This week, Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, [[artnid:357077|announced the ALP’s plan|new]] to link the future health of Australians with the National Broadband Network (NBN) by using its speed and connectivity to facilitate online consultations between patients and doctors via videoconferencing.
The ongoing legal battle between iiNet and the Australia Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) is [[artnid:346727|back in the Federal court this week.|new]] AFACT [[artnid:337479|launched an appeal|new]] back in February after the judge overseeing the much-publicised copyright case, Justice Cowdroy, dismissed the case, following a five-month investigation that uncovered instances of copyright infringements by users of iiNet’s services.
The case raises the question of whether ISPs should be held accountable for the actions of its users?
In what has been pegged as an Australian first, Twitter this week played host to a political debate between NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally, Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, and Greens MP, Lee Rhiannon, ahead of the upcoming by-election in Penrith this Saturday.
Cloud computing is one of those industry terms that's being slung across meeting rooms, discussed in forums and talked about by big industry players. Over the last few weeks, we've been told that cloud computing is going to change the channel ecosystem, that Microsoft is building infrastructure and software around it and that doctors will soon be using it to get to patients.
The Australian government has been paying a lot of attention to biometrics lately. Earlier this year, the government put $69 million into a new biometric visa system that would screen visitors via their fingerprints. Even now, the NSW police use mobile fingerprint scanners to verify criminal identities, which allows police to cross-check with recorded fingerprints in a database. Biometric data is already being used by several countries to prevent identity fraud.