Archived News for IT Professionals - May, 2012

The Federal Budget has provided $467.1 million over seven years (including $41.2 million in 2016-17 and $40.9 million in 2017-18) to implement the SuperStream reforms that are part of the package of Stronger Super reforms.

The National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co) has announced the town of Bourke, in far north-west NSW, will host a new facility to help deliver high speed broadband to remote communities across the country.

The Federal Budget has cut funding to the Digital Education Revolution (DER) project pool in 2011‑12 to to provide savings of $24.4 million.

The Federal Government has announced that a further 11 councils are now eligible to apply for funding under the Australian Government’s Digital Local Government Program, aimed at assisting local governments make the most of the rollout of the National Broadband Network.

Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Stephen Conroy has hit out at Federal Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull, describing him as “either lazy, financially illiterate or both.”

Australian research has shown that computers can be used to identify cancer treatment targets that wouldn't otherwise have been considered.

Professor Mark Ragan from The University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), who led the research team, says they found that computational methods could be used to untangle the intricacies of cancer biology.

“Cancer is not a disease caused by single genes. Rather, it is changes to the underlying gene regulatory networks that prompt tumours to grow and spread,” he said.

“Understanding gene regulatory networks in healthy and diseased tissues is therefore critical to devising effective cancer treatments.

“These networks involve vast numbers of interactions between different molecules, making conventional experimental approaches, which are focused on individual genes, too time-consuming,” he said.

The findings came from the team's analysis of different computational methods of studying gene regulatory networks.

By contrast, computational methods can examine complex networks of interacting molecules across entire systems. The challenge for researchers is determining the accuracy of such methods.

The IMB team undertook a thorough analysis of nine different computational methods that represented a variety of approaches. They then took the method judged most effective and applied it to real ovarian cancer data.

“Our evaluation demonstrated that it's possible in some cases to use computational methods to gain insights into cancer biology.

“These methods can pinpoint targets that wouldn't otherwise have been considered, which can then be validated with laboratory experiments.”

The findings are published in the current edition of the scientific journal Genome Medicine, where it has been nominated as part of the thematic series Cancer bioinformatics: bioinformatic methods, network biomarkers and precision medicine.

FYX, a new New Zealand ISP, has launched its first internet services in the country, promising to negate geo-location blocking on US services such as Netflix.

The Federal Government has released the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) Review report, finding that more must be done to bring the telecommunications industry into line with the TIO scheme.

The National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co) has announced it has selected Primus to test new software designed to make it easier for telecommunications or ISPs to offer traditional analogue telephone services to consumers over a fibre network.

The University of Ballarat’s Technology Park, established in 1995 as an information and communications technology (ICT) hub, is set for $155 million expansion, following rezoning of the land by the Victorian Planning Minister, Matthew Guy.

Australasian data centre company, Harbour MSP, is set to commence operations from its Melbourne data centre, creating 20 new technology jobs in Victoria over the next four years.

IP Australia has launched its online service, eServices, which provides a secure electronic business portal to register, login and conduct selected transactions.

In the first release of eServices customers can renew all IP rights and submit trade mark registrations electronically, and pay for them online using VISA or MasterCard. You can also access new features such as the option to save your requests, access your eServices transaction history and update your details.

The services and transactions within eServices have built-in checks and pre-populated fields to save time and help ensure the accuracy of the information.

Over the coming months IP Australia will be adding more transactions and services to the portal to make it a one-stop-shop to help in the management of IP assets.

New disability support workers in southern Tasmania recently benefited from a virtual induction training session delivered from the other end of the State, through the Skills Institute’s new Mobile Training Centre (MTC), connected to the National Broadband Network.

Australian Greens spokesperson for communications Senator Scott Ludlam warned against further extending the loosely defined and already over-reaching online surveillance powers of Australia's intelligence agencies.

The CSIRO team behind one of the biggest developments in recent wireless local area networking technology has been named a finalist in the prestigious European Inventor Award 2012.

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy is aware of satellite phone carriers promoting zero up-front payment schemes for satellite phones in Australia.

Optus announced the signing of a binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) and Vodafone Network. Optus customers will receive wider coverage through access to nearly 1,000 additional mobile sites strengthening Optus’ 3G and 4G services across Australia.

Optus has announced a major restructure of its business with an aim to drive greater efficiencies in its dealing with customers.

Parramatta's smart card – ParraSync – has fought off heavyweight competition from the Commonwealth Bank and Google to win a major award at the Smart Card Awards Asia in Singapore.

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has signed an agreement with the world's number one business software company, SAP, to deliver certified training courses for its products.