Music over? Allans and Billy Hyde enter receivership

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23 August 2012
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Australian Music Group Holdings (AMG), which trades as Billy Hyde and Allans, has been placed into receivership by one of its creditors.

James Stewart and Brendan Richards from Ferrier Hodgson were appointed as administrators this morning by Revere Capital, a group of private investors owed around $27 million by AMG, and immediately placed the retailer into receivership.

Unsecured creditors are owed around $13.5 million, while employee entitlements are estimated at $3 million.

However, the company will continue trading while the receivers look at ways to restructure the group and sell some or all of the stores — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Rackspace confirms dedicated Sydney data centre

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22 August 2012
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US hosting giant Rackspace has confirmed plans to launch a large data centre in Sydney later this year, to support growing local demand for its services after entering the Australian and Zealand markets in 2009 using its infrastructure located overseas.

In a statement this morning, Rackspace revealed the data centre, based in the Sydney suburb of Erskine Park, is being built in partnership with data centre specialist Digital Realty. It’s currently in the late stages of construction and the first customers are expected to go live in late 2012, said Rackspace’s statement. To ensure it’s operated in the same manner as other Rackspace data centres, it includes security certifications upon launch for UTI Tier III Design and Construction, with certifications planned for SSAE16, ISO 27001, ISO 14001, PCI, and ASIO Intruder Resistant once fully operational. Further information is available online.

Rackspace is one of the largest global hosting companies, providing a range of services from eight existing data centres located overseas. The company provides infrastructure services ranging from dedicated hosting to private and public cloud services, as well as application hosting — such as email systems.

The company said today that since formally entering the Australian and New Zealand markets in 2009, it had experienced a significant increase in local customer numbers. Prominent local customers include Rio Tinto, Telstra, Australia Post, Monash University, Tourism Queensland and more — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Broker blows whistle on sub-prime scandal

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14 August 2012
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A WA mortgage broker who got rich by fudging figures has blown the whistle on the banks that conspired in Australia’s own sub-prime mortgage scandal.

In 2007 Kate Thompson was WA mortgage broker of the year. Now she is facing fraud charges.

It is alleged Mortgage Miracles, in Canning Vale in Western Australia, obtained investment loans for customers by using falsely inflated earnings and assets.

Ms Thompson admits that is exactly what she did.

I would get upfront commission, I would get a trailing commission. I was probably earning about $5 million a year. It was great. It was wonderful. But it was all a lie, she said.

But she was not alone — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Pay-day loans no solution for most, survey finds

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13 August 2012
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The vast majority of people taking out small short-term loans are on Centrelink benefits and fewer than half say the loans improve their financial situation in the longer term.

More than half a million Australians use pay-day loans, so named because the loan is made on the security of the borrower’s next pay cheque. At least $500 million is lent a year, most in amounts of $1000 or less and with very high interest rates.

The Caught Short report examined three years of Australia’s burgeoning pay-day lending industry, with funding from the Australian Research Council, National Australia Bank and Good Shepherd Youth & Family Service.

It found almost 80 per cent of those using pay-day loans were on Centrelink or pension payments, and more than 80 per cent of those were living with significant physical or mental health problems. Only 20 per cent of borrowers considered themselves better off after taking out pay-day loans; half said they were worse off — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Watchdog clamps down on Facebook

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6 August 2012
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A landmark ruling that Facebook is an advertising medium — and not just a way to communicate — will force companies to vet comments posted by the public to ensure they are not sexist, racist or factually inaccurate.

In a move that could change the nature of the social networking site forever, companies could be fined or publicly shamed for the comments that appear on their Facebook brand pages.

Last month the advertising industry watchdog issued a judgement in which it said comments made by fans of a vodka brand’s Facebook page were ads and must therefore comply with industry self-regulatory codes and therefore consumer protection laws — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Welcome to Qantas, please hold – for 15 hours

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3 August 2012
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How long is too long to wait on hold? Thirty minutes? One hour? Try 15 hours, 40 minutes and one second.

That’s how long Adelaide businessman Andrew Kahn waited on hold on his mobile for Qantas from Wednesday night to yesterday morning — and his call was never answered.

Mr Kahn phoned Qantas at 7.22pm on Wednesday, trying to confirm his travel arrangements for a trip to New York on Sunday. He finally hung up at 11.01am yesterday, not having spoken to anyone. Why?

I hung up in the end simply because I had had enough, he told The Age.

But why wait so long? Well, the recorded message said someone would be with him as soon as possible — I wanted to find out what exactly they meant would be as soon as possible. And after a certain time, he did not want to give up his spot in the queue. The time on hold would easily allow for a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Bill would force patent trolls to pay defendants’ legal bills

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3 August 2012
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A new bill introduced in the House of Representatives attempts to deter frivolous patent litigation by forcing unsuccessful patent plaintiffs to cover defendants’ legal costs. Introduced by Rep Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and co-sponsored by Rep Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), the Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes (SHIELD) Act is limited to patents related to computer hardware and software.

