Telstra customers across Australia will be able to buy the Android-based HTC Desire a week ahead of schedule; however, some stores may have to wait to get their hands on the phone.

The long-time leader of Telstra's BigPond internet service provider division and current fixed line chief, Justin Milne, has reportedly resigned.

Engineers at Williams' Grove factory in the UK will be just as crucial to the success of its two drivers as its track-side engineers at the Grand Prix in Melbourne, according to Williams' co-founder and engineering director, Patrick Head.

The Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) has hand-picked NBN Co's new chairman, Commonwealth Bank of Australia director Harrison Young, who has also been top dog at Morgan Stanley's Asian arm.

Internet service provider iiNet has confirmed it is in discussions with fellow ISP Netspace about a takeover, but said the money at stake was well below $60 million. iiNet today confirmed it was in talks following a report in the Australian Financial Review today that it was to purchase Netspace for somewhere between $60 million and $75 million. "We advise that we have been in discussions with several parties including Netspace, and note that the price currently being discussed is a long way below the price range quoted in the media," the company said in a statement. Netspace was founded in 1992 by chief executive Stuart Marburg and technical director Richard Preen and is not listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. The company claims to have around 80,000 customers, which would, if acquired, leave iiNet with just under 600,000 customers in total — 400,000 short of where iiNet chief Michael Malone said he wants the company to be by the time the NBN Co access is available. "The discussions are at an early stage and remain incomplete, and the iiNet board has taken no decision regarding the potential acquisition," iiNet said in a statement today. Comments (1) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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On Friday, Victorian Premier John Brumby launched an application development competition with a prize pool of $100,000, with government data being opened up for use in the competition.

App My State website(Screenshot by Colin Ho/ZDNet.com.au)

"Today we are also releasing over 90 Victorian government datasets to encourage new applications to be created," Brumby said in the competition announcement. These data sets include locations of public internet access, licensed venues, and an inventory of outdoor furniture in Melbourne. At the time of writing, the government had released 92 sets of raw data. ICT Minister John Lenders stated that the competition would have an "ideas" category with a $1000 prize to encourage entrants without technical expertise to participate. "The grand prize winner will receive $35,000 in cash prizes — the largest prize pool awarded in this type of competition in the world. The judges will also award a second place prize of $15,000 and a third place of $10,000," said Lenders. In addition, there will be a $10,000 people's choice award and technology prizes, such as camcorders and laptops, for runners up. The statement claimed that the competition was the largest government-sponsored app development contest in the world, despite being open only to Victorian residents. According to the government, the competition will be open to "IT experts and novices alike". "We have recruited some of Victoria's leading innovators to judge the competition — Peter Williams, Web 2.0 guru and director at Deloitte Digital, Marc Edwards from iPhone application developer Bjango, Kate Kendall from Niche Media and Georgia Webster from RRR's Byte into IT," said Lenders. "And I am a judge too." The competition will close on Friday, 23 April. Details are available from the competition website. The competition has come after the government recently announced a push to make public sector information accessible to the general public. The New South Wales Government has also made attempts to open up its data to developers through its NSW data website and is also currently holding a government application development contest worth $100,000 called apps4nsw. The NSW contest has been running since November of last year, and competition entry closes on 22 March. Comments (1) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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Early results from broadband information site Whirlpool's annual survey has found that 91.8 per cent of respondents do not support the idea of mandatory internet filtering, with most believing the government should focus on educating parents and children instead. In total, some 21,755 people responded to the survey, which is held each year and is seen as a key indicator to the opinions and internet usage patterns of technically proficient Australians and early technology adopters. The full results of the survey, which covers a range of other issues such as hardware usage and experiences with ISPs, are expected to be published soon. Delimiter has gained early access to the filter section of the survey only. The 91.8 per cent figure has risen since the last survey in early 2009, which showed that 88.9 per cent of the 19,763 respondents at that stage would opt out of a filter if given the option. This year's result echoes similar polls conducted last year by the Sydney Morning Herald and ZDNet.com.au. Of the 24,378, 96 per cent of respondents to an online SMH poll stated they believed the filtering plan was not a good idea and impinged on their freedom, while 96.6 per cent of the 1746 respondents in the ZDNet.com.au survey stated the government was completely wrong on the policy. However, a survey recently commissioned by the ABC's Hungry Beast program appeared to show that 80 per cent of respondents supported the filter, prompting strong discussion online about the poll. Whirlpool's survey this year showed that only 3.2 per cent of respondents believed the government should focus on mandatory internet filtering as an online safety technique. Instead, 81.8 per cent and 63.9 per cent believed the government should focus on respectively educating parents and children, 43.7 per cent on law enforcement, 42.1 per cent on desktop filter software and 33.5 per cent on subsidising ISP-level opt-in filters.

