The government has committed to a mere 7-day processing time for applicants of its newest skilled visa category in a bid to make Australia a more attractive for IT professionals as part of a set of long-awaited changes to the migration system. Migrants coming into jobs that earn at least $135,000 a year will have… Read more »
The federal government’s flagship $392 million Industry Growth Program has been officially launched, with grants of up to $5 million available for startups and small businesses. The $392.4 million program was unveiled in the May budget, replacing the former Coalition government’s Entrepreneurs’ Programme, which was embroiled in controversy due to bungled procurement processes. The aim of the… Read more »
Toby Walsh is one of Australia’s most well-known experts on artificial intelligence and his latest book Faking It: Artificial Intelligence in a Human World aims to dispel the common illusion that machine intelligence is comparable to human intelligence. It’s an illusion deeply embedded in the history of AI that could have disastrous consequences, Walsh believes, unless… Read more »
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) would be given expanded regulatory powers over bring digital wallets, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) companies, and crypto assets under proposed reforms to national payments systems legislation published this week. In a statement, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the reforms “[address] the risks posed by new digital payments services, which are currently unregulated, to… Read more »
A simple database flag enabled cryptocurrency magnate Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) to siphon billions of customer dollars into a lavish lifestyle that ultimately left failed exchange FTX over $12 billion ($US8 billion) in debt, a US court has heard as SBF’s trial nears its conclusion. Once the second largest cryptocurrency exchange with a valuation of $47 billion, the… Read more »
Australian authors have been caught up in a major controversy around the data used to train large language models after an investigation uncovered 183,000 pirated books were included in a commonly used dataset called Books3. Booker Prize winning novelist Richard Flanagan was among the Australian writers whose works were in the dataset that was reportedly… Read more »
ChatGPT can now speak and have a live conversation with you as part of a suite of updates to the generative artificial intelligence tool that also lets it analyse images. In a blog post, ChatGPT owner OpenAI announced that voice and image capabilities will soon be introduced to the tool for paying users around the world.… Read more »
Microsoft has been its own worst enemy this week as the tech giant suffered two unrelated data leak incidents where masses of internal documents, trade secrets, and backups of employee computers were released on the internet. On Tuesday, researchers at security company Wiz went public about a 38TB trove of data that Microsoft’s AI team had accidentally… Read more »
The Australian government will continue to authorise a one-to-many facial recognition system connected to the national ID database but is limiting its use to helping identify “shielded persons” like undercover police and protected witnesses. Once referred to as ‘the Capability’, the Department of Home Affairs built a system for the public and private sector to verify people’s… Read more »
Neuro Technology platform Neuphoria was the big winner from the River Rival startup competition that closed out the Something Tech conference in Brisbane. The company, responsible for the Focusband wearable brain frequency-sensing headwear, won both the Best Product and Best of the Best Award. “It was such an honour for Neuphoria to win River Rival’s… Read more »
Be careful who you type your passwords in front of: cyber criminals can figure out which keys you’re pressing simply by getting a carefully trained AI model to listen to you type – and the technique even works over phone calls and Zoom sessions. Documented in a newly published paper, the acoustic side channel attack (ASCA) involves recording… Read more »
Companies that have adopted a four-day work week are enjoying significant long-term benefits and won’t be returning to the old way of working, new research has found. The concept of a four-day work week – where employees receive 100% of their pay for working 80% of their normal hours while maintaining 100% productivity – is… Read more »
The technology sector’s gender diversity problem is to continue for the foreseeable future according to this year’s STEM Equality Monitor. However however the tech sector is doing better than other STEM disciplines in offering wage parity between female and male graduates and better prospects for those entering the workforce. Published by the Federal Department of… Read more »
Today Meta launched its long-awaited new social media product Threads, a Twitter clone that syncs to Instagram accounts and offers a chaotic feed filled with influencers, news outlets, and brands vying for attention. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Threads was intended as “an open and friendly public space for conversation.” “We hope to take what… Read more »
State and territory governments have agreed, with the Commonwealth, to increase their use of biometrics for identification in a bid to make the federated ID scheme more resilient to fraud and identity theft. Identification services are spread across the states and territories, that are in charge of driver licences and birth certificates, and the Commonwealth… Read more »
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