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AN GARDA SÍOCHÁNA has become the first Irish organisation to sign up to Twitter’s emergency alert system to let followers know about major incidents.
Twitter announced yesterday that it has activated Twitter Alerts in the UK and Ireland with 57 accounts in total signing up for the service, the vast majority of which are police forces across Britain.
Twitter Alerts, which launched in the US, Japan and South Korea in September, gives users crucial information from state and other agencies during emergencies or natural disasters when communication lines may be down.
Once the participating Twitter accounts mark any of their tweets with as an alert – using the hashtag #alert – the tweet is highlighted with an orange bell to appear more visible to followers.
Twitter users who sign up to receive Twitter Alerts from an account will receive a notification directly to their phone via text message. Users of the Twitter iPhone or Android apps will also receive a push notification straight to their phone.
A US example of how an alert would appear in text message and with a push notification (Image: Twitter)
“All of the organisations participating in today’s launch already use Twitter as a tool to communicate important information to their followers,” said Steve Summers of Twitter in a blog post. “The added functionality of Twitter Alerts will help them reach their followers with important and accurate information during emergencies, natural disasters or when other communication services aren’t accessible”.
Irish users can subscribe to the Garda Twitter alerts by going to www.twitter.com/GardaTraffic/alerts.
An Garda Síochána has been expanding the use of its Twitter accounts in recent months.
The Garda traffic and major events account (@GardaTraffic) now has more than 40,000 followers while the newer Garda information account (@gardainfo) has almost 8,000.
The most recent edition of Garda Review – the force magazine – said that the Twitter feeds have begun to report live from most major events. The Garda Press Office also asks gardaí on the beat to mail photos directly from road traffic collisions and other events which can then be tweeted to show users what gardaí are working on on a daily basis.
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iPad is without doubt one of the best devices I have ever owned, I love it.
You love it? Wow.
I would guess most people had held out for the last 2-3 months on buying an iPad as the new models were being announced last week.
iPad sales had seen a massive drop in their last earnings report too. It will be even bigger this time next year, people don’t own large-screened phones and use tablets too, it’s pointless. I could see the point of owning both when the iPhone screens were tiny, not now though.
I would imagine people change phones more often than they change a tablet, so the top-end of the tablet market may be suffering some saturation at the moment before it settles into a normal renewal cycle.
I’m genuinely surprised how little iTunes contributes to their income.
Android is still too buggy , there are too many cheap android devices that can’t perform basic tasks.
Anyone can operate an iPad whether they are 3 or 83 , the older generation have embraced apple tech much easier than android!
Get yourself a Samsung. So much better. Ive used ipads before the Samsung. So slow. Im not surprised sales are falling.
I would totally agree.
The fact that you cannot add SD card memory was my turning point.
The 10.1″ Galaxy NOTE 2014 would kick any IPad in performance.
I prefer using the Samsung. Haven’t used the ipad since.
Tablets are used more for watching TV on. Ipads are far too restrictive in what you can and can’t watch.
An android with mobdro and you’re good to go.
Writing this on an iPad that’s 3 1/2 yrs old although it can’t be updated anymore it’s still one of The best bits of Tech I’ve ever owned
I wish they’d change the iTunes interface, it’s such a pain in the hole.
Is the large version of iphone 6 being used as an alternative to the ipad mini?
Yes, I would imagine you are correct. Certainly wouldn’t be a massive difference now between the phones and the iPad mini.
Great phone by the way, the Samsung killer I would say.
Is Apple the cult Tom cruise and John travolta are involved in. (Wrote on my iPhone)
Some people might be holding out for the new iPads, but Apple has been losing ground to Android-based tablets for the past two years: http://blog.globalwebindex.net/Android-dominates-tablet
I’d say they’re fine losing market share to the €100 Android tablets that you see knocking about, the people buying those were unlikely to get an iPad. I’d like to see a breakdown of the flagship tablet market.
Wasn’t Apple heavily dependant on iPod sales at one stage too…
Love Apple computers, don’t like their phones!
That’s odd in the last apple story there was a guy who’s friend worked in a mobile phone shop and apparently they couldn’t sell any iPhones at all.
I was sure that was a reliable source for sales figures.
Being a user of both, I can definitely say that Apple is to restrictive and therefore useless in a lot of ways. Once they have you, they want to enslave you into buying all their products. To many frustrations. Would definitely not recommended Apple. Don’t become an Apple zombie!
Have both myself also , but do not find any real restrictions on IOS. Depends how you use them I suppose. Both are great, but if generally find Apple a better interface and build quality.
I haven’t come across an interesting new app for ages. It’s good to see the hardware improving but the software people seem to have hit a brick wall. It seems to me that the industry needs more personal information from us to develop but we are getting more careful and taking the privacy option where possible. The U2 album fiasco showed that what we want is not what they want to give us. We want to draw back from the always on connected world and to pick and choose how we interact.
Htc have a new range of tablets Comming out on November 3rd and if they are anything like the HTC One M8 phone They will storm the tablet Charts.Sd card will mean a lot more storage freed up on the tablet itself.
HTC One M7 & M8 are great phones but unfortunately they do not sell very well HTC made a big loss on the M7, have improved with the M8, but still nowhere near the likes of Samsung.
Don’t really like Apple myself(except I-tunes, where theres no choice) think Sony is much better all round.
I think the fizz has left Apple recently, it’s not big news anymore.
Always used iPhones but today i upgraded to an S5. Vodafone are out of stock with no date for new iPhone 6 handsets and it would have cost me 250 blips. S5 is free with the same if not better specs. Total no brainer
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