Winston Churchill has just arrived in New York City. It is October 6 1929. Travelling with several members of his family, the British statesman checks into the Plaza Hotel, synonymous with wealth and celebrity – and certainly not cheap. But that’s no concern for Churchill: the cost of his stay – along with his cigars… Read more »
Australia’s business pages in 2025 were on the spicier side, as controversies across retail, tech, consulting and policy certainly brought out the trust issues in the sector. Across the year, there were major data breaches, court actions over wage underpayments, startup failures, consumer safety interventions and the closure of long-running business support programs. Here’s a… Read more »
Reactions to the government’s consultation paper on the proposed news bargaining incentive have begun trickling in — and US tech lobby groups aren’t happy. Several Washington-based trade associations have warned the incentive is inconsistent with Australia’s free trade commitments with the US, and one lobby group has warned US President Donald Trump could be moved… Read more »
There’s a terrible paradox in the festive season. While Christmas Day is generally quiet when it comes to domestic violence, December 26 is one of the worst days in the year. An app called Heard launched recently to fill a critical gap in how survivors of abuse begin their journey toward understanding, healing and support… Read more »
All too often, those of us living in the ‘remote colonies’ consider ourselves too small to make any real difference on the world stage. And yet, according to global media outlets, Australia’s grassroots campaign to ban social media for under-16s is the most important piece of legislation in the world right now. Jonathan Haidt, whose… Read more »
Despite the continued strained economic climate, we’ve seen some big chunks of change thrown around in 2025. While early-stage funding stayed constrained for much of the year, large cheques concentrated around a smaller group of companies certainly prevailed. In some cases, twice. These were some of the largest Australian startup raises of 2025, and the… Read more »
It’s almost too daunting a task to summarise a year that could be best represented by this….. The long blood donation lines (hours long wait for many) to help the Bondi shooting victims. If there is an image that can truly sum up this year full of chaos, violence, war and fragile peace, technological advances… Read more »
Earlier this month, Australia’s long-anticipated National AI Plan was released to a mixed reception. The plan shifts away from the government’s previously promised mandatory AI safeguards. Instead, it’s positioned as a whole-of-government roadmap for building an “AI-enabled economy”. The plan has raised alarm bells among experts for its lack of specificity, measurable targets, and clarity.… Read more »
Grifters and scammers are trying to cash in on the Bondi Beach terrorist attack by launching speculative cryptocurrencies and fake fundraisers, even celebrating when the value of a coin using the likeness of the 10-year-old victim of the mass shooting spiked after launching. As is typically the case around any major news event, opportunistic people… Read more »
When CSIRO announced it would shed hundreds of research positions, the narrative was predictable: another casualty of budget cuts, another blow to Australian science, another sign that we don’t value research. But perhaps the question shouldn’t be whether Australia invests enough in research, but whether we’re getting enough return from the research we already fund. Or have we been optimising for the wrong metric? The research scoreboard Australia’s research ecosystem has… Read more »
The end of the year means holiday celebrations, summer breaks … and for us, one important thing: best books lists. We asked 35 expert readers for their favourite picks, ranging from novelists to anthropologists, scientists to criminologists – and experts in politics, publishing and philosophy. The only rule? The book had to be published this… Read more »
Canberra startup Aristotle Metadata has secured a $400,000 loan from Tractor Ventures in a capital raising exercise that shows the importance of venture debt as an option for startups. The Aristotle Metadata Registry is a data governance platform that helps organisations improve the quality, compliance and accessibility of their data; a growing challenge amid the… Read more »
By age 12, your political operating system is encoded. Everything after is confirmation bias with better vocabulary. This is not cynicism. This is archaeology. Dig into any 50-year-old’s beliefs and you will find layers deposited at the kitchen table, in the schoolyard, at church or synagogue or mosque, in the neighborhood where they learned who… Read more »
Bondi is beautiful tonight. And not because of its beaches, its sunset, its people, its fun. It’s beautiful because you in your thousands, in your defiance, in your resistance and resolve, you have returned to these sands just seven days after a shocking crime, and have said to the terrorists, we are going nowhere. This… Read more »
It’s one of the most absurd ways to end a videogame. In the original The Outer Worlds, the fastest way to finish is to fly a spaceship into the sun. To do this, you need to create a low-intelligence character, and then when prompted insist that you personally – instead of an AI – will… Read more »
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