10 posts tagged “australia”

A nice write-up over at MacTalk: Coming Soon - A Censored Internet.
Think Great Chinese Firewall, but then think Australia.
This is not the right way forward, it does not work (not even in China).
Kids are smarter these days anyway.

Get your voice heard over at No Clean Feed.

Laws have been introduced in NSW to prevent people "causing annoyance"during the pope's visit:

Police have told organisations planning to campaign during World Youth Day events they need to have placards, banners and T-shirts pre-approved or risk losing their protest "rights".

This in the end will cause more trouble and have the opposite effect as people, from anti-homophobia and pro-contraception activists, to victims of abuse (and certain comedians), will be testing both the scope of the laws and the willingness of the authorities to uphold them.

Last week, at the Gold Coast in Queensland, a 16 year old teen, just walking down the street, was arrested for wearing a T-shirt by English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth that reads 'Jesus is a c**t' and has been charged with offensive behaviour. He wasn't skateboarding were he shouldn't, he wasn't ghetoblasting his heavy metal, he was wearing a t-shirt. More on News.com.au

Australia doesn't have a Bill of Rights which protects freedom of speach.

Sydney Morning Herald already picked up Meraki earlier in the year. But now they also pick up Free Sydney Wireless, and interviewed yours truly…

“Frustrated by the NSW Government’s stalled free wi-fi project, a group of Facebookers have decided to start their own.”

“Free Sydney Wireless’ next recruiting drive will be in March at Barcamp, an informal web developers’ get-together. “We will try to set up a wireless net at Barcamp using Merakis, in the hope that it spurs more people to install their own Meraki.”

Read all at SMH.com.au

There's a new, social weather site, cumul.us. How does that work? YOU predict the weather. "Cool" idea. Sign up and change the city to Sydney, because it's pretty lonely out there, and I might be wrong about the weather.

After last weeks Apec city lockdown, it was open house at our neighbours at Kirribilli and Admiralty House. Didn't think we would be allowed to take pictures so didn't bother bringing a camera (you weren't allowed to take pics inside the houses, but were allowed outside. So just some crappy phonecam pictures which didn't turn out too good). There was quite a queue for entering the houses. but not that they were queuing into and past our street like last year. After last weeks Apec, I was expecting some bag checks or something, but actually there was nothing. All very relaxed. The gardens and the view are fabulous. Kirribilli House is pretty small though, a common cottage (I mean in comparison with Admiralty House next door). There were school bands playing, and cool drinks and snacks available. Nice to get to know the neightbours (or at least their gardens).

10 cities, one world, one company: Google.
Sydney is up first, with some exclusive announcements, hours before the rest of the world hears about them.
700 registered users for the Google Developer Day 2007, the 2nd largest event today.

Google going offline with Google Gears: gears.google.com
Have the power of a full SQLdatabase at your fingertips for use online and offline, using SQLite. With automatic syncing, autoupdate, text search,... Gears also adds threads to JavaScript, making it ever more powerful.

Google Mapplets:
Mashup Google Maps itself, add your own mini app to Google Maps (and not the other way round, adding Maps to your app) as Mapplets. That way users can aggregate different data (using several mapplets) on one view in Google Maps. It also brings back the users to Google Maps, as they kind of lost them to the sites which integrate Maps.

API Overview by Bo Majewski
A general overview of the Maps API, about 23 demo's, without a glitch. Google is open sourcing the GMaps Utility Library, so everyone can improve on the Marker Manager; you can now add driving directions to your own mashup, and there's a limited availability of traffic overlay data.

Soon you'll be able to add AdSense for Maps to your own Maps mashup, enabling you to monetize on your application (and Google too of course).

What's wrong with those lanyard things? Your name tag is always turned around. Maybe they should just print your info on both sides...

This weekend was the kick-off of the Chinese New Year. The New Year itself is next week, but they celebrate for three weeks. Today was the parade from Town hall to Chinatown. There were a couple of drops of rain falling down, but only briefly. At that point the parade went by pretty quickly, but when the sun came back, it slowed down again.
I was expecting lots of firecrackers, but none of that.

Next weekend is (fri-sat) are the Chinatown Markets, the weekend after, Dragon Boat Races in Darling Harbour, and there's more around happening town...
www.sydneychinesenewyear.com.au

Last week Apple announced plans to open an Apple store in Sydney -- and Melbourne -- with three floors and a genius bar (that's just their fancy name for a customer care desk), on George street, across Coles.
Will definitly be a blow for the independent Apple stores and retailers.

This is were the Apple store will appear, some day this year...
Pictures and blue prints
Sydney Morning Herald

"Google Australia is celebrating Australia Day 2007 by photographing Sydney Harbour from the air, and we want to make sure as many of us as possible squeeze into the picture."

Next Friday, an aircraft hired by Google will be doing a series of low-level swoops over parts of Sydney, photographing the ground and waters below. And they ask you to take part.

"So when you see the Google branded plane flying overhead this January 26th, hoist a sign, arrange your family into a fun formation or just get a bunch of friends together to wave."

Six weeks later you may appear on Google Maps!

Google Australia Day 2007
Sydney Morning HErald article

Additionally Microsoft does a flyover over Centennial Park to create a coloured map of Australia of the attending people.
http://www.lookupandsmile.com.au/

See you soon, on Google Maps?

Went to the Sydney Aquarium yesterday evening. It's rather outdated, and needs some TLC. They are actually building some new things, but it looks to be more of a bush/forrest environment than anything aquarium. The sharks were impressive, as they always are, at any aquarium. Afterwards we wanted to get something to eat (a fish restaurant?). We walked around Darling Harbour's King street side, and looked at the menu's. There's also a Wagamama, but I guess they are all the same around the world (been to one in Antwerp and Amsterdam). They are cheap and the food is great (japanese). My colleague had heard of Kobe Jones before, a modern japanese restaurant, so we gave it a try. I had SIZZLING SASHMI CARPACCIO of salmon as a starter and GRILLED BEEF TERIYAKI TENDERLOIN as main. Really nice, and recommendable.
www.kobejones.com.au/