Archived News for IT Professionals

Australian computing researcher, Dr André Carvalho, from the ARC Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology and the Research School of Physics and Engineering, part of the ANU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, has worked with collaborators from Brazil and Spain to come up with a new proposal for quantum computers.

The Federal Government has announced that seven Regional Development Australia (RDA) committees have received funding to assist in the development of strategies for the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) in their communities.

The Federal Government has announced it will hold bilateral meetings with the United States to develop a ‘prioritised’ work program’ to further cyber security cooporation.

Optus has announced it has signed a $15 million five-year contract with the New South Wales Government’s Department of Education and Communities to deliver an enhanced satellite service to improve long distance learning for the state’s most remote students.

The Federal Government has released its Mid-term Review into the first two years of operations of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN).

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has released its first paper in the review of the radiofrequency spectrum between 1427.9 and 1510.9 Mhz (the 1.5 GHz mobile band).

Leighton subsidiary Metronode has been selected by the New South Wales Government to consolidate its 130 data centres. The company will be contracted to construct two new centres to consolidate the state’s public sector data hosting requirements.

The Victorian Government has secured three of the world’s most renowned games developers to give keynote addresses at a two day Game Masters: The Forum game development symposium.

Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, has outlined NBN expansion in the North and mid-North Coasts of New South Wales, with expansion in Coffs Harbour, Taree and Port Macquarie expected in mid-2012.

Global technology provider Fujitsu has launched a $60 million upgrade of its Noble Park data centre in Melbourne.

The investment by Fujitsu focused on security, connectivity and availability enhancements to provide its 2,000 Australian enterprise and government customers with increased access to secure hosting services.

The Noble Park facility is also now operating as one of the most energy efficient facilities of its size in the country.

The Noble Park facility, which was purpose-built for Fujitsu in 1988, is a 6,700m² building on 18,600m² of land. Following the upgrade to Tier III standards, the design incorporates 4 main data halls suitable for cabinet and cage installations. Fujitsu data centres have a power usage effectiveness (PUE) target of 1.7 and the company reports all greenhouse gas emissions produced by Noble Park, as well as all others in its Australian data centre network, to the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System (NGERS).

Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand chief executive officer Mike Foster said in the last few years Fujitsu had made significant local investments in new technology areas including data centres, cloud services, application development and managed services.

"We will continue to invest in ensuring that our customers have access to the best possible infrastructure in the region," Mr Foster said.

"The Noble Park upgrade is consistent with this strategy. The facility makes a key contribution to Fujitsu's global data centre capability, which includes over 100 data centres worldwide."

Fujitsu services over 2,000 customers in Australia and New Zealand and has a presence in over 100 countries.

The Federal Government has announced that up to 400 new jobs will be created in Victoria as the National Broadband Network (NBN) is rolled out.

The Federal Budget has provided $467.1 million over seven years (including $41.2 million in 2016-17 and $40.9 million in 2017-18) to implement the SuperStream reforms that are part of the package of Stronger Super reforms.

The National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co) has announced the town of Bourke, in far north-west NSW, will host a new facility to help deliver high speed broadband to remote communities across the country.

The Federal Budget has cut funding to the Digital Education Revolution (DER) project pool in 2011‑12 to to provide savings of $24.4 million.

The Federal Government has announced that a further 11 councils are now eligible to apply for funding under the Australian Government’s Digital Local Government Program, aimed at assisting local governments make the most of the rollout of the National Broadband Network.

Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Stephen Conroy has hit out at Federal Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull, describing him as “either lazy, financially illiterate or both.”

Australian research has shown that computers can be used to identify cancer treatment targets that wouldn't otherwise have been considered.

Professor Mark Ragan from The University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), who led the research team, says they found that computational methods could be used to untangle the intricacies of cancer biology.

“Cancer is not a disease caused by single genes. Rather, it is changes to the underlying gene regulatory networks that prompt tumours to grow and spread,” he said.

“Understanding gene regulatory networks in healthy and diseased tissues is therefore critical to devising effective cancer treatments.

“These networks involve vast numbers of interactions between different molecules, making conventional experimental approaches, which are focused on individual genes, too time-consuming,” he said.

The findings came from the team's analysis of different computational methods of studying gene regulatory networks.

By contrast, computational methods can examine complex networks of interacting molecules across entire systems. The challenge for researchers is determining the accuracy of such methods.

The IMB team undertook a thorough analysis of nine different computational methods that represented a variety of approaches. They then took the method judged most effective and applied it to real ovarian cancer data.

“Our evaluation demonstrated that it's possible in some cases to use computational methods to gain insights into cancer biology.

“These methods can pinpoint targets that wouldn't otherwise have been considered, which can then be validated with laboratory experiments.”

The findings are published in the current edition of the scientific journal Genome Medicine, where it has been nominated as part of the thematic series Cancer bioinformatics: bioinformatic methods, network biomarkers and precision medicine.

FYX, a new New Zealand ISP, has launched its first internet services in the country, promising to negate geo-location blocking on US services such as Netflix.

The Federal Government has released the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) Review report, finding that more must be done to bring the telecommunications industry into line with the TIO scheme.

The National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co) has announced it has selected Primus to test new software designed to make it easier for telecommunications or ISPs to offer traditional analogue telephone services to consumers over a fibre network.