This week, the Australian Space Summit is celebrating some of our nation’s strengths and achievements in the space sector. But it’s taking place under the shadow of significant cuts to space technology investment announced in last week’s federal budget. Space technologies play a critical role in responding to many national priorities, such as climate and… Read more »
Australian innovation has the capacity to protect us – our environment, our digital world, our borders and our health. All of these are focuses of this year’s federal budget. But the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) sector has been sounding the alarm for years that our research system is in crisis. Reviews in progress… Read more »
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has delivered his second budget with a heavy focus on cost-of-living relief for Australians who are struggling due to persistently high inflation and rising interest rates. While Chalmers says the economy should continue to create jobs and unemployment is expected to remain historically low, inflation remains the top economic concern. Chalmers says… Read more »
Debates about AI often characterise it as a technology that has come to compete with human intelligence. Indeed, one of the most widely pronounced fears is that AI may achieve human-like intelligence and render humans obsolete in the process. However, one of the world’s top AI scientists is now describing AI as a new form… Read more »
Throughout history, war has been irrevocably changed by the advent of new technologies. Historians of war have identified several technological revolutions. The first was the invention of gunpowder by people in ancient China. It gave us muskets, rifles, machine guns and, eventually, all manner of explosive ordnance. It’s uncontroversial to claim gunpowder completely transformed how… Read more »
On November 30 2022, OpenAI launched the AI chatbot ChatGTP, making the latest generation of AI technologies widely available. In the few months since then, we have seen Italy ban ChatGTP over privacy concerns, leading technology luminaries calling for a pause on AI systems development, and even prominent researchers saying we should be prepared to… Read more »
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming ever more prevalent in our lives. It’s no longer confined to certain industries or research institutions; AI is now for everyone. It’s hard to dodge the deluge of AI content being produced, and harder yet to make sense of the many terms being thrown around. But we can’t have conversations… Read more »
This article is part of a series on big ideas for the Universities Accord. The federal government is calling for ideas to “reshape and reimagine higher education, and set it up for the next decade and beyond”. A review team is due to finish a draft report in June and a final report in December… Read more »
Australia’s first National Electric Vehicle Strategy, released today, details the government’s long-awaited plans to accelerate the adoption of these vehicles. Consultations on the strategy began last September. The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, then promised the strategy would make Australia a globally competitive market for electric vehicles. Households and businesses would have access… Read more »
Electric vehicle sales are surging. Australian sales doubled in 2022 to 3.8% of all new vehicle purchases, and were up 780% in the first two months of 2023 compared to a year ago. In the United States, Europe and China, the market share of electric vehicles is much higher, helped by greater government support. As… Read more »
Scientists recently created a meatball with the flesh of the long-extinct woolly mammoth. The meatball was the product of one of this century’s most promising technological advancements – cellular agriculture. Sometimes called “lab-grown meat,” the process involves growing animal products from animal cells in a controlled laboratory environment. The process eliminates many of the environmental,… Read more »
Sydney-based startup MilkRun made a big splash with its promise to deliver groceries within ten minutes, raising more than A$85 million from some of the biggest names in Australian venture capital, including Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes. MilkRun’s co-founder and chief executive Dany Milham had already found success with fast-delivering mattress company Koala. Less than a… Read more »
Australia has joined other countries in announcing a ban on the use of TikTok on government devices, with some states and territories following suit. The rationale was based on security fears and, in particular, the risk the platform will be used for foreign interference operations by China. TikTok is a video-sharing platform operated by ByteDance,… Read more »
Australia’s transition to renewables is gathering speed, but there’s a looming problem with storage. We will need much more long-duration storage to get us through the night, once coal and fossil gas exit the system. We also need to find new and better ways to create heat for industrial processes. Renewables can supply much of… Read more »
Last week, an Australian “cultured meat” company called Vow made headlines with a meatball made from the flesh of a woolly mammoth – or something very much like it. Combining the technologies of lab-based cell culture and “de-extinction,” Vow scientists grew muscle proteins based on DNA sequences from the long-dead proboscideans. The meatball was not… Read more »
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