Think Id love public transport if it were wireless

Plan to lure commuters with free wireless internet access

Article from:

RENATO CASTELLO

FORGET trainspotting - Adelaide could become Australia's train-surfing capital.

Not standing recklessly atop a speeding train, but surfing the net from the comfort of a train carriage - in a bid to make public transport more attractive, the State Government is investigating equipping Adelaide's public transport with free wireless internet.

The initiative would allow commuters to surf the internet, check emails and download timetables from their laptops or mobile phones – all for the price of a public transport fare.

Transport Energy and Infrastructure Department senior communications adviser Eric Wisgard told the Sunday Mail the investigation into a wireless network was only in its conceptual stage, although such networks existed in the UK, Paris and some US cities.

He said Monash University was offering the technology on some of its inter-campus buses, and Sydney bus company Hillsbus was offering Wi-Fi internet to its patrons on selected routes.

"This kind of technology allows people to connect to the internet whilst in transit, to check emails and browse websites," Mr Wisgard said in an email.

"It also provides the ability to track a bus's location, provide information to drivers and, in areas with good enough capacity, provide video surveillance.

"No decision has been made yet as to whether wireless technology is feasible for use on public transport in this state or even whether it is feasible to commence a formal project to investigate the use of this technology."

It is understood the Transport Department approached industry experts as early as last July to gauge interest in the scheme, ahead of a free trial to determine the viability of the project.

If it goes ahead it would put Adelaide alongside US cities including San Francisco, Seattle and Cincinatti, which have already hard-wired their municipal buses at a cost of about $1500 each. New York city will begin wiring the city's 277 subway stations in the next six years.

Some buses also have been equipped with GPS so bus companies can monitor the punctuality of their services.

University of SA research worker Geordan Graetz spends an hour a day commuting on public transport from his home at Aberfoyle Park to the city.

He said having the internet on the way to work would increase his productivity, allowing him time to check his emails on the way to work.

"The wireless could further my ability to work while in transit," the 23-year-old said. "I can also prepare when I'm coming into work and then start work straight away without having to check my emails. My job is in politics and international studies so I need to keep up to date with the news."

Is it OK to just write a cheque?

Polluters' blank cheque

• Guy Pearse
• March 30, 2009

Real cuts in emissions are impossible under the Federal Government's scheme.

IMAGINE the scene — you have had a bad day at work, the kids have the flu, and you have just got some nuisance caller off the phone. There's a knock on the door. "Hi, I'm from Alcoa," says a slickly dressed man with a Texan drawl. "We're wonderin' whether you'd care to give us and our fellow emission intensive trade exposed companies $500 a year until 2020 and beyond so we can have free emission permits?" You slam the door in his face.

Then there's another knock on the door, similar bloke with an Oxbridge accent. "I'm from International Power," he says. "Terribly sorry, old chap, but coal-fired power stations will be worth less once emissions trading comes in, so generators are charging all households a once-off fee of $455 to maintain their value for our shareholders." You tell him where to stick his bill.

Then there's yet another knock on the door. "Yah, hi thar," he says with a bitzer foreign accent — Swiss maybe, with some South African speckled through it. 'We're from the Xstrata, and we'd like some cheques from you for the coal industry:

$93 to cushion us from the impact of emissions trading; $62 for new infrastructure to double coal exports; and $62 for work on 'clean coal technology' — $220 all up should cover it for now." You threaten to call the police unless he leaves the property.

Big polluters knew better than to knock on our doors — they knocked on Kevin Rudd's door instead and got a very different reception. Unbeknown to most households, Rudd effectively agreed to write all these cheques and more. His so-called carbon pollution reduction scheme asked the biggest emitting industries to pay for, on average, just one in every five tonnes of their greenhouse pollution — the rest of us would pay for the other four. By 2020, 45 per cent of emissions would be given away free to the worst offenders, maybe more. This makes it mathematically impossible to make deep cuts in greenhouse pollution in Australia, and the Prime Minister's promise of a "blueprint for reducing carbon pollution at home", becomes undeliverable.

The only way of concealing this is to outsource Australia's emission reductions en masse — paying other countries to reduce emissions on our behalf. That's why Rudd's white paper on emissions trading placed no limit whatsoever on how many emission permits and credits generated overseas could be used in place of emission cuts in Australia. One hundred per cent of Australia's emission cuts could be made overseas just as long as outsourcing options are cheap and plentiful. And they will be.

The carbon trade is likely to be dominated by cheap "biocarbon" measures — especially deals in which developing countries pledge not to log rainforests in return for Western polluters getting credit for the carbon emissions prevented. This "reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation" (REDD) could cost as little as

$US1 per tonne of carbon dioxide, and it is plentiful: deforestation accounts for about 20 per cent of global emissions; around three times Australia's annual emissions in PNG and Indonesia alone.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has effectively conceded that because the Government proposes no limit on outsourcing emission cuts, actual greenhouse pollution in Australia might not fall irrespective of what 2020 target Australia adopts. After all, if all the cuts can be outsourced cheaply, what comes out of smokestacks and tailpipes here need not change, whether we have a 5 per cent target or a 40 per cent target. Like our manufacturing, our call centres and so much more, it can all be outsourced to developing countries.

The most obvious difficulty with hiding pollution in the rainforests of our near neighbours is being sure the deforestation has been avoided rather than merely shifted. There's no real guarantee the carbon is stored permanently. Moreover, if cheap carbon storage in forests is done instead of cutting emissions, that enables industries to continue on their merry way and delays the hard task of cutting actual greenhouse pollution by another couple of decades.

It's deja vu. John Howard relied on avoided deforestation, mostly in Queensland, to argue that Australia was on target to meet its Kyoto Protocol target even while actual greenhouse pollution rose by more than a third.

Kevin Rudd, with encouragement from Ross Garnaut, plans something similar on a much grander scale. Treasury modelling suggests that even if only 50 per cent of our international obligations are outsourced, actual emissions in 2050 will be roughly what they were in 1990 — about 400 million to 425 million tonnes.

