Newsroom

Government Digital Services Minister Clare Curran recently announced a review of New Zealand’s Cyber Security Strategy and Action Plan. In a cabinet paper this month, Curran wrote that a “comprehensive refresh” of the plan is needed due to the “upwards trajectory of cyber security threats.” The current plan was only put in place in November … Read more

Last week World Rugby sold local broadcast rights to the 2019 Rugby World Cup to Spark, which will partner with TVNZ to cover the tournament. Spark plans to live stream much of the event, via a new streaming app it has promised to build. It will be a huge test for the company, especially given New … Read more

After his grilling last week before US Congress, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has some serious thinking to do about which direction his company takes now – not only to avoid government interference across the world, but also to find less privacy-invasive methods of growing revenue. One of the intriguing notions to come out of Zuckerberg’s … Read more

The Inland Revenue Department has finally released its guidance about cryptocurrencies, months after its Australian counterpart did the same. No surprise, the upshot is that cryptocurrencies will be treated like property for tax purposes. “Just like with property – when you acquire cryptocurrency for the purpose of selling or exchanging it, the proceeds you make … Read more

Every day, more of our lives seem to fall under the control of computer algorithms. Think about the influence that Facebook’s news feed has on your daily life, for example. Do you have any idea why you see one friend’s posts a lot, but not another’s? It’s impossible to know for sure, because Mark Zuckerberg … Read more

The Apple Watch was supposed to reinvigorate the ailing watch market. Yet two years after its release, many of us still don’t wear a watch. For Apple, the product is a marginal revenue generator. While Apple doesn’t reveal sales figures, research firm Canalys estimated that 11.9 million Apple Watches were sold in 2016. That apparently … Read more

Last week I wrote about the bull market in bitcoin and other digital currencies. But in fact it’s blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin, that has the highest upside for the global economy. A blockchain is a distributed database that is used to securely record transactions and other types of data. For the past eight years, … Read more

Earlier this month, the price of bitcoin went over US$3,000 for the first time in its eight-year history. The pioneering cryptocurrency has risen rapidly over the past few months, due to high demand in China plus Japan recently allowing bitcoin to be a legal means of payment. It’s price is still volatile (as I write this, it’s … Read more

Imagine being able to post a Facebook update by simply thinking it. Or starting a chat with your friend using mind-to-mind communication. While those two scenarios sound more like science fiction than reality, several big-name companies are trying to make it happen. Facebook, Elon Musk’s Neuralink and a well-funded startup called Kernel are all working … Read more

Every year, we’re used to computers getting faster and more powerful. If you buy a new computer every two years for the same price (let’s say $2000), you’ll basically get double the power each time. This phenomenon is known as Moore’s Law, even though it isn’t a scientific law at all. It’s simply a trend, … Read more

Autonomous cars is one of those tech topics we all love to speculate about. There’s little doubt that autonomous cars will rule our roads at some point in the future, but the question is when. Elon Musk claims his company Tesla will have a level 4 autonomous car ready by 2019. There are five levels, so … Read more

Earlier this month, the second annual Techweek was held in 24 locations across New Zealand. The week-long celebration of local innovation featured 287 events, from Whangarei to Dunedin. It was a big step up from last year’s Techweek, which covered Auckland only. Originally created by Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED), Techweek was subsequently … Read more

Virtual Reality has had its fair share of hype over the past couple of years, not least from the entertainment industry. There’s been speculation about VR movies from the likes of Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg, and excitement about watching an NBA game or a Beyonce concert using the magic of VR. These are very … Read more

Former IBM and Siemens executive Steffen Schaefer, from Germany, has worked on mobile internet and sensor networks – what today is called the Internet of Things – since 2000. He was involved with IBM’s global Smart Cities initiative from the outset. But he says that many big tech companies have since scaled back, or refocused, their … Read more