Reporter

Kick start your Start-ups in Australia

June 20, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

The “start up scene in Australia” is being noticed by the big players in US , judging by the big Amounts of funding some of the luckier start-ups in Australia have received recently.

Aussie start- ups Bringing in investor’s

While start-up companies and new businesses coming into the news are quite Normal, most of the recent media news and releases recently has been more partial to the “ technology start ups” as the preferred favoured sector, which is actually booming and garnering a lot of attention.

The start up scene in Australia has been quite slack since a long time , but suddenly there are million dollar takeover happening in small aussie start ups , possibly due to US investors taking advantage of our dollar as well as the weak economic activity in the US

Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar (pictured) from software tools maker and start up Atlassian, that received a $68 million cash injection recently.

Start up helpers and angel investors

There are now more easier methods for getting cash injection for tech start ups. While traditionally this was done by banks( which was quite difficult to get finance sometimes for start ups), nowadays its easier to get a venture capitalist , angel investors or a private investment bank or even crowd sourcing helping out your start up monetarily.

If your start-up is a promising new tech start up it can just be bought up or taken over by a major organisation as well, which is proven by the wallmart buy out of local start up company (grabble ). some of the cash injection investment helpers for tech start ups are listed below

Pollenizer

Key people: Mick Liubinskas and Phil Morle

Pollenizer transforms ideas into global web businesses. They invest team, process and capital and collaborate with gutsy entrepreneurs to launch startups.

http://pollenizer.com/

Future Capital

Key people: Domenic Carosa, Andrew Fiori-Dea, Danny Wallis, Tony Stephen, Irwin Saunders and Bill Kyriacou.

Future Capital has 14 businesses in its portfolio — five in Sydney and five in Melbourne, with the others spread across different parts of the country.

PushStart

Key people: Kim Heras and Roger Kermode

Start up Mentoring network PushStart recently unveiled eight start-ups that will take part in its first accelerator program.

Startmate

Key people: Co-founders David Jones and Nicki Scevak.

Startmate has been a very integral part of promoting Australia’s most promising tech businesses. Their four start-ups last year managed to attract external funding, with one, Grabble, even being acquired by US retail behemoth Wal Mart.

AngelCube

Key people: Andrew Birt, Andrew Stone and Richie Khoo.

AngelCube is a newer start-up incubator in Australia, who recently chose its first four start-ups, each getting $20,000 each in seed capital.

Their recent start ups are RentWant.com, Lexim.com.au, TestPilot.me and Goodfil.ms

Kickstarter – Your Investment banker / Venture capitalist Alternative

This site first began as a way for people to raise money for quirky projects like pop-up wedding chapels, around-the-world boating trips and offbeat documentaries, it quickly expanded to include video game production, feature films and innovative new gadgets.

They have now also backed up projects like the Elevation dock, a sleek stand for the iPhone, or Brydge, which turns an iPad into a laptop resembling the MacBook Air.

Kickstarter has raised more than $200 million for 20,000 projects

http://www.kickstarter.com/

When Eric Migicovsky, an engineer, wanted to develop a wristwatch that could display information from an iPhone – like caller ID and text messages – he went the traditional route of asking venture capitalists to finance his company. He failed to get any interest from them to develop his this product now called “the Pebble watch”.

He gave Kickstarter a go, a site where ordinary people back creative projects. Backers could pledge $99 and were promised a Pebble watch in return. Less than two hours after the project went up on the site, Mr. Migicovsky and his partners hit their goal of $100,000.

This project got so much interest from “KICKSTARTER” It was not before long they managed to get $600,0000 and then a record million dollars in funding.

