Tech Stream
Archive for the ‘ Politics’ Category
Tech Stream 043
12 March 2010
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A new type of solar module promising greater efficiency and reduced costs. Image from Technique Solar.
This week in the Tech Stream, the latest on the National Broadband Network in Australia. We’ll find out why there is opposition to the government’s plan to split Telstra, which it argues is essential to creating a more level playing field. A new undersea internet cable is being built to link New Zealand and the US, but could it also connect countries in the Pacific along the way?
We’ll shine a light on new solar panels, developed in Australia, that promise to be more efficient and cheaper to produce than current technology. And an update on the Mariposa botnet and calls for computer manufacturers to be held responsible for selling products vulnerable to attacks from cyber criminals. Finally Bajo joins us with a review of the multiplayer-focused war-game Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Full details after the jump, or follow the MP3 link above to hear the program.
More technology news from the week
12 February 2010
There was plenty of technology news this week which we ran out of time to cover in the radio program. There was the story about the Queensland gamer who will have to pay Nintendo AU$1.5million in damages (negotiated in an out of court settlement) after illegally copying one of its games and uploading it to the internet. More in this article from ABC News and this story from ABC Radio’s PM program: Nintendo fan pays dearly for illegal sharing. It got plenty of coverage outside Australia too with some people wondering whether the punishment fitted the crime.
You may have heard us chatting on RA Today this morning about the latest social networking tool from Google which they are incorporating into their Gmail system. It’s called Buzz and it’s created some quite negative buzz online, with concerns that it violates user’s privacy. More details on the service in plenty of articles online, like this one from CNET. ZDNET Asia reports that Google announced some changes to it on Thursday which will make it easier to hide their details from public view.
And government websites in Australia came under attack this week from internet protest group Anonymous. Their assault, dubbed comically “Operation Titstorm”, featured a co-ordinated DDoS attack on the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s homepage. The parliamentary website was also crippled for over an hour. Anonymous are angry at the federal government’s plan to introduce a mandatory internet filter this year which would block access to sites, like those containing certain types of pornography or illegal activities, that are deemed to have been “refused-classification” in Australia. Hungry Beast covered this in a program segment on ABC TV this week: How To Wage Titstorm and more details on this story are here on ABC News Online.
At almost the same time Stephen Conroy, the minister responsible for implementing the ISP level filter, was having meetings with Google to ask them to censor content on You Tube. The SMH reported that Google said that it “had a bias in favour of freedom of expression in everything it did” and that “YouTube has clear policies about what content is not allowed, for example hate speech and pornography, and we enforce these, but we can’t give any assurances that we would voluntarily remove all Refused Classification content from YouTube”. Senator Conroy defended making the request, saying “in Australia, these are our laws and we’d like you to apply our laws”. Needless to say this story made headlines across the world.
For more technology news remember to follow our Tech Stream twitter feed. And let us know about any stories you find that might be of interest to cover here or in the radio program. You can email me at techstream (at) radioaustralia.net.au
Tech Stream 036
22 January 2010
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Flowers lay on a sign at the entrance to Google’s China headquarters in Beijing’s university district. Photo by Josh Chin from Flickr.
We’ll be looking forward, on this the first Tech Stream radio program of 2010, at the gadgets, technology trends and ideas set to dominate over the next twelve months. We also wrap up some of the news around Google rethinking its strategy in China, which may involve it pulling out of the country altogether, and find out why governments in Europe are advising their citizens to abandon Microsoft’s popular web browser. Follow the MP3 link above to hear the program or continue on for more…
Tech Stream 035 – Year in Review
18 December 2009
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What an incredible year to start covering technology news. I’ve heard 2009 described as being the “year of the internet”. And I’d have to agree. I spent a couple of weeks in the Solomon Islands and Japan where I lost access to the internet on my mobile and it really hit home just how important and valuable this connectivity was to me. So it’s no surprise that I’ve often been drawn to stories this year that related to how we connect with each other via the web. Sometimes this related to new mobile or PC technology. At other times it related to the underlying backbone of the network.
So in the Pacific we had more solid news about new undersea cables that could see the cost of internet access drop as speeds increase. The infrastructure isn’t yet in place though, and its still a struggle to access the kind of internet experience that most people in Australia, for example, now take for granted.
