Fourth to come online. The federal government has officially opened a new public-private cyber threat sharing centre in Sydney, its fourth to go live across the country. The national network of centres was promised under the government’s cyber security strategy released in 2016. The initiative is being led by CERT Australia within the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC). […]
Findings of investigation released. The federal Health department breached privacy law when it released a botched dataset that allowed for the re-identification of patients, Australia’s privacy commission has found. In December researchers from the University of Melbourne revealed they were able to easily re-identify patients from the data without using decryption methods. Health had released the supposedly de-identified […]
Privacy scandal widens. The personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users may have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, up from a previous estimate of more than 50 million. Most of the 87 million people whose data was shared with Cambridge Analytica, which worked on US President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, […]
To address “residual risks”. Australian government agencies have been told to use “additional configuration and security controls” before committing workloads to Microsoft’s new protected-level public cloud instances. The guidance, published late Friday, appears to treat Microsoft’s protected-level cloud services differently from similarly classified products on the government’s Certified Cloud Services List (CCSL). Microsoft’s protected classification […]
A recently unveiled concept phone from Chinese company Vivo got us all excited that we’re finally getting phones with a fingerprint scanner built into the screen. Unfortunately, Samsung probably isn’t jumping on that bandwagon just yet. This is according to a new report by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has backtracked on his earlier position and is now claiming Samsung’s […]
Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed a fascinating new theory for how life on Earth may have begun. Their experiments, described today in the journal Nature Communications, demonstrate that key chemical reactions that support life today could have been carried out with ingredients likely present on the planet four billion years ago. […]
Scientists at the University of Dundee have discovered that E. coli bacteria could hold the key to an efficient method of capturing and storing or recycling carbon dioxide. Cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to slow down and even reverse global warming has been posited as humankind’s greatest challenge. It is a goal that is subject […]
St. Jude researchers show that rhabdomyosarcoma also originates from endothelial cells lining blood vessels. The image shows red endothelial progenitor cells expanding and proliferating forming tumors between the green muscle fibers. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital oncologists have discovered the cell type that gives rise to rhabdomyosarcoma, the most prevalent soft tissue cancer in children. […]
Nothing comes for free, especially online. Websites and apps that don’t charge you for their services are often collecting your data or bombarding you with advertising. Now some sites have found a new way to make money from you: using your computer to generate virtual currencies. Several video streaming sites and the popular file sharing network The Pirate Bay have […]
Robots can provide comic relief and cuteness overload for longtime fans of the Star Wars films that take place in a galaxy far, far away. The latest example in Disney’s Star Wars films is the adorable BB-8 droid that has a dome head riding atop a spherical body and mostly communicates through beeps and electronic warbles. But something dark […]
Humanoid robots like Sophia, granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia, and Atlas, which backflips like a boss, are rigid, strong and rather bulky. They’re made to look like us; they’re not designed after us. But researchers are working hard to give robots a softer touch without losing strength. Two new studies released Thursday in Science and Science Roboticsshowcase new moving robotic […]
Imagine buying a solar panel from a hardware store, mounting it on your roof, then selling the green electricity you produce at a price you set. Is this even possible? Some companies certainly think so. These startups are harnessing the power of blockchains to democratize green power. Before you can understand how blockchains are part […]