Other sites offering Crowd funding or financing through a crowd

Other sites for financing through a crowd have appeared. There’s CROWDTILT, a service that lets friends contribute money for outings like a beach vacation; Zokos, a start-up that gives guests a way to pitch in for a dinner party; and Gambitious, a financing site devoted to indie game developers,

Wide range of sectors including Aviation, Construction, Property, Energy, Film, Finance, Food, Medical, Retail, Telecoms and Tourism have still to rely on the traditional banks form of investment while tech start-ups are the new darlings of the venture capitalists and angel investors.

The Australian government have also been pro-active with new business entrepreneurs over the past few years, with moves such as the “Entrepreneur Tax Discount” reducing the amounts of taxes for small business start-ups as they get established. But with recent changes, there is no guarantee these rebates will stay.

Can solar energy Solve Australia’s Electricity needs

June 14, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

Every hour of every day the amazingly the sun warms the earth with enough energy to meet world demand for a whole year. And this constant power source available to us – the sun. Solar energy now is getting more popular with governments due to scarcity and price of electricity generation in different countries.

Ancient Greeks and Romans long time ago tried to benefit from the sun by covering south facing building openings with glass or mica to hold in the heat of the winter sun.

Photo credit : wikipedia

Around 500 companies—the largest polluters in our economy—will be required to purchase a permit for every tonne of pollution they produce.

Through Clean Energy Future, the Australian Government encourages businesses to reduce their carbon footprint through a carbon tax.

Legal obligations for businesses

A small number of companies will have direct legal obligations, but for most businesses the most significant change will be the introduction of a carbon price through Clean Energy Future

The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) System developed by the government will measure and monitor corporate greenhouse gas emissions, energy production and energy consumption.

Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute solar energy

Australian Solar Government Schemes

SOLAR CREDITS SCHEME

Solar Credits is a mechanism within the RET scheme that provides additional support to households, businesses and community groups that install small-scale solar PV, wind and hydro electricity systems by multiplying the number of RECs able to be created for eligible installations.

Solar Credits apply to the first 1.5 kilowatts (kW) of capacity installed; generation from capacity above 1.5 kW will still be eligible for the standard 1:1 rate of RECs creation.

For more information view the Solar Credits for small generation units fact sheet.

NEW SOUTH WALES

SOLAR BONUS SCHEME

NSW has effectively scrapped the Solar Bonus Scheme, as of 27th October 2010.

For more information, visit:

http://www.dtiris.nsw.gov.au/energy/

QUEENSLAND

SOLAR BONUS SCHEME

Customers participating in the Scheme will be paid 44 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for surplus electricity fed into the grid—more than double the current general domestic use tariff of 18.84c/kWh (inc GST as at 1 July 2009).

For more information, visit:

http://www.cleanenergy.qld.gov.au/solar_scheme.cfm

SOUTH AUSTRALIA Govt solar schemes

SOLAR FEED IN SCHEME

The Electricity (Feed-In Scheme-Solar Systems) Amendment Act 2008 was the first solar feed-in law in Australia and pays a premium guaranteed tariff of 44 cents per unit of electricity (kilowatt-hour, kWh), to households and small customers who feed solar electricity into the grid. For updated info on this scheme visit :
http://www.renewablessa.sa.gov.au/solar

VICTORIA Solar schemes

FEED IN TARIFFS

Victoria has two programs that allow consumers to be credited for renewable electricity they feed into the state’s grid – a premium feed-in tariff for solar and standard feed-in tariff for other small-scale renewable energy systems.

For more information, visit:
http://new.dpi.vic.gov.au/energy/energy-policy/greenhouse-challenge/feed-in-tariffs

WESTERN AUSTRALIA Goverment Solar schemes Grants

FEED IN TARIFFS

A residential net feed-in tariff scheme will commence in Western Australia from 1 August 2010. The tariff will be paid per unit of net electricity exported to the electricity grid from eligible systems.