By again hiding the problem in a forest, Australia will claim to be "on track" to meet its Copenhagen targets without cutting its actual greenhouse pollution. Meanwhile, our biggest contribution to climate change — black coal exports — will be conveniently ignored. These exports are on track to generate 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually by 2030 — rivalling the current carbon footprint of Saudi Arabian oil. That coal won't be used cleanly either. Treasury's modelling suggests that "clean coal" technology won't be deployed in Australia until 2033, let alone in our export markets or other developing countries. Protecting Australia's carbon lobby will become harder and harder to get away with.

Now imagine this scene: mayors from the communities where most coalmines, smelters and other heavy polluting facilities are located once again knock on Kevin Rudd's door, accompanied by the same men in suits with thick foreign accents. "Sorry, Mr Rudd. All those cheques you offered us are now not enough. We're doing it a bit too tough in the resources sector just now."

Guy Pearse is a climate policy analyst and Author of Quarterly Essay 33 — Quarry Vision: Coal, Climate Change and the End of the Resources Boom (Black Inc).

Vote Earth!

Your light switch is your vote

THIS SATURDAY 28 MARCH AT 8.30PM YOU CAN VOTE EARTH BY SWITCHING OFF YOUR LIGHTS FOR ONE HOUR - EARTH HOUR.

Australia talks The future of libraries 26th March 2009

ABC podcast on future of libraries

Click on this link to listen to this podcast, details below:

	Australia Talks - Radio National
	Bob Stein is the founder and Co-Director of the Institute for the Future of the Book, Bob Stein is founder and Co- Director of the Institute for the Future of the Book. The Institute is a small think-and-do tank ‘investigating the evolution of intellectual discourse as it shifts from printed pages to networked screens’. Bob also started Night Kitchen, with the aim to develop authoring tools for new generations of electronic publishing. This work is now being continued at the Institute. So.. for my comments: I liked the idea of librarians (and library staff, in general, ) being "digital life coaches", teaching patrons how and where to access the information they require, not so much of doing the research for them but setting them on a path of discovery, teaching tagging and keyword use, for themselves. A Living Library was mentioned where people come to the library on a regular basis to share their life stories with others. Phrases such as " huge shift in ways we communicate' and "navigating for information", Libraries becoming community centres with books, less quiet spaces, theres a choice of experiences. World War 1 diaries are being digitalised by the State Library of NSW, ( something to investigate and maybe blog about, watch this space) Libraries becoming internet cafes?!, good or bad

Is the banking system looking out for us?

Win-win for banks, families and taxpayers

Christopher Joye, The Age, Opinion

March 26, 2009

Deposit guarantees are vital for banking durability.

SINCE the advent of the credit crisis, our understanding of the unique role played by banks has once again evolved (older heads would say it has been "refreshed"). Numerous institutions around the world have been wholly or partially nationalised in recognition that the banking system is the critical infrastructure through which liquidity is collected (via savings) and distributed (through loans) to all parts of the economy.

Australia's highly profitable major banks rank among only 22 AA-rated banks in the world, and have generally thrived throughout this calamity. The biggest bank, Commonwealth, is to be commended on its commitment to aggressively maintaining liquidity in the face of these challenges.

Rather than rationing credit to the $250 billion a year housing finance market, CBA has backed the sector's integrity by buying BankWest outright and acquiring direct and indirect stakes in Aussie and Wizard. Last year, it recorded 12 per cent growth in its home loan book, yet managed to keep its 90-day default rate down to just 0.38 per cent through conservative lending (that's less than a sixth of the default rate on prime US home loans).

CBA recently reported the loan-to-value ratio on its $275billion mortgage portfolio was a remarkably low 37 per cent.

We have come to appreciate that banks are not private entities in the conventional sense. Given their role as the economy's principal conduit for the aggregation of savings and the distribution of credit, banks, by definition, require various forms of implicit and explicit government help to negotiate shocks such as those we've witnessed lately.

The taxpayer-funded Reserve Bank, founded in 1959, in part to prevent banking crises, lends to these institutions daily to support their liquidity. At certain points in the crisis, the Reserve has injected billions of dollars into the banks' short-term funding markets to minimise their cost of finance as concerns around counter-party risks led to spreads widening to previously unfathomable and non-economic levels.

More recently, taxpayers have provided deposit guarantees and offered to lend the banks the Government's rock-solid AAA credit rating, which has allowed them to raise more than $60 billion of wholesale funds they would not have had access to. While banks have paid a risk premium for these guarantees, it is an open question whether this fee reflects the value of the service they've received.

And though some of the majors might argue they don't want deposit guarantees, it is sobering to consider how they'd react if the Government formally legislated that there would be no implicit guarantees either. The truth is that deposits are the shortest term of all available funding sources and can waltz out the door any day. History has repeatedly demonstrated that deposit guarantees of one form or another are essential for banking durability.

The most recent call for help has been the $2 billion in taxpayer cash and the $26 billion in guarantees that the banks requested to prop up commercial property lending in the event that there was an exodus of foreign capital.

While one can argue about what all this is worth, such interventions have stimulated calls for greater reciprocation from these "utilities". CBA has started doing its bit, with the announcement of repayment holidays for distressed borrowers. But repayment holidays just allow the unpaid debt to accrue interest and compound for 12 months, whereupon the borrowers face an even larger liability.

A more substantive policy opportunity for the banks to work with the community is through debt-for-equity swaps for families facing unemployment and the risk of being forced out of their homes. There is a growing coalition of support for this initiative among socially oriented institutions such as the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank and the ACTU, respected academic economists in Australia and overseas, and even the Opposition.

The elegance of this idea is that it should not result in any new taxpayer spending (read no impact on the May budget) and should not require the banks to make any capital commitments. But it has the potential to save many thousands of families from the poisonous social consequences of losing their home.

