Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web (WWW), is auctioning off the source code for his world-changing invention as a non-fungible token (NFT). The winning buyer will receive files of the source code Berners-Lee wrote in between 1990 and 1991, a 30-minute silent animation of the code being written – which you can view at Sotheby’s –… 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 »
Nine late-stage energy startups have been chosen for the second cohort of EnergyLab’s Scaleup Program including Australian ‘digital twins’ tech venture Neara. TransGrid and Endeavour Energy are partnering with the program, which kicks off later this month, allowing the startups to collaborate with the utilities, investors and founders. The two power utilities operate across NSW… Read more »
Welcome to Ignition Lane’s Weekly Wrap, where they cut through the noise to bring you their favourite insights from the technology and startup world. Ignition Lane works with ambitious business leaders to apply the Startup Mindset to their technology, product and commercialisation problems. This wrap goes out free to subscribers every Saturday. Don’t forget you can catch Gavin Appel discussing… Read more »
The manufacturing world is facing one of its greatest challenges in years — a global shortage of semiconductors — and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight any time soon. According to Acer, one of the world’s largest laptop manufacturers, companies will still be affected by this shortage until at least the first… Read more »
The massive digital platform market has until recently been dominated by a handful of US-based companies such as Facebook and Google. However, as foreign governments and competing platforms try to erode this domination, platforms are becoming a new sphere of geopolitical manoeuvring. The European Union wants to gain more control over international tech companies and… Read more »
Competition regulator the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) is applying to the Federal Court to appear as part of a local legal battle between Fortnite maker Epic Games and Apple over control of the App Store. Epic has filed an anti-competition complaints against Apple in the European Union, UK, US and Australia over App… Read more »
Facebook’s quasi-independent Oversight Board on May 5, 2021, upheld the company’s suspension of former President Donald Trump from the platform and Instagram. The decision came four months after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg banned Trump “indefinitely” for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The board chastised Facebook for failing to… Read more »
Privacy-focused messaging app Signal has invoked the ire of Facebook after it created a series of advertisements designed to show Instagram users how their data is being used for micro-targeting. In a blog post this week, Signal’s head of growth Jun Harada said the app – owned by the non-profit Signal Foundation – found its ad-buying account… Read more »
The “significant market power” of the Apple App Store and Google Play in Australia needs to be addressed says Rod Sims, chair of competition regulator the ACCC, to give app developers better terms and conditions, as well as improving the approvals process The second part of the ACCC’s Digital Platform Services Inquiry interim report, which focuses… Read more »
More than nine out of ten parents think digital media and technologies are a negative distraction in their lives. And 83% think their children are also negatively distracted by digital devices. These are some of the findings from our Growing Up Digital Australia study. In 2020 we surveyed nearly 2,500 parents, grandparents and caregivers across… Read more »
The recent crash of a Tesla car in the United States, in which two people died, has reignited debate about the capabilities and safety of today’s “self-driving” technologies. Tesla cars include an “autopilot” feature which monitors surrounding traffic and lane markings, and the company is currently rolling out a more advanced “full self-driving” system which… Read more »
China’s state-run anti-monopoly bureau has tightened its regulations on big tech players, as shown by its recent move against the country’s largest e-commerce company, Alibaba Group. Alibaba was hit with a record antitrust fine of 18.2 billion yuan (more than A$3.6 billion) over the weekend for supposedly abusing its market dominance. The company, which operates… Read more »
Google and Google Australia misled consumers about its use of personal location data, according to Australia’s Federal Court in a landmark legal decision. Consumer watchdog the ACCC took Google to court in October 2019 over the use of location data collected through Android mobile devices between January 2017 and December 2018, in a world-first enforcement… Read more »
Over the long weekend reports emerged of an alleged data breach, impacting half a billion Facebook users from 106 countries. And while this figure is staggering, there’s more to the story than 533 million sets of data. This breach once again highlights how many of the systems we use aren’t designed to adequately protect our… Read more »
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