For more information, visit:
http://www.energy.wa.gov.au/1/3652/64/feedin.pm

Solar Conference – Australia

One of the key events this year is the East Solar Expo & Conference to be presented by AuSES and international partner AUPVSEE at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre from the 21-22^nd of August. www.eastsolar2012.com

In the United States, Swedish-born John Ericsson led efforts to harness solar power. He designed the “parabolic trough collector,” a technology which functions more than a hundred years later on the same basic design.In 1953, Bell Laboratories (now AT&T labs) scientists Gerald Pearson, Daryl Chapin and Calvin Fuller developed the first silicon solar cell capable of generating a measurable electric current.

The U.S.-China photovoltaic trade war is on despite china getting booming trade from US for its cheap solar technologies and exports.

Research papers in solar

SAFETY ISSUES, ARCING AND FUSING IN PV ARRAYS – Edward D Spooner, Nigel Wilmot (Senior Lecturer, The University of New South Wales, Australia)

COMPARISON OF SOLAR, NUCLEAR AND WIND OPTIONS FOR LARGE SCALE IMPLEMENTATION – David Mills (Solar Heat and Power Pty Ltd)

Climate Change Action Fund

The Climate Change Action Fund (PDF 142 kB) will help local government prepare for a low pollution future

Assistance for eligible renewable energy power stations

Technorati Tags: BUSINESS,CLIMATE,FINANCE,INDUSTRY,NEWS,POLITICS,SCIENCE · TAGGED: CLIMATE CHANGE,CLIME,ENERGY,GREENHOUSE GAS,RENEWABLE ENERGY,SOLAR,SOLAR ENERGY

Has the “Age of cyber war arrived”

June 4, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

Israel has admitted that it uses cyberspace to attack its enemies and reports in the NYTIMES have confirmed that US was also a part of the STUXNET infiltration (a worm that infiltrated industrial systems of the German company Siemens, apparently to disrupt uranium enrichment in Iran.)of Iran’s sensitive Nuclear programme.

US , Israel in cyber wars against countries

More about the Stuxnet Worm ( virus)

Other worms in the “spotlight”

Duqu virus

Shamoon

Conficker

Flame virus

A Israeli website said it was “for the first time” revealing a document recently written by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Operations Department, detailing the goals and methods of its cyber warfare.

The website said it had been using cyberspace for intelligence gathering and “will” also use it “to execute attacks” and “clandestine” operations.

Australia Vulnerable to Cyber attacks

The chief executive of security firm Kaspersky Lab has warned that Australia cannot defend itself from the rising tide of cyber attacks from foreign powers, the best of which come from Russia and China. Mr Kaspersky said Russian malware continued to be the world’s best at attacking systems and it was largely created by criminal gangs

2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline Master Index

List of cyber attack trends

History of major cyber attacks

A report in The New York Times by David E. Sanger, based on the book Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, published, said American President Barack Obama ordered the computer virus program, begun during the Bush administration, be ramped up.

Eugene Kaspersky chief executive of security firm Kaspersky Lab said “Most attacks come from China and most criminal malware is written in Chinese. “The second most used language is Portuguese . . . and that’s most probably Brazil. “The third most popular language is Russian, which means it comes from Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Baltic countries.”

The statement comes immediately after one of the world’s top virus-hunting agencies Kapersky said it discovered a virus codenamed Flame on computers in Iran and several Middle East countries.

Kaspersky Lab compared Flame to Duqu and Stuxnet, two other virus programs that targeted Iran.

This Advanced Malicious Virus was designed to carry out cyber espionage by stealing images, audio conversations and other data, and had been in use for more than two years( since 2010) in the open without being noticed.

Flame targets computers running the Windows operating system and apparently spreads through infected thumb drives, websites and manipulated emails.

The Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab said most infections (189) were found in Iran, and, although other infections (98) were also found in Israel.

Media reports from kapersky have reported that China and Russia are the originators of the most cyber attacks (including state sponsored) and viurs attacks on computers.

Countries Scramble to get more slice of the pie

May 26, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

Since the new “FATCA Rules”, OECD GUIDELINES and changes in the US internal revenue of service policies in relation to international taxation, several countries have started having a look at their own policies.