The smartest strategy would be for the Government to set aside a small portion, say $500 million, of its existing $8 billion commitment to the mortgage securitisation market, to help with the funding of debt-for-equity swaps for households that have had a key breadwinner lose their job.

Such a family could convert an existing, say 70 per cent, home loan with CBA into a new package where they would have a much smaller 50 per cent normal mortgage combined with an interest-free "shared equity" loan (like those provided by Bendigo and Adelaide Bank). By doing so, the family could cut their monthly mortgage repayments by up to 30 per cent or more for the next 25 years. And the shared equity loan only incurs a cost if the borrower does well and the value of their home increases — if it does not, they just repay the principal amount with no interest.

The family wins, and taxpayers win because they are just reallocating a small amount of an existing $8billion commitment to support liquidity in housing finance (that is, there is no budgetary impact). But rather than just funding bog-standard home loans for any old borrower, this money would be saving families from foreclosure. In fact, every $100 million that was reallocated would save about 1250 families. Taxpayers could expect to get their original investment back plus a return. The Government wins because it gets to unveil an innovative policy to help mitigate rising unemployment.

Banks benefit because they do not have to wear financial losses or reputational risks from repossessing homes, while also contributing back to their communities.

Christopher Joye led the 2003 prime minister's home ownership taskforce and has presented to the Obama Administration on debt-for-equity swaps. He is chief executive of Rismark International.

Anyone for Vegetarian?

The meat in the global warming sandwich

March 23, 2009
Sydney Morning Herald

Forget the carbon-belching car or the coal-fired power station - it's the humble steak we should be worried about, writes Tim Elliott.

Student Will Schmidt gave up meat for ecological reasons.

Picture a giant pile of meat. No - a much bigger pile than that. We're talking more than one million tonnes of the stuff - a huge, steaming tower of T-bones and rumps.

That is how much red meat Australians consume each year.

Now, place next to that all 38 of Australia's coal-fired power stations. Which do you think is the greatest threat to the environment?

The answer is clear, according to Mark Berriman, the director of the Australian Vegetarian Society.

"Not many people know it but the meat industry is a big contributor to climate change," he says. "People talk about helping the environment by stopping driving and getting low-energy light bulbs but the most effective thing you can do is cut red meat out of your diet."

Berriman is not alone in this opinion. Last year, Nobel laureate Rajendra Pachauri, the chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, strongly suggested the world's population curb its consumption of meat to counter global warming. Pachauri's suggestion was based in part on the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, which has estimated direct emissions from meat production account for about 18 per cent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions, beating transport, which accounts for just 13 per cent.

The figure includes greenhouse gases released at every stage of the meat production cycle - clearing land, burning fossil fuels in farm vehicles and the front- and rear-end emissions of cattle and sheep. Indeed, Australia's cattle and sheep fart out about three megatonnes of methane a year.

Methane is a particularly noxious greenhouse gas the intergovernmental panel calculates is 62 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year period. Some researchers have used these figures to conclude that three megatonnes of cow farts equate to 186 megatonnes of carbon, which is more than the 180 megatonnes of CO2 emitted by all of Australia's coal-fired power stations.

Naturally, the meat industry disputes this. It has also questioned claims by the University of California that it requires a staggering 19,737 litres of water to produce 450 grams of beef. (According to Meat and Livestock Australia, it takes between 27 and 540 litres to produce one kilogram of beef, depending on how and where livestock are raised.)

Still, environmentalists remain adamant that shunning meat is the best thing you can do for the environment - not to mention your health. Berriman cites the Hunza people, who live in a remote valley in the western Himalaya and whose mainly vegetarian diet enables them to reportedly live to 100, 120, even 140 years old. "They're bearing children into their late 90s," he says. "Riding horses at 120."

As disturbing as a 98-year-old mother breastfeeding on the bus might be, it is nothing compared with the seismic shifts that a beef-free world would inevitably unleash. Carnivores would have to contend with tofu schnitzels, legume sausages and meat substitutes like quorn, a scrumptious-sounding mycoprotein made from the fermentation of fungus mixed with egg white. Some might be able to subsist on kangaroo meat, as chief climate change adviser Ross Garnaut has suggested. But replacing beef and lamb with kangaroo remains impractical, due to the fact that the latter are virtually impossible to domesticate.

The Australian meat and livestock industry is worth $15.8 billion. Berriman concedes the collapse of this industry would be a blow but counters "it would also free up funds that otherwise would have gone toward treating people whose diet was crap. Then, you could quite feasibly put that money toward more sustainable industries."

Not that this is likely to happen soon.

"Unfortunately, meat eating is deeply culturally ingrained in Australians," Berriman says. "As Margaret Mead once put it, it's easier to change your religion than your diet."

And yet it's not impossible. Melbourne music student Will Schmidt gave up meat two years ago, after reading some "horrifying statistics about the meat industry's effect on land degradation and climate change".

"Raising cattle and sheep is just an amazingly inefficient use of resources," he says.

The 22-year-old Schmidt had been a life-long carnivore, so stopping wasn't easy.

"I made the transition really slow: I started eating kangaroo, then fish, then dropped all of it. And it was still a shock," he says.

"One of the main difficulties was social, just dealing with other people's prejudices: people would say stupid things like, `What if you were on an island alone with a sheep, would you eat it?' If people are open-minded about it, I will talk about it with them.

"I just think it's important to make the link between what we eat and its impact on our environment."

Cyberspace a'twitter in countdown to darkness

Nick Galvin
March 24, 2009, The Age

TWITTERERS, bloggers, podcasters and Facebook users are getting behind Earth Hour in unprecedented numbers as event organisers embrace the explosion of interest in online social networking

Earth Hour's John Johnston says the event next Saturday has already amassed 700,000 online "friends" in more than 80 countries.

In the effort to send the Earth Hour message "viral" and reach the target of one billion participants, Mr Johnston says pretty much anything goes when it comes to getting the word out online.

