The Big Tech Show

According to authorities here, ‘romance scams’ cost victims an average of €18,000 each. How do they happen? Who are the perpetrators and the victims? If you’re on a dating app, what should you avoid? Adrian is joined by the cyber-psychology researcher and lecturer, Dr Nicola Fox Hamilton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last month, Stripe co-founder John Collison told me something I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to. “A starting salary in some software engineering jobs is more than €100,000,” he said. “I don't think this has leaked its way out into the popular consciousness here… There’s a career conservatism in Ireland.” Indeed. This week, the Big Tech Show decided to tease this out. Are software and tech gradua...

We’re all going to die. The question is: what happens to our social media accounts when we do? Who gets the photos in them? The documents? The DMs? Is it different for Facebook and, say, iCloud? Can your Whatsapp account be claimed by someone as an inheritance? And what about other important online accounts you have, like Microsoft’s OneDrive or Google Drive? Is there anything you can do in advanc...

Adrian Weckler recently learned how hard it can be to quit a gambling app. He signed up to one, LivescoreBet, just to watch a football game. But it wouldn’t let him delete his account. Six times he asked, six times he was refused. He then signed up to other betting apps to see whether they were any better. Most allowed him to bet using his credit card through apps such as Apple Pay or Revolut, eve...

A few years ago, an ambitious young entrepreneur made a big claim: she was developing technology that could diagnose illnesses from a drop of blood. Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos dazzled investors with her pitch, dressing up like Steve Jobs and talking a perfect game. As we now know, there was no ground-breaking technology. Holmes, who was faking it rather than making it, has now been convicted on...

Will 2022 be all about NFTs and Apple's AR glasses? Joining Adrian to go through his predictions for what will and won't happen this year is tech journalist Andy O'Donoghue. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2021 saw a number of winners and losers in the world of technology. From NFTs, a venture capital boom and 5G expansion to cybersecurity woes and folding phones, it was an eventful year both here in Ireland and internationally. But what soared and what stank? Adrian and Vizlegal CEO Gavin Sheridan pick the winners and losers in the tech year that was. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informa...

You walk up to a shop counter and put your milk, bread and paper on the counter. How do you pay? With cash? A card? Your phone? Or even your watch? Is it easy to do these things? Should it be easier? What’s coming down the line? And how can Ireland establish itself as somewhere that leads in this area rather than follows years after everyone else? To find out more, Adrian is joined by Elaine Deeha...

How hard is it to make a living out of becoming a YouTuber or an Instagram influencer? Is there a minimum number of followers you need? Do you have to pick a good niche? How many people actually make it? Last week, YouTube revealed that there are now over 70 Irish YouTubers with more than 1m subscribers and over 450 Irish people with more than 100,000 subscribers. In this week's podcast, Adrian is...

Stuck for a Christmas tech gift idea? Thinking about something fitness-related? Or headphones? Or just a stocking filler? We’ve got you covered. From gifts for high rollers to penny-pinchers, Adrian is joined by Mark Kavanagh, tech writer for Irish Daily Star and IrishMirror.ie See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week, Star Trek fans were given the bad news that its Star Trek Discovery series is being removed from Netflix, with all past and future episodes only available on yet another streaming platform -- Paramount Plus. Will we just accept this and subscribe to yet another platform? Or are we reaching overload? This week, Adrian calculates that his monthly TV streaming outlay is now €62, rising to...

How old do you need to be to start a tech company that investors will take seriously? 25? 23? 20? Today we talk to a couple of young Irish tech founders who are making waves at a very young age. Greg Tarr is 18 and the CEO and founder of an artificial intelligence firm called Inferex. Having won this year’s BT Young Scientist competition, Tarr received six-figure job offers and dropped out of seco...

It’s 20 years into the future. Robots are cleaning our beaches and rivers. Advanced technology lets us mine asteroids and collect materials on the moon. And while tech trillionaires enjoy the greatest concentration of wealth in human history, advanced countries now give a universal basic income to all citizens, eliminating poverty and allowing people to focus more on jobs they’d much prefer to do....

