Australian Technology News

Australian software maker TechnologyOne has been selected to replace student management systems for Victorian TAFEs as part of a $67 million systems overhaul package announced by the Victorian Government today.

The system will be accessed by 300,000 students and staff and is expected to be rolled out in 2012.

"Students will be able to track their progress and results with a click of a mouse," Victorian Minister for Skills and Workforce Participation Bronwyn Pike said today in a statement. "This new system will allow Victoria's TAFEs to meet the needs of 21st century students."

Pike announced a $67 million package to complete the systems overhaul, which will be offered to 13 TAFE institutes out of 18 across the state. TechnologyOne will not receive the full amount, with some funds to be used internally to develop the new system.

The work is believed to have been contended for by Oracle's PeopleSoft, US vendor, Banner, and local education software maker, Callista.

TechnologyOne had been selected earlier this year, and had recently finalised contracts with the TAFEs and the Victorian Government.

The system will support enrolments, assessments, completions, funding and reporting, staffing requirements, courses and financial data.

"We have people now working on site," Di Marco told ZDNet.com.au. "We're looking at a three- to four-year program, depending on resource levels."

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Logica has released its results for the year to 31 December 2009, and has pointed to Australia as the pearl in its international crown.

Although the company does not break out revenue numbers by country, and Australia is counted as part of a "rest of the world" sector, the report pointed to Australia as being the "strongest performer" in its international business.

Logica CEO Asia Pacific, Colin Holgate, told ZDNet.com.au that Australia had been a "standout" country. "[Australia] posted real growth on all lines," he said, referring to orders, revenues and profit.

Holgate was CEO of Australia until recently, when his influence was expanded to include all of Asia Pacific as well as Australia.

He said that smart metering was key to the growth, as well as government wins such as managing the CrimTrac's IT infrastructure.

Holgate attributed Australia's success partly to the industries it focuses on: utilities, government and transport.

"We have virtually no exposure to the financial services industry," he said, something Holgate doesn't see changing in the immediate future. "We are, at this point in time, not actively going after the financial services sector in Australia," he said, although the company was constantly evaluating possibilities.

Another reason for the local operation's notable performance, according to Holgate, is that most of the company's revenues came from long-term arrangements such as outsourcing.

The company has grown its headcount in Australia he said, although he declined to say how many employees he had taken on. Internationally, the company reduced its employee numbers last year.

Overall, Logica's revenues rose by 3 per cent to £3702 million when looking at the actual amounts, although on a constant currency basis, the company reported a loss of the same value.

The "rest of the world" sector in which Australia operates rose from £199 million pounds in the 2008 financial year to £210 million in 2009.

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The fledgling Pirate Party has attacked the opt-out amendment being proposed by Labor Senator Kate Lundy to the government's filtering legislation as "censorship lite", saying it was a "hollow response" to the community's concerns about the project.

The news comes as the party stated that it was only 100 memberships away from being able to formally register as a party with the Australian Electoral Commission.

"Opt-out may seem marginally more palatable than the current proposals; however, in some respects it is actually worse — it is totally unacceptable because it breaches the fundamental right to privacy," said Pirate Party Australia secretary Rodney Serkowski in a statement issued late yesterday.

Serkowski said the net effect of Lundy's proposal would be that individuals seeking the "open internet" option she is putting forward would have to request permission from a stranger to have the choice to view content that may not be to everyone's taste, but is not in any way illegal for an adult in Australia to view.

Pirate Party president David Crafti said effectively, requests for censored material could be linked directly to individuals under Lundy's scheme.

Though the government has stated the aim of the filter is to block content that has been refused classification in Australia — in other words, it would be illegal to distribute locally.

Serkowski described Lundy's proposal as "an attempt to mitigate the impact of one of the Australian Labor Party's most unpopular policies".

"There is still nothing to prevent a future government from simply terminating the 'opt-out' option, and returning us to the blindness of a government-imposed and controlled internet censorship infrastructure," he said. "There is still nothing to prevent an expansion of what is censored by the scheme."

