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Weird Wide Web: Creepy stalking software, a dose of virtual reality and a futuristic hospital

All of your essential tech and social media news for the week in one byte-sized portion.

WELCOME TO THE Weird Wide Web – where we take a look at the week’s best offerings in tech and social media news.

Futuristic hospital of the week

This children’s hospital in San Francisco has roaming robots that deliver meals and medication to patients. It also has scan suites that look like VIP hotel rooms, according to Business Insider.

Business Insider Business Insider

Dose of reality of the week

The Taoiseach and Tánaiste got to try out the Oculus Rift this week and they certainly seemed to enjoy it…

Niall Carson / PA Niall Carson / PA / PA

Stalking software of the week

This week Gizmodo took a look at some so-called “spyware” that allows users to keep track of the phone activities of another person. This extends to their calls, texts, Whatsapp messages, Facebook posts and stored photos. Though companies who offer this software often claim it is mostly used by parents to protect their children, there is nothing to stop people using it to breach a partner’s privacy to check if they’re cheating or generally track their activities. Worse, it could also be the perfect tool for dangerous stalkers or perverts, according to Gizmodo, with seemingly no limits or regulation.

Shutterstock Shutterstock

Data saving option of the week

If you have limited storage on your phone and are now faced with deleting some much-loved apps, then Facebook Lite might be for you. Cnet reports this is a “slimmed-down” version of the app and if you want it, you’ll have to manually install it on your device.

Peeing app of the week

We’ve spoken before about the Airpnp app, that shows you toilets in your location in case you have a sudden bladder need and aren’t sure where to go. A Buzzfeed reporting spent the day essentially peeing his way around New York City using the app, with some amusing results. We checked and the concept still doesn’t appear to have taken off in Ireland, with just one toilet listed here…

Airpnp Airpnp

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    Mute Liam Byrne
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    Dec 22nd 2011, 9:24 AM

    The leaving cert has always been about learning off answers. It’s not about knowledge, but memory- why are they only realising this now!?!?!?

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    Mute Kieran Murphy
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    Dec 22nd 2011, 10:03 AM

    I predicted my whole leaving cert perfectly including the language exams so that’s either due to luck or the leaving is really too predictable

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    Mute Cormac Cahill
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    Dec 22nd 2011, 2:36 PM

    in my english exam i predicited 4 out of 4 of the poets to come up. was like a kid in a candy store.

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    Mute Siobhán K
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    Dec 22nd 2011, 10:34 AM

    It’s a mixture of luck and predictability. I’m doing my leaving in June, and I’ve already been told what is likely to come up in most subjects. The thing is, you learn everything, concentrate your energy on the predictions coming up to the exam and then hope to god on the day the paper is suited to you.

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    Mute Jack Kelly
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    Dec 22nd 2011, 11:55 AM

    I’m in Junior Cert and even now the exam seems to be predictable. Our teachers are always saying “Oh, that didn’t come up last year – it’s due up this year, make sure we go over this” or “this is definitely coming up this year – make sure to know this” and so forth. My friend, also a JC student, told me their teacher spent weeks on one section of history because it is likely to come up for us. Another friend’s class skipped the entire section because it’s not due up this year. A bit mad….

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    Mute Cormac Flanagan
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    Dec 22nd 2011, 9:30 AM

    So there not going to take place in June then.

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    Mute Iain Murray
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    Dec 22nd 2011, 1:59 PM

    Comment of the day!

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    Mute BJ
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    Dec 22nd 2011, 1:37 PM

    I wish they’d made mine more predictable!

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    Mute James Walsh
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    Dec 22nd 2011, 12:28 PM

    This is always going to be a problem because the Leaving Cert is one exam therefore its simply not possible to produce an exam paper that covers everything. Naturally students and teachers are always going to try and guess which sections of the courses are going to be examined. In effect the entire Leaving Cert course is a exercise in waste. Every exam probably covers at most 40% of what has been taught over the previous two years. Students spend vast amounts of time learning things that they are never going to be tested on.

    While its welcome that the problem is going to be looked at, realistically the only long term solution to this is to have a more holisitic approach to the syllabus. It would be better if subjects were also broken down in a more semester based approach rather than one two year course with one exam at the end. Such an approach would be involve continuous assessment, applied learning and peer review. It would require more resources to achieve this but the outcome should be better for students and that is where the focus should lie.

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    Mute Eoin Sheehy
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    Dec 22nd 2011, 1:55 PM

    Good Idea in theory but if it;’s like how the ‘revolutionary’ project Maths then it’ll be a disaster, didn’t have books for two months and our teacher still isn’t fully sure what’s on the course because there are parts in other books which aren’t in ours and vice versa!

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    Mute Daryl Walsh
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    Dec 23rd 2011, 10:52 AM

    As a leaving cert student up until last year, I understand where they’re coming from when they say predictable i.e the same section of the biology course can’t come up 2 years in a row, however.. You study the material for 2 years in order to be able to answer the questions that come up.. The course isn’t that big ya know so maybe it’s the actual structure of the leaving cert they should look at not the ‘predictability’ of it.

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    Mute Peter Costello
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    Jun 4th 2012, 6:34 PM

    Shouldn’t it really just ask all sections of each course and make them all part of the exam so that the entire course is covered. Or maybe the colleges should just have entrance exams instead.

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