Latest figures from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has indicated there was a 15% year-on-year drop in telecommunications complaints from 323,804 to 274,290 during the January to March 2021 quarter. Based on complaints per 10,000 services that also decreased by nearly 15% year on year from 74 to 63 during the period. Of the total complaints, about half were about mobile services, followed by NBN broadband at 67,005, while complaints about other services accounted for 43,332, fixed-line broadband for 12,007, fixed-line voice 10,498, and 2,341 were about NBN voice-only services.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/acma-sees-15-drop-in-total-telco-complaints-even-though-theyre-taking-longer-to-resolve/

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Preliminary findings of a new study by the University of Sydney's Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS) have revealed that Australian commuters could save two hours a week and an average of AU$906 in out-of-pocket expenses if work from home policies remain in place. Following a national survey between March and October last year with 956 respondents, the researchers calculated the potential cost savings for commuters working in the greater Sydney metropolitan area based on average costs for public transport, toll, and operating costs for car trips.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/sydney-uni-research-finds-remote-working-saving-aussies-time-and-money/

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Image: Mozilla Mozilla is currently testing a new security architecture for its Firefox browser in nightly and beta channels that sees each site be put into its own operating system process. As it currently stands, when Firefox launches, it starts a privileged parent process, eight processes for web content, up to two additional semi-privileged web content processes, and four utility processes for web extensions, GPU operations, networking, and media decoding. With the set number of processes, the potential exists for a malicious site to be placed into a process already in use by another site, and giving it access to shared process memory.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-testing-site-isolation-feature-that-puts-each-site-into-a-separate-process/

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Over 42,000 phone numbers were not moved to or from Telstra between March and July 2020...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/telstra-pays-au1-5m-fine-after-preventing-number-porting-due-to-covid-hitting-offshore/

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The US Department of Defense has agreed to stand down its accusations that Xiaomi procured tech for the Chinese military and, in doing so, it will remove the company from its CCMC list...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-agrees-to-remove-xiaomi-from-communist-chinese-military-company-list/

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Australia's black and red bank nearly doubled its statutory net profit to AU$3.2 billion during 1H21, a period where the company invested in a number of digitisation and automation projects...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/nab-profit-surges-to-au3-2-billion-as-tech-investments-lead-to-greater-efficiency-gains/

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The Australian arm of Huawei shed itself of 113 employees and its board during a tumultuous 2020...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/huawei-australia-battered-in-2020-with-5g-ban-and-consumer-sales-diving/

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Snap a photo of an object and Woolaroo will use machine learning to translate it into one of 10 endangered languages supported on the app...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-introduces-woolaroo-ai-translation-app-to-preserve-endangered-languages/

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Revenue is up 23% to AU$3.5 billion for the nine months to March 31, but the average spend per user is stuck well below NBN's stated aim of AU$51...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/nbn-residential-arpu-remains-stuck-at-au45/

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Tech-savvy companies used the COVID-19 pandemic to widen their leads over rivals as they invested heavily in artificial intelligence, automation, Internet of Things, cloud, and data management, according to an Accenture survey. Companies that had digitisation efforts underway were in far better shape to navigate the pandemic.For more see: Tech savvy enterprises used COVID-19 pandemic to widen lead over laggards, says Accenture While it is safe to say that the impact of COVID-19 would have been even greater without the contributions of technology, the CDEI argues that it is too early to properly evaluate the impact of the innovations registered in the repository.

https://www.zdnet.com/pictures/it-spending-cybersecurity-concerns-cloud-computing-and-more-tech-research-roundup/

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The 2021 STEM Equity Monitor shows the number of Australian women in STEM-qualified occupations dropped to 13% in 2020...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/australian-womens-participation-in-stem-creeps-backward-in-2020/

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Services Australia CEO expects there to be people with a debt once JobKeeper payments are reconciled but said the agency isn't raising debts solely on the basis of averaged ATO income information this time...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/senators-concerned-end-of-jobkeeper-could-see-new-wave-of-robo-debts/

