Booksellers fear their rarest books are being pulped to feed AI. The trail leads to a ‘recycler’.
Booksellers fear their rarest books are being pulped to feed AI. The trail leads to a ‘recycler’.

We have written about why AI companies are buying up old books: printed before the internet filled with machine-made text, they are a clean source of language, free of AI slop. This is what that hunger looks like from the other end. In Australia, secon…

Most Australian teens are still on social media three months into the under-16 ban
Most Australian teens are still on social media three months into the under-16 ban

Most Australian teenagers are still using social media three months after the country’s world-first under-16 ban took effect, according to a new study from the eSafety Commissioner that undercuts one of the government’s flagship online-safety policies….

Australia takes Telegram to court over terrorist content it says the app left up
Australia takes Telegram to court over terrorist content it says the app left up

The eSafety regulator has filed civil proceedings seeking up to A$54.6m, alleging Telegram hosted mass-shooting and Islamic State videos and ignored takedown demands. Telegram says it will fight. Australia’s online safety regulator has taken Telegram t…

X says Australia’s under-16 crackdown breaks international law
X says Australia’s under-16 crackdown breaks international law

Elon Musk’s X has told Australia that its plan to tighten enforcement of a world-first ban on under-16s using social media would breach international law. The company has trained its objection on a bill that would let the country’s online-safety regula…

Australia’s world-first data centre rules need every state to agree. Two just said no.
Australia’s world-first data centre rules need every state to agree. Two just said no.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s proposed national environmental and energy controls for the country’s A$150 billion data centre pipeline hit their first obstacle on Tuesday, when two jurisdictions declined to back them. Federal, state and …

Australia’s world-first data centre rules hit their first snag: the power isn’t there yet
Australia’s world-first data centre rules hit their first snag: the power isn’t there yet

Australia has told its data centres to put more power into the grid than they pull out, an obligation no other country has tried to write into law. The demand is barely a fortnight old, and it has already met the most basic of objections: the electrici…

A gas-rich outback station could host a $28bn off-grid AI data centre
A gas-rich outback station could host a $28bn off-grid AI data centre

On a cattle station deep in the Northern Territory outback, roughly 683km south of Darwin, a Singapore-headquartered developer wants to build one of the largest data centres in the southern hemisphere. The plan leans on a resource the region has in abu…

Origin Energy investigates potential breach of customer data
Origin Energy investigates potential breach of customer data

Australia’s largest energy retailer has told the ASX that some customer information may have been accessed without authorisation, though it says card and bank details appear untouched. Origin Energy, Australia’s largest electricity and gas retailer, to…

Victoria proposes forcing social media platforms to unmask anonymous accounts accused of vilification
Victoria proposes forcing social media platforms to unmask anonymous accounts accused of vilification

Victoria’s premier Jacinta Allan announced on Sunday that the state would propose laws granting the Victorian civil and administrative tribunal power to order social media and AI platforms to reveal the identities of anonymous account holders accused o…

Mick Murray’s hybrid haulers move more freight with fewer fumes
Mick Murray’s hybrid haulers move more freight with fewer fumes

No matter how you slice it, there just aren’t enough drivers to move all the freight (and autonomous just isn’t ready). In the US, the industry is chasing higher payloads to bridge the gap, but in Australia, they’re taking a different approach: massive…