"People can really do whatever they want on the web," he said. "We take the attitude that the more activity there is on the web and the more people there are talking positively about Earth Hour, the better it is."

The latest effort to push the Earth Hour message is through a new social networking service called 12 Seconds. The 12 Seconds service, likened to a video version of Twitter, allows users to post 12-second videos about any subject that catches their attention.

Earth Hour organisers are asking supporters to make 12-second promotional videos and put them online.

"We've really excited about the idea, we're pushing it very hard," said the co-founder of 12 Seconds, Sol Lipman, who is expecting hundreds of videos to be made once the idea takes hold.

Mr Johnston admitted that, compared with the conventional techniques of advertising, it was difficult to dictate the direction a global social media campaign might take.

"You have to let it go, you can't control it too much," he said, adding that Earth Hour supporters vastly outnumbered its critics online.

• Saved

Putting the planet first

• Margaret Cook
• March 30, 2009, The Age
  

Kirstin Jones, second from left, of Boroondara Park Primary School with students, Laura, Gianni and Madeleine. Photo: Eddie Jim

It's a small gesture that signals engagement with a big issue. This Friday, students at Boroondara Park Primary, in North Balwyn, will "go green" by adding a touch of that colour to their uniforms. They'll be encouraged to wear green jumpers, socks or ribbons. And like thousands of schools across Australia, the school will also "switch off"' its electricity for 90 minutes - all to promote Earth Hour.

"We want to show the children how much we rely on power and how important it is to conserve it," says year 5/6 teacher, Kirstin Jones. "Some students will be in specialist programs, such as music, during that time while others will be in their classrooms. It means teachers will need to plan programs that don't require the use of computers."

Tooradin Primary School plans to switch off everything - including lights, computers, heating and electricity, regardless of the weather - for an hour.

"We chose a time that would be most disruptive, one that would affect the children's programs and activities so they could understand how important it is," says environmental co-ordinator Kristie Young. "Sometimes a student says: `I'm a child, what can I do?' The message is that we can all make a difference."

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. Last year, 50 million people around the world took part. This year the aim is to expand the event to take in 1 billion people in more than 1000 cities around the world, generating a wave of popular support to influence the world leaders attending the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December.

Across Australia, lights will go out for an hour on Saturday from 8.30pm.

Earth Hour national manager Anna Fedeles says the movement's polling from last year found that families with children were more likely to "switch off"'.

"It's driven by the kids," she explains. "They learn about the environment at school, the things they can do to protect it and they often drive activities like recycling at home. It's important to develop these habits from a young age so they can apply them in their later life."

Many schools have registered with Earth Hour, but some are running their own activities at a level the children can understand, says Ms Fedeles. Schools can sign up this week on Earth Hour's website.

Both Boroondara and Tooradin have strong environmental and tree-planting programs, with Tooradin winning the 2008 National Save Water Award.

Boroondara's environment captain will speak at her school's assembly this week on why it is important to take part in Earth Hour. The aim is for children to go home and encourage their parents to "switch off" on Saturday evening.

"Children are so used to having televisions, computers and PlayStations, but we've been talking about all the things we can do to save electricity, such as switching off appliances at the power point rather than using the remote control," says Tooradin Primary's Miss Young. "The children have suggested family-oriented activities (for Saturday evening) like playing board games by candlelight, going for a walk or having a picnic."

Hobsons Bay City Council has launched an Earth Hour exhibition, with artwork by students from local schools displayed in the municipality's libraries. Bayside City Council is distributing biodegradable Earth Hour balloons to schools so students can attach them to their house's fence to show their family is taking part.

And Rosebud Secondary College students will canvass shoppers at Rosebud Plaza Shopping Centre this week to support Earth Hour. The school's sustainability co-ordinator, Meaghan Webster, says more students volunteered to take part than could be catered for.

"We'll have a station in the shopping centre and students from years 7 to 12 will talk to shoppers about Earth Hour and encourage them to take part. We also plan to switch off our lights at school on the Monday after Earth Hour."

Miss Webster says today's young people are very concerned about protecting the environment, more so than even a decade ago. "I'm in my sixth year of teaching and I've noticed a difference in students' attitudes since I started. They're very passionate and committed."

The Age is an official sponsor of Earth Hour. www.earthhour.org

Cultural Diversity Week 15-22 March & Harmony Day

Harmony Day falls on the 21st March each year. It is a national day of events and activities that promote community harmony across Australia.

Its also falls within Victoria's Cultural Diversity Week.

A celebration of our state's rich cultural , religious and linguisitc diversity.

During Cultural Diversity Week, Victorians of all ages, from all walks of life, come together to contribute to community harmony and to promote mutual understanding and respect.

On March 21st we also mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, affirming our belief in the opportunity for all Victorians to live freely without fear of discrimination and vilification.

Get involved in Cultural Diversity Week and celebrate what it means to be Victorian

248 Countries of Origin

289 Languages

128 Faiths

1 Community

Wearing an orange ribbon is a personal pledge not to commit, condone or remain silent about any form of racial or religious discrimination.

Show your commitment to promoting a more harmonious society, free of racism and based on respect for all Victorians.

Different but the same

All Victorian

http://www.culturaldiversity.vic.gov.au/

To Censor or not to Censor that is the ?

Leaked Australian blacklist reveals banned sites

• Saved

Asher Moses
March 19, 2009 - 11:44AM

the Age

The Australian communications regulator's top-secret blacklist of banned websites has been leaked on to the web and paints a harrowing picture of Australia's forthcoming internet censorship regime.

Wikileaks, an anonymous document repository for whistleblowers, obtained the list, which has been seen by this website, and plans to publish it for public consumption on its website imminently.

Wikileaks has previously published the blacklists for Thailand, Denmark and Norway.

University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt said the leaked list "constitutes a condensed encyclopedia of depravity and potentially very dangerous material".

