I love writing code to make things: apps, websites, charts, even music. It’s a skill I’ve worked hard at for more than 20 years. So I must confess last week’s news about the release of a new “AI assistant” coding helper called GitHub Copilot gave me complicated feelings. Copilot, which spits out code to order… Read more »
The dream that decentralised finance – or “DeFi” – can free the monetary system from the clutches of governments and banks has helped launch 20,000 cryptocurrencies. But with 2022 proving to be more of a crypto-nightmare – including for the vaunted “stablecoins” that held the most promise as rivals to central bank-issued currencies – questions… Read more »
Uber Australia has struck a historic agreement with the Transport Workers’ Union – a statement of principles that re-regulate work in the Australian rideshare and food delivery industry. This is a major shift to industrial relations in the gig economy. Uber and its rival platforms have largely treated their workforce as independent contractors, not employees… Read more »
Census data to be released Tuesday shows Australia changing rapidly before COVID, gaining an extra one million residents from overseas in the past five years, almost all of them in the three years before borders were closed. For the first time since the question has been asked in the census, more than half of Australia’s… Read more »
Recent outrage surrounding a young children’s toy “vlogger” set echoes moral panics of the past, particularly when words such as children, play and digital come together. Aldi recently released a new range of wooden toys, including the Vlogger set for children aged 3 and older. This set has sparked discussion on Twitter, including criticism. Spotted… Read more »
What if your insurer was tracking your online data to price your car insurance? Seems far-fetched, right? Yet there is predictive value in the digital traces we leave online. And insurers may use data collection and analytics tools to find our data and use it to price insurance services. For instance, some studies have found… Read more »
Google’s LaMDA software (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) is a sophisticated AI chatbot that produces text in response to user input. According to software engineer Blake Lemoine, LaMDA has achieved a long-held dream of AI developers: it has become sentient. Lemoine’s bosses at Google disagree, and have suspended him from work after he published his… Read more »
Over the next month, NASA will launch three rockets from the Arnhem Space Centre in the Northern Territory on the Dhupuma Plateau, near Nhulunbuy. The rockets are 13 metre “sounding” rockets that will not reach orbit but will take scientific observations. The launches represent a number of firsts for the Australian space industry. They also… Read more »
If you spend any time among the cryptocurrency community you’ll come across the mantra “HODL”. Originally a typo for “hold” on a Bitcoin forum, it has become all-purpose advice to anyone looking at the day’s price fluctuations and thinking of selling their assets. To HODL is to trust the process and keep your eyes on… Read more »
Last week, Australia’s new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced his government’s first full ministry, with Victorian member Clare O’Neil appointed Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Cyber Security. It’s the first time cyber security has had its own portfolio in the Australian cabinet. Former Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews was in charge of… Read more »
When a new coronavirus emerged from nature in 2019, it changed the world. But COVID-19 won’t be the last disease to jump across from the shrinking wild. A few weeks ago, it was announced that Australia, is no longer an onlooker, as Canada, the US and European countries scramble to contain monkeypox, a less dangerous… Read more »
Women online suffer a disproportionate amount of harm and abuse, but it isn’t all based on their gender. This “cyber violence” is also shaped by a range of other intersecting factors such as race, religion, class, caste and disability. Our ongoing research involves collecting case studies from both India and Australia to understand how various… Read more »
It was the veritable search for a needle in a haystack. With drug-resistant bacteria on the rise, researchers at MIT were sifting through a database of more than 100 million molecules to identify a few that might have antibacterial properties. Fortunately, the search proved successful. But it wasn’t a human who found the promising molecules.… Read more »
Billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has won a major battle against Australia’s biggest energy company, AGL Energy, thwarting its plan to split up the company’s coal-heavy generation and power distribution assets. AGL’s board announced it was dumping its demerger proposal this morning. Heads have rolled too. Chief executive Graeme Hunt, chairman Peter Botten and non-executive director Jacqueline… Read more »
Mastercard’s “smile to pay” system, announced last week, is supposed to save time for customers at checkouts. It is being trialled in Brazil, with future pilots planned for the Middle East and Asia. The company argues touch-less technology will help speed up transaction times, shorten lines in shops, heighten security and improve hygiene in businesses.… Read more »
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