More than two million people had downloaded the federal government’s COVIDSafe app in the 24 hours after its release on Sunday night. The government is hoping at least 40% of the population will make use of the app, designed to help reduce the spread of the coronavirus disease. Previously dubbed TraceTogether – in line with… Read more »
As governments look to ease general social-distancing measures and instead use more targeted strategies to stop coronavirus transmission, we face a social dilemma about the limits of cooperative behaviour. Consider the controversy over contact-tracing phone apps, which can help authorities identify people with whom someone diagnosed with COVID-19 has recently come into close contact. Oxford… Read more »
Digital platforms such as Google and Facebook will be forced to compensate news media companies for using their content, under a new mandatory code to be drawn up by Australia’s competition watchdog. The announcement, made by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg today, follows last year’s landmark report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which found… Read more »
The federal government has announced plans to introduce a contact tracing mobile app to help curb COVID-19’s spread in Australia. Read more: Explainer: what is contact tracing and how does it help limit the coronavirus spread? However, rather than collecting location data directly from mobile operators, the proposed TraceTogether app will use Bluetooth technology to… Read more »
Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult at the best of times. But it can be even harder when you’re anxious or have something on your mind – a global pandemic, for example. Right now though, getting a good night’s sleep could be more important than ever. Sleep is essential for maintaining our… Read more »
The A$130 billion $1,500-per-fortnight JobKeeper payment will benefit six million Australians for six months, with payments expected from May 1. Eligible businesses include not-for-profits and businesses with turnovers of less than $1 billion per year whose turnover is down 30%. Businesses with turnovers of more than $1 billion per year need to have lost 50%… Read more »
With #StayAtHome and social distancing now becoming a way of life, an increasing number of people are relying on the internet for work, education and entertainment. This has placed greater demand on our network infrastructure, reducing the bandwidth available for each user, and is leaving people frustrated at seemingly slow internet speeds. While internet service… Read more »
Borders, beaches, pubs and churches are closed, large events are cancelled, and travellers are subject to 14 days’ isolation – all at significant cost to taxpayers and the economy. But could telecommunications technology offer a more targeted approach to controlling the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus? One possibility is to use location history data… Read more »
Editor’s note: This article is based on the coronavirus and COVID-19 situation as of March 23. It’s important to remember that the situation is rapidly developing and official advice may change. If the flurry of new orders released in the last 24 hours has you feeling confused about what’s OK and what’s not when it… Read more »
Editor’s note: Here are some of the top coronavirus and COVID-19 claims our readers said they’d like to see tested against the research evidence. We asked these public health and infectious disease experts to explain. 1. Is herd immunity a good strategy? Herd immunity is not part of the Australian strategy for controlling the outbreak.… Read more »
As the COVID-19 outbreak intensifies, we’re seeing mass isolation in virus epicentres, with about 500 million people in China “under varying degrees of quarantine”, and all of Italy in lockdown. In Australia, self-isolation is being advised for those who have been in close contact with a confirmed coronavirus case, or have travelled from a country… Read more »
Working from home is already so common it has its own acronym, and it’s about to get even more common still. Companies like Apple, Amazon and Microsoft are now advising employees to “WFH” to avoid exposure to the novel coronavirus. But working from home can be a real challenge for employees who find themselves doing… Read more »
Australian police agencies are reportedly using a private, unaccountable facial recognition service that combines machine learning and wide-ranging data-gathering practices to identify members of the public from online photographs. The service, Clearview AI, is like a reverse image search for faces. You upload an image of someone’s face and Clearview searches its database to find… Read more »
Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO and the richest man alive, recently made headlines after pledging to donate $10 billion to a new “Bezos Earth Fund” to help combat climate change. It’s one of the largest charitable gifts in history. Though details regarding the exact kind of work that will be funded are scarce, Bezos noted in… Read more »
You’d thinking flying in a plane would be more dangerous than driving a car. In reality it’s much safer, partly because the aviation industry is heavily regulated. Airlines must stick to strict standards for safety, testing, training, policies and procedures, auditing and oversight. And when things do go wrong, we investigate and attempt to rectify… Read more »
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.