Concerns remain Whirlpool also queried respondents on what negative and positive results might come from the filtering initiative.

The results:

90 per cent believed the filter might over-block/restrict access to legitimate information,

86.6 per cent believed it may give parents a false sense of security,

82.5 per cent believed the system could be abused by future governments,

78 per cent believed it may reduce internet performance,

67.4 per cent believed it might reduce internet performance, and 53.6 per cent believed it might make the internet less reliable.

In terms of positive results, only 32.2 per cent and 40 per cent of respondents to the Whirlpool survey believed the filter would respectively protect children from harm and restrict access to child pornography. 23.1 per cent believed it would restrict access to other "criminal material", while 9.3 per cent believed it would "protect me from visiting inappropriate sites". 8.6 per cent believed it would reduce crime in general. The internet filtering issue also appeared set to change voting patterns at the next federal election, with 44 per cent of respondents stating the issue would be a "key factor" in their voting decision, and 39.4 per cent stating the issue could affect their vote, but not at the expense of other issues. 14.2 per cent stated it would not affect their vote, while the remainder, 2.4 per cent, were not eligible to vote.

Demographics Criticism of Whirlpool survey results in the past has focused on the idea that the site's user base is slanted towards the technically proficient. And there is a demonstrable slant in that direction — the most popular careers by far listed by respondents were in the IT sector — either as managers or IT admins, developers or support officers. Overall, 32.5 per cent of respondents to Whirlpool's survey listed their role as being IT staff of some sort, with a further 3.2 per cent working in the telecommunications sector. However, virtually every other sector was also represented in the survey's demographics, with popular choices being government (4.7 per cent), engineering/oil/mining (4.7 per cent) and healthcare/medical (2.7 per cent). The age of the respondents reflected a broad spread among the ages below 50, although respondents aged 17 or younger were excluded from participating. The rest responded as follows:

18 to 21 years of age: 11.4 per cent

22 to 25 years of age: 16.6 per cent

26 to 30 years of age: 18.2 per cent

31 to 40 years of age: 24.7 per cent

41 to 50 years of age: 13.9 per cent

51 or older years of age: 15.2 per cent

33.8 per cent listed their technical proficiency as "guru", with a further 38.3 per cent and 23.5 per cent saying they were respectively a power user or "confident" with technology. Only 4.1 per cent described their technical proficiency level as "still learning" and just 0.3 per cent (only 70 people) said they were a beginner. Comments (1) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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Our sister site CNET News.com has taken a peek at the computer-filled room that is the IT mission control for the Winter Olympics.