Are you struggling to find a Playstation 5? Or dismayed at month-long waiting lists for an iPhone 13 Pro? Or may your car dealer says you can’t change to a new model until next year because they can’t get any? All of these shortages have one thing in common: a supply chain crisis in computer chips. But in this high-tech world, how can this be happening? What’s behind it? And will it get better any...

Imagine you’re peckish. There’s nothing in the fridge but it’s lashing outside — you don’t want to go the supermarket, and ordering your regular takeout will take ages. Now imagine a different scenario: you order a takeout and it arrives in 10 minutes. Why? Because it skipped the roads and came instead by drone. That’s an option that the residents of Oranmore in Galway, Moneygall in Offaly and, fr...

As warnings of energy blackouts this winter emerge, there are questions being asked about the value of data centres to Ireland. Are they energy hogs? Do they hold their own as worthwhile businesses? And what should our policy be going forward? With over 70 major data centres located in Ireland, some political parties are calling for a moratorium on new data centres. But is this a weak admission th...

Will we all switch over to a new, more integrated virtual reality to socialise, play, work and shop? That's what Mark Zuckerberg thinks is going to happen. He and Facebook are now about to start building this 'metaverse', partly in Ireland. How will it benefit our lives? How might it hurt our lives? To dig deeper into what the metaverse will and won't be, Adrian is joined by Bloomberg's technology...

This week, Adrian looks at whether China's ban on cryptocurrency will scupper the prospects of Bitcoin, which has been soaring in value in recent years. He is joined by James Nagle, CEO of the Irish cryptocurrency-trading firm, Bitcove. James doesn't think a reciprocal ban is likely in the US or the EU, but says that there are some concerns over the energy consumption that Bitcoin-mining takes. Se...

This week, Adrian is joined by technology journalist Andy O'Donoghue to discuss Facebook's new smart glasses, called Ray-ban Stories. Adrian realtyes his experience using the glasses, which can record 30-second video clips and take photos without people clearly being aware that they are doing so. Andy likes the idea of smart glasses in general and thinks they're here to stay. See omnystudio.com/li...

This week, Adrian is joined by Senator Gerard Craughwell and IT security expert Paul C Dwyer to look at whether Ireland's cyber security is up to scratch. Both men say that it is not. Senator Craughwell goes further, describing it as "an absolute joke". Both are also criticial of government ministers who dismissed as 'overblown' the Irish Independent's recent revelation that the HSE is still using...

This week, Adrian has a plain English review of the iPhone 13, 13 mini, 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max. Adrian ranks them in order of which is best and what type of person should or shouldn’t upgrade. He’s joined by tech journalist Mark Kavanagh to talk about the iPhones and the iPad mini, which also also launched this week. Both journalists discuss why the mini is a better choice that Samsung’s Frankenste...

This week, Adrian talks to Fidelma McGuirk, founder and CEO of Payslip. Ms McGuirk decided to move to Westport from Dublin in 2015, after which she founded her payroll tech company. Despite attracting over €8m in funding earlier this year, attracting talented engineers and staff to a tech company outside a city has its own challenges. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It has nothing to do with Katherine Zappone. This week, Adrian goes into depth about the problems around Minister Simon Coveney’s hacked phone. Together with freedom-of-information expert Gavin Sheridan and privacy expert Daragh O’Brien, the minutae of what we know, and what the law is, around Simon Coveney’s hacked phone are parsed in detail. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, it’s a panel show to discuss some of the big issues of the week: the iPhone 13’s potential satellite capability, Google Ireland’s delayed return-to-the-office mandate, the latest VC figures and whether you should use video on or off during Zoom calls. The topic of whether billionaires serve any purpose is also debated. Adrian is joined by the Irish Independent’s Jon Ihle and Reach’s Mar...

This week, Adrian talks to Mike Fisher, the CTO of the giant online retailer Etsy, in the wake of that company's €1.3bn acquisition of Depop. Fisher is one of the most experienced CTO's around, having been a previous engineering VP of Paypal, among other roles. The two talk through a number of issues, spending a lot of time on what makes a good or a bad engineering culture and whether or not tech...