoy Plane

Part of Netflix’s fast-turnaround Instadocs strand, this documentary premiered on 4 September. It reconstructs the July incident in which, according to reporting, President Trump left Air Force One after a NATO summit in Turkey and flew on a different aircraft, while the travelling press corps stayed on the original plane. It’s told through the reporters and photographers who were there, along with a former Secret Service agent and a former Air Force One crew member.

Best series on Netflix Ireland right now

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story

Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s true crime anthology is back for a fourth season, with all eight episodes released on 17 September. Ella Beatty plays Lizzie Borden, the first woman at the centre of the Monster series, with Vicky Krieps as maid Bridget Sullivan, Rebecca Hall as Abby Borden and Charlie Hunnam as Andrew Borden. Sarah Paulson and Billie Lourd also feature. It covers the 1892 murders of Lizzie’s father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts, for which she was acquitted, and the official synopsis leans into a fantasy of sex, power and revenge rather than a straight courtroom retelling.

The Gentlemen

I’ve been waiting patiently for this one. Guy Ritchie’s crime comedy series returned for a second season on 3 September, with eight episodes. Theo James and Kaya Scodelario are back as Eddie and Susie, alongside Daniel Ings and Ray Winstone, and this time the criminal enterprise moves from the English countryside to the Italian lakes and a run-in with crime boss Marco Moretti, played by Sergio Castellitto. Hugh Bonneville joins the cast.

Crew Girl

Crew Girl is a Canadian teen sports drama set in the world of prep school rowing. Teagan Tao, played by Miku Martineau, was a rising star in single sculls until her father’s financial fraud scandal forced her and her mother to start over at the elite Easton Prep. There’s no girls’ rowing team, so she ends up as coxswain of the boys’ crew, and the rivalry and romance kick in from there. It’s eight episodes and has been out since 10 September.

The Perfect Lie

The Perfect Lie is a seven-part Dutch drama, released on 10 September and based on Saskia Noort’s novel The Dinner Club. Karen, played by Loes Haverkort, moves with her family to the coastal town of Bergen and is welcomed into a dinner club of wealthy, hedonistic friends. When a villa fire kills one of the husbands, she starts to realise the friendship is held together by lies.

Not a Stranger

Not a Stranger is a Turkish psychological thriller in eight episodes, released on 17 September. Funda, a painter played by Elçin Sangu, is juggling first-time motherhood and her art career when she hires a nanny, Nazlı, played by Melis Sezen. The new arrival turns out to be a lot more than she seems, and Funda’s marriage to İlker, played by Ozan Dolunay, is caught in the middle.

Earle Meets World

This eight-episode reality series arrived on 4 September and follows social media star Alix Earle as she tries to balance a growing business empire with her family life. Her whole blended family features, so expect plenty of chaos.

Wrestling and family picks on Netflix Ireland

WWE Raw

I’ve just been to OTT in Templebar but with that in the rearview mirror, attnetion turns to Netflix as the home of WWE Raw, which streams live on Monday nights in the US. That usually lands in the early hours of Tuesday morning in Ireland, with episodes available to stream afterwards.

Mark Rober’s CrunchLabs

This is a collection of science challenges from former NASA engineer turned YouTuber Mark Rober, built around some of his most-watched videos. Expect experiments like a jump test on top of a moving train, a lasers versus lightning destruction test and a glitter bomb taking on porch pirates. It’s a good shout for a curious kid, and a few adults will get sucked in too.

Sealook

Sealook is a dialogue-free animated series from the makers of Baby Shark, following a colony of tagged seals in a wildlife sanctuary. Each seal goes by a number rather than a name. It started life on YouTube in 2022 and has gone viral in recent weeks because its blue-heavy colours suit how dogs and cats see, so people are filming their pets glued to the screen.

Monster-in-Law

This 2005 rom-com stars Jennifer Lopez as a temp who gets engaged to a surgeon, only for his mother, played by Jane Fonda, to set about making her life impossible.

The Judge

Robert Downey Jr. plays a slick Chicago defence lawyer who returns to his small hometown for his mother’s funeral and ends up defending his estranged father, Judge Joseph Palmer, played by Robert Duvall, when he’s accused of murder.

Practical Magic

With a sequel in the cinemas, interest is high in this. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman play the Owens sisters, witches from a family cursed so that any man they fall in love with will die. It’s a 1998 favourite that keeps finding a new audience every autumn.

Crazy Rich Asians

Constance Wu plays an economics professor who travels to Singapore with her boyfriend, Henry Golding’s Nick, and meets his enormously wealthy family, including his formidable mother, played by Michelle Yeoh.

Dune: Part Two

Denis Villeneuve’s sequel follows Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides as he joins the Fremen and sets out to avenge his family, with Zendaya as Chani.

Everything above was streaming on Netflix in Ireland at the time of writing, and with the charts moving daily, the order will keep shuffling.

Spotify Premium Early Access is a fair trade for free listeners

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Spotify Premium Early Access is a fair trade for free listeners

I’ve been ripping into subscription services lately and Spotify caught my anger too. Now, Spotify has started letting Premium subscribers in India hear selected new releases up to three days before everyone else on free plans. Called Spotify Premium Early Access, it launched on 28 August with two singles from Universal Music Group artists, and free listeners get the same tracks once the window closes.

To be fair, Spotify does have a free tier, so waiting up to three days for a new release isn’t bad. That’s my take on it, and I’d expect the feature to reach Ireland at some stage.

What is Spotify Premium Early Access?

It’s a release window that puts paying subscribers up to three days ahead of free listeners on selected new music, and nothing more sinister than that. Spotify says no music is permanently held back, and only releases the artist and label agree to include get a window.

The first two releases were Chimna by Badshah and Divya Kumar, and Stuck On You by Harrdy Sandhu. Both reached Premium subscribers on Friday 28 August and everyone else on Monday 31 August, so free listeners effectively missed a weekend. Spotify explains the scheme on its Spotify Premium Early Access support page which lists India as the only market.

Why Universal Music Group is behind it

Spotify is flipping the switch, but the idea belongs to Universal. On its second quarter earnings call on 30 July, UMG said new releases from its major domestic and international artists in India would go to paid subscribers first for 72 hours, on global and regional streaming services alike. So this isn’t a Spotify decision alone, and other services in India are covered too.

UMG’s case is that very few streaming users in India pay for a subscription, and it points to China, where it ran a similar model from 2019, as proof the approach works. That’s UMG’s own argument rather than an independent finding. Spotify’s wording is also more cautious than UMG’s, since it talks about selected releases where the artist and label opt in.

Is a three-day wait really a problem?

No. A free listener gets the same music on Monday that a subscriber got on Friday, and nobody loses access to anything. It’s also a lot gentler than 2017, when Spotify let Universal artists keep albums Premium-only for two weeks, with singles left open to everyone.

It isn’t a favour to fans though. It’s a nudge towards paying, and a nudge works better the longer the wait gets. Three days is fine. Two weeks is a different conversation, and it has been tried before. Critics have also argued that paywalling new music can reduce listening rather than lift subscriptions, which UMG disputes.

Will Spotify Premium Early Access come to Ireland?

There’s no sign of it yet. UMG has only announced the 72-hour window for India, and there’s no date for Ireland, the UK or the rest of Europe.

UMG did say it expects other markets to follow, so I’d still expect it here at some stage, and I wouldn’t be giving out about it. If you’d rather not wait for a release, that’s what Premium is for, and Spotify Premium Individual in Ireland costs €12.99 a month after the increase we covered in our Spotify price hike in Ireland article.

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