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Telstra revealed today that it had held discussions with Google's Australian management about the search giant's plans, announced overnight, to provide half a million US residents with fibre broadband in a US trial. "The Google communication has just been with the local management," said Telstra chief executive David Thodey at the company's half-yearly financial results session this morning. He said the search giant was just keeping Telstra informed, it was "nothing more than that", and he understood it was early days for the company's broadband plans. In general, Thodey said Telstra had a complex relationship with Google throughout the different sections of the telco's business — for example, in its Sensis directories business and also with its Gmail email platform. In addition, Thodey noted Google's plans to construct a submarine cable across the Pacific and pointed out Telstra was involved with mobiles using Google's Android mobile operating system. In relation to the question of whether Telstra saw Google as a threat, Thodey pointed out that a decade ago, the telco was unsure where Microsoft fit into the equation and whether the software giant was a threat. "Now Microsoft is a very strong partner," he said. "I think Google are going to be an interesting play as we go forward," said Thodey. Google's US plan will see the company build and operate fibre infrastructure in certain testbed sites across the nation, giving other companies third-party access to offer their own services on the networks. "Like our Wi-Fi network in Mountain View, the purpose of this project is to experiment and learn," said Google product managers Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly in a post on the company's blog overnight. "Network providers are making real progress to expand and improve high-speed internet access, but there's still more to be done. We don't think we have all the answers — but through our trial, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better internet for everyone." For more information on Google's trial in the US, see a post on ZDNet.com.au's sister site CNET News.com. Comments (0) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley said yesterday in Senate Estimates that his company was on track to start rolling out the national broadband network to certain homes on the mainland in the second half of this year. To prepare for the volume roll-out across the country, NBN Co has been choosing certain "first-release sites" to validate the network design. The sites tested were to represent the different environments which the network would have to operate across. "We need to understand the different locations and be prepared to use different construction techniques," Quigley said. It involved "getting down and designing exactly where things go". Locations would range from suburban — with semi-detached houses, detached houses and multi-dwelling units — to rural towns. NBN Co could, with these location tests, determine issues such as the actual cost difference between deploying fibre underground and overground and having terminations outside or inside homes. "This testing will provide critical information about the practical applications of our designs," Quigley said. This would follow full testing in integration labs, but there was no substitute for testing in a live environment, Quigley said. The company would soon issue a request for tender for companies to participate in this "detailed design phase" and a further request for tender for the construction phase. The first part of the selected roll-out — the passive components of the network — is expected to start early in the second half of the year, Quigley said. The second stage involves implementing the active sections of the network equipment in fibre access nodes and customers' premises. The third stage of the roll-out involves working with retail service providers to give access to the network. Quigley said the company had already started the procurement process for active network equipment and had formed a shortlist of suppliers. NBN Co is also preparing to release information on facilities central to the network. "We'll soon be announcing the establishment of facilities to house our network operations, integration labs and datacentres," Quigley said. The network operations centre will be built to do the surveillance and management of the operational network. The datacentre is to house business and operational support systems needed to provision, monitor and manage services on the network. The integration labs will validate and prove the technical design of the network as well as provide a test environment where vendors can do network and systems integration and test releases and functions before deploying them to the network. Quigley expected 250 people to be employed in these facilities. The NBN Co has 112 people at this point and would increase to 300 by June. Comments (0) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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Telstra has announced an upgrade to its HFC broadband network within Melbourne as well as its Velocity fibre-to-the-home network and will begin trailing a new TV set-top box. Both networks have had their download capacity upgraded to 100Mbps, with the HFC upload having an upper limit of 2Mbps. The HFC upgrade will reach one million residences in Melbourne. "This means the actual download speeds an individual customer will receive on the services will depend on factors including customer equipment, server limitations, Wi-Fi reception/capacity, and so will be less than the total capacity into the home," Telstra said in a statement. Telstra said in August that it had spent $1.5 billion on the upgrade. The telco also announced a new set-top box called T-Box that uses two digital TV tuners and has the ability to record, rewind and pause live free-to-air television. The device also connects to BigPond's TV and movie rental services. "T-Box also gives users unmetered access to the seven BigPond TV internet channels including live news, sport and online music all streamed directly to the television set," Telstra group managing director of product management, Holly Kramer, said. The T-Box will be trialled by Melbourne customers, due to the network upgrades, over the coming months. Comments (9) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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Telstra has flagged price reductions for its broadband products and services as it fights to maintain market share in the highly competitive sector. Chief executive David Thodey said on Wednesday price cuts were "imminent" as the telco giant wanted to compete aggressively on broadband offerings. "In some parts of the market we've gone too far out of line and we need to come back," he told an investor briefing. Telstra's most recent annual results showed a drop in fixed broadband takeup, but its wireless broadband revenue grew by 69.2 per cent to $587 million. A strong focus of Mr Thodey's presentation to investors on Wednesday was improving customer service. "We must focus on our core business and our customers, this is where we create value for shareholders," he said.

"At its simplest, the next stage in Telstra's long-term strategy is to focus on satisfying customers, invest in new capabilities, and drive growth in new businesses." Comments (17) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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Seven new towns have been nominated as early recipients of Tasmania's National Broadband Network (NBN), bringing the total number for the island to 10. Sorell, Deloraine, George Town, St Helens, Triabunna, Kingston Beach and South Hobart have been selected as the latest under-serviced towns to be early recipients of the 100 megabits per second NBN service. The Tasmanian NBN Co, headed by Doug Campbell, had previously selected five key backhaul links across the state, connecting key population hubs to enable fibre to reach homes. The backhaul links are currently under construction (see map below). The remaining 10 per cent of Tasmania will receive wireless- or satellite-based services at slower speeds of up to 12 megabits per second. View FTTH additional backhaul in a larger map(Credit: DigitalTasmania.org) A joint statement by Minister of Communications, Stephen Conroy, and Tasmanian Premier, David Bartlett, this afternoon have claimed this as stage two of the roll-out. This stage will include the completion of backbone fibre links from the state's east coast to Kingston, and Westbury, according to the statement. Smithton, Midway Point and Scottsdale — all pegged for early backhaul work in July — are expected to see services commence by mid 2010. It's understood that the Tasmanian roll out was not being viewed within the NBN Company — as opposed to the Tasmanian NBN Co (jointly owned by the NBN Co and energy company, Aurora) — as a template for the mainland deployment. Much of Tasmania's NBN will be delivered across overhead cable, which some fear could become an eyesore. Comments (0) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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The company being put together to construct and operate the National Broadband Network will be formally named "NBN Co. Limited".