When times are uncertain everyone tries to secure what they have and prevent erosion of existing wealth , and that’s what many countries are trying to do right now.

Australia is now looking closer at tech company giants who are getting away with paying minimum tax in Australia as per media reports

Mr Turnbull told The Australian Financial Review he was consulting with chief executives of local media companies after the Australian division of global online search giant Google released accounts this month showing it paid only $74,176 in tax despite earning an estimated $1.1 billion in revenue in 2011.

The new cloud service delivery now being promoted by almost all big tech companies is only going to muddy the waters even more with transfer pricing and other tax issues relating to it, with many countries missing out in revenue.

So what is FATCA ?

After the FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Reporting)was released, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) introduces new, and largely parallel, reporting requirements. The FATCA reporting requirements carry their own set of penalties and are filed with the tax return rather than separately.

FATCA requires foreign financial institutions (FFI’s), to report information about accounts held by U.S. taxpayers directly to the IRS. This is a major compliance duty put on the Australian banks and borne by the Australian banks so that the US authorities can claim a piece of their pie. You can read more about FATCA here

The FATCA can impact on several AUSTRALIAN Banks ,Savings and Loan Associations ,Credit unions, Co-operative banking institutions and other financial institutions in australia

Transfer pricing to be scrutinised in australia

Cash-strapped governments around the world are targeting transfer pricing. Transfer pricing in short is defined as the practice in which companies send profits overseas to subsidiaries in low-tax countries

The ATO has found 68 of Australia’s top 100 corporations in 2008 had a subsidiary in a tax haven, low-tax jurisdiction or bank secrecy country as per this media report.

Even in India recently the Vodafone case was high on the media reports internationally as India looks to amend its tax laws after a defeat in this case resulting in a loss of millions of dollars to India

OECD AND ARMS LENGTH

Definition as per OECD :

This valuation principle is commonly applied to commercial and financial transactions between related companies. It says that transactions should be valued as if they had been carried out between unrelated parties, each acting in his own best interest.

The Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations (ISBN Number:978926409003) provide guidance on the application of the “arm’s length principle” for the valuation, for tax purposes, of cross-border transactions between associated enterprises. (OECD BOOKS ON transfer pricing)

The British tax office is also under pressure to investigate Apple after it emerged the US-based technology giant paid £10 million in British tax in 2010 while generating an estimated £6 billion in revenue and Online retailer Amazon is reported for recording about £8 billion in revenue in Britain over three years without paying tax.

Canada also has cracked down on multinationals that dodge tax through inflating profits or losses in dealings with their related companies overseas

Even with the deepening crisis in Europe , the EU are trying to impose carbon tax on International airlines using EU airports. The tax proposes to not only covers the flight through EU sky but through out the world. It is a scheme to impose ‘a sort of tax’ outside EU airspace which has got the ire of some other countries

LINKS:

OECD AND AUSTRALIA

International Taxation: When the Transfer Pricing

The 2012–2013 Budget – Australian Government

May 20, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

The Federal Government has pledged to deliver a surplus in the 2012 budget, a promise that is likely to mean widespread cuts across government agencies, including to aspirational IT projects. The government is likely to lose a big voter base due to these cuts to decrease pay rises in government jobs and culling of jobs which can be seen with a increase in union protests for pay rises all over Australia.

The budget aspires to spreads the benefits of the mining boom to help low and middle-income families, through increased payments to families and an allowance for eligible income recipients.

