Petrol prices are hitting eye-watering highs. As global affairs put pressure on the availability of commodities, we’re likely to continue seeing volatile petrol prices in the future. So there’s never been a better time to embrace alternative modes of transport such as e-bikes and e-scooters (also called “micromobility” devices). In Australia’s major cities, the average… Read more »
Early in the pandemic, the COVIDSafe app was designed as a tool to improve contact tracing. And a multimedia campaign promoted it as helping to find more COVID contacts faster. Now, almost two years after its launch in April 2020, we publish in The Lancet Public Health our evaluation of the app’s effectiveness and usefulness… Read more »
The Morrison government will announced its long-awaited electric vehicle strategy, coinciding with COP26 climate change talks underway in Glasgow. The new policy contains some welcome new funding, but is largely notable for what it omits. In a welcome move, the government has allocated an additional A$250 million for electric vehicles, primarily aimed at charging infrastructure.… Read more »
Drone delivery company Wing recently celebrated 100,000 deliveries with an unusual burst of media fanfare. Australia is at the forefront of Wing’s plans, with the company’s two biggest trial sites running in Canberra and Logan in Queensland. Wing tells a simple story of barista coffee and roast chooks dropped on your driveway at a… Read more »
Social media platforms are transforming how online advertising works and, in turn, raising concerns about new forms of discrimination and predatory marketing. So the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S) — a multi-university entity led by RMIT — launched the Australian Ad Observatory. This research project will explore how platforms… Read more »
Would you share your most intimate thoughts with strangers? For many women, during the pandemic and associated lockdowns, closed Facebook groups have been a place to do just that. These groups offer a chance to escape the house virtually and spend time with like-minded souls, sometimes chatting, often venting, and seeking solidarity in virtual sisterhood.… Read more »
With the simple touch of a smartphone, online food delivery services conveniently offer takeaway food straight to your door. Contact-free delivery has surged in popularity as lockdowns have limited physical access to restaurants and food outlets. Industry reports suggest Australians are spending three times more on online food delivery than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally,… Read more »
Earth has warmed 1.09℃ since pre-industrial times and many changes such as sea-level rise and glacier melt are now virtually irreversible, according to the most sobering report yet by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report also found escape from human-caused climate change is no longer possible. Climate change is now affecting every… Read more »
On July 15, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said Sydney’s COVID lockdown wouldn’t end until the number of new cases not in full isolation was zero or as close to zero as possible. But by August 1 the premier’s message had shifted: Once you get to 50% vaccination, 60%, 70% it obviously triggers more… Read more »
Australia’s long run of economic growth from the early 1990s to early 2020 inspired much boasting by incumbent politicians. But behind the hubris and headlines lies a less flattering story — about Australia riding a wave of dumb luck, with exports to China and relatively high levels of immigration masking mundane economic performance. The most… Read more »
Victoria has entered a five-day lockdown to control its growing outbreak of the more infectious Delta variant. Until midnight on Tuesday restrictions mean residents are only allowed to leave home for essential reasons, can only travel five kilometres away from home, and need to wear masks outside the home, among other measures. Breaking: Victoria has… Read more »
On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog! These words from Peter Steiner’s famous cartoon could easily be applied to the recent ransomware attack on Florida-based software supplier Kaseya. Kaseya provides software services to thousands of clients around the world. It’s estimated between 800 and 1,500 medium to small businesses may be impacted by the… Read more »
It took a chance meeting between Cameron van den Dungen, founder of a start-up mattress company, and Madhu Bhaskaran, an engineering professor at RMIT University, to see an opportunity to collaborate and commercialise research. Van den Dungen had a dream of creating a bed for use in aged care to monitor sleep quality and comfort.… Read more »
The ruling by Australia’s Fair Work Commission that online food delivery platform Deliveroo unfairly dismissed driver Diego Franco marks a major shift in the Australian “gig” economy. What’s most significant is the commission has ruled Franco was, in fact, an employee of Deliveroo, not an independent contractor – the legal strategy platform companies use to… Read more »
After 20 years of rhetoric from both sides of politics focusing on getting back to surplus, this year’s budget continues pandemic spending in the hope of getting the economy back on track as the pandemic starts to settle. The projected deficit is $161 billion for 2021-22, but rather than tackling this in the next four… Read more »
The lessons from Uber, Ola and rideshare’s disruption is that in the end, the consumer still pays 
Here are the finalists in Fintech Australia’s 2024 Finnies awards 
Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar steps down as co-CEO 
Unicorn dehorned: Nasdaq-listed Brisbane EV charging venture Tritium collapses into receivership 
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