Australian Technology News

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has defended Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's role in helping a Labor powerbroker land a plum job with the national broadband network.

It surfaced yesterday in Estimates that Communications Minister Stephen Conroy had referred former Queensland Labor MP Mike Kaiser for the government relations role with NBN Co — the company that will build and operate the $43 billion network.

The position was never advertised and Kaiser, who was Queensland Premier Anna Bligh's chief of staff, was the only applicant interviewed for the $450,000-a-year job. Conroy had been the only person to refer him to the company.

In 2001, Kaiser was forced to quit the Queensland Parliament in disgrace after it emerged he had been involved in electoral rorting.

However, Rudd was satisfied the appointment was fair. "Both myself and the government have full confidence in NBN Co and full confidence in the minister," Rudd said.

"It was [NBN Co's] independent decision and as I understand it they undertook three sets of interviews before reaching that decision."

But the opposition's legal affairs spokesman, George Brandis, said Mr Kaiser, who was a close, personal friend of the minister and had no previous corporate experience, was appointed through a corrupted process.

"I'm accusing him [Senator Conroy] of interfering in the process to secure this job for one of his mates," Senator Brandis said.

"The manner in which this was done is plainly, plainly a corrupted process."

Rudd said his office had been aware of Kaiser's imminent appointment but that he had no personal knowledge prior to its public announcement.

"My office were apprised by NBN Co and/or the minister's office, I can't recall which, between the decision being taken by NBN Co and the public announcement," he said.

"This was an independent decision by NBN Co."

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Optus director of government and corporate affairs Maha Krishnapillai said today that although it planned to work with other internet service providers and the government on preventing internet piracy, it did not believe in sending alleged infringement notices to users.

Speaking on a conference call discussing Optus' third quarter financial results, Krishnapillai said the company would not "go telling our customers directly what they can and can't run across our network".

Meanwhile, competing internet service provider Exetel has said it will inform its users when it has received alleged infringement notices pertaining to their accounts.

Krishnapillai did, however, say that Optus was "quite happy" to work with the government on preventing piracy.

"We'd also like to work with other content providers, because ultimately getting that content availability to all customers easily and in the right format is probably the ultimate goal of ourselves as well as the content providers," he said. "So we're keen to work with the government but we're very much of the view that there is quite a long way to go and we want to make that as cooperative as possible."

Krishnapillai's comments follow Federal Court Judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy's decision that internet service providers are not responsible for piracy that occurs over their network. The day after the case, the minister for Communications said he wanted the film and internet industries to develop a code of conduct.

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IT'S game over for one man who illegally copied and shared Nintendo's title online.

Supermarket chain Woolworths has asked for more time to respond to intellectual property administrator IP Australia over a trademark dispute lodged by Apple last year concerning its logo.

Woolworths lodged the new trademark in August 2008: the letter W, formed in the shape of a peeled apple with a leaf on top. Although IP Australia made public in December that it had accepted Woolworths' application for the trademark (for the supermarket to be able to keep it), the application for the logo still needed to withstand any opposition it might encounter.

Unfortunately for Woolworths, Apple didn't like the similarity of the revamped brand to its own carefully guarded stamp and filed opposition to the registration, which also covered product categories such as computers, in March.

Since then, Apple has filed the evidence in support of its opposition to the trademark application. Woolworths now has to respond to that evidence. The supermarket had been due to file a response on 27 January, but on that date, the company's trademark attorney, Spurson and Ferguson Fang, lodged an extension which would give it an additional three months to do so.

Even though Woolworths had asked for an extension of time, it may, in a few months time, ask for a further extension, a spokesperson for IP Australia told ZDNet.com.au. Once evidence is submitted, Apple will then need to supply its evidence in reply.

"Evidence in reply [from Apple] was due approximately six months after Woolworths lodges their reply to Apple's claims. That time may also be extended by Apple," the spokesperson said.

Once all material had been received, IP Australia would ask the parties if they wanted a hearing to be held, or whether they were happy for the administrator to make a decision based on the information it had.

"We'll ask the parties if they want to be heard, and set a hearing date," the spokesperson said. "Each party may present some legal argument or otherwise go through the evidence they have submitted and clarify."

A decision would then be made by IP Australia's trademark office once these processes had been completed.

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Politicians have complained about an overly zealous web filter installed in Canberra's Parliament House, with one Liberal senator saying its glitches didn't bode well for the planned mandatory internet service provider level filtering.

Liberal Senator Scott Ryan told a Senate Estimates Committee yesterday that the parliamentary web filter had blocked some "odd things" over the past few months, including News Ltd's commentary website The Punch in February.

"You may know that for those of us who live in Melbourne, it is relatively common that our trains do not seem to work in late January, once it gets over 32 degrees," he added. "At that time the filter was blocking the train timetable website," he said.

Ryan added the rogue filter had also blocked a travel website, an article about Apple's new iPad tablet device, and another "commonly used website across Melbourne".

