On Monday US President Joe Biden released a wide ranging and ambitious executive order on artificial intelligence (AI) – catapulting the US to the front of conversations about regulating AI. In doing so, the US is leap frogging over other states in the race to rule over AI. Europe previously led the way with its… Read more »
On Oct. 6, news broke that 23andMe, the genomics company that collects genetic material from thousands of people for ancestry and genetic predisposition tests, had a massive data breach. But as it turns out, the company’s servers were not hacked. Rather, hackers targeted hundreds of individual user accounts — allegedly those that had repeated passwords.… Read more »
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Grant, has found X (formerly Twitter) guilty of serious non-compliance to a transparency notice on child sex abuse material. The commissioner has issued X with an infringement notice for A$610,500. The commissioner first issued transparency notices to Google, X (then Twitter), Twitch, TikTok and Discord in February under the Online Safety… Read more »
In an astonishing act of timing, Harvard University’s Professor Claudia Goldin published a paper on Monday titled Why Women Won. It mapped milestone moments in women’s rights in the United States from 1905 to 2023. A few hours later, she was awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics “for having advanced our understanding of women’s… Read more »
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are in dire straits. With the market in a severe downturn, it’s safe to assume the NFT bubble has well and truly burst. It was never clear why these digital collectables traded for such large amounts of money. Now they mostly do not. What’s behind their turn of fate? And is there… Read more »
In 2018-19, identity crime directly and indirectly cost Australia an estimated A$3.1 billion. To address such costs, the federal government is proposing a national digital identity scheme that will let people prove their identity without having to share documents such as their passport, drivers licence or Medicare card. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher opened consultations for the… Read more »
Human laughter as we know it likely developed between ten and 16 million years ago. For context, the stone tools our distant human ancestors made in the Early Stone Age date back around 2.6 million years. These are vast time spans, but it was perhaps good that our Palaeolithic ancestors had a sense of humour… Read more »
Back in 2017, The Economist published a headline that became a meme. It said data had become the new oil. By that it meant that the world’s biggest and most profitable companies no longer worked with oil, as they had throughout the 20th century, but with data. By 2022, three of the world’s five most… Read more »
There are few stores without an Afterpay logo displayed on the door, or that don’t offer Laybuy at their online checkout. And these schemes are particularly popular with younger consumers. But what price might these buyers be paying for the conveniences of buy now, pay later? Our new research investigated how young New Zealand adults… Read more »
Today marks an important milestone in the history of the internet: Google’s 25th birthday. With billions of search queries submitted each day, it’s difficult to remember how we ever lived without the search engine. What was it about Google that led it to revolutionise information access? And will artificial intelligence (AI) make it obsolete, or… Read more »
Australians will go to the polls on October 14 to vote in a referendum on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. We have not voted in a federal referendum since 1999. So what do you need to know? How is a referendum run? A referendum is run by the Australian Electoral Commission in the… Read more »
Aotearoa New Zealand is the latest country to enter the expanding and competitive international space market. In the aerospace strategy and national space policy, the government lays out how it intends to grow the domestic space sector by launching rockets and satellites and promoting Earth observation research. The documents indicate the government’s general priorities in… Read more »
On Saturday, X (formerly Twitter) chairman Elon Musk tweeted he would be removing the microblogging platform’s block function. It would remain intact for direct messages, but would otherwise become obsolete. This is the latest in a series of controversial and often confusing moves from Musk since he took ownership of the platform in October 2022.… Read more »
With over seven million Australians hooked onto the world cup viewing, many who have never really been interested in sports have recently found themselves screaming at the TV, cheering in pubs and hugging complete strangers. Have you found yourself in this new legion of sports fans, and wondering how you got here? It is likely… Read more »
Zoom, the videoconferencing company whose fortunes soared with the pandemic-driven shift to working from home, has reportedly told its staff to get back to the office – for at least two days a week, if the commute is no more than 80 kilometres. It’s part of a trend of employers winding back the work-from-home flexibility… Read more »
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.
