Michael Crawford

Cheap broadband satellite services could be available on Australian domestic and international airline flights by the end of next year. A combination of cheaper satellite access terminals, along with the launch of two new high-powered satellites to service the entire globe prompted traditional military, aviation and maritime satellite vendor Inmarsat's aim at the consumer telecommunications market.

Chaos will rule the Internet in 2010 as spam, viruses and fraudulent e-mails continue to cause havoc, according to Professor Trevor Barr, user environments program manager at Australia's Swinburne University of Technology.

The Australian federal government is only weeks away from formalizing data standards for the country's national electronic health record system. Putting in place an immediate working model for HealthConnect is critical to meet Health Minister Tony Abbott's ambitious, 12-month time frame.

RFID adoption is likely to speed up with standards in Australia for the technology's tags and readers given the green light. EAN Australia, which this month changed its name to GS1Australia, confirmed today at its Impetus 2005 conference in Melbourne that it has been granted a national scientific licence for RFID implementation projects, outlining the necessary power and frequencies to be used.

IBM Corp. launched a business transformation outsourcing centre in Brisbane on Monday, primarily aimed at luring the Japanese and Asia-Pacific region outsourcing dollar into Australia. Australia's economic maturity is expected to make Queensland the ideal outsourcing location for Asia-Pacific.

Identity theft has matured into a full-time criminal activity with plenty of lucrative opportunities for those trading in stolen identities. The lure of big profits is driving this industry, according to Gartner Fellow, vice president and author Richard Hunter, who says the risk of arrest is extremely low. "Cybercrime now has better odds of success and profit than kidnapping in Columbia," he said.

A private members bill has been introduced to the Australian parliament to combat spyware with hefty fines proposed on Internet service providers for distributing malicious code. Australian Democrats Senator Brian Greig said the key issue is not in prohibiting spyware but the authorization for it to be downloaded onto a user's machine.

The National Australia Bank Ltd. is giving its online banking users access to two-factor ID in an effort to combat online fraud which the Australian Banking Association estimates costs the industry A$25 million (US$19.5 million) annually.