ACS CEO Week in Review: 6 Dec 2012
ACS in the news
Topics in the news:
- Digital Economy: New net rules would hit digital economy
- ICT jobs market and skills: ICT worker shortage in public service
- Cyber Security: Macquarie University site hacked and defaced
- Telecommunications: Telstra builds AU$100M cloud centre in Victoria
Digital Economy
- Australian smart phone take up, has doubled in the past 12 months according to an ACMA report. 49% of Australians had a smart phone in mid 2012, up from 25% in 2011.
- Inter-governmental regulation of the internet could deter investment, raise costs for consumers and hinder online access, a US diplomat said at the internet summit in Dubai.
Skills & Training
- Gillard government faces a shortage of ICT workers in the public service, raising concerns about Labor's ambitions for a digital economy enabled by the National Broadband Network.
- Closer ties with major technology companies that will lead to better courses and job-ready graduates - or the high-tech equivalent of letting McDonald's take over the school canteen?
- ALMOST 70 per cent of IT employees are feeling the pressure to work more hours in a bid to retain their job in the current market, data shows.
- Despite the fact that technology plays an increasingly important role in the economy, IT wages remain persistently flat. This may be tech's inconvenient truth.
Cyber Security
- Macquarie University has had one of its sites breached and left defaced over the weekend, with the hackers responsible claiming to have gained over 1 million passwords stored in plain text.
- A US and Canadian proposal to protect the internet from new international regulation has failed to win prompt backing from other countries, setting up potentially tough negotiations to rewrite a telecom treaty.
- Facebook has opened the polls for its 1 billion users to vote on a variety of changes to the social network's policies, including a proposal to scrap the user voting system that Facebook introduced in 2009.
Telecommunications
- Telstra has invested AU$100 million into a new datacentre for cloud computing in Clayton, Victoria, which will complement three existing facilities across Australia.
- OPTUS consumer boss Kevin Russell has called on the telecommunications industry to share more infrastructure, warning that profits could come under threat unless the exorbitant cost of building networks is shared.
Government announcements
- No case made for change on ITRs, says Australia. Minister for Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, is in Dubai this week to lead the Australian delegation at the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU) World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT).
- Record investment lifts university research rankings. Ten Australian universities are performing above the world standard for research, including four performing at well above world standard as a result of the Gillard Government’s record investment in research.