Tech & Innovation

After nearly a decade of protest, Show Business has discovered the web. Whether it is Disney selling episodes of Desperate Housewives on iPods, Fox screening prime time TV shows on the web or Hollywood Studios selling full versions of their movies online, this year has seen a major turning point for the titans of Tinseltown. Now everyone is scrambling to unlock new networks and future fortunes.

BI-GOODNESS is a bi-monthly column dedicated to the quirky, generally funny and often dangerously impractical inventions and business concepts that occasionally come our way. It is a tribute to the one-eyed entrepreneur, the nutty professor and dotcom jockey in each of us.

Wandering through the halls of the enormous 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February, it was plainly evident that mobile communications is still in the very active stages of the innovation cycle. This event, which brings together most of the world's top telecommunications technology and network companies, has come a long way from its humble beginnings last decade in the French seaside town of Cannes, when early attendances numbered in the hundreds.

Wandering through the halls of the enormous 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February, it was plainly evident that mobile communications is still in the very active stages of the innovation cycle. This event, which brings together most of the world's top telecommunications technology and network companies, has come a long way from its humble beginnings last decade in the French seaside town of Cannes, when early attendances numbered in the hundreds.

In these pensive days, where a backpacker on a bus could pose more of a threat than a cave-dwelling Taliban, Governments and corporations are hungry for technology that will help secure their people and resources. It has fed a boom in the defence tech sector; a world of cutting-edge machinery and multi-million dollar contracts, and home to some of the world's keenest strategic and technical minds. Several Australian companies are emerging as genuine players in this highly competitive space. Liz Heynes and Catherine Kerstjens take a look at six on this new front line.

Has it really been six years since the world's first wave of internet entrepreneurs fell through that plump cloud they'd conjured in the sky, taking with them the turgid hopes of our fledgling new economy? It's been six years peppered with hard luck stories, investor reluctance and, lately, cautious hope rekindled. Australian internet startups were in the thick of it back then. The survivors emerged with slightly bloodied noses and wisdom far beyond their years.

BI-GOODNESS is a bi-monthly column dedicated to the quirky, generally funny and often dangerously impractical inventions and business concepts that occasionally come our way....

How many people does it take to change a light bulb? At long last, NONE! Inconveniences pepper our domestic existence. Whether it’s lifting and lowering...

In these times of terror, you can never be too protected against the unexpected. But if your nerves are a little frayed these days, imagine...

BI-GOODNESS is a bi-monthly column dedicated to the quirky, generally funny and often  dangerously impractical inventions and business concepts that occasionally come our way. ...

BI-GOODNESS is a bi-monthly column dedicated to the quirky, generally funny and often dangerously impractical inventions and business concepts that occasionally come our way....