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Adaire Fox-Martin: Relax, says Google’s Irish boss, we’re still hiring

For the first time in years, Dublin’s tech scene has the jitters.

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A Budget to help people and support business

The Government will have a total of around €10bn at its disposal in the Budget this week to effect permanent and one-off measures — the primary focus of which will be to ease the cost-of-living burden on households.

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Review: Volvo XC40 Recharge – Safety and power fires this up to make it a smooth operator

Volvo go to great lengths to emphasise how much time and effort they put into making their cars as safe as possible.

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Adrian Weckler Opinion The time to get aggressive is right now – that’s the gospel according to Mark Zuckerberg

Amid growing nervousness in Dublin about big tech firms downsizing their operations, attention is starting to focus on one company in particular – Meta.

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Computers programmed with artificial intelligence ‘may go rogue and wipe out life on earth’, say scientists

There is a high probability of advanced forms of artificial intelligence, or AI, becoming “existentially dangerous to life on Earth”, scientists have claimed.

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Google court judgment underscores the rationale for the Digital Markets Act

Google’s court defeat yesterday is set to strengthen EU antitrust regulators’ hand against Big Tech as they roll out landmark rules next year to rein in their powers and force them to play fair with rivals.

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Google is fined €4.1bn as Europe’s General Court upholds ruling

Google suffered one of its biggest setbacks on Tuesday when a top European court upheld a ruling that the company broke competition rules and fined it a record €4.1bn, in a move that may encourage other regulators to ratchet up pressure on the US giant.

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Adrian Weckler Opinion Mary Lou hitches up Sinn Féin partymobile for Silicon Valley drive-by

Last week, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald went to Silicon Valley. She met senior executives in Google and Salesforce, among others.

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Big tech firms like Amazon, Apple and Google have thrown $95m at holding back US regulation

A high-profile push by Congress to rein in the United States’ biggest internet companies is at risk of failing with time running out to pass major legislation ahead of midterm elections.

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Review: The all-electric Polestar 2 combines Swedish style with sustainability, safety and performance

Television may portray Sweden as a bleak nation in perpetual darkness but, from Abba to Ikea, we can’t get enough of all things Swedish. Eager to be added to the illustrious list of Swedish success stories is Polestar, an all-electric performance car maker. Spawned from Volvo and the Chinese company Geely, the maker’s first fully electric volume model, the Polestar 2, is our test car this week.

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Dylan McGrath's fight for restaurant survival: 'I can’t leave and work for Google now, can I?'

Chef Dylan McGrath could be forgiven for thinking life is just one damn crisis after another.

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Sarah Caden Opinion Leo’s lust for ladies under 25 feeds notion that women go off as they age

Last month, in a cover-story shoot for Paper magazine, Madonna was photographed kissing Andrew Darnell, a model who later popped up on her social media and toasted the 10th birthday of her twin daughters. Darnell is 23 to Madonna’s 64 — she celebrated her birthday in style in Sicily last month.

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Trump’s Truth Social stalled on Google Play Store amid moderation shortfalls

Former US President Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social has not yet been approved for distribution on Alphabet’s Google Play Store due to insufficient content moderation, according to a Google spokesperson on Tuesday.

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Cashing the splash –pools rake in €10m as French roll out AI nationwide to find hidden swimming spots in gardens

A French scheme hunting for undeclared swimming pools is to be rolled out nationwide after artificial intelligence raked in €10m by identifying 20,000 hidden pools.

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The SME ‘digital pivot’ that could add €9.5bn to Irish GDP

Pat runs a small accountancy practice in Leinster with 10 staff. A dyed-in-the-wool accountant and a Delphic-like oracle when it comes to things like accounting standards, taxation and compliance, Pat has another string to his bow: he can talk fairly competently about the importance of keeping the firm’s blog up to date with fresh content.

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When Google mistakes your baby photos for sex abuse – is it a price worth paying?

Should a photo of a naked baby trigger an online account ban? Is it a price worth paying in the wider fight against child sexual abuse material?

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Google workers lobby for abortion supports and data privacy

Hundreds of Google employees are petitioning the company to extend its abortion healthcare benefits to contract workers and to strengthen privacy protections for Google users searching for abortion information online.

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‘Ultra-clean waters’ – Irish beach named best wild swimming spot in UK and Ireland

With another summer heatwave on the way, Keem Bay on Co Mayo’s Achill Island has been named the No 1 “wild swimming spot” in the UK and Ireland.

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Unicorn bonanza: Private equity is now a boon to help smaller firms flourish

Few European countries have enjoyed as much popularity as an investment location as Ireland has over the last five years.

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Elon Musk denies affair with tech billionaire Sergey Brin’s wife, says he and the Google co-founder are friends

Tesla boss Elon Musk has said on Twitter that he and Google co-founder Sergey Brin remain friends and denied a report that he had been involved in an affair with Mr Brin’s wife Nicole Shanahan.

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Fraudsters use Leo Varadkar’s image to lure investors into buying non-existent cryptocurrency online

Online scammers have been misusing Leo Varadkar’s photo to try to con people into investing thousands of euros in cryptocurrency.

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‘Awful’ Snap sales wipe $47bn from social media stocks

US social-media giants shed nearly $47bn in market value in extended trading Thursday, as disappointing revenue from Snap Inc. raised concerns about the outlook for online advertising.

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Samantha McCaughren Opinion FDI wobble may hurt a bit, but foreign firms’ long-term commitment ought to keep them honest

Google has become the latest of the Big Tech titans to hit the brakes on hiring. Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google’s parent company Alphabet, told staff last week that it would be “slowing the pace of hiring for the rest of the year”.

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Come Together – no, not there – Google Maps sends Beatles fans to wrong Abbey Road zebra crossing

Abbey Road residents and traders have told how Beatles tourists are visiting the wrong zebra crossing as a result of a Google Maps error.

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Brendan O'Connor Opinion Mid-life crisis: ‘It seems weird that anyone can fly a drone wherever they want these days’

You have to watch out you don’t start turning into a crank. Being in the media, I’ve spent too much of my life listening to, dealing with and being at the mercy of, cranks so it would be a cruel irony if I became one myself.

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Adrian Weckler Opinion Storage full – Is Ireland’s decades-old tech expansion wave about to crash?

Could we be finally facing the end of a 20-year expansion wave of tech companies in Ireland?

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Mary McCarthy Opinion Online diary is a ball and chain – give me back my old wall calendar

I was promised efficiency when I switched my Filofax to a shared Google family calendar, but all I got was hassle.

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Mark Zuckerberg says staffing levels to be hit by downturn

The parent company of Facebook, Meta, has declined to comment on whether it plans to slow its hiring rates or scale back resources for its operations in Ireland.

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Creativity and innovation shine brightly in Cannes

As the Mediterranean sun set on the famous Croisette in the picture-postcard town of Cannes last Friday night, local hoteliers, catering companies, event managers, yacht charter firms and municipality workers were probably breathing a sigh of relief.

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Tim Cook’s team at two-trillion-dollar Apple continues to keep the media sector guessing

Ever since Apple launched its Apple TV digital media player on the market back in 2007, the media and entertainment industries have struggled when it comes to second-guessing some of the tech giant’s peripheral moves and ambitions. Having already upended the global music market with the launch of iTunes in 2001, many had expected Apple to do the same in the entertainment world.