The government has planned to introduce legislation regarding the filtering scheme into parliament in late February or early March. However, various forms of protest by Australians continue to take place.

The loose coalition of individuals known as "Anonymous" have recently attacked Federal Government internet infrastructure several times to demonstrate their dissent, while other groups have been organising wider campaigns against the filter.

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in brief Google encountered problems with Gmail on Thursday morning for a "significant subset" of users using POP to get messages into Gmail.

The company posted a notice on its Apps Status Dashboard that was picked up by TechCrunch notifying Gmail users of "difficulties or delays receiving mail fetched via POP from external mail providers to Gmail". The problems began at some point this morning, and a more recent notice said that Google has fixed the problem for "a majority" of users.

Google said a user's emails that get imported from other accounts aren't lost; they're just not making it into the user's Gmail account in the usual fashion, and should be delivered when the problems ease. At some point mid-morning Gmail abruptly dumped a bunch of emails into my Gmail inbox that are usually imported relatively quickly from another account, some of which were over a day old.

At the time of writing, everything appears to be working, but let us know if you're having problems. After a few high-profile interruptions in service during 2009, it's been relatively quiet on the Apps Status Dashboard so far in 2010.

Via CNET.com

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THE social networking giant still has no plans to change the way that it polices content on the site.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said he will look into the idea of appointing an online ombudsman after Facebook tribute pages were defaced with pornography.

Pages set up to honour murdered Queensland children Trinity Bates and Elliott Fletcher have been defaced in the past fortnight.

Illegal material, such as child pornography and bestiality, was posted on the sites, as well as comments about the alleged killers and how the killings took place.

A Year 12 student from Queensland's Marist College at Ashgrove has also been suspended for setting up a Facebook page saying it will hand over Daniel Morcombe, who has been missing for several years, if the page attracts one million members. Police had been monitoring the site, saying the administrator could face charges of misuse of a telecommunications carriage service.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon has proposed the appointment of an online ombudsman to deal with such incidents.

"Specifically on Nick's idea, let's look at it," Rudd told the Seven Network on Friday.

"We actually need to do everything we can to combat cyber crime.

"The role of cyber crime and internet bullying on children is frankly frightening and we need to be deploying all practical measures.

"If I was a mum or a dad out there today with little kids, given some of the awful events we've seen in recent days, I'd be legitimately concerned.

"So there's some more stuff to do here."

The issue had already attracted attention from Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who reportedly wrote a letter to Facebook chief exeucitve Mark Zuckerberg, appealing for help in blocking offensive material.

Conroy had also questioned Facebook's security practices last week.

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Macquarie Telecom today released its half-yearly report to 31 December 2009, announcing an increase in net profit carried by the success of its hosting business.

The telco reported a reduction in its telco revenues (comprising mobile, data and voice) in the half from $100.5 million to $98.8 million.

"Telco revenue down ... primarily due to reduction in voice as further price competition and fixed to mobile substitution occurs," the company said. Cost reduction had allowed the company to obtain an increase in earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the segment.

Hosting revenues, on the other hand, had increased from $17.8 million to $20.5 million due to "record sales orders".

"Hosting now contributes 37 per cent of business profitability," the company said. The hosting business's EBITDA had grown from $5.4 million to $6.2 million.

The company said it had invested in staff to handle the growth of the segment, but did not specify how many.

Overall, the company declared an 18.8 per cent rise in profit on the previous corresponding period to $13.7 million for continuing operations.

The telco announced that it will be focusing on the growth of its two core businesses, hosting and telco going ahead, and would look to grow via acquisition.

"The company has a highly skilled and experienced management team that is executing on the company's growth strategy and we will explore acquisition opportunities to accelerate that growth," chief executive officer David Tudehope said in a statement.

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MINISTER in charge of internet filtering plan has been caught censoring his official website.

What appeared to be an attempt by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to debate the government's controversial legislation to reform the telecommunications sector was shot down in flames in the Federal Senate today.

