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02 July, 2015

Google says it is "appalled" that its new Photos app mistakenly labelled a black couple as being "gorillas".

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33347866

Microsoft is to launch Minecraft portal for teachers to share ideas about how game can be used to teach maths, design, history and other subjects and skills

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/projects/public-sector/minecraft-microsoft-schools-teachers-resource-171647

As technological disruption intensifies, Westpac’s Reinventure Fund yesterday confirmed an investment in Coinbase, which it claimed was one of the “leading players in the bitcoin market globally” with more than 2.2 million users and 39,000 merchants.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/financial-services/westpac-banks-on-bitcoins-with-coinbase-deal/story-fn91wd6x-1227422526743

Richard Powell-Morley, 24, works two days a week at the centre as a virtual volunteer, helping with data entry, designing the newslettter and organising PowerPoint presentations at Westvale community centre

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/virtual-volunteering-a-real-possibility/story-e6frgb0o-1227423350601

Samsung releases second virtual reality viewer, the Gear VR

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/personal-technology/samsung-releases-second-virtual-reality-viewer-the-gear-vr/story-e6frgazf-1227423989732

29 June, 2015

The truth is, when it comes to accessible, timely and affordable content, Australians are not much better off today.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/dear-netflix-please-fix-your-catalogue-20150626-ghxlai?skin=smart-phone

If agency's proposal to ban proxy services goes through, anyone who operates a "commercial'' website would have their phone number and physical address available publicly online.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/fears-website-owners-will-be-stripped-of-anonymity-under-icann-proposal-20150626-ghyb4y.html

World’s First 3D Printed Supercar is Unveiled – 0-60 in 2.2 Seconds, 700 HP Motor – Built from Unique Node System

http://3dprint.com/74810/3d-printed-supercar-blade/

Electrically powered quadcopters typically fly 15-20 minutes but Singapore-based Horizon Energy Systems’s (HES) CEO Taras Wankewycz is hoping that his team of fuel cell scientists and engineers will change all that. Horizon Energy Systems’s hydrogen-powered hycopter can already fly for two hours, and Mr Wankewycz is hopeful of four hours by year’s end.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/hydrogen-a-gas-for-drone-air-time/story-e6frgakx-1227410080067

The approach is not to simply put lectures and course work online, as is typical of massive open online courses, or MOOCs. Rather, Carrasquel will use a blended learning approach that largely replaces formal lectures with videos and optional mini-lectures, and uses an online software application called Classroom Salon to identify concepts that need to be reinforced by instructors in small group meetings with students. “As we teach a wider diversity of students, with different backgrounds, we can no longer teach to ‘the middle,’” Carrasquel said. “When you do that, you’re not aiming at the 20 percent of the top students or the 20 percent at the bottom.”

http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2015/june/computer-science-blended-learning.html

Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial Services Group said MYbank, which has registered capital of four billion yuan ($836 million), is ready to issue loans of under five million yuan to small businesses, entrepreneurs and consumers. Still, people can’t open accounts with MYbank yet because of regulatory concerns over facial-recognition technology it wants to use to verify identities.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/alibaba-launches-online-bank-despite-restrictive-regulations/story-fnay3ubk-1227416794794