5 things you should know about tech today

An artist’s impression of the good ship Zuckerburg right now.

It’s only Thursday and we’ve just read NBC and with one more sleep to TGIF, right now we’re OMFG.

But not surprised.

1. Facebook leaks and it’s not pretty

Mark Zuckerberg tied to leverage Facebook user data as a bargaining chip leaked company documents obtained by NBC News reveal.

There’s a certainly irony in the company that let its customers data be exploited by so many external parties should find itself the victim of a massive data leak, with NBC scoring 7,000 pages of company stuff – 1,200 pages marked “highly confidential” amid 4,000 are internal Facebook communications such as emails, web chats, notes, presentations and spreadsheets, primarily from 2011 to 2015.

NBC details how Facebook used user data to either reward partners and deny the access to rivals. Facebook gave Amazon special access to user data because it was spending money on Facebook advertising, but app MessageMe was cut off when it looked like a competition threat. Zuckerberg oversaw plans to consolidate the social network’s power. Meanwhile Facebook planned to publicly frame its actions as a way to protect user privacy.

The docs were apparently part of a California lawsuit involving app developer Six4Three, which took Facebook to court after it was locked out of the social media platform’s data. Read more here.

2. Optus has the best broadband speeds

The competition watchdog’s regular squiz at download speeds, the ACCC Measuring Broadband Australia report, has Optus as the new champ with the highest percentage of maximum download speeds during the busy evening period, beating TPG, which topped the five previous reports.

The good news is all all RSPs (retail service providers) delivered average NBN download speeds of between 76% and 87 % of maximum plan speeds during evenings in August 2019. Exetel, Optus and Telstra improved their performance between 7pm to 11pm, while the other RSPs saw speeds decrease slightly compared to the previous quarter. NBN services continue to outperform ADSL services. Users on NBN plans with a maximum speed of 12 and 50 Mbps experienced small speed lifts while those on NBN 12 Mbps plans received an average download speed of 10.8 Mbps.

3. Safety Culture rebrands

Hello Facebook. This is how you do it.

https://twitter.com/SafetyCultureHQ/status/1192218936164704258

4. These shares are totally dope

Medicinal cannabis company Cronos Australia (ASX: CAU) hit the ASX trading floor today after raising AU$20 million in an IPO involving 40 million shares at $0.50 cents for an indicative market cap of $64.4 million. The company is a 50:50 joint venture between dual-listed Cronos Group (NASDAQ/TSX: Cron) and NewSouthern Capital. The business wants to be “a leading health and wellness company” importing the parent venture’s medicinal cannabis products, flogged under the Peace Naturals™ brand in Canada and Germany.

Cronos Australia shares spent most of the day bumping along around the $0.355 cents mark.

5. The Bradman of CIOs

Kudos to ACT Health’s Chief Information Officer, Peter O’Halloran, who’s scored an international leadership award at the GS1 Global Healthcare conference in India, for his efforts in digital data management over the past decade. GS1 deals with barcode standardisation – what they like to call “the global language of business”.

While private sector tech types get plenty of cheers, it’s great to see someone at the public sector coalface being recognised for their efforts.

GS1 Australia’s Industry Manager Healthcare, Catherine Koetz, said O’Halloran’s work was transformative and noticed worldwide. His efforts include designing and implementing traceability for all fresh and manufactured blood products across Australia, while he now he leads a 10-year digital transformation of ACT Health.

CHART OF THE DAY: From CB Insights analysed 101 borked startups for the top 20 reasons for their failure. All the details are here.