For Tech’s Sake

In this episode, we're looking at health data all the way from the cradle to the grave, and beyond! Helping us on this journey is Prof Ciara Heavin, co-director of the Health Information Systems Research Centre at University College Cork and founder of CommPAL, a software platform using AI to better allocate specialist palliative care. Follow Ciara on X @c_heavin and get links and resources for th...

In this bonus episode from For Tech’s Sake, Elaine and Jenny weigh up whether Canva’s cringe-inducing rap announcement was junk or genius, and stick it to Spotify for junking Car Thing (a decision they thankfully rowed back on after recording). For links to the stories and embarrassing videos discussed in this episode, check out  fortechssake.info . CONTENT NOTE: This episode contains some sw...

Everyone's talking about kids and tech, but is the internet responsible for young people's anxieties? And are bans an effective way of moderating behaviour? We looked at the research and spoke to an expert in early childhood education, Paula Walshe, who believes we can do better at teaching positive tech use from a young age. Paula is a PhD researcher and assistant lecturer with Dundalk Institute...

In this bonus episode from For Tech’s Sake, Elaine and Jenny assess where we’re at with the current AI hype cycle (with some help from a scathing op-ed from tech writer Julia Angwin), though they still find some gen-AI to have fun with. There are also more robots to talk about, because we clearly have a type. For links to the stories discussed in this episode, check out  fortechssake.info . T...

Did you know there are bins in Dublin connected to the internet? They are part of what’s known as the internet of things, or IoT, which is turning into something of an internet of trash for reasons other than the bins. To explain this, we have Prof Dirk Pesch, the director of Advance CRT, which is a Science Foundation Ireland centre for research and training focused on advanced networks for sustai...

In this bonus episode from For Tech’s Sake, Elaine is joined by special guest host Dr Jessamyn Fairfield, a physicist and performer of science stories. Jessamyn came to talk about the co-founder of LinkedIn being cringe with his AI double and the incredible story of how NASA has managed to get Voyager 1 back online, even though it’s in interstellar space. Meanwhile, Elaine has some stories about s...

2024 is a major year for voters worldwide, but with tech being used to push all sorts of manipulative messaging and agendas, how can we trust what we see online during an election cycle? In this episode, we have Liz Carolan explaining how she remains (mostly) hopeful in the face of these threats to democracy, and giving us tips on how to muddle through the misinformation. Liz is a strategist and c...

In this bonus episode from For Tech’s Sake, Elaine and Jenny are laughing at Grimes’s disastrous Coachella set and squealing at an impressive and terrifying new robot from Boston Dynamics. They also take Amazon’s Just Walk Out retail tech to task, chuckle at the reviews of Humane’s AI pin, and discover a new way that AI is being used for good. For links to the stories discussed in this episode, an...

In this episode of For Tech’s Sake, Elaine and Jenny draw parallels between the tech industry and ‘fast fashion’ – notorious for its short production cycles and disregard for the environment and sustainability. Joining us for this conversation is Luísa Vasconcelos E Sousa, the new country manager of Swappie in Ireland, who introduces us to a more circular alternative for smartphone purchases. For...

In this bonus episode from For Tech’s Sake, Elaine and Jenny single out their techin’ eejits and techin’ legends from recent tech news. Listen in to find out why Elaine is calling for a fight between YouTube and OpenAI, Jenny is mad at AI image generators, and both agree that scarecrows are due an upgrade. For links to the stories discussed in this episode, and some helpful visual aids, check out...

We’re back! And we’re catching up on all the AI news, good and bad, that’s been happening. And to prove there really are good applications of AI out there, we spoke to Dr Mark O’Sullivan, co-founder and CEO of NeuroBell, which is developing a device using AI to help detect seizures in newborns. You can find out more about their work at NeuroBell.com. You can also check out the following stories di...

It’s just us, your hosts, for this bonus episode of For Tech’s Sake. Following on from our round-up of 2023, we’re giving out the For Tech’s Sake awards for Biggest Techin’ Eejit of the Year and Techin’ Legend of the Year, among others. This episode makes a lot more sense if you’ve listened to episode 15 in our main feed, and here are some other episodes we mentioned that you might enjoy: — Our ro...

