asia
Will Australian students’ growing disinterest in Asian studies affect our economy?
Major media has reported an “alarming” 22% decline in the number of Australian students studying Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese or Korean from kindergarten to year 12 between 2000 and 2008. And when the Australian Industry Group surveyed 380 business organisations, it found that most CEOs neither speak nor understand any Asian languages, and have minimal experience in the region, yet more than half of those surveyed planned to expand into Asia in the future.
iPhone loses ground to Android, Symbian and BlackBerry. Will this cause an ‘almighty stink’ among app developers?
In a development that’s unlikely to be nearly as amusing as a toilet flush simulator, iPhone is losing ground to its competitors, likely to heighten rivalry between hardware and app developers alike. We’ve already seen how an almighty stink can arise over iPhone app developers. Take the case of Pull My Finger versus iFart.
Australian innovation lets the people of PNG pay for electricity using mobile phone credits (and what this means for all technology developers)
The rapid adoption of this service highlights the suitability of mobile payment technology in developing countries, which often do not have access to the same payment methods and services available in developed markets. It also highlights a trend that Australian software and application developers best not ignore.
Window on the future: online video in Asia
The very conditions that make Asia such a disruptive market for consumer behaviour – lax copyright, fast broadband, urban youth subcultures, advanced mobile devices – are also fast becoming global trends. As the rest of the world joins the party, you can rest assured, the future of TV will not be far behind.
Singapore Inc.
We may no longer refer to the economies of Asia as ‘tigers’, but Singapore (literally ‘Lion City’) is roaring like never before. For Australian companies seduced by the idea of northward expansion, this outward-looking multicultural city-state has emerged as the region’s premier commercial hub and an obvious launch pad to Asia and beyond. By Paul [...]