Patent trolls don’t create new technology and they don’t create American jobs, DeFazio said in a news release. They pad their pockets by buying patents on products they didn’t create and then suing the innovators who did the hard work and created the product.

While DeFazio portrays the SHIELD Act as anti-troll legislation, its provisions don’t seem to be limited to non-practicing entities. Any plantiff who a court finds did not have a reasonable likelihood of succeeding could be on the hook for his opponent’s legal bills, regardless of whether the plaintiff is using the technology in question — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Quality of journalism in Australia deemed average or poor

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31 July 2012
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At one of the most turbulent times in the history of the newspaper industry, the Media Alliance has released a report that finds publishers struggling to maintain editorial quality as resources and staff dwindle.

Billed as the most detailed report of its kind ever carried out in Australia, the Journalism at the Speed of Bytes is a survey of 100 editors, deputy editors and senior editorial staff from the major Australian metropolitan and national newspapers.

Sixty-two per cent of those asked said the most difficult challenge they face is coping with tighter resources, while 56% said it was proving difficult to keep staff motivated.

And this is impacting on the quality of journalism in Australia, the report found.

Sixty-two per cent of respondents said that the quality of newspaper journalism in Australia was average or poor. Only 34% said it was excellent.

Two-thirds of respondents described the quality of online journalism in Australia as average or poor while only 14% said it as excellent.

The survey follows in the wake of troubles at Australia’s top newspapers, which have claimed 1,500 jobs, according to the Alliance.

The report also found that journalists are slow to embrace digital techniques — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Apple v Samsung dispute ‘ridiculous’: judge

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25 July 2012
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Samsung and Apple’s patent dispute over wireless transmission technology is ridiculous and might be best settled in mediation, the judge overseeing the case in Australia said.

Samsung sued Apple claiming the maker of iPhones is infringing three patents covering data transmission over the 3G wireless spectrum. The suit was in response to Apple’s claim that Samsung stole its design ideas for computer tablets and phones.

A trial scheduled to run for three months began yesterday before Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Google buys Sparrow for improvements to Gmail

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22 July 2012
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Google announced on Friday that it had acquired Sparrow, the popular email application for iOS and OS X for an undisclosed amount.

According to CNN Money, a Google spokeswoman said that the search giant will keep Sparrow up and running, and thought it will continue to support the application, it doesn’t plan to offer any significant updates in the future.

The Sparrow deal is Google’s fifth this year and will add engineering talent that’s sure to be useful to Google, Information Week reported.Sparrow’s co-founder and CTO Hoa Dinh Viet used to work for Apple, on iCal and iSync, and for Amazon, on its Kindle e-reader.

The five employees at Google will work on new projects for Gmail — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Rupert Murdoch resigns as News International director

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22 July 2012
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Rupert Murdoch has resigned from a string of directorships controlling his News Corporation’s UK newspapers.

Mr Murdoch, 81, quit directorships at NI Group Ltd, NewsCorp Investments and Times Newspaper Holdings on Friday.

News Corp plans to split into two firms, separating its newspaper and book publishing interests from its now dominant TV and film enterprises.

Mr Murdoch is expected to chair both businesses but to be chief executive only of the TV and film side.

News International has sought to play down the significance of the resignations — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Twitter will appeal order to turn over protestor’s messages

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20 July 2012
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Twitter plans to appeal a ruling to turn over the once-public tweets of an Occupy Wall Street protestor charged with disorderly conduct, a case the company says threatens the First Amendment rights of its users.

A New York Criminal Court judge ruled last month that Twitter should turn over the tweets of Malcolm Harris, since his messages were public and are not the same as an email or a private chat, which would require a search warrant.

At Twitter, we are committed to fighting for our users, wrote Ben Lee, Twitter’s legal counsel, on Thursday. Accordingly, we are appealing this decision which, in our view, doesn’t strike the right balance between the rights of our users and the interests of law enforcement.

The social networking site was served with a subpoena on 26 January from prosecutors requesting the information citing section 2703 of the Stored Communications Act, which requires service provider to disclose certain kinds of electronic communications without a warrant — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Human corpses harvested in multimillion-dollar trade

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17 July 2012
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On February 24, Ukrainian authorities made an alarming discovery: bones and other human tissues crammed into coolers in a grimy white minibus.

Investigators grew even more intrigued when they found, amid the body parts, envelopes stuffed with cash and autopsy results written in English.

What the security service had disrupted was not the work of a serial killer but part of an international pipeline of ingredients for medical and dental products that are routinely implanted into people around the world.

