Category: Business & Technology
You can say goodbye to hard drives
IT’S long been rumoured, but Google finally confirmed the existence of Google Drive, its free online storage service that could render hard-drives obsolete. Google Drive, which allows users to “drag and drop” videos, photos, PDFs and files straight from their computers instead of storing them on their own hard drives, will roll out globally “over [...]
What lies in the future for ‘entitlement’
SHADOW treasurer Joe Hockey has condemned systems of ”universal entitlement” in Western democracies, contrasting this attitude with the concept of ”filial piety” thriving across Asia where people get what they work for and families look after their own. Speaking in London, Mr Hockey said that by Western standards the highly constrained public safety net in [...]
Amazon looking for Aussie warehouses
EVEN online retailers need somewhere to store their goods and worryingly for local retailers, the worlds largest online retailer is on the prowl for massive warehouses in Australia. Amazon, the biggest online bookstore is looking to Australia as a base for its worldwide distribution network, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Local bricks and mortar retailers [...]
Cranky customers lodge 11,000 complaints
A WEBSITE hoping to be the home of the angry and perturbed has gone live to 11,000 complaints in one week. uVent.com.au is a consumer complaint platform that lets people have a whinge about everything – from their mobile bill to their McCafe coffee, and the comment won’t be deleted until the business replies and [...]
Broker’s alleged fraud paid off debt
A MORTGAGE broker who allegedly fleeced $1.2 million from seven clients spent the money paying off debts, credit cards, school fees and even his partner’s tax bill, a Perth court has heard. Mark Booty, 41, appeared in the District Court today charged with eight counts of fraud and eight alternative counts of stealing in relation [...]
‘You are your cash card’: Bank using palm-scanner
Last year thousands of earthquake victims in Japan fled their homes without their cash cards, leaving some in a predicament. Luckily, one bank has the answer – ATMs that use a palm-scanner to issue money. Ogaki Kyoristu Bank said the new machines will be installed at 10 banks and a drive-through ATM this September. In [...]
Samsung beats Nokia as king of mobiles
Samsung Electronics has ended Nokia’s 14-year leadership of the global mobile phone market in the first quarter of the year, outselling the struggling Finnish handset maker for the first time ever, according to a Reuters poll of analysts. The poll showed analysts on average expect Samsung to have sold 88 million mobile phones in January [...]
IPads and smart phones will make NBN out of date
THE rise of mobile internet through smart phones and tablets threatens to make the national broadband network a waste of money, a prominent social analyst says. Speaking in Adelaide about the latest Australia SCAN social trend survey, Quantum Market Research’s David Chalke said NBN Co was “missing the boat”. “Everything is going to be wireless [...]
Microsoft announces end date for XP
Microsoft is counting down the days until it is through with the Windows XP operating system for personal computers. The US software titan used a blog post to remind the world that in two years it will no longer support the generations-old operating system that people have clung to despite the releases of successors Vista [...]
Pensioners who saved for years see income slashed
Tens of thousands of retired savers already drawing a pension will suffer a crippling drop in income over the next 12 months, Money Mail can reveal. A change in government rules, volatile stock markets and rock-bottom pension payouts have combined to devastate the incomes of those with a type of pension popular with middle-class savers. [...]
Thousands of Mac computers ‘infected by trojan
More than half a million Apple computers have been infected with the Flashback Trojan, according to a Russian anti-virus firm. Its report claims that about 600,000 Macs have installed the malware – potentially allowing them to be hijacked and used as a “botnet”. The firm, Dr Web, says that more than half that number are [...]
Australian dollar may drop below parity
THOSE overseas holidays and bargain internet purchases may be about to get more expensive as the Australian dollar slides back towards parity with its US counterpart. The Australian dollar has been the currency market equivalent of the Little Engine That Could in recent times, spending most of the past year comfortably above the 100 US [...]
We’ll be richer if our last cheque bounces
The 19th-century American steel baron Andrew Carnegie said: ”The man who dies rich dies disgraced.” It might become a fitting epitaph for Simon Mordant, the Sydney financier and leading philanthropist who plans to take none of his fortune with him. Mr Mordant is rich. He is a multi-millionaire. But he does not plan to die [...]
Worldwide users face web blackout
Ten thousand Australian internet users are among four million worldwide who face a total internet blackout from July 9 thanks to a malicious piece of software that infected their computers without their knowledge. That is the warning to Australian internet users from the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which today issued a statement appealing to [...]
Boxing Day trading open to all NSW shops
ALL retailers in NSW will be allowed to open on Boxing Day under new trading laws. While the major department stores and some supermarkets traditionally open their doors on December 26, smaller shops are presently required to close on this day. But Finance Minister Greg Pearce will today announce plans to allow all retailers to [...]
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