The Federal Opposition accused Conroy of attempting to introduce the Bill for debate in what was supposed to be a period for non-controversial legislation, and just 15 minutes before that period ended and general question time began.

The Bill — Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2009 — was listed on the parliament's run sheet under Government Business, but when Conroy appeared to introduce it, opposition senators knocked it out of the park, saying Conroy introduced the legislation at the wrong time.

"Why you want to debate it for 10 or 11 minutes, it just does not make sense," said Liberal Senator Stephen Parry, the manager of Opposition business in the Senate. I cannot fathom the workings of the government and I'm sure the public can't."

Parry alleged the Bill could have been debated in November last year; however, he pointed out that Conroy had been on a trip in Egypt around that time. "You ought to have had these Bills brought on earlier in the week," he said, alleging Conroy had changed the running sheet for legislation that had been agreed to the night before.

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said her party did not want the Bill in the non-controversial section of the Senate day, but that it was ready to debate it.

Conroy accused the opposition of holding up the debate. "Let's bring the debate on, let's have the debate and stop the senseless filibustering, the outrageous oppositionism, and the hijacking of this chamber that has gone on all week," he said.

"You do not get to decide what the Government Business program is," he told Parry. "This is a Bill that the government wants and needs to bring forward to start the debate."

Conroy rattled?

Liberal Senator Michael Ronaldson described Conroy as "rattled", saying he had had a "miserable week" where his judgement had been severely questioned. The comment appeared to refer to the revelation of Conroy's controversial skiing meeting with the Seven Network chief Kerry Stokes before the government cut television licence fees.

"Your decision to bandy yourself around the country, and accept largess from anyone who made an offer, has left you exposed," said Ronaldson.

"This ridiculous intervention at this hour ... just shows that you are completely and utterly rattled. If you had wanted this Bill on, you could have got it well before now ... you know and I know that this was never going to be debated today — and never going to be debated in non-controversial."

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The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft has today slammed Federal Court Judge Dennis Cowdroy's understanding of copyright law in its appeal against his decision in iiNet's favour.

AFACT's nine-page notice of appeal, penned by its solicitor, Gilbert and Tobin partner, Michael Williams, outlines key areas of copyright law it believes Justice Cowdroy got wrong. It has objected to Cowdroy's treatment of authorisation, infringement by iiNet users, safe harbour provisions and evidence heard during the trial.

At its heart is Cowdroy's application of the term authorisation under copyright law, and his decision that BitTorrent was the means by which infringements had occurred.

AFACT will contest that BitTorrent was a "necessary precondition" to infringement, but that iiNet's carriage service was the key. The argument flows on to iiNet's power to prevent breaches occurring, according to the notice.

While iiNet was powerless to stop BitTorrent users, as Justice Cowdroy had found, AFACT contends it did have the power to prevent breaches that occurred over its network by suspending or terminating customer accounts.

The federation has also objected to Cowdroy not seeing AFACT's infringement notifications to iiNet as sufficient grounds for its knowledge that breaches were occurring, as well as Cowdroy's finding that iiNet's inaction did not amount to sanctioning its customer's copyright breaches.

Cowdroy's assessment of BitTorrent's manner of operation was also viewed as incorrect, according to AFACT's notice. Cowdroy was wrong, it said, in finding that a file accessed several times by third-party users amounted to a single, continuous act. AFACT contends that each time a computer was connected to the internet, thereby making a file available, this amounted to a breach.

"The primary judge erred by failing to act on his own findings, which ought to have led to a conclusion that there were numerous and repeated acts of infringement by users of iiNet's internet services," the notice states.

AFACT has slammed the decision as making a mockery of Australia's Safe Harbour rules, which it imported to Australia under a 2006 US Fair Trade Agreement.

The federation's appeal will be heard by three Federal Court judges at some stage this year. If AFACT wins that appeal the matter may be appealed by iiNet at the High Court.

Justice Cowdroy will not be involved in the appeal process; however, he will concurrently be hearing AFACT's challenge to his decision on costs.

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