australia

Ecotality announced today that it's been chosen to partner with the government of the Australian province Victoria to install and monitor Blink electric vehicle charging stations in a test project.

As part of the Victorian Electric Vehicle Trial, the Victorian Department of Transport is asking 180 households to volunteer to have Ecotality's Blink Level 2 fasting-charging stations installed in their homes and drive an electric vehicle (EV) for at least three months.

As with the U.S. EV test project, those who join the Victorian test project will be agreeing to have their chargers monitored so the government … Read more

Australia's dead-heat election over the weekend has left both the Labor and Coalition parties scrambling to try to form a government. Meanwhile, the National Broadband Network Co. suggests it may stop the early-stage roll-out of a fiber optic network across the country until it knows who will be heading the next government.

Labor backs the fiber-optic plan, while the Coalition party has pledged to ax the government-owned National Broadband Network and instead pursue a more austere network investment plan based on rolling out competitive backhaul, fixing ADSL2+ blackspots, and connecting underserved areas with wireless broadband.

Read more of "… Read more

So there I am, hanging out in Melbourne, Australia, and I see a target. I am, let's say, a mugger. So I make my move, and ka-pow! I get clobbered. I'm looking around for Batman or something, but instead I see a pair of petite females in black pajamas and hoods.

"What gives!?" I ask.

"We're ninjas," they reply.

I'm screwed.

Lady ninjas, dubbed by the Australian press as "ninja mums," could be turning into the latest urban rage in some cities there as women learn the ancient Japanese fighting … Read more

An Australian government report into cybercrime has recommended that Internet service providers force customers to use antivirus and firewall software or risk being disconnected.

Belinda Neal, committee chair, said in her introduction to the 262-page report, titled "Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime," that due to the exponential growth of malware and other forms of cybercrime in recent years, "the expectation that end users should or can bear the sole responsibility for their own personal online security is no longer a tenable proposition."

"We need to apply the same energy and … Read more

Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has managed a real, tangible win-win outcome with Sunday's deal between Telstra and the National Broadband Network Co., according to telecommunications analysts.

Sunday, Telstra revealed it had signed a preliminary $11 billion (Australian, or $9.6 billion U.S.) deal with NBN Co. that would see the telecommunications company migrate its telephone and broadband customers onto the fiber National Broadband Network, with its copper network to be shut down and no more broadband services to be provided over its hybrid-fiber coaxial cable network.

It was a day many thought might not ever come, but … Read more

Newcastle, in the state of New South Wales, will be the first Australian city to move onto a smart grid in what the government says could be a nationwide change.

The announcement, made Monday, is part of Australia's "Smart Grid, Smart City" initiative involving the collaboration of several Australian government ministries, private contractors including GE Energy and IBM Australia, and Energy Australia, one the country's leading electricity utilities.

The project's initial $100 million rollout, to take place "mid 2010," will include the central business district of Sydney as well as the towns of … Read more

Australia has called in the police to determine whether Google violated privacy laws by capturing data from private Wi-Fi networks though its Street View service.

At a forum on Internet security on Sunday, Australian Attorney General Robert McClelland told reporters that the matter was handed over to the police following a string of complaints from the public. Specifically, the Australian Federal Police are looking into possible violations of the country's Telecommunications Interception Act, which "prevents people from accessing electronic communications other than for authorized purposes," according to McClelland.

Google asaid Sunday that it will cooperate with the … Read more

The appeal of the Apple iPad is being tested overseas as it launches in nine countries Friday. Japan is one market where it is expected to have a special allure.

Two months after the start of U.S sales, Apple kicked off iPad sales in Japan, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Canada early Friday morning.

And in Japan, the world's second largest economy, it was launched with the kind of fanfare typically reserved for a new game machine from Nintendo.

Friday morning at an Apple store in Tokyo's Ginza district a line formed … Read more

It is hard to understand why some enterprising TV company hasn't already created a game show called "Breach of Privacy." This would entail people telling their stories of the most egregious ways in which their privacy was removed from them, with viewers voting for the winners.

Stephen Conroy, Australia's Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, would surely be a worthy contestant. In a senate committee that was set up to discuss Internet filtering, Conroy reportedly became so fired up that he was unable to keep his views about Google to himself.

According to the Telegraph, … Read more