He said the leaked list would become "the concerned parent's worst nightmare" as curious children would inevitably seek it out.

But about half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.

"It seems to me as if just about anything can potentially get on the list," Landfelt said.

The blacklist is maintained by ACMA and provided to makers of internet filtering software that parents can opt to install on their PCs.

However, if the Government proceeds with its mandatory internet filtering scheme, sites on the blacklist will be blocked for all Australians. The Government has flagged plans to expand the blacklist to 10,000 sites or more.

In a special report, written in conjunction with the Internet Industry Association and presented to the Government over a year ago, Landfeldt warned that "list leakage" was one of the main issues associated with maintaining a secret blacklist of prohibited sites.

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, dug up the blacklist after ACMA added several Wikileaks pages to the list following the site's publication of the Danish blacklist.

He said secret censorship systems were "invariably corrupted", pointing to the Thailand censorship list, which was originally billed as a mechanism to prevent child pornography but contained more than 1200 sites classified as criticising the royal family.

"In January the Thai system was used to censor Australia reportage about the imprisoned Australian writer Harry Nicolaides," he said.

"The Australian democracy must not be permitted to sleep with this loaded gun. This week saw Australia joining China and the United Arab Emirates as the only countries censoring Wikileaks."

The leaked list, understood to have been obtained from an internet filtering software maker, contains 2395 sites. ACMA said its blacklist, as at November last year, contained 1370 sites.

Assange said the disparity in the reported figure is most likely due to the fact that the list contains several duplicates and variations of the same URL that stem from a single complaint. Alternatively, some sites may have been added to the list by the filter software maker.

ACMA said Australians caught distributing the list or accessing child pornography sites on the list could face criminal charges and up to 10 years in prison.

Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin said the leaking of the list was irresponsible but highlighted how this type of information could surface despite the efforts of ACMA to protect it, and could be used by those with a perverse interest in its content.

"The regrettable and unfortunate reality is there will always be explicit and illegal material on the web and - regardless of blacklists, filters and the like - those with the means and know-how will find ways of accessing it," he said.

"Adult supervision is the most effective way of keeping children safe online and people shouldn't be led into believing by Labor that expanded blacklists or mandatory filters are a substitute for that."

Colin Jacobs, spokesman for the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, said the leak was not surprising and would only get worse once the list was sent to hundreds of Australian ISPs as part of the Government's mandatory internet filtering policy.

He said the Government could be considered a "promoter and disseminator of links to some pretty unsavoury material".

"The list itself should concern every Australian - although plenty of the material is unsavoury or even illegal, the presence of sites like YouTube, MySpace, gambling or even Christian sites on the list raises a lot of questions," he said.

"There is even a harmless tour operator on there, but there is no mechanism for a site operator to know they got on or request to be removed. The prospect of mandatory nation-wide filtering of this secret list is pretty concerning from a democratic point of view."

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, said the leak and publication of the ACMA blacklist would be "grossly irresponsible" and undermine efforts to improve cyber safety.

He said ACMA was investigating the matter and considering a range of possible actions including referral to the Australian Federal Police. Australians involved in making the content available would be at "serious risk of criminal prosecution".

"Under existing laws the ACMA blacklist includes URLs relating to child sexual abuse, rape, incest, bestiality, sexual violence and detailed instruction in crime," Senator Conroy said.

"No one interested in cyber safety would condone the leaking of this list."

Earth hour..What r u doing about it?

Struggle to keep the flame burning for Earth Hour

Peter Ker

March 14, 2009
The Age

THERE was a buzz around Roy Merrington's beeswax candles this time last year. As millions of Melburnians prepared to switch off lights for Earth Hour, close to 10,000 candles were ordered from his Caulfield business.

A year on, the rush for wax seems to have waned.

"I would like to think we would do the same (trade), but we will probably do half that," he told The Age this week.

"People's attention is elsewhere … the conversation about the health of the planet is on the back burner, because people are paranoid about money — and quite rightly."

Perched on the edge of Melbourne's Treasury Gardens, Verge restaurant was one of many businesses that used Mr Merrington's candles to mark Earth Hour last year.

Owner Simon Denton said plans for this year's Earth Hour were still uncertain two weeks before the event. "I only realised the other day that it was coming around again, so we haven't really finalised it. But we will certainly be involved," he said.

When asked if he felt the event's profile was lower this year, Mr Denton said: "What profile?"

If Earth Hour appears to have crept up on Melbourne this year, preparations are more advanced elsewhere, with the number of participating countries rising from 35 to 80, and the number of towns from about 370 to just under 1400.

"Beyond Australia's big cities, it seems to be talked about a lot more. We have a lot more interest from towns and rural areas," said Andy Ridley, Earth Hour's global executive director.

"Some of the recent weather conditions — like the floods in Queensland, for example — have brought the idea of climate change home more to people."

But sceptics are wondering whether the inner-city "latte-sippers" have become bored with Earth Hour. Mr Ridley said: "It's the third year for Sydney, so what is Sydney going to do this year? … I don't know."

In Melbourne, the event will face strong competition for attention. The AFL will launch its opening round that weekend, pitting Ben Cousins against Chris Judd for the first time, then staging the grand final replay between Hawthorn and Geelong. And the formula one grand prix will take over Albert Park between March 26 and 29.

But Mr Ridley said such events did not have to be rivals — they could be great opportunities to introduce Earth Hour to new audiences.

"The whole ethos of Earth Hour was more street party than street protest, so people are going to go and watch the footy or a concert, and there's no way Earth Hour is going to stop that," he said.

Grand prix organisers and the AFL said they supported Earth Hour and planned to participate, but were unable to say how. And managers of Etihad Stadium at Docklands were unable to say whether they would turn down any lights during the St Kilda-Sydney match.

Mr Ridley is not bothered by such details, saying Earth Hour's value has always been symbolic.