Some features of Australia BUDGET 2012 – 2013

$1.8 billion to increase Family Tax Benefit Part A for all eligible families, commencing 1 July 2013

From 1 July 2012, more than tripling the tax‑free threshold from $6,000 to $18,200, freeing up to 1 million Australians from the need to lodge a tax return

An extra $2.1 billion over five years on a new Schoolkids Bonus, paid directly to eligible recipients

From 1 July 2012, delivering tax breaks for small business, like the increase to the instant asset write‑off threshold to $6,500

Delivering 76 major new regional health infrastructure projects across Australia, worth $475 million

Increasing the number of Home Care packages by nearly 40,000, to nearly 100,000, over the next five years

$1.75 billion National Partnership Agreement on Skills Reform as agreed at COAG in April this year

Investing over $36 billion in roads, rail and ports over six years to 2013‑14

Budget Documents Download

Budget Overview– 2.3MB– Budget Overview is an overview of key budget aggregates and the Government’s budget priorities.

Appendix A ‑ Australian Government budget aggregates
Appendix B ‑ Assessment against the fiscal target
Appendix C ‑ Helping households with the cost of living
Appendix D ‑ Lowering the tax burdens of Australians
Appendix E ‑ Major initiatives in the 2012‑13 Budget
Appendix F ‑ Major savings in the 2012‑13 Budget
Appendix G ‑ Australian Government taxation and spending
Appendix H ‑ Detailed economic forecasts
Appendix I ‑ Historical budget and net financial worth data

Download Chartpack –.48MB (Zip)

More Budget documents 2012- 2013 PDF download

Other Australian Budgets 2012 – 2013

Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry budget 2012-13

Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy budget 2012-13

Climate Change and Energy Efficiency budget 2012-13

Education, Employment and Workplace Relations budget 2012-13

Resources, Energy and Tourism budget 2012-13

Overseas Other countries Budget 2012 – 2013

Uk budget 2012 – 2013 – Chancellor cuts income tax rate for 300,000 richest households, while 4.4 million pensioners are set to lose out by £84 a year – read more

Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2013 – US budget contains the Budget Message of the President, information on the President’s priorities, budget overviews organized by agency, and summary tables. To download "Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2013" as a single PDF click here (256 pages, 4.6 MB) ….. Read more

Indian Union Budget 2012 – 2013 – The indian budget 2012- 2013 lives up to its promise to bring the fiscal deficit down from 5.9% of GDP to 5.1% of GDP as proposed….. Read more

NZ Budget 2012 – 2013 – The Government is firmly focused on rebuilding and strengthening the economy to get back to surplus by 2014/15…. Read more

Canada Federal budget 2012 – The canada federal budget had a sweeping overhaul of Canadian law ever contemplated in one piece of legislation: 425 pages of dense legalese that amends or throws out more than 60 existing federal statutes….Read more

Honk Kong budget 2012 2013 By Deloitte china – Budget papers for Hong kong by PWC coopers and Deloitte

Article by Gee Lan Kwo

Technorati Tags: 2012 budget summary 2012 budget day fy 2012 budget passed greek 2012 budget details 2012 budget date 2012 budget planner 2012 budget papers 2012 budget night

Australian Banks Half yearly reporting

May 2, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

The banks have been doing good business, here are the half yearly profit and loss reports for the big four banks here in Australia, Westpac , NAB, CommBank and ANZ.

Reporting season – Bank profits Australia

Westpac 2012 | $3.209 Billion | May 3, Half year profit reporting
WESTPAC CEO – Gail kelly
Australia’s very own Gail Kelly has joined the ranks of Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s ten most powerful women.

Top banks australia Profit reporting 2012

NAB 2012 | $2.828 Billion | May 10, Half year profit

NAB CEO – Cameron ClyneNAB Chief executive Cameron Clyne reciived more than $1000 and hour in pay and perks last year according to media reports

ANZ 2012 | $2.925 Billion | May 2, Half year profit

ANZ CEO – Philip Chronican is Chief Executive Officer, Australia.
Philip oversees the Australian geography and is specifically responsible for the bank’s retail and commercial business and customers in Australia, as well as leading ANZ’s retail segment on a global basis

Commonwealth 2012 | $3.649 Billion | August, Half year profit
Commonwealth Bank – CEO Ian Narev
Ian Narev says CBA will step up its rollout of branches in Indonesia and China

Australian Businesses Collaborate in the Cloud

April 25, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

An increasing number of businesses are making the move to the cloud in order to gain mobile access to email and documents. For Australian businesses, Google Apps, Google’s cloud service platform, is quickly becoming a top option thanks to the platform’s communication and collaboration capabilities.

