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Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have launched a new app that allows users to view the most recent NASA and European Space Agency images of the sun.
The web app, SolarMonitor.org, shows information such as how many sunspots are visible and if any flares have occurred on the sun.

Dr Peter Gallagher, solar physicist and former NASA employee, led the team from Trinity. He said the app has been getting 3,000 to 4,000 hits from around the world each day.
“We get everyone from secondary school students to professional astronomers using it. Also, those working on GPS systems want to know what’s going on in the sun. If there is an explosion it can affect their GPS systems.”
Gallagher said the team’s aim is to develop the app further as activity on the sun increases.
“Over the next year three years things are going to get active, with the sun at its most active in 2012 and 2013.”

Internet entertainment service firm Netflix has launched its service in Ireland and the UK.
The US-based firm, which offers an internet subscription service for films and television programmes, will bring some added competition to the market here.

In Ireland, the firm will offer unlimited access to its site for €6.99 per month. However, it is introducing itself to the Irish market by offering a free, one month trial.
Users can watch both local and global TV programmes and films on their laptops, game consoles, blu-ray players, tablets and smartphones.
At launch, the firm is offering programmes from BBC, Channel 4’s 4oD and ITV, as well as CBS, NBCUniversal and Twentieth Century Fox, among others.
Worldwide, Netflix has 23.6 million subscribers. It has reportedly grown to become the biggest source of web traffic in the US since it was established in 1997.

Just as the country is settling in for the winter, with autumn/winter tv schedules and general hibernation there’s a lot happening in the online television sphere in Ireland.

TV3 has just launched a new online player. 3player was developed especially to allow viewers watch on multiple devices such as PCs or laptops, tablets (including iPad) and smartphones (including iPhone).
Magnet Networks which broke new ground with Magnet WebTV has a new and improved re-branded service Aertv.ie. It is now registration-free and allows laptop, smartphone, tablet or PC users with an internet connection to watch TV, without the need for a set-top box, satellite dish, cable, or even a TV. The free service transmits all of the main Irish TV channels as well as Ireland’s first live music channel, Aertv Music.
Meanwhile MUZU.TV, the Dublin based online music video site with the world’s largest legal catalogue, will be coming to Xbox LIVE this Christmas.

In the US, it’s got familiar names such as Instagram on its list of graduates.
As Dogpatch Labs Europe opens in Dublin this week all eyes will be on the types of digital businesses that are expected to emerge from it.

Dogpatch Labs are dynamic open plan spaces for entrepreneurs working on new business ideas – hardly a new concept. Set up by Polaris Venture Partners – to connect entrepreneurs and help founders conceive and launch start-ups – the difference is the new Dublin facility is the first to open outside of the US.
In effect the European arm of the initiative, it is expected that it will interesting start-ups to Dublin from Europe and beyond.
The Dublin lab will be open plan space housing an estimated 30 teams working on new businesses at varying but early stages of development. Start-ups generally have six months in their patch – best of luck to the graduates of 2012!