"Earth Hour is absolutely symbolic … symbolism is an important stage of dealing with a major problem, so I don't think we are ashamed to say that in any way," he said.

Australian Industry Group spokesman Tim Piper agreed, describing the event as a "useful tool" for changing habits.

"Obviously, it's not going to change the world, but you need to provide an example," he said.

Mr Merrington remains unconvinced he will shift as many candles as last year.

"I can't see the demand there at the moment but it could turn around in the last week and really go off," he said. He will be hoping the lights do the same.

The Age is an official sponsor of Earth Hour.

http://earthhour.org/

My hand me down will do me a little longer but..

Apple ditches buttons on new iPod Shuffle

A handout photo shows the smaller version of Apple's popular iPod Shuffle music player with a new feature that announces songs to its user.

March 12, 2009 - 7:14AM
The Age

Apple has unveiled a minuscule new buttonless iPod Shuffle that is half the size of existing model and which employs a new voice feature.

The third-generation Shuffle, a slim aluminium rectangle less than 5cm long, takes up about half as much space as the previous version even as it doubles music storage space to 4 gigabytes.

To achieve such a tiny form, Apple had to remove most of the buttons from the body of the $129 device and build them into the headphone cord instead.

"Smaller has tended to work very well for us," said Greg Joswiak, a marketing vice president at Apple.

The trade-off for the new Shuffle always has been the lack of a screen to visually navigate through the music stored on the device. The first-generation Shuffle, which launched in 2005, could hold about 240 songs, arguably not enough to warrant a screen.

Now that the device can carry 1000 songs, Apple has come up with a way for people to identify the music they're listening to or find songs they want.

A new feature called VoiceOver can, at the push of a button, speak the song and artist name or rattle off the list of custom mixes — called playlists — that the owner has loaded onto the device.

Here's how it works: As you synchronise a new Shuffle using an updated version of iTunes, your PC or Mac looks at each track and playlist and creates a small file of a computerised voice speaking the title, artist for playlist name.

If a song is in Spanish or Chinese, say, the software figures this out and speaks in the appropriate language.

Apple says the device can handle 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The new Shuffle, which comes in silver or black aluminium with a shiny stainless steel clip, is set to go on sale today. Joswiak said Apple's own earphones will be the only option for early buyers, but that other companies plan to make compatible headphones as well as adapters for regular headphones.

Ross Rubin, an analyst for market researcher NPD Group, said there's no such thing as "too small" for gadget-happy consumers as long as Apple stays focused on ergonomics and provides a way to secure the device and keep it from getting lost.

But people who do buy a new Shuffle will be paying a premium for Apple's design, he added, noting less-expensive mini-models like SanDisk's Sansa Clip and Creative Technology's Zen Stone.

Shares of Apple jumped $US3.91, or 4.4 per cent, to $US92.54 in afternoon trading.

email is old mail

Social networking trumps email

March 11, 2009 - 10:27AM
The Age
Social networking is a more popular online activity than email, according to a new survey.
The survey by market research firm Nielsen Online found that on average one of every 11 minutes spent online around the world is devoted to social networking and blogging sites.
The survey identified Facebook as the world's most popular social network with 108.3 million users, followed by MySpace with 81 million users. Far behind in third place was Classmates Online, with 19.7 million users; Orkut, with 17.5 million users; and Linkedin, with 15 million users.
Facebook seemed to be the most addictive of the social networking sites with the average user spending three hours and 10 minutes online every month, the survey found. But Orkut had by far the highest penetration in any single country with 70 per cent of online Brazilians using the Google-owned service.
The survey found that growth in social networking was three times as fast as the pace of general online growth with much of that acceleration coming from the middle-aged.
The most popular age group with Facebook in terms of growth is the 35-49 category, which increased by 24.1 million people last year.
The category of men and women aged 65 and above moving to social networking grew by 7.0 per cent, while the 17-and-under category dropped by 9.0 per cent.

Do you fancy your mobile on the wrist?

Soon you'll be able to talk to the hand

The LG-GD910 watchphone in action.

Louisa Hearn
March 10, 2009 - 10:36AM

Smart phones might be all the rage right now but the rising star of the mobile telephony movement is a phone that you can wear on your wrist.

LG's new talking timepiece has been hogging the spotlight since its appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show this year and even stole the show at the recent Mobile World Congress, despite a hoard of new iPhone-inspired touch-phones storming the stands.

While some of the fascination generated by the watch phone can be explained away by its "James Bond" appeal, for those who might otherwise baulk at talking to their wrists, there is the practical consideration of a device that will not vanish in the back of a taxi or a late-night bar.

LG says it has used materials and stylistic elements in watches from top end manufacturers so users can be "comfortable wearing it for any occasion".

At 14 millimetres thick, it features 7.2 Mbps 3G HSDPA compatibility and is housed in a curved tempered glass face with metal casing.

"Our new 3G Touch Watch Phone is stylish, sophisticated and the height of technology, but its also undeniably fun. How else can you re-enact those scenes from your favourite sci-fi or spy movie?" says Skott Ahn, president of mobile communications.

However corporate stylist Melanie Moss, says that, as a fashion accessory, LG's watch phone needs some more work before it will be seen trotting down a runway.

"LG could take its cue from the old Motorola flip with its diamonds and built-in mirror and add some features to make it appealing to the fashionista. For women, a built-in lipgloss case and, for men, a swizzle-stick holder perfect for after-work drinks."

While, for now, it includes no make-up nor cocktail accessories, the LG-GD910 does have a full touch-screen interface, 3G capabilities and video calling, but perhaps most importantly it is voice activated. This feature is considered the holy grail of watch phone manufacture where there is such limited space for a keypad, and has been one of the main obstacles in bringing the devices to the mass market.

Samsung launched the prototype of a similar device in 2003 but struggled to refine the technology required to commercialise it. Six years later, it has reintroduced the concept in a new model called the GT-S1100, which it unveiled at the MWC, although with precious little detail and no set distribution plans.