Domestically, here in Australia, we had two major announcements from the federal government – the splitting up of the country’s largest telecommunications provider, Telstra, as part of their National Broadband Network (NBN). And the government’s decision, the details of which became clearer this week, to filter banned content on the internet at an ISP level. Both of these stories are covered in the beginning of our special Year In Review program which you can listen to via the MP3 link above. Or continue reading on for more information.
Tech Stream 032
25 September 2009
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The Screen Worlds exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, ACMI. You can see the giant, white Lara Croft mentioned in this week’s program.
In the Tech Stream this week we’re looking at the use of social media and internet communications technology to connect virtual and physical spaces: from art galleries to government forums. We’ll also meet Yiying Lu, creator of the iconic Twitter “Fail Whale”, whose first solo exhibition also includes augmented reality technology. And come for a guided tour of a new exhibit at ACMI, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, which has videogames as a major focus. Download or stream the program via the MP3 link above or find out more after the jump.
Tech Stream 031
18 September 2009
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Photo from Flickr by Martin Hopkins.
The splitting of Telstra, 3D technology in the loungeroom and does the iPhone stack up as gaming platform? It’s in the Tech Stream, program #31. Full details after the jump or get stuck straight in with the MP3 link above.
Tech Stream 029
4 September 2009
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Photo from Flickr by John Johnston.
In the Tech Stream this week we ask whether internet addiction is a clinical disorder; the lowdown on Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 from Blizzard’s annual conference; how new undersea cable networks in the Pacific could deliver high-speed, affordable broadband internet to the region; and look at how the goings on in Australian parliament are being documented and shared in a way that enhances our experience of democracy. Jump straight into the program with the MP3 link above or read on for more details.
Open Australia
4 September 2009
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Australia’s House of Representatives in Parliament House, Canberra. Photo from Flickr by Hengest.
A new website, run by volunteers, has been setup in Australia to help ordinary people find out what their elected representatives in federal parliament are up to. But it aims to do this in an easy way, by being able to do things like search by keywords, setup email alerts for particular subjects, or just grab the data wholesale and use it yourself.
openaustralia.org was launched in 2008 and I spoke about the project with Matthew Landaeur, one of the founders of OpenAustralia and also their lead developer. Follow the MP3 link at the top of this story to hear the interview.
There’s also another great text interview with Matthew at Web Directions South and I attended a recent Public Sphere event which looked at ICT & Creative Industry development. A wrap up of that event, including all the virtual participation, is on the website of Australian Senator Kate Lundy.
Virtual Concerns in China and Australia
3 July 2009
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Inhabitants of Second Life, spending time on ABC Island. Image from Flickr by Gary Hayes.
We were augmenting our realities last week, adding layers of virtual information and computer generated objects to the real world around us. But this week we’re digging deeper on a couple of stories involving online virtual worlds – places like Second Life – and games like World of Warcraft.
It seemed that Australia’s proposed ISP-level internet filtering regime could impact upon “unclassified” virtual spaces and internet games. And some new laws were introduced in China this week aimed at stopping the flow of virtual money into the real world economy. Initial reports suggested that it might effect the practice of gold-farming in games like WoW, but it seems that’s not quite the case.
For more on both of these issues I spoke with David Holloway, editor of Metaverse Journal, a virtual worlds news site. He kicked off with his thoughts on China’s new policy toward virtual currency and you can hear our entire conversation from the MP3 link at the top of this story. There’s also more after the jump…
Tech Stream 018
19 June 2009
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PNG school children in Gaire, outside Port Moresby, trying out their new OLPC laptops in June last year. Photo from Flickr.
In the Tech Stream this week: Twitter connects the world to the post-election protests in Iran; the latest mobiles on display at CommunicAsia in Singapore; online vigilantes shutdown racism on Facebook; ICANN’s Dr Paul Twomey on the future of internet domain names; the One-Laptop-Per-Child scheme expands in the Pacific; and Bajo from Good Game joins us to chat about Infamous, the latest ‘open-world’ video game. Listen with the MP3 link above, full details after the jump…