100,000 catch Googles Wave for a test drive D Thursday, October 1, 2009 METRO Get the bus. Save tax. Taxsaver.ie - its that simple. With a Taxsaver Commuter Ticket, you can save up to 51% on your bus fare with tax and PRSI* savings - and you can take the bus as much as you like, as far as you like, as often as you like. Find out how much money you could save on your commute by going to the Savings Calculator at taxsaver.ie Terms & conditions apply. *PRSI rates may vary depending on your contribution class. What you can save: Ticket Type Annual Bus Travelwide Monthly Bus Travelwide 980 41% 20% 8% 8% 2% 2% 499.80 294.00 Price Tax Rate PRSI* Income Levy Savings 98 41% 20% 8% 8% 2% 2% 49.80 29.40 Game on Models Aoife Cogan and Joyce Memtemba launch Magnets new online gaming service in Dublin. Developed in response to Irelands dismal 62nd place ranking at the World Cyber Games, Magnet Bolt ensures Irelands gamers get a competitive edge. For more info, see www. magnetbolt.ie Picture: Photocall BY ROSS McDONAGH A TOTAL of 100,000 people took Googles new messaging platform for a test drive yesterday. Google Wave claims to merge e- mail, online chat, document handling social networking and wiki style collaboration in one package. The internet giant sent out 100,000 invitations to developers, customers of its Google Apps offerings, and oth- er web users who were quick to sign up to provide feedback. Experts say the project has the po- tential to advance Googles plans to provide software to corporations, as well as giving Google a bigger role in a social networking space dominated by firms like facebook and Twitter. Google admits the highly anticipat- ed real-time communications service, first announced in May, is not ready for prime time, hence yesterdays biggest field test yet. Some of you have asked what we mean by preview. This just means that Google Wave isnt quite ready for prime time. Not yet, anyway, wrote engineering manager Lars Rasmus- sen in the companys official blog. He noted that Wave still experiences occasional downtime, crashes and sluggishness. He said that Google will allow some of the new Wave preview users to nominate friends, family and col- leagues to use Wave, and it will soon invite more people to try the service if all goes well during the preview. Google Wave is a lot more useful if your friends, family and colleagues have it too, he said. Google has not given a public time- frame for Waves general availability, though the home page of the official Wave Web site says the service is coming later this year. GooGle execs on trial FOUR Google executives have gone on trial for breaking Italian privacy laws by allowing a video of a teenager with Downs syndrome being bullied to be posted online. Prosecutors in Milan argue that, as well as breaking privacy laws by uploading the content without the consent of all parties involved, Google did not have adequate content filters. David Carl Drummond, head of Google Italys managing board; George De Los Reyes, a board member; Peter Fleitcher, head of privacy protection in Europe; and Arvind Desikan, head of videos for Europe, face three years in jail if convicted. Workers: Seeking better work-life balance staff prefer flexi-time over a bonus WORKERS would rather have flexible hours or time off for their birthday than a pay rise or a bonus, new research reveals. Two out of five employees would prefer flexible working hours or a day off on their birthday over a pay rise, a survey of 1,500 adults by Kelloggs showed. Workers also called for a return of a proper lunch break, rather than having to eat at their desks or even attend meetings scheduled to start at 1pm. Helen Whitten, from work-life balance organisation Positiveworks, said: The results of this research show that... bosses need to take seriously the practical and emotional needs of their staff if they are to gain their commitment to the organisations continued productivity and success. The research shows that its not always about money but about achieving a better work-life balance, with the call for more flexible working hours... stronger than ever, Ms Whitten added. Old muscles can be young again study SCIENTISTS have discovered a way to reverse ageing which allows old muscle to rebuild itself. A US team analysed muscle samples taken from volunteers, and found that an active protein called mitogen-acti- vated protein kinase (MAPK) stim- ulated a biological switch on mus- cle stem cells that triggered growth. When old muscle cells were grown in a solution that forced MAPK acti- vation, they could then regenerate. index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html24.html25.html26.html27.html