Ryan said he had started a folder of "printouts" when a website had been blocked, adding the problem "does not fill us with a great deal of faith in a proposed national internet filter".

Department of Parliamentary Services deputy secretary David Kenny told Ryan the filter had been replaced in 2009 and that it blocked a list of sites. If members of parliament had complaints, he said, they should contact parliamentary official the Usher of the Black Rod as a first step.

"Getting individual sites unblocked is a particularly laborious process. If you need to use a website, you often do not have time to do that," Ryan said. "How do you oversee what this thing is picking up?"

Kenny said he was "not suggesting" that The Punch should or shouldn't be on the list. "I have not heard, prior to your comments just now, anybody having concerns," he said, but noted the department would look into the issue.

The Federal Government is planning to introduce legislation regarding its controversial internet filtering scheme in late February or early March. The legislation will introduce mandatory filtering of the internet for Australians at the internet service provider level, with the aim of screening out objectionable content that has been refused classification on our shores.

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in brief The telecommunications industry ombudsman (TIO) confirmed that its website was infected by malware yesterday, forcing the organisation to take the site offline.

The ombudsman's office found out about the problem when it was sent a notification by Google informing it of the infection.

"We thought it was only a limited intrusion. On examination, it turned out to be more involved," TIO spokesperson John Dubois told ZDNet.com.au. To protect users, the office decided to take the site down yesterday morning, bringing it back in the afternoon when the malware had been identified and removed.

The TIO was still investigating what kind of malware had infected the site. The organisation would take further security measures to stop future occurrences, Dubois said. However, he would not say whether the office had hired external security providers to help with the problem.

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in brief Canberra-based telco TransACT opened a third datacentre in the nation's capital last week.

The 1000-square-metre facility will have connectivity to all major carriers such as Telstra, TransACT, Optus, AAPT, Nextgen and the ICON network.

"This significant increase to TransACT's datacentre hosting capacity ensures customers get the best of both worlds when they choose to host their critical business systems with TransACT, as well as bundling hosting with our high-speed IP network," said TransACT chief Ivan Slavich in a statement released yesterday.

The telco's first datacentre has been operational since 2001 and the second since 2005.

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Microsoft has already nabbed its first Australian customers for its multi-touch tabletop system "Surface", with Western Australia's Curtin University of Technology and ANZ Bank flagging plans to deploy the hardware.

The platform is a computer screen as large as a small table that acts as a touchscreen that users can interact with. It was first announced in May 2007 and has been available internationally for some time, but has only officially gone on sale in Australia today.

Curtin chief information officer Peter Nikoletatos said in a Microsoft statement that the platform would foster new collaboration opportunities and provide "an engaging educational tool", although he did not reveal exactly how the university would use the technology.

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group general manager of innovation and former chief information officer, Peter Dalton, said the bank would use experience gained from using Surface to work out how it could use touch and surface-based technologies to make managing money simpler and more exciting. The bank had already showed off two Surface units at the Australian Open tennis in Melbourne last month.

Four Australian partners have signed up build applications and solutions on top of Surface. They are local digital marketing agency Amnesia Razorfish, IT services outfit Object Consulting, software firm nsquared and digital product design agency Automatic Studio.

Microsoft Australia managing director Tracey Fellows said the software giant had received "strong interest" from Australian organisations in Surface, including from developers that wanted to create applications "not possible with other technologies".

At the launch, Microsoft said a retail Surface unit would sell for AU$21,000, (compared to US$12,500 in the United States), with the developer unit selling for A$24,000 (which goes for US$15,000 in the US).

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LOCAL game developers have had a hand in one of the most eagerly- awaited game releases of the year.

SA Transport Minister Patrick Conlon said that the state had awarded a $30 million contract to IT services company Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) to implement an electronic ticketing system for the state by 2013.

"Our current ticketing system has been in place for nearly 24 years — it has served us well but it is time to replace it as we continue our massive public transport revitalisation," Conlon said in a release. "We expect to see the new smart card ticketing system in operation by 2013 in time for the commencement of electric rail services in Adelaide."

ACS, a subsidiary of the Xerox corporation, would be responsible for the manufacturing, testing, installation, technical support and maintenance of the ticketing and fare collecting system, which it has called ATLAS.

The company has already supplied Adelaide with its existing Crouzet ticketing system.

"We are taking advantage of proven technology, with this system and equipment already in operation in cities overseas such as Montreal, Houston and Toulouse," the transport minister said. "Adelaide also has the advantage of an existing integrated fare and ticketing system supported by the smart card system."

Adelaide will be following Melbourne, Canberra, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney in adopting an e-ticketing system for its public transport.

However, Sydney's push to introduce a ticketing system has encountered issues, with the cancellation of the signed contract with vendor ITSL and the start of a new tendering process in the works.

Melbourne has just rolled out its ticketing system on trains, but has yet to implement the system on buses or trams. Perth and Brisbane have working systems.

Current Adelaide public transport tickets will remain valid after the introduction of the new system.

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