australia

There hasn't been much Web chatter around Open Kernel Labs, but late last week, the Chicago-based Open Kernel Labs, a spinout from Australia's NICTA, announced a $7.6 million investment from Chrysalis Ventures, Neo Technology Ventures, and Citrix Systems.

This follows a $2.5 million grant Open Kernel Labs recently received from NICTA.

Not much noise is made about Open Kernel Labs because it operates in the embedded-virtualization market, providing microkernel technology to manufacturers of electronics such as mobile handsets.

Importantly, while based on the open-source General Public License 3, the company is able to segregate differently licensed … Read more

Australia's first smartphone to run on Google's Android, the Kogan Agora Pro, has been delayed indefinitely, with its distributor citing its low-resolution display as the reason for not shipping the handset in its current form.

"It now seems certain (that) the current Agora specifications will limit its compatibility or interoperability in the near future," Kogan founder Ruslan Kogan said in a statement.

"Since the design of the Agora, the Android community has been growing quickly," Kogan said. "I now believe that in order to access all (that) the Android platform has to offer, … Read more

In the interest of stirring the "Australia-hates-MySQL tempest in a teapot" just a little more, I thought I'd throw in my $.02 before the US dollar is devalued again, making it worth $.01.

For those who haven't been following the news, Kaj Arno, MySQL's vice president of Community, wrote:

Several Sun Microsystems Inc employees, especially related to the Database Group, have been denied short stay business visas to Australia, over the last few months, as they have been seen to be competing with local Australian businesses unfairly.

The first part would be easy to pass … Read more

Google Australia employees--and those in many other countries--received an HTC Dream Android phone as a holiday gift.

"We've never developed anything like the Android software before, so this represented a unique opportunity to celebrate that achievement," a Google representative told ZDNet Australia on Monday.

Apart from spreading holiday cheer, having all the employees using the phone would help make Android better, the representative added. "Giving the Dream phone to Googlers also allows us to once again dog-food a product and make it even better."

Other Australians won't have to wait long for their own … Read more

Chinese networking vendor Huawei Technologies has slammed as "ludicrous and inaccurate" claims that it had links to the Chinese military and government that could cause security problems for the National Broadband Network.

The Australian newspaper reported on Thursday that security agencies would "closely examine" any Huawei involvement in Optus' bid to build the National Broadband Network due to international concerns about the company's links with Chinese authorities.

But in a statement released Thursday afternoon under the name of its vice director of public relations for the Asia-Pacific region, Thong Poh Wah, Huawei denied the claims. … Read more

Australian telecommunications companies would be able to start selling Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies' Android-based phones by the third quarter of 2009 if they wanted to, the company said this week.

Huawei entered the Android open handset alliance earlier this week, announcing plans to launch smartphones running Google's new mobile operating system next year.

There would be no launch apartheid where some nations were excluded from the first round of access to the phone, according to a spokesperson, who told ZDNet.com.au that if Australia got the phone later it would be the choice of the telcos and not … Read more

A high school teacher finds it inconceivable that any software could be free. I wonder if she uses Internet Explorer? We also talk about the failure of not one but two big Internet filters, and get the scoop from Caroline McCarthy on why YouTube isn't in decline.

Google to take Chrome out of beta http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/10/google-takes-chrome-out-of-beta/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10120049-92.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Australian plan to censor Internet in shreds http://www.theage.com.au/news/home/technology/labor-plan-to-censor-internet-in-shreds/2008/12/09/1228584820006.html… Read more

The much-hyped Google Android phone operating system will hit Australia on January 29, in the form of the Kogan Agora and Agora Pro.

As apparently the first handset provider to bring the Android platform to Australia, Kogan Technologies is cleverly piggybacking on existing hype about Google's open-source mobile phone platform.

The Android platform is currently available in the U.S. in the form of the T-Mobile G1. Much like the G1, the Kogan Agora phones pack a QWERTY keyboard--though no touch screen.

Unlike the G1, there will two models from Kogan, the Agora and the Agora Pro. For the … Read more

Australian telecommunications provider iiNet on Thursday was dragged into court as major film studios filed a case against the ISP for allegedly letting its users download pirated movies and television series.

According to the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, speaking on behalf of Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Disney Enterprises, and the Seven Network, thousands cases of pirated movies and television shows have passed through iiNet's network without iiNet doing anything about it.

AFACT Executive Director Adrianne Pecotic claimed that iiNet had ignored requests from the companies to … Read more