Tech Talk Column

State of Origin time again and what a fascinating contest in Melbourne on Wednesday night. Not fascinating because NSW actually won a game but fascinating for the technology inherent in the modern broadcast. Since 2014 we have seen the NFL (National …

The alarm goes off. The hand reaches for the button to stop the noise before bounding out of bed to engage in some gaming before the reality of the real-world sets in. Breakfast, chores and the trip to school. Sounds like a typical morning for a teen…

It was way back in April 2009 that I had finished talking at a seminar in Copenhagen and was due to fly out to my next stop in Amsterdam but I took a slight detour. While at the conference I was told by a local about a fascinating piece of infrastruc…

Well another federal budget announcement has come and gone and pundits are still poring over the papers to see what devils lurk in the detail for different groups and sectors. From a pure technology perspective, there wasn’t a lot to get overly…

On the day affectionately known across the geek world as Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you) I thought about the seemingly never-ending series of movies we have seen so far – and continue to see – and how that same concept often appli…

Everyone using a mobile phone in our country – which means practically everyone – has some gold bling they aren’t necessarily aware of. The mobile phone system we use in Australia is know as GSM (originally standing for Groupe Sp&ea…

With the mention of military drones, the first image that comes to my mind is that of Helen Mirren starring as Colonel Katherine Powell, a UK military intelligence officer, in the 2015 British thriller film, Eye in the Sky. This movie focused on the …

When I read ‘The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club’ I should have taken more notice of the words of Charles Dickens. As far back as 1837, Dickens had one of his characters use the expression “Never say never.” Since the f…

This week saw another major tech launch on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) when a Swiss flag flew to mark the launch of a Swedish company (whoops)! At the end of trade, Spotify had a market capitalisation of almost US$30 billion. Not bad for a com…

Eighteen years ago, our country introduced the Goods and Services Tax (GST) that, despite a few minor complications with certain exemptions, is relatively simple. When a supplier sells a product, the supplier needs to add ten per cent to the cost of …

It is one of life’s great ironies. A person with a certain trait will unwittingly look for – or see – that trait in other people before any other trait. For example, take the situation when you don’t know where your phone is. …

If you think about the biggest single sales day on the mobile phone calendar you might think about Christmas Eve or 30 June or maybe even the beginning of the school year. What about Valentine’s Day? All incorrect. Undoubtedly the biggest singl…

The internal combustion engine has some history. Patents can be traced back as far as 1791 and various improvements were made through the 1800s. In 1826 a patent was issued for an engine that included a carburettor. In 1856 a 5HP engine replaced stea…

Breaking news. 4G is being rolled out on a barren sparse landscape to allow HD video to be uploaded. Sounds like a scenario that would make many people in regional Australia very happy. And as much as it would be fantastic to be reporting on that sit…

With a little help from the McKinsey Global Institute, today I want to jump forward to the year 2025 and look at what technologies we know about today that I think will be having a larger impact on our world by 2025, a time when the world population …

US Patent number 634,042 was issued in October 1899 for something called the pneumatic carpet renovator. Something like an early vacuum cleaner. It was shortly after this that the United States Commissioner of Patents was purported to say, “Eve…

It was way back in 1989 that I had finished with the fun of living at a University College and moved into a flat with some friends. The first analogue cellular mobile phone call was made in Australia on 23 February 1987 so very few people actually ha…

I was out riding my bike early one morn with a small group of riders that ride together semi-regularly. It was a popular route amongst cyclists around the city with different groups using it most mornings. On this particular morning, there was a ride…