This week it’s just Elaine and Jenny as we round up 2023’s tech news – which took a long time to get through! And even at that, things have changed since this recording and the EU AI Act did in fact enter the next stage of its development, and we’ll be following up on that in the new year. In the meantime, we have plenty of suggestions to entertain you until we come back with season three. You mig...

In this extended interview with Padraig Hennessy, chair of AgTech Ireland, you’ll hear more about how he built a successful agri-tech start-up as CEO of Terra Nutritech (from 2:20), as well as Ireland’s role in the global context of sustainable farming and some of the agritech innovations that most excite him (from 19:30). You can find out more about Terra Nutritech and the other agritech start-up...

For a sustainable future, farmers need to learn to work smarter, not harder. That’s according to our guest Padraig Hennessy, CEO of agri-tech start-up Terra NutriTECH and chair of AgTech Ireland. And while ‘smart’ often means internet-connected devices and technological wizardry, there’s a lot more to getting agri-tech right than that. You can find out more about Terra Nutri-tech and the other agr...

If you enjoyed our chat about the digital disruption of the value of money, you're in luck because we had a lot more to discuss with Rachel O’Dwyer. Rachel is a lecturer in digital cultures at NCAD and her recent book, Tokens: The Future of Money in the Age of the Platform, explores the historical concepts underpinning digital money, while looking to the future of transactions. In this extended ch...

Do you understand money? Neither do we, to be honest. And now that digital platforms are creating their own forms of finance – often without the restrictions of any pesky regulation – the meaning of ‘money’ continues to evolve. To get our heads around the changing nature of money, we spoke to Rachel O’Dwyer, a lecturer in digital cultures at the National College of Art and Design and the author of...

In this extended chat with Niamh Donnelly, the award-winning entrepreneur and co-founder of Akara Robotics, we learned even more about the challenges of building robots that can work with humans and went through an extensive breakdown of various robots on the market today, from Roombas to robot dogs to creepy humanoids. We also got Niamh to reveal her favourite robot, exclusively for our HeadStuff...

Robots are among us, and are likely to become an even more commonplace fixture in our future. But what does it mean to be living and working alongside robots, and what does it take to develop these robots responsibly? We spoke to Niamh Donnelly, co-founder of Akara Robotics, about these challenges and the considerations roboticists need to have for workers and society. You can check out Akara Robo...

We have a whopper of an extended episode for you, with lots of talk on how technology – especially AI – intersects with the world of the arts. If you’ve already listened to the episode in our main feed, featuring our interview with Beta Festival founder Aisling Murray, here’s where you can jump in for the fresh content: — At about 8 minutes in, we unpack the use of AI for artistic admin and as a c...

In this episode we look at tech’s impact across the arts, from designers and artists to writers and musicians. We also got the lowdown on Ireland’s new festival of art and technology,  Beta Festival  from its founder and curator, Aisling Murray. You can follow Beta Festival @betafest_irl on both Twitter and Instagram, and follow Aisling @murray_aisling on Twitter or @ashomurray on Instag...

In this extended interview with UCC’s Dr Conor Linehan, we talk more about how people respond to deepfakes, why some people don’t want the ability to recast every film at a whim, and why sometimes too much choice is a bad thing. As well as the risks and potential harms deepfakes pose, we discussed some positive uses of deepfakes, such as in assistive tech or artistically, such as in  this Ken...

Think you could tell a deepfake from real content? Think again. Dr Conor Linehan, a senior lecturer in applied psychology at UCC, joined us to explain how easily we can be fooled into believing what we see. You can find out more about Conor and his work @conorlinehan on Twitter and you can read the Face/Off study here:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287503...

In this extended interview with serial entrepreneur Bobby Healy, we find out more about his roll-out plans for drone delivery company Manna across Ireland. We also discussed some of the challenges of launching technologies like this, such as social acceptance and job displacement, and we found out more about the sustainability of drone services versus other alternatives. And, finally, we got Bobby...

Did you know that an Irish company is one of the world leaders in developing drone delivery services? We spoke to Manna CEO and founder Bobby Healy about the challenges of getting a project like this off the ground, and why Ireland has become a popular global testbed for drone development. You can follow Bobby @realBobbyHealy on Twitter, and find out more about Manna at Manna.aero. — You might als...