man working at beach
Global tech

Tech Council releases roadmap to make Australia the regional hub for great tech businesses

- September 1, 2022 2 MIN READ

Lobby group The Tech Council of Australia (TCA) is looking to take the battle up to Singapore, China and Japan in making Australia the regional tech hub for the Asia-Pacific region, attracting global players to the country.  A new report commissioned by the TCA, Turning Australia into a Regional Tech Hub, outlines the existing strengths… Read more »

Global tech

AI weapons, robot subs & silent drones: the military tech startup created by the Oculus founder lands in Australia

- August 23, 2022 4 MIN READ

Earlier this month, posters started going up around Sydney advertising an event called “In the Ops Room, with Palmer Luckey”. Rather than an album launch or standup gig, this turned out to be a free talk given last week by the chief executive of a high-tech US defence company called Anduril. The company has set… Read more »

Google office
Global tech

Australia’s High Court says Google is not a publisher in landmark defamation decision

- August 17, 2022 2 MIN READ

Global search giant Google is not responsible as a publisher for serving up links to defamatory material, Australia’s High Court has ruled. The landmark decision overturns exisiting rulings by the Victorian Supreme Court and its Court of Appeal involving a $40,000 damages award against Google to Melbourne lawyer George Defteros for a hyperlink to an… Read more »

Global tech

Google smacked with $60 million for misleading Australian users over Android phone tracking

- August 15, 2022 2 MIN READ

Tech giant Google has been hit with $60 million in penalties by Australia’s Federal Court for for making misleading representations to consumers about the collection and use of their personal location data on Android phones. The fine resulted from legal action by consumer watchdog the ACCC, which took Google to court in October 2019 over… Read more »

Global tech

No, you didn’t imagine it – Google did crash yesterday, and it’s a reminder of how central it now is to modern life

- August 11, 2022 2 MIN READ

On Wednesday, reports began emerging Google was down. Google down for thousands of users – Downdetector https://t.co/jQYLzHdjNC pic.twitter.com/TIbcYrtImU — Reuters (@Reuters) August 9, 2022 While it has since returned, it once again highlights our dependence on technology service providers and shows how reliant many people are on a single operator for daily functions. There are… Read more »

cat on robot vacuum cleaner
Global tech

Amazon’s $2.45 billion play for iRobot – and a map inside your home – raises privacy questions

- August 10, 2022 4 MIN READ

Less than two weeks after the announcement of its acquisition of US healthcare company One Medical, Amazon is continuing its expansion with a US$1.7 billion offer for iRobot, the manufacturer of Roomba automated vacuum cleaners. The acquisition will bolster Amazon’s line of smart home products and add to the retail giant’s vast store of consumer… Read more »

Global tech

Book publishers v the Internet Archive: why the world’s biggest online library is in a legal fight over digital lending

- July 21, 2022 4 MIN READ

Earlier this month, the Internet Archive asked a US court to end a lawsuit filed against it by four large book publishers. The Internet Archive is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1996 that lends digital copies of books, music, movies and other digitised content to the public. It aims to support people with print disabilities,… Read more »

food delivery courier
Global tech

Guilt, shame, dissatisfaction: a 5-year study of the gig economy reveals a broken business model

- July 13, 2022 4 MIN READ

The gig economy is in trouble. Rideshare drivers are cancelling in droves. Wait times for food delivery are ballooning out and driver shortages are leading to food waste. So, what’s going on? To find out more, I interviewed 30 Melbourne gig workers who worked as rideshare drivers, food deliverers or for task-based platforms such as… Read more »

Uber
Global tech

How Uber ignored the law, lobbied and exploited anger to go global

- July 13, 2022 3 MIN READ

Uber’s strategy was clear from the outset: move quickly into markets, operate with dubious legality, create a critical mass of demand, and deal with the consequences later. Now a trove of over 124,000 internal files from Uber – including messages between executives and internal briefing notes – has revealed the scope of the company’s market… Read more »

Global tech

Why Uber signed a gig economy deal with the Transport Workers’ Union

- June 30, 2022 3 MIN READ

Uber Australia has struck a historic agreement with the Transport Workers’ Union – a statement of principles that re-regulate work in the Australian rideshare and food delivery industry. This is a major shift to industrial relations in the gig economy. Uber and its rival platforms have largely treated their workforce as independent contractors, not employees… Read more »

Global tech

The family of a gig economy rider killed delivering food will receive workers comp in a landmark ruling that he was an employee

- June 23, 2022 3 MIN READ

A landmark decision by the NSW government disputes resolution body, the Personal Injury Commission, with see the family of a food delivery rider killed in a traffic accident in 2020 receive $830,000 in compensation after food company and its insurer accepted liability for his death. Xiaojun Chen, 43, died in September 2020 after his bike… Read more »