Australian technology companies mostly kept their chequebooks sealed in the second half of last year, with only two donating to the country's major political parties. Data released by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) today revealed political donors from the second half of last year

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Tech companies light on political donations

The NSW auditor-general has come down on the NSW Police Department and the NSW Department of Health in a recent IT-contract audit, after the two were found to be engaging in lax contract-management operations. The two agencies, however, are challenging the findings and offering reasons for their actions. The report (PDF) , released today by NSW Auditor-General Peter Achterstraat, criticises the NSW Police Department and the Department of Health for poor contract management, after Achterstraat analysed two long-term contracts from the agencies to determine value for money.

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NSW Police, Health fail IT-contract audit

NEC's Australian business unit has moved to reassure local staff, saying that their jobs will be unaffected by the company's recent layoff announcement that is set to cost 10,000 jobs worldwide. The news broke last week that NEC would slash a tenth of its global workforce to improve profitability amid another negative results announcement. NEC said that the headcount reduction operations are set to be completed by September, and is set to slash 7000 jobs from its Japanese operation alone.

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NEC's Aussie staff safe from layoffs

Google has begun to direct users that read blogs on its Blogger/Blogspot platform to country-specific URLs in an effort to prevent censorship laws from any one country affecting those that may not find the content objectionable.

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Blogger rolls out country-specific URLs

Optus has emerged victorious in its battle against the Australian Football League (AFL) and the National Rugby League (NRL) sporting codes over its TV Now digital TV-recording app. Optus TV Now, first announced in July last year, allows customers to use Optus' storage cloud to schedule, record and playback free-to-air digital TV on 15 channels from a 3G mobile or a PC. All subscribers get a basic 45 minutes of free storage per month, while customers can buy five hours for $6.99 or 20 hours for $9.99 per month

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Optus wins TV-recording case

Web-developer site-building tools are getting a big makeover in today's update to Firefox that will affect how developers connect with the people who use their sites. (Credit: Mozilla) Firefox 10 also dramatically streamlines add-on compatibility, includes a new Full Screen API and updates webGL. The Android version, meanwhile, makes some minor improvements, as the bulk of development on the mobile version focuses on the native Android interface , currently scheduled for the next stable release

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Firefox simplifies add-on updates; no native Android interface yet

Telstra has joined forces with eight other carriers around the world to allow customers using their video-conferencing systems to connect to one another. The Global Meeting Alliance of telcos across the globe consists of: Telstra; Safaricom in Africa; Etislad, Qtel and Mobily in the Middle East; Neotel in South Africa; and Sprint, Glowpoint and Telus in North America. Tata Communications vice president of integrated business-video services Peter Quinland compared the alliance to global alliances in the airline industry

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Telstra joins global telepresence alliance

The good Excellent 8-megapixel camera Bright, sharp display 4G is great when tethering your phone to a PC The bad 4G speeds have little effect on everyday phone use Battery life will disappoint heavy users Handset becomes uncomfortably hot with extended use When we look back over the history of mobile telephony in Australia some years down the track, we'll remember that Telstra was the first telco to offer 4G. Its long-term evolution (LTE) network, which launched at the end of September last year, will be unique in this country for more than six months before Optus rolls out a similar network upgrade in 2012

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HTC Velocity 4G

PCAnywhere customers' computers are apparently safe again, as long as they apply the latest security patch to the software. (Credit: Symantec) Following news of the theft of the product's source code , Symantec last week advised customers to disable the software to guard against cyber attacks. But a round of free upgrades released last week were aimed at cleaning up the vulnerabilities

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Symantec declares PCAnywhere safe with latest security patch

Microsoft does listen to user feedback, at least when it comes to fine-tuning some of the features in Windows 8. The controversial Ribbon will now be minimised by default in Windows Explorer

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Feedback prompts Windows 8 tweaks