Sarah Wynn-Williams
Global tech

The Zucksand Effect: Meta ensures everyone knows about a Kiwi whistleblower’s memoir, Careless People, about her time at Facebook, by trying to block her

- March 19, 2025 3 MIN READ

Social media giant Meta is attempting to lessen the impact of a tell-all memoir by its former director of global public policy Sarah Wynn-Williams, titled Careless People, which the company alleges is “defamatory”. Meta won an emergency arbitration ruling in the United States on Wednesday, where an absent Wynn-Williams was ordered to temporarily stop personally promoting… Read more »

Sally-Ann Williams
Business

REPORT: Deep tech is trying to thrive, but investors and corporates are twiddling their thumbs

- March 11, 2025 3 MIN READ

Australian deep tech inventors have given the world wifi, Google Maps, cochlear implants and the goon bag, but a new report into the state of play for the sector suggests that while there’s no shortage of ideas, that potential is being stifled by limited support from venture capital,  industry, and government. Pioneering deep tech incubator… Read more »

Sarah Hanson-Young
Business

The Greens want a ‘Big Tech Tax’ on Meta, Google, Amazon & others, claiming it will deliver $11.5 billion

- March 7, 2025 2 MIN READ

The Greens party, which received one in every eight primary votes (12.25%) at the last federal election, want a slice of the fortunes of Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, proposing a “big tech tax” as Australia gears up to head to the polls in the coming months. Greens communications spokesperson senator Sarah Hanson-Young… Read more »

Business

Call centre software veteran Local Measure doubles valuation in $100 million sale to Zendesk

- February 25, 2025 2 MIN READ

A Sydney call centre startup is being acquired by US global services platform Zendesk for a reported $100 million. The deal for Local Measure comes 14 years after it was founded by CEO Jonathan Barouch. Zendesk CEO Tom Eggemeier said the acquisition accelerates his company’s expansion into larger, more complex service environments, enhances its AI… Read more »

Accelerator

LaunchVic’s latest 30×30 unicorn program blesses 11 scaleups with $1 billion potential

- February 20, 2025 2 MIN READ

 LaunchVic, has selected 11 new scaleups to be part of the ongoing 30X30 program, which helps fast-growing get their organisational ducks in a row on the path to unicorn status – a $1 billion+ valuation – by the end of the decade. The Victorian government’s startup body developed the fully subsidised four-month program to connect… Read more »

AI/Machine Learning

Google backflipped on its policy of not using AI for weapons

- February 12, 2025 3 MIN READ

Last week, Google quietly abandoned a long-standing commitment to not use artificial intelligence (AI) technology in weapons or surveillance. In an update to its AI principles, which were first published in 2018, the tech giant removed statements promising not to pursue: technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm weapons or other technologies… Read more »

fitness tracker
After Hours

Your watch will soon know more about your health than your doctor

- February 7, 2025 4 MIN READ

Sleep tracking, oxygen saturation, fall detection, mindfulness: today’s smartwatches and fitness trackers are jacks-of-all-trades – but experts believe we’re just getting started, with new sensors and AI-driven analysis soon set to diagnose more disease than doctors do. It’s a big prediction for a device category that only hit the mainstream in 2007, when Fitbit gamified the working… Read more »

DeepSeek.
AI/Machine Learning

Chinese AI DeepSeek has big privacy and security problems – here’s what it knows about you

- February 5, 2025 3 MIN READ

The Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek has rattled the tech industry with the release of free, cheaply made AI models that compete with the best US products such as ChatGPT. Users are rushing to check out the new chatbot, sending DeepSeek’s AI Assistant to the top of the iPhone and Android app charts in… Read more »

DeepSeek
AI/Machine Learning

How Chinese AI startup DeepSeek shook the foundations of cashed-up US tech giants

- January 28, 2025 3 MIN READ

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek has sent shockwaves through the tech community, with the release of extremely efficient AI models that can compete with cutting-edge products from US companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Founded in 2023, DeepSeek has achieved its results with a fraction of the cash and computing power of its competitors.… Read more »

Submarine data cable, fibreoptic
AI/Machine Learning

Telstra is tripling its undersea cable networks because of AI demand

- January 24, 2025 3 MIN READ

Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI) has driven Telstra to upgrade its international networks, with a planned network using AI and digital twins to manage itself as the carrier chases new revenues in a stagnant telco market – and bolsters security in uncertain times. The company’s business-focused Telstra International division outlined its plans for next-generation… Read more »

AI/Machine Learning

Apple pulled its news AI after it went rogue and started making up stuff

- January 22, 2025 3 MIN READ

Apple is temporarily pausing its artificial intelligence software’s ability to summarise notifications from news and entertainment apps, after concerns were raised over inaccuracies. Apple Intelligence’s notification summaries feature was designed to “help users prioritise and stay in the moment” by using AI technology to summarise large numbers of notifications for things such as messages, emails,… Read more »

Elon Musk
Global tech

MUSK MIGHTS: X bans, rocket rides and cheaper Teslas – we asked Grok AI to predict the tech billionaire’s 2025 and here’s what it said

- January 14, 2025 6 MIN READ

Last week billionaire Elon Musk got a bit upset when an Australian journalist wrote a 2025 predictions column saying the US-based immigrant will resign as Tesla boss. “After constant controversies and distractions, it will all come to a head in 2025, and Musk will be forced to hand over the reins at Tesla, a company… Read more »

Mark Zuckerberg
Global tech

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta shift is more about monetising misinformation than free speech

- January 9, 2025 3 MIN READ

Meta has announced it will abandon its fact-checking program, starting in the United States. It was aimed at preventing the spread of online lies among more than 3 billion people who use Meta’s social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads. In a video, the company’s chief, Mark Zuckerberg, said fact checking had led to… Read more »