The phrase “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” was coined by American computer programmer Eric S. Raymond to distinguish two different approaches to the development of software. The Bazaar was likened to the…
On Tuesday, the ACT government held Australia’s first virtual community cabinet using Twitter. Four ministers faced a barrage of tweets in an hour long question and answer session held with the electorate…
A fresh storm has blown into Google’s new Google+ service. The company has been suspending accounts because they contravene Google’s Community Standards – ostensibly to stop fake or spam accounts being…
With new technology comes new ways of communicating with one another in times of crisis. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow important information to be shared widely and instantaneously. But…
The nature of influence is changing, yet Governments, particularly in Australia have yet to absorb it. Influence is no longer wielded by pronouncements through traditional media sources. New media has…
On July 4, a hacker took control of one of the Twitter accounts of US broadcaster FoxNews.com and sent out several tweets announcing President Obama had been shot. Because it was a national holiday and…
Wilding, a word seldom used outside of sociology, describes compounded acts of immorality. Of teenagers, apparently, running amok. In packs usually, with rage and ribaldry in their eyes. I was thinking…
Smokers who quit with the assistance of a text messaging service are nearly twice as likely to be smoke-free six months later than smokers with no support, according to a study published this week in The…
Google is hoping that the saying “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again” will work out for them with Google+. Launched as a private beta version on Tuesday, Google+ is the search giant’s latest…
Around 2 million photographs are uploaded to Facebook each day. As of this week, every new image will be processed by automatic face recognition software, designed to identify the people in the photographs…
Media giant News Limited will charge for online access to its broadsheet paper The Australian after October and for certain parts of the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun after that, the company has announced…
Advanced surveillance and social media might seem like strange bedfellows. Until you look a bit closer, that is. Technologies developed for surveillance applications are typically designed with robustness…
It’s hard to discuss public surveillance without immediately being asked about privacy issues. As technologists working on computer-based surveillance, it’s tempting to say this is outside our area of…
The executive director of the venerable New York Times has come out fighting against Facebook and other social media. Bill Keller has joined the conga line of commentators decrying the end of friendships…
One day in April, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research director Douglas Hilton called his communications manager, Penny Fannin, into his office. “He said he’d heard significant cuts were…
PRIVACY – Your location is arguably more personal than your genetic profile; even identical twins can’t be in the same place at the same time. In terms of value, it’s on a par with your medical records…
Facebook, with more than 500 million members, has now reached superpower status. If Facebook were a country, its supporters often say, its population would rank behind only China and India. But there is…
We are living in extraordinary times. People are using social media to campaign for freedom from their governments, but their ideas are built on a much more powerful medium: literature. Protests have swept…
Unless you’ve been chained to a fax machine for the past seven years, you’ll have noticed that Facebook is immensely popular. Users numbered 641 million by February of this year. Making and maintaining…