Robot traders are dominating stock markets using high speed computer algorithms. Human traders and government regulators canât keep up, and markets could be one programming glitch away from the next big crash. Stan Correy investigates.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2012-09-09/4242538
In forty years Australia’s energy efficiency record has barely improved. We’re a land of air con, power hungry industry, and fuel guzzling cars. But electricity is no longer cheap, and we have to deal with carbon emissions. Energy savings could deal with both. Yet the message has been swept away by the political storm over a carbon price. Reporter: Di Martin
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2012-04-08/3930648
Want to avoid big power bills in your next home? The federal government wants all homes for sale or rent to have an energy efficiency rating. We already rate new homes, and the system is weeding out some power guzzling designs. But there are major flaws as well. Some super efficient designs don’t rate—and some six star homes are still substandard. So how do you find an energy efficient home? Reporter: Di Martin
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2012-04-01/3917616
Qantas has opened a new industrial relations battlefront. The Labor government’s Fair Work laws are being put to the test but there are bigger political implications for the Opposition, which is split over whether to re-embrace Workchoices, the IR policy that many believe brought an end to the Howard government.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2011/3353325.htm
Get ready for the next big app attack, urging you to chop up your credit cards and use your mobile phone. You won’t have to go to a shop, just point the phone at a handily-placed barcode, and you’ve paid! It’s not a phone, it’s a ‘smart wallet’, and your mobile banker skims off a bit of every transaction. Security? It’s a work in progress. Reporter, Stan Correy.
Further Information:
Reserve Bank of Australia Strategic Review of Innovation in the Payments System – (http://www.rba.gov.au/payments-system/reforms/strategic-review-innovation/submissions/201106-strategic-review-innovation/index.html#content)
Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA) – (http://www.apca.com.au/)
EMV Co – (http://www.emvco.com/)
Ross Anderson, University of Cambridge – (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/)
Dr Stephen J Murdoch, University of Cambridge – (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/)
Stephen Wilson – (http://lockstep.com.au/)
The most important mobile payment infographic ever (according to one payments magazine) – (http://www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/blog/6295/The-most-important-mobile-payment-infographic-Ever?rb=false)
Michael Yip – (http://www.michaelyip.me.uk/)
Infographic on underground economy – (http://www.michaelyip.me.uk/blog/2011/08/the-underground-economy-ecosystem/)
Adam Laurie, Aperture Labs – (http://aperturelabs.com/)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2011/3321865.htm
The internet is awash with misinformation, manipulated identities, fake reviews, and dishonest comments. Politicians use astroturfing. So do businesses and marketing firms. Beware – it’s infecting everyone. Reporter Hagar Cohen
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2011/3316825.htm
Cole’s Book Arcade was a massive three-storey bookstore in the heart of Melbourne that opened on Cup day in 1883. But this was a bookshop with a difference. It had a fernery, a wonderland with funny mirrors, a music department, a lolly shop, a lending library…there were secondhand books for sale, a Chinese tea salon, even a live monkey display! The arcade was the embodiment of one man’s vision and humanitarian ideals: Edward William Cole.
For visitors to the city in the 1880s, the journey was not complete without a tour of Cole’s Book Arcade, where one could pick up a copy of the much loved and rightly famous Cole’s Funny Picture Book. Such was its renown, that the arcade was visited by writers Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain during their travels in Australia.
Edward William Cole was an eccentric, humble man who came to Australia in 1852, aged 20, with the Victorian Goldfields in his sights. But it did not take him long to discover that his own pot of gold was not to be found in the ground. While Cole called the arcade his ‘hobby’, he was a savvy and astute businessman who died, in 1918, a very rich man.
While Edward Cole’s life has been re-imagined by author Lisa Lang in her novel Utopian Man, today all that’s left of his grand arcade is a glass ceiling in one of Melbourne’s busy CBD laneways.
Readings from Utopian Man are by Richard Piper.
Rents are rising even in country towns, and more people are forced into caravan parks, the back rooms of old pubs - or the river bank - even with young children. It can happen to anyone. It will get worse. Various attempts to create more places for people to live at cheap rent are not meeting the need. Reporter Anita Barraud.
Further Information:
National Housing Affordability Agreement – http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/housing/progserv/affordability/affordablehousing/Pages/default.aspx
National Rental Affordability Scheme – http://www.environment.gov.au/housing/nras/index.html
The National Housing Supply Council – http://www.nhsc.org.au/default.html
The drivers of housing supply and demand in rural and regional centres – http://www.ahuri.edu.au/publications/projects/p40586
Change and disadvantage in Regional Victoria reports 2011 – http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/home/publications-and-research/urban-and-regional-research/Regional-Victoria/chnage-and-disadvantge-in-regional-victoria
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2011/3305380.htm
Where does the buck stop when big banks and corporations, even nations collapse. Who signs off on the books? The auditors or the directors of the board? And who should tell investors when there’s something shifty going on? Who are the auditors answerable to? Reporter, Stan Correy.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2011/3291026.htm