Cloud computing catches on in Business

When it comes to moving your business to the Google cloud, you can purchase the Google Apps for Business product suite through Google, itself, or through a local Google Apps Authorized Reseller. Enlisting the help of a Google partner ensures increased training as well as more personalized migration and support. In July 2011 having help with your Google Apps migration became even easier when Cloud Sherpas, a Google partner based in Atlanta, Georgia since 2008, opened multiple offices in both Australia and New Zealand.

Here in Australia, Cloud Sherpas works closely with Google and has a headquarters in Sydney in addition to offices in Melbourne and Brisbane. After its summer 2011 launch, Cloud Sherpas quickly became a premier Google partner in the region, serving all types of businesses (small and medium-sized businesses as well as enterprises).

So what are Cloud Sherpas and Google Apps doing to improve the day-to-day functions of Australian businesses? From the initial Google Apps setupand everything that follows, businesses that make the switch to the Google cloud network have premier communication and collaboration tools at their fingertips.

Google Apps in the cloud

Because Google Apps runs on a 99.9% uptime guarantee and provides users with mobile access, it ensures that businesses will always have access to information – whenever and wherever necessary. With this guaranteed access, businesses can take full advantage of features like Gmail, Google Documents, Google Sites, and Google Groups to improve their communication and collaboration. For example, Gmail allows for storage that is 50 times the industry average, includes a Google-powered search function, and has instant-messaging and video-chatting capabilities. With Google Documents, users can create, edit, and store documents in the cloud and easily share these files with co-workers or customers. Google Docs even allow for real-time collaboration so multiple users can edit a file simultaneously, regardless of location. Applications like Sites and Groups enable larger groups of people to work together and communicate with one another easily by providing users with a central location to post files, deadlines, tasks, and other information (Sites) and by allowing users to communicate as one, cohesive body (Groups).

In addition to improving the communication and collaboration of businesses, Google Apps can also lower IT costs. Since Google Apps is an entirely cloud-based platforms, it runs without any additional hardware or software. This lack of equipment, combined with the fact that Google automatically sends out any updates, cuts down significantly on time and money spent on IT concerns. And businesses can also rest easy knowing their important information is safe, as Google Apps is verified in SAS 70 Type II audit.

As a result of the enhanced communication and collaboration tools – in addition to guaranteed universal access, cost-saving measures, and security – available through Google Apps, this cloud service platform is quickly becoming the top choice for Australian businesses of all kinds and sizes.

Cloud Sherpas is a leading cloud service provider and was named the “Google Enterprise 2011 Partner of the Year.” As one of the first Google Enterprise partners, Cloud Sherpas has migrated over one million users across a variety of industries from legacy, on-premise messaging systems to Google Apps, helping organizations adopt cloud computing to innovate and dramatically reduce their IT expenses. A Google Apps Reseller in Atlanta, GA, Cloud Sherpas has regional offices in locations including San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Austin and Sydney, and has more Google Apps Certified Deployment Specialists than any other partner in the world.

Mother dead, Daughter seriously Injured in Police car chase

April 12, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

An innocent mother has died and teenage daughter seriously injured in a police car chase. A police vehicle on a car chase in pursuit of a stolen car rammed into innocent civilians causing death and serious injury.

Many people have been shocked by the result of this police chase and it emerged this afternoon according to media reports that the two officers did not have official permission to engage in the pursuit.

