Thousands of staff have been underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all since IBM installed a flawed payroll program for the state’s hospitals and health facilities in March 2010. The $6.19 million contract for the new computer system will ultimately cost Queensland taxpayers an estimated $1.2 billion.

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/exibm-boss-due-to-front-payroll-inquiry-20130405-2hbtl.html

PHILADELPHIA is getting ready for a supersized game of "Pong" - on the side of a skyscraper. The classic Atari video game will be re-created later this month on the facade of the 29-story Cira Centre, where hundreds of embedded LED lights will replicate the familiar paddles and ball.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/atari-pong-to-be-played-on-building/story-e6frgakx-1226612972875

EdX, the nonprofit enterprise founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to offer courses on the Internet, has just introduced such a system and will make its automated software available free on the Web to any institution that wants to use it. The software uses artificial intelligence to grade student essays and short written answers, freeing professors for other tasks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/science/new-test-for-computers-grading-essays-at-college-level.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Facebook Home will be available through Taiwan-based electronics firm HTC, which will launch its Facebook home-screen smartphone called HTC First, to be available through US telco AT&T at a price of $US100.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/facebook-stakes-out-android-home-to-battle-rivals-20130405-2hahb.html

Free and Virtual universities, way of the future?

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/03/17588730-internet-takes-education-to-new-level-will-universities-make-the-grade?lite

Google has announced that Chromium (the open source backend for Chrome) will be switching to Blink, a new WebKit-based web rendering engine. Quoting: 'Chromium uses a different multi-process architecture than other WebKit-based browsers

http://blog.chromium.org/2013/04/blink-rendering-engine-for-chromium.html

Australia's miners will soon be taking advantage of sophisticated physics engines found in computer games to improve the accuracy of explosives used to blast ore from the ground.

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/336174,australian-mines-find-explosive-power-in-it.aspx/0

Mobile phone turns 40. The first mobile call was placed April 3, 1973, by Motorola engineer Martin Cooper, Motorola DynaTAC -- a device that weighed one kilogram, (2.2 pounds) and had a battery life of 20 minutes.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/mobile-phone-turns-40-with-little-fanfare/story-e6frgakx-1226612142218

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/bitcoin-boom-breakthrough-moment-or-billiondollar-bubble-20130403-2h68h.html

Computer scientists at the University of Southern California have used Microsoft’s Kinect sensor to detect, with 90% accuracy, whether you are depressed.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/152309-kinect-based-system-diagnoses-depression-with-90-accuracy

World’s first petaflop supercomputer is obsolete after just five years, will be shut down due to super power bills

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/152191-worlds-first-petaflop-supercomputer-is-obsolete-after-just-five-years-will-be-shut-down

Apple apologises after China state media attacks its 'arrogance'

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/apple-apologises-after-china-state-media-attacks-its-arrogance/story-fn7bfu22-1226610593782

It took only one day for a professional hacker to obtain enough information to begin hacking into the 25-year-old's email and social media accounts and opening the door to her entire online identity.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/a-life-laid-bare-in-a-single-day-20130330-2h047.html