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One interesting aspect of the new federal budget is a focus on improved GPS and satellite imagery for Australia. Part of the Australian government's mammoth AU$2.4 billion investment in technology and science, the satellite funding will be broken down into AU$160.9 million to deliver a Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS); and a AU$64 million investment in the National Positioning Infrastructure Capability (NPIC) to complement SBAS to improve GPS accuracy to up to 3cm.
NSW meanwhile are getting ready for digital driver's licenses. The New South Wales Government will introduce new legislation in the next two weeks to pave the way for a phased statewide digital driver's licence rollout, based on technology developed by Secure Logic. The move comes after a series of tentative steps by the NSW Government to develop a statewide digital licence regime, with the rollout of its first wave of digital licences – Recreational Fishing Fee, Responsible Service of Alcohol and Responsible Conduct of Gambling Competency Cards – in November 2016.
NASA are sending a drone to Mars. The Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, will travel with the agency's Mars 2020 rover mission, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020, to demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Planet. There's a video of it test flying and stuff here on YouTube.
PC Perspective have a guide to building a Steam caching server which might be useful in a multi-gamer household. With our Steam caching server in place, we first started by downloading several games to a local machine. Since this is the initial download, and there is no data already cached, it will not be any faster than downloading games without the cache enabled. However, in our experiences, this seeding of data to the cache also isn't any slower than the normal process of downloading the game.
Google's new Android Things platform addresses one major issue with the "Internet of Things" concept: updates. But with Android Things, Google is aiming to provide a framework that allows Google, not hardware developers, to be in charge of sending out new updates, which ensures that whenever a new security patch for Android gets released, it will be sent to Android Things devices immediately to prevent the weeks- or months-long waiting periods many Android devices suffer from today.
Also from Google, an AI which will call people for you - like voice search but in reverse. There's a video about it on YouTube. It's fairly impressive but people naturally freaked out a bit about it, so it will now identify itself as a robot.
I missed this one earlier, but mobile phone manufacturer ZTE are having a rough time lately, with a ban by the US Government pretty much destroying their business model overnight. However it seems they are forgiven now - there's an article here on itnews which gets you up to date. Republican Representative Robert Pittenger, a sponsor of legislation that would strengthen the US national security review process for foreign investment, said after the Commerce ban was announced that the United States "must be vigilant against Chinese threats to both our economic security and national security.” Experts said Trump's policy reversal was unprecedented.
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All original content copyright James Rolfe.
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