(Credit: NBN Co)

Back in April when the Federal Government unveiled its strategy to build a $43 billion National Broadband Network, it was assumed the company would go through a complicated marketing exercise to find a formal name and brand, similar to the process which saw the former Telecom Australia re-branded "Telstra". "The formal naming of the company will be considered in the coming weeks and months," a spokesperson for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told the AustralianIT at the time. However, ZDNet.com.au understands the company has made its defacto moniker, "NBN Company", more or less permanent. The company yesterday issued a press release with a new logo incorporating the name. In addition, most press enquiries regarding its operations are being directed away from Conroy's office or the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and towards a separate public relations agency, indicating a new degree of independence. In recent months the company has put a barebones management structure in place, this week putting some of the final touches on the superstructure with a new chief technology officer and head of network operations. Comments (0) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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Australia Post's outgoing managing director Graeme John has announced the national postal service's plan to invest $700 million over three years in new IT systems. "In recent months, the board has approved almost $700 million worth of investments in the future of Australia Post. Now is the right time to hand over to a successor who can steer the corporation through the next phase of its evolution," John said today in a statement as he announced his retirement. The postal giant had already flagged its Future Delivery Design five-year program, which will see it invest in new barcode sorters, optical character reader (OCR) scanners, and mail sorting software and hardware. In recent years Australia Post has also made efforts to extend its business into digital mail delivery services, document imaging and business process outsourcing, and has also acquired electronic document service subsidiaries, such as Decipha and PrintSoft and its joint venture with Wellcom for the iPrint digital mail service. Chief information officer Wayne Saunders has also been heading up Australia Post's SAP revamp, which saw it spend $111.7 million last year. A core element of this has been its parcel post tracking system, which was launched late last year. The revamp is ongoing. It is not clear how much, if any, of the $700 million will be directed to the SAP system revamp. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy today congratulated John for transforming the postal service into a fully fledged logistics company. "Graeme has successfully led the transformation of Australia Post to become a major logistics player and one of the world's leading postal operators. I would like to congratulate Graeme for his great contribution to Australia Post and wish him the very best for the next phase of his professional life," Senator Conroy said. Comments (0) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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Questions are being raised in law enforcement and computer forensics circles about the manner in which the Australian Federal Police appeared to handle the Melbourne dawn raid that appeared on ABC's Four Corners program last week. On Monday 17 August, the ABC's Four Corners show broadcasted a pre-dawn raid on a Melbourne house in which several computers and other digital storage devices were seized, saying the raid had taken place five days beforehand. Police said the resident had been seeking credit card details and to purchase an illicit botnet online. However, last week the AFP said no arrests had yet been made. The raid was led by the AFP but included assistance from the Victoria Police.

If you start a computer up or start typing and looking at files, you're actually corrupting that evidence <e.law> forensics expert Allan Watts

The AFP officers who appeared in the raid wore rubber gloves, presumably to avoid leaving fingerprints. They appeared to access the suspect's computers and enter search queries, before carefully taping up the devices in envelopes and questioning the suspect. During the episode, an officer was shown typing in the search term "password" on one of the laptops. The officers handling the computer said to another: "That's gold — opened up 'saved passwords'. I have got a huge list here." But according to two computer forensics professionals, how the evidence was portrayed to have been collected in the episode involved highly unusual practices. Allan Watts, head of e-forensics at Australian computer forensic services firm <e.law>, said typing search terms into a computer intended as evidence would certainly ruin its value. "If you start a computer up or start typing and looking at files, you're actually corrupting that evidence," he told ZDNet.com.au. "It's no different to a homicide scene, walking through with muddy gumboots, seeing a knife, picking it up and leaving your fingerprints all over it. That's why we never start up a computer if it's off. That modifies about 400 files. Once that's done you have got the question: what did you do and what did they do? Also, you could have modified data before it was cloned." If the officers were following textbook instructions on how to collect computer evidence, they would have removed the hard drives first. "You then install a rights protection device that prohibits the drive from being written to. Then, using Encase or FTK Imager, you then forensically claim the entire hard disk drive," said Watts. Jason Plumridge, a risk services manager for Certified Technology Risk and a former computer forensics officer within the NSW Police force, agreed with Watts but explained that how you approached the device would depend whether the device was found in an "on" or "off" state. "If it's turned off, leave it off. And then take the hard drive out and acquire the information in a forensically sound manner," said Plumridge. "If it's on, you should first record what's on the screen by way of video. But then you choose whether you shut it down because when you shut it down you could lose RAM. If it's an ongoing hacking, you might want to capture what's coming into the machine." There are, however, situations where it may be better to tamper with an active device, according to Plumridge. "I probably wouldn't choose to type anything on a PC unless you can see, for example, PGP [encryption] running in the background," he said. "And you know that when you turn off the machine, you lose the whole lot. In that instance I then would start running search terms, and copying files out knowing that I'm changing dates and times, but in that case you don't have any other option ... unless you had the encryption key." It remains unclear whether the AFP-supplied footage was of the actual raid and search or file footage of a previous raid. ZDNet.com.au is awaiting a response from the AFP media department over the footage. Comments (0) | Email this Share: Google | Facebook | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Slashdot | StumbleUpon

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