But LG's watchphone has not yet made it past the post either. Despite its official status as "market ready" it is not yet commercially available anywhere. And while it is due for launch in Europe sometime this year, LG has no plans to introduce the watch phones to Australia.

Despite LG's claim to be the "first company to introduce a mobile phone with the wearable device technology" a number of non-branded watch phones are already being manufactured and sold around the world.

These are typically manufactured in China and can be bought for up to $1000 online, but offer limited local technical assistance and product support. Critics of these phones also say the models lack the quality and x-factor to win over the mass market.

The Spirit of Australians

Jam tart to rescue in bushfires relief

• Marika Dobbin
• March 6, 2009

Birralee Primary School students join the jam effort. Photo: Penny Stephens

HOBART mother Jenny Mazzella was making red currant jam for her weekly market stall when she first heard of the bushfires savaging Victoria.

Having little money to donate, Ms Mazzella, a self-described homemaker and "jam tart", decided to use her small commercial kitchen to help raise funds.

Her husband, Gennaro, phoned around local orchards and within the hour had 600 kilograms of donated apricots and 400 of strawberries.

Jam Aid began as a Mazzella family operation, but soon consumed their suburb of Kingston and then wider Tasmania, with primary school children collecting 1000 kilograms of sugar from the pantries of family, neighbours and friends.

The fruit was stored at a seafood processing plant, before students at Calvin Christian secondary school turned their hands to stoning apricots and hulling strawberries.

"My husband supervised all the volunteers who came from all over to help cook and then we had to get people to wash the jars and label them and store it in suburban garages all over the state," Ms Mazzella said.

"Because there's not a lot of money in Tassie and people have some scepticism about where their donated dollar goes, they have an ache to contribute in a real way."

More than 5000 jars of jam have been made so far, with sales raising $40,000. The operation is still expanding and this week crossed Bass Strait.

After Ms Mazzella was interviewed on ABC radio, a pilot flew his small plane from northern Tasmania to Hobart to pick up 2000 jars and take them to Devonport to be loaded onto the Spirit of Tasmania.

Ms Mazzella followed and is staying at a friend's house in Doncaster. Yesterday she organised for students at Birralee Primary School to make labels.

Principal Ashley Ryan said the students were motivated by the death in the Steels Creek fires of integration aid Charm Ahern, who worked at the school, and her husband, Leigh.

The freshly labelled jam is on sale today at Prahran Market and on Saturday shoppers will be able to sponsor a jar to go to a relief centre, sending it off with a personal note of support.

"It's not about jam, it's about the message; it comes from the heart of the home and the heart of the community."

Ms Mazzella will head home on Sunday, where a fresh batch of 2000 kilos of apricots has just arrived.

Free Uni on YouTube got to love that!

Uni computer lecturer makes YouTube his classroom

Asher Moses
March 4, 2009 - 12:34PM
The Age

A computer science lecturer at the University of NSW, who has pioneered the use of YouTube at Australian universities, is offering high school students the chance to get started on their computing degrees early.

Senior lecturer Richard Buckland is frustrated that people with a passion for computing are not being challenged by courses offered at high school. Over the years he invited some of them to attend his university lectures but found they struggled to fit it in during the school day.

So last year he filmed all of his first-year computing lectures and published them on UNSW's YouTube channel and on Apple's iTunes.

UNSW is the first university in Australia and among the first in the world to make lectures publicly available online.

This year, Buckland is inviting high school students with a strong interest in computing and mathematics to study an advanced first-year university level computing course for free.

With the lectures now published online, the students will be able to do most of their work from home. They will only come to the university one evening a week for a two and a half hour lab and tutorial, where they can ask questions and socialise.

"I'm not aware of anywhere else in the world doing this," Buckland said.

The students will complete the same assessments and exams as university students and the course will be credited to their degrees once they enrol at the university.

Buckland is mainly looking for year 11 students but said he would also consider applications from students in years 10 and 12. There are limited places, so Buckland is asking students to submit a short statement on why they want to take the course and an academic reference from a teacher.

"If you have a love for computing or if you're an exceptionally smart or talented mathematical thinker you would find high school computing wouldn't be stretching you as much as you'd like," he said.

"I'm hoping this will really motivate and switch on a lot of students who are starting to feel bored."

By publishing his lectures on YouTube, Buckland has also made the courses accessible to people from around the world who may not have the same opportunities as Australian students. He said his clips had been viewed in places as far-flung as Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, Iran and China.

"It's allowed people who normally wouldn't have access to university to visit university for free, without leaving their lounge room," Buckland said.

Overseas universities such as Stanford, Berkeley and MIT publish hundreds of hours of lecture material online but Australian universities have so far used YouTube as little more than a marketing tool.

Buckland is now filming and uploading his second-year computing lectures to the video sharing site.

He hopes other educators will follow his example to give time-strapped students more flexibility and the ability to learn in their own time.

Yay, Ive finished the webolution

This is the second time I ve done this program and I still will go on learning. Im no expert and never will be, but these projects keep you trying and give you confidence to discover new technologies and ways to solve problems, find the answers, just have a go and have fun.

You can learn from others, share ideas or go it alone, or combine the three, anyway you choose its all learning and nothing is ever wasting time.

I found it easier the second time round because I knew what I was aiming to do, and that was to produce a different type of communication tool, by advertising services and programs available @HBL but to also add a touch of the every day news , environmental stories, technology, local history, topical, or just of interest to me that I felt strongly about, and that I wanted to share and make people think about.

I am aware that my audience was very limited, but I may continue blogging without the HBL link and just more of the sharing of video, news, human interest stories or whatever grabs me from the media.

I have a facebook profile maybe, in the future, if Im very confident, I may put a link to that.

I fancied myself as a writer, but that is a lot of hard work and time consuming so may be this will be my alternative, a modern day writer, a blogger, a facebooker.

I dont think Janet Evanovich has to worry about the competition.