The seized documents suggested that the remains of dead Ukrainians were destined for a factory in Germany belonging to the subsidiary of a US medical products company, Florida-based RTI Biologics — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Senate report: HSBC ‘allowed drug money laundering’

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17 July 2012
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A US Senate probe has disclosed how lax controls at Europe’s largest bank left it vulnerable to being used to launder dirty money from around the world.

The report into HSBC, released ahead of a Senate hearing on Tuesday, says huge sums of Mexican drug money almost certainly passed through the bank.

Suspicious funds from Syria, the Cayman Islands, Iran and Saudi Arabia also passed through the bank.

HSBC said it expected to be held accountable for what went wrong — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Cisco acquires Virtuata to secure virtual-machine data

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17 July 2012
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Cisco has acquired Virtuata, a privately held developer of technology for securing virtual-machine data in multi-tenant data centres, the company said Monday.

Virtuata helps to isolate each virtual machine from others in the same virtualised data centre or cloud environment, Cisco said. It can help to address the security concerns of enterprises or service providers that want to host multiple customers, departments or applications in a single infrastructure. Cisco said the acquisition complements its mission to help customers create unified data centres — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Britain flooded with ‘brand police’ to protect sponsors

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16 July 2012
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Hundreds of uniformed Olympics officers will begin touring the country today enforcing sponsors’ multimillion-pound marketing deals, in a highly organised mission that contrasts with the scramble to find enough staff to secure Olympic sites.

Almost 300 enforcement officers will be seen across the country checking firms to ensure they are not staging ambush marketing or illegally associating themselves with the Games at the expense of official sponsors such as Adidas, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and BP. The clampdown goes on while 3,500 soldiers on leave are brought in to bail out the security firm G4S which admitted it could not supply the numbers of security staff it had promised.

Yesterday, the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, refused to rule out that even more soldiers may be called upon to help with security, but dismissed the issue as merely a hitch. However, as well as the regular Army, the Olympic brand army will start its work with a vengeance today — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Amazon same-day delivery: How the e-commerce giant will destroy local retail

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14 July 2012
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Why would Amazon give up its precious tax advantage? This week, as part of an excellent investigative series on the firm, the Financial Times’ Barney Jopson reports that Amazon’s tax capitulation is part of a major shift in the company’s operations. Amazon’s grand strategy has been to set up distribution centres in faraway, low-cost states and then ship stuff to people in more populous, high-cost states. When I order stuff from Amazon, for instance, it gets shipped to California from one of the company’s massive warehouses in Kentucky orNevada.

But now Amazon has a new game. Now that it has agreed to collect sales taxes, the company can legally set up warehouses right inside some of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. Why would it want to do that? Because Amazon’s new goal is to get stuff to you immediately — as soon as a few hours after you hit Buy.

It’s hard to overstate how thoroughly this move will shake up the retail industry. Same-day delivery has long been the holy grail of Internet retailers, something that dozens of startups have tried and failed to accomplish. (Remember Kozmo.com?) But Amazon is investing billions to make next-day delivery standard, and same-day delivery an option for lots of customers. If it can pull that off, the company will permanently alter how we shop. To put it more bluntly: Physical retailers will be hosed — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Is Digg Dead? Betaworks Grabs Up Site for a Song

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14 July 2012
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People just don’t dig Digg as much as they used to, it seems. In an amazing fall from grace for a company that helped pioneer the social-media boom, the Digg tech-news sharing network was gobbled up this week by Betaworks for a price reported by The Wall Street Journal to be $500,000. The company claims the deal was higher but hasn’t disclosed the price.

Betaworks will merge Digg with its News.me service — via redwolf.newsvine.com

This cosmetic surgeon wants others to advertise in a responsible manner

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12 July 2012
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A South Yarra cosmetic surgeon is among a handful of medical practitioners who could be hauled before a disciplinary panel for selling discounted breast enhancements, liposuction and other cosmetic surgery on daily deal coupon websites, such as Groupon.

Dr Josef Goldbaum from Liposuction Australia will be sent a please explain letter from the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery Complaints Panel for breaches of the college’s code of conduct, which prohibits surgeons from advertising time-limited deals for cosmetic procedures.

College president Dr Colin Moore says the code exists because such advertisements can force consumers into making impulse decisions about potentially risky and life-changing surgery — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Tougher rules to help reduce phone bill shock

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11 July 2012
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The communications regulator says it hopes a new consumer protection code will help reduce complaints about misleading mobile phone plans and bill shock.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is introducing tough new rules for advertising and billing by the telcos amid soaring levels of complaints from customers

The code, developed by the telcos themselves, will require them to include more information on their advertisements, including the cost of a two-minute call and an SMS.

It also moves to make mobile plans easier to compare, reduce what is known as bill shock or unexpectedly high bills, and improve how complaints are dealt with — via redwolf.newsvine.com

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