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The Chicago-based company provided employees with a new social etiquette, but one-third walked in response. The CEO has now apologised...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/basecamp-ceo-tells-staff-hes-sorry-for-policy-changes-that-saw-mass-exit/

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The Department of Parliamentary Services has said its systems were not down because of an attack, but because it took systems offline to protect them...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/parliamentary-services-pulled-mdm-system-offline-causing-march-aph-outage/

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Unveiled in a pair of announcements, the Victorian government will invest millions into technology aimed at bushfire prevention and bridge maintenance...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/victoria-to-invest-au133-million-into-digital-radios-for-bushfire-prevention/

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The healthcare organisation has confirmed the cyber incident it experienced last month was the result of a hit from REvil ransomware...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/revil-ransomware-to-blame-for-unitingcare-queenslands-april-attack/

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The upcoming Vivo X lineup of devices will receive three years of security and major Android OS updates...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/vivo-promises-three-years-of-os-and-security-updates-for-upcoming-flagship-devices/

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The new CXL-based DDR5 memory module can scale memory capacity to terabyte levels while significantly reducing memory caching, Samsung said...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-develops-first-cxl-interface-based-dram/

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The Victorian government will allocate AU$5 million towards implementing new standards that provide gig economy workers with fairer conditions...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/victoria-to-begin-work-on-recommendations-arising-from-gig-economy-probe/

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'Hype, fear, uncertainty, doubt, that is our enemy,' says Ciaran Martin. 'We need absolutely to demystify cybersecurity...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-winged-ninja-cyber-monkeys-narrative-is-absolutely-wrong-former-ncsc-chief/

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There is no shortage of credit card rewards to choose from, but when you spend your life on the road in between businesses, a gas credit card for business could be the best way for you to save on what you buy the most. However, there are several factors to consider when searching for the best gas credit card for business, such as the APR and fees, as well as the available rewards structures. Before you hit the road for your next meeting, consider these picks for the best gas cards for business in 2021.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-gas-card-for-business/

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Scientists from Murdoch University believe small drones could be the solution to making marine conservation more accessible and affordable...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/murdoch-university-scientists-develop-grid-system-drone-technique-to-survey-dugongs/

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A platform is being developed to help farmers improve their pesticide spray plans, while minimising the impact it could have on the surrounding environment...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ai-and-gamification-being-used-to-help-aussie-farmers-reduce-spray-drift-impact/

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Presidential order will see the US government shift to zero-trust as-a-service architectures with mandated 2FA, endpoint detection and response, and log keeping, as well as a Cybersecurity Safety Review Board...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/biden-signs-order-boosting-us-cyber-posture-saying-incremental-improvements-are-not-enough/

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Australia's incumbent telco is looking for infrastructure money from governments, local councils and businesses to make regional projects viable...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/telstra-puts-au200m-over-four-years-aside-for-regional-co-investment/

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The organisation is hoping to approach the market from June for products and services under the three categories of centralised computing, end user technology, and enterprise service management...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ato-kicks-off-multi-year-managed-services-transformation/

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The Australian competition watchdog wants agricultural machinery manufacturers to share information about software, tools, and parts with independent repairers...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/accc-warns-restricting-access-to-technology-is-stifling-right-to-repair-agricultural-machinery/

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It was about a year ago that I began my transition away from Google Chrome (spoilers, I still need to use it, but my Google Chrome use is now minimal).I disentangled a my data and passwords out of the browser.I tried a whole bunch of other browsers.I learned and relearned a whole bunch of new muscle memory movements.It was hard.But it was worth it.I knew that Google Chrome was one of the worst browsers I could be running in terms of performance and power/resource consumption, and yet I kept on using it for years.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ditching-google-chrome-was-the-best-thing-i-did-this-year-and-you-should-do-the-same-too/

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