WILSON da SILVA&nbsp;IT DOESN'T LOOK like the next Intel, nor even the next Cisco. But that’s where Redfern Photonics wants to be. And while that may be a big call, it doesn’t seem to faze the researchers-turned-businessmen behind this blossoming…

FEATURE | A new era of communication at the speed of photons

By Wilson da Silva in DILIWith the Indonesian military gone and independence looming, East Timor’s journalists can now report freely. But it’s not an easy task when your country is still a smoking ruin.Being a media baron in East Timor actually costs…

WORLD | Timorese journalists still strive for independence

Your mobile phone and credit cards may be spies, reporting your every move. As WILSON da SILVA finds, surveillance is an increasing element of the wired-up world.WE are being watched. Every day our movements are noted and catalogued, our purchases…

FEATURE | Big Brother is watching

By&nbsp;WILSON da SILVAIT HAD to happen. The carpetbaggers have invaded the Net. Cyberspace, it would seem, is now crawling with scam artists, swindlers, flimflam men, blacklegs, shysters and purveyors of shonky schemes.Take the case of Augustine…

FEATURE | Con artists of the internet

The microchip that spawned the personal computer revolution is 25 years old this week. And the revolution isn’t over yet.By&nbsp;Wilson da SilvaTHE world changed forever on November 15, 1971. And hardly anyone noticed. Watergate was still seven…

FEATURE | 25: Baby, look at you now!

Money flows faster with technology that brings the action to the spender. Wilson da Silva reports on the gadget that gives new meaning to cashless deals.KERRY Packer would love it. The media tycoon, known to have a flutter or two on the horses, could…

TECHNOLOGY | Cash-in-hand, and a betting machine, too

By WILSON da SILVACELLPHONES ringing in cafes. Faxes whirring in the home. Catalogues cramming the letterbox. Voicemail beeping in the office. Parcels landing on the desk. e-mail pouring into PCs. Radios blaring in the background.Answering machines…

FEATURE | Overload - how too much information can kill

By WILSON da SILVALIBRARIES just aren’t what they used to be. The sense of timelessness, ofmusty books and silent aisles, has given way to the clacking of computer keys as libraries lurch into the digital age. But at what price?At the new, high-tech…

FEATURE | Who said libraries were dead?

By WILSON da SILVAWANNA be a cyberpunk but don’t even own a modem? Have we got a book for you. It’s called The Net-Head Handbook, and it has got to be the bluffer’s guide to Internet chic.&nbsp;This 144-page “deadware” (i.e. paper) guide is not only…

REVIEWS | Bluffer’s guide to Net cool

By WILSON da SILVAIt’s official - the end of the world is nigh. A contagion is spreading across the planet, and it will devour all who stand in its path. It will likely spare no-one. Its victims - jobs, companies, whole industries even - will buckle…

TECHNOLOGY | Change is the word as futures collide

By WILSON da SILVA&nbsp;IT’S OFFICIAL - the end of the world is nigh. A contagion is spreading across the planet, and it will devour all who stand in its path. It will likely spare no-one. Its victims - jobs, companies, whole industries even - will…

Change Is the Word as Futures Collide

By WILSON da SILVAGARTH Paine maybe on to something here: a multimedia art installation that brings cyberspace into the real world. And the end result is, well, real and virtual at the same time.Walk into the front room of Linden Gallery, nestled in…

TECHNOLOGY | Move, and you’re a virtual art piece

By WILSON da SILVATHE Microsoft droids were out in force, and they weren’t taking prisoners. At a swish breakfast for reporters in Sydney’s Regent Hotel, amid the croissants and eggs benedicts, Orlando Ayala was selling his company big time.On the…

TECHNOLOGY | Microsoft pitch or kiwi fruit salad, Sir?

By&nbsp;WILSON da SILVATHE problem with print is that it is ‘deadware’. Once you cut down a bunch of trees, mulch them into paper and ink-press them with words . . . well, a whole lot of things can change. On the other hand, with digital media -…

REVIEWS | Deadware guide a slice of history

By&nbsp;WILSON da SILVAHANG on to your socks: the future of personal communications is here. It can be found at Pellegrini’s on a rainy day, on the sand at Bondi Beach, or on the 9.12am train to Spencer Street Station.&nbsp;It is Nokia’s 9000…

TECHNOLOGY | Laptop phone the ringer of ‘em all

By&nbsp;WILSON da SILVA‘THE flat panel display will be an indispensable component in the 21st century,” says Hajime Sasaki, executive vice-president of the world’s second-largest semiconductor maker, NEC Corporation of Japan.At least that’s what…

TECHNOLOGY | Hang that TV, it’s gone flat

Nicholas Negroponte is one very wired guy. A pioneer of the Internet and oracle of electronic commerce, he warns that the digital revolution is about to change the very way we do business. Radically.By WILSON da SILVA&nbsp; NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE is not…

TECHNOLOGY | Caught in a storm of change

A tide of data is pouring into the world’s computer banks from sources as varied as sales inventories to credit card transactions. It is creating a wealth of personal information for eager marketeers and cautious bankers. But it can also save lives,…

FEATURE | Data Mining: Is your personal data really private?

Asian regions are ahead of the West when it comes to robotics and artificial intelligence, says Wilson da Silva.ASIA is streaking ahead in the commercial application of artificial intelligence, while the West continues to focus on basic science,…

TECHNOLOGY | In Asia, robots are on the march while the West sticks to the basics

The inventor of the floppy disk turns his mind to “behavior programming” robots and talks to Wilson da Silva.DICK MORLEY reckons there’s a right way and a wrong way to automate manufacturing, and most companies do it the wrong way. The American…