What does it mean to be an inventor? In patent law, designed to protect the intellectual property of inventors, officials are used to thinking of inventors as humans, taking an “inventive step” – a new way of doing something — not obvious to a person skilled in the same art. But last week — in… Read more »
The A$39 billion (US$29 billion) that Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s digital payments company Square is paying to acquire Australian upstart payments outfit Afterpay is the biggest takeover deal in Australian corporate history. It surpasses the A$32 billion European commercial real estate giant Unibail-Rodamco agreed to pay for Frank Lowy’s Westfield Corporation in 2017. The deal… Read more »
It’s been a momentous month for space-faring billionaires. On July 11, British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson’s Unity “rocket-plane” flew him and five fellow passengers about 85 kilometres above Earth. And this week, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard capsule reached an altitude of 106km, carrying Bezos, his brother, and the oldest and youngest people ever… Read more »
Pfizer doses in NSW will be spaced out to enable more first jabs to be administered quickly, as the Berejiklian government on Friday declared the Sydney COVID crisis a “national emergency”. But the plea by the state for Pfizer doses to be diverted to Sydney as part of a refocusing of the national vaccine program… 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 »
A major journalistic investigation has found evidence of malicious software being used by governments around the world, including allegations of spying on prominent individuals. From a list of more 50,000 phone numbers, journalists identified more than 1,000 people in 50 countries reportedly under surveillance using the Pegasus spyware. The software was developed by the Israeli… 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 »
Over the past few weeks, the Chinese government’s crackdown on big tech companies has intensified. The giants have all felt the brunt of heightened regulatory scrutiny. At the end of last year, Ant Group (which owns the payment platform AliPay) failed to go public on the stock market. Chinese regulators cited a lack of compliance… Read more »
If you’ve ever felt your noisy open-plan office makes you cranky and sends your heart racing, our new research shows you aren’t imagining it. Prior to the pandemic 70% of office-based employees worked in open-plan offices. Employee complaints about this design are rife. Yet there is little experimental research investigating the effects of office noise… Read more »
Over the next fortnight, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson will take off into space, because they can, on spaceships designed by their respective companies. It’s a big moment for the private space industry. But the question comes to mind: who has the smarter plan? A billionaire’s space race On… 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 »
A report from the US task force dedicated to investigating UFOs — or, in the official jargon, UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) — has neither confirmed nor rejected the idea such sightings could indicate alien visits to Earth. Last Friday June 25, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released its eagerly awaited unclassified… Read more »
Have you ever chatted with a friend about buying a certain item and been targeted with an ad for that same item the next day? If so, you may have wondered whether your smartphone was “listening” to you. But is it really? Well, it’s no coincidence the item you’d been interested in was the same… Read more »
Five antitrust laws proposed in the United States aim to aggressively rein in the market power of “big tech” companies and change the way they do business. The set of bills, introduced on June 11, targets the enormous economic power wielded by the likes of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google (owned by parent company Alphabet).… Read more »
If you were having difficulty accessing your favourite website on Tuesday evening Australian time, you’re not alone. A jaw-dropping number of major websites around the globe suddenly became unavailable with no immediately obvious explanation — before reappearing an hour later. It’s disconcerting when the sites we rely on suddenly become inaccessible, and even more so… Read more »
‘Have I gone too far?’ How founders can beat their startup demons 
Smart hotels get even smarter: 72 Byte to launch in Australia with AI expert backing 
Why the $2.43 billion Canva share sale is an epic moment for Australian tech 
Eucalyptus head of growth Matt Rossi departs to launch his own marketing startup, Oodle 
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