Thanks for the experience.

Couldnt follow the notes so Googled

"How to add a YouTube video to Blogger" and watched this video and found I was missing out the "Compose" step and bingo it worked

So if all else fails theres always Google or YouTube to help you with instructions, how easy is that.

Below are the 2 videos that helped me.

How to add a YouTube Video to Blogger

How to make a podcast

Top 10 bright ideas in technology

Dan Kaufman
March 2, 2009
The Age

From widgets to Wi-Fi, some technologies are more than just gadgets or pose pieces. Dan Kaufman presents our Top 10 list.

It's easy to become cynical when you see as many fads and products come and go as Icon does. However, there are some technologies, from specific gadgets to trends that have proven themselves, that impress even our hardened souls - and here they are:

Griffin PowerMate

It might just look like an aluminium knob with a blue light underneath but the PowerMate (pictured, right) can make your PC or Mac (it works on both platforms) much more natural to use. The reason is that neither mice nor keyboards are ideal for scrolling, whereas this is.

It can act as a volume control and can be easily programmed to function differently depending on what application you're using. It also acts as a button if you press down on it, so that you can program it to open a file, go back in your web browser, perform a word count in Word - almost anything. See www.griffintechnology.com.

Widgets

These are small programs designed to do a specific task, such as displaying updates on eBay bids or accessing the latest weather reports, and their appeal lies in allowing you to customise the technology you use, whether it's a PC, hand-held or web page.

Widgets are available on Mac OS X, Windows Vista (which calls them gadgets), the iPhone as well as websites such as Yahoo and MySpace. A portable Wi-Fi device called the Chumby (chumby.com, pictured above), which is popular in the US and is now available in Australia, has even been designed purely to display widgets - for example, some allow it to become an internet radio, alarm clock or a Gmail client.

Netbooks

You're about to go travelling and need to work on office documents and access the web but don't want to lug around a large notebook.

Well, you no longer need to, thanks to netbooks. Most are roughly the same size and weight as an average hardcover book and offer full-size keyboards, relatively large screens (often nine and 10 inches), run Windows XP and range in price from $400 to $1000. They're not powerful enough for intensive applications such as playing the latest 3D games but you can run applications such as StarOffice. The first netbook was the Asus Eee PC but these days many companies, including Dell, Acer and HP, make them.

Cloud computing

The idea behind this is that we should run applications and store files on the internet rather than our PCs, which makes sense for several reasons.

First, it means we can access what we need regardless of where we are without having to transfer files or programs and secondly, we're not tied down to our desktop PC. One example of cloud computing is Google Docs, which allows you to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations that are stored online through your browser, meaning you don't have to install any applications on your PC. Apple's MobileMe and iWork.com (which was released in January) are two other examples.

SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus card

Transferring photos from your camera to a PC should be easier than having to connect the two by a cable - and now it is.

The SanDisk looks like an ordinary SD flash card, until you flip its lid (it has a hinge in the middle) to reveal a USB connector. This means that as soon as you take the card out of your camera, you can insert it into a PC's USB port without having to carry or search for that USB cable. See www.sandisk.com.au.

USB broadband modems

These days getting broadband access can be as easy as inserting a USB stick into your PC, thanks to companies such as 3, Vodafone and Telstra.

The chances are you won't get speeds as high as on ADSL or cable and how well they work depends on the mobile reception in your area but these are so easy to use they may make life easier for road warriors.

There is also a wireless router available from 3 that works with its USB modem, so several people can share your connection. See www.three.com.au.

Wi-Fi

As more devices around the home require internet access, a Wi-Fi (wireless) broadband connection is rapidly becoming more important.

TiVo is a good example, as it requires a constant broadband connection and unless you want to string cable across your home, it makes sense to move to Wi-Fi.

Other devices that use Wi-Fi include the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (via optional adaptor), iPhone, Chumby, internet radios and digital photo frames in addition to any extra desktop PCs and notebook computers you have. Now let's just hope the World Health Organisation is right in saying Wi-Fi is safe as far as radiation is concerned.

Smartphones

Once seen as gimmicky geek toys, smartphones are increasingly becoming practical. Our favourite all-rounder is the BlackBerry Bold, which is great for checking email and has an easy-to-use keyboard.

The smartphone with the best keyboard is the HTC Touch Pro, although its touch screen can be fiddly, and the iPhone 3G is good for music lovers. Palm has just announced its new smartphone, the Pre, which is due for release later this year and looks like it might be a winner.

Noise-cancelling headphones

It's easy to say these eliminate a large amount of background noise but until you put a pair on and flick the switch, it's hard to comprehend just how good noise-cancelling headphones can be. In fact, some people wear them without even listening to music just because they're so calming. The headphones don't come cheaply, however: for example, the Sony MDR-NC500D, which Icon positively reviewed in the past, costs $699.

Bluetooth

Unlike Wi-Fi, which works with broadband connections, Bluetooth is for exchanging smaller amounts of information wirelessly over short distances - but like Wi-Fi, the applications for it are growing and it's becoming indispensable.

In addition to hands-free mobile phone headsets, wireless keyboards, mice, printers and the controllers for Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3, it's also being used in more ambitious projects such as the Sony Ericsson MBW-150 Bluetooth watch.

This watch not only alerts you when your mobile receives a message but also allows you to control what music (which is stored on your mobile) to play.

Interested in writing short stories?

Cutting a Long Story Short: An introduction to short storywriting
Thursday, 12 March 2009
to Thursday, 2 April 2009

9:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Want to gain confidence as a writer?

This short course will give you the basics of short story writing and provide you with ideas and encouragement.

You can be a complete beginner or have some experience.

All you need to bring with you are ideas, personality, pen and paper.

Cost $65.00 for 4 weeks or $55.00 concession.
LOCATION: Altona Meadows Library and Learning Centre
CONTACT NAME: Education, Employment and Learning Co-ordinator PHONE: 9932 3020