This police chase in pursuit of a stolen car claimed the life of a 50-year-old Dianella mother and left her 16-year-old daughter in hospital,

The Police car was chasing the stolen grey Audi sedan when they drove against a red light and hit the Toyota Corolla travelling south through a green light on Alexander Drive at 11am.

Major Crash investigators are said to probe the crash, while internal affairs officers will examine the police conduct

In a previous incident Two officers were the subject of an internal investigation over a pursuit in Noranda last month, in which a 15-year-old male driver crashed a stolen Ford Falcon and died.he AVL recorded the police car travelling at 164km/h but this has been disputed by the officers.

Woman killed during Perth police pursuit‎ Ninemsn
Cops kill woman in high-speed chase‎ Adelaide Now
Woman killed during Dianella pursuit‎ The West Australian

Australian WIFI ( WLAN ) inventor wins patent battle against Microsoft , Toshiba

April 2, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

Not many people know it , but one of the biggest inventions in the technology ( WIFI ) used all over the world in millions of devices was invented in Australia.

Wifi – An Australian Invention

WIFI or WLAN as it was known when it was invented by a group of scientists John O’sullivan , Terry Percival, Diet Ostry, Graham Daniels, John Deane working for the CSIRO.

In 2009, it received A$205 million after reaching settlements with 14 companies. The latest settlement is worth more than $220 million with lap-top makers, mobile carriers and wireless chip makers which represent around 90 percent of the Tech industry including companies including Lenovo, Acer, Sony and AT&T. The CSIRO has license agreements with 23 companies with these new settlements.

(Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is Australia’s national science agency )

This invention was patented in the US in 1996 and the first products using the wireless WLAN technology entered the market in 2001.

WIFI WLAN Patent War

Major big technology companies like Microsoft , Hewlett-Packard, Intel , Toshiba started using this technology but ignored the patent until CSIRO took legal action to defend its patent and invention

The Australian government-run Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) said the settlement for the Wireless local area networking (WLAN) patent was worth more than A$220 million ($229 million).

About Wifi from wikipedia

Wi-Fi ( /ˈ w aɪ f aɪ /, sometimes spelled Wifi or WiFi) is a popular technology that allows an electronic device to exchange data wirelessly (using radio waves) over a computer network, including high-speed Internet connections.

Ref-img:http://www.bestnetbooksreview.com/wi-fi-bluetooth-information-and-advice.html

The Wi-Fi Alliance defines Wi-Fi as any “wireless local area network (WLAN) products that are based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) 802.11 standards”.^[1] However, since most modern WLANs are based on these standards, the term “Wi-Fi” is used in general English as a synonym for “WLAN”.

Links for Wi-Fi Info:

Australia settles patent suit in U.S. wi-fi case

How wifi Works

Australian “Men’s magazine FHM” Closes down

March 16, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

Australia’s Favourite men’s magazine “FHM AUSTRALIA” has decided to close down its doors. FHM Australia HM, which stands for “For Him Magazine” was launched in Australia in May 1998. The closure of FHM is one of the first acts of ACP’s new chief executive, Mr. Matt Stanton, who took the top job at ACP Publishing late last year.

ACP publishers recently also started publishing another budget MENS magazine “Zoo Magazine” which also has a online presence. They launched the magazine with a very attractive $2 price range for a short introductory period.

FHM Australia is also on Facebook and has 41,467 fans on facebook.

ACP is owned by the Nine Entertainment Co, which has attempted to sell its magazine division but with little success so far.

Another men’s magazine Ralph, also closed in 2010 because of the global downturn

FHM – now owned by German company, Bauer Media Group – is published in 21 territories, including China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Romania and the United Kingdom.

FHM Australia magazine features a mix of general trivia , sex, gags, grog , gadgets,men tips and raunchy and sexy looking International and local models. Publisher ACP , who publishes this men’s magazine and many other Australian magazines like the The Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day yesterday announced the May issue of FHM would be the last and the magazine’s website would close at the same time