Watchdog eyes smart glasses as Kmart sells cut-price pairs
Privacy commissioner Carly Kind has warned that the spread of camera-equipped smart glasses could reshape everyday interactions in public and private spaces, and says regulators are weighing whether intervention is warranted.
In a post published today, Kind said the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner was monitoring the wearables market and had engaged one company at least twice this year to understand the technical specifications of devices on offer.
Meta is leading the push, with Google due to launch Android XR glasses later this year and Apple’s version expected in 2027. Kmart has sold out of its $89 Anko-branded smart glasses which lets users capture video and audio without needing a smartphone.
Kind said the Privacy Act covered only businesses and government agencies, not individuals, meaning footage stored on a device may fall outside the regulator’s reach. Victims would instead rely on the new tort of serious invasions of privacy.
More than 85 per cent of Australians told the OAIC their privacy concerns had grown in the past five years.
Dozens of flights out of Sydney delayed up to 80 minutes
Dozens of flights out of Sydney were delayed on Friday morning by up to 80 minutes because of what the airline industry’s peak body says is a shortage of air-traffic controllers.
Sydney Airport’s Airservices Australia, which provides air-traffic control services, confirmed the delays but said they ended about noon and resulted in an average wait time of only 28 minutes.
Qantas said more than 75 flights across its businesses were affected.
At least 27 Qantas flights were delayed, 23 were held up at QantasLink and low-cost stablemate Jetstar had 25 of its flights delayed. QantasLink also said it cancelled four flights on Friday.
Climate Council welcomes review’s focus on major industrial polluters
Circling back to the review of the Safeguard Mechanism, the Climate Council welcomed the review’s focus on cutting industrial climate pollution at the source.
“This law currently allows Australia’s biggest and most profitable polluters to use an unlimited number of offsets, so unsurprisingly, they’re shirking responsibility for their pollution,” said senior advocacy adviser Ben McLeod.
“Meanwhile, everyday Australians are picking up the tab for climate damages.
“The coal, gas, and mining corporations that this law covers have the technology and the funds to clean up their climate pollution now, so our industrial pollution law should ensure they clean up their act.”
Former Catholic bishop acquitted of several sexual assault charges
A former Catholic bishop accused of sexually abusing young Aboriginal men has been acquitted of several charges mid-trial.
Former Bishop of Broome, Christopher Alan Saunders, 76, was fighting 26 sexual assault charges related to three alleged victims at trial in the District Court of Western Australia.
Judge Martin Flynn told the jury on Friday that it would not be required to reach a verdict on seven charges involving two complainants in the Kimberley region.
These include one count of indecently dealing with a child over 16 under their authority, five counts of unlawful and indecent assault and one count of sexual penetration without consent.
Deaths reported at school shooting in Thailand, officials say
Bangkok: An unconfirmed number of people were killed when a student opened fire at a school in Thailand north of Bangkok on Friday, authorities said.
Lieutenant Colonel Pasakorn Chaitawiwong, the head of the Plai Bang subdistrict police department, said the number of deaths was still unknown.
The incident took place in the Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi province.
Police identified the perpetrator as a student.
The suspected gunman remained inside the school, a district official said.
Reuters
‘Never been a more exciting time’: Atlassian founder on share-price surge
Billionaire Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar says the software company’s quarterly result vindicates the long-term approach he and Mike Cannon-Brookes set two decades ago.
Shares in the Nasdaq-listed company jumped as much as 38 per cent in after-hours trading on Friday morning (AEST) after Atlassian posted its first quarterly operating profit in more than two years.
The move added about $2.6 billion ($US1.8 billion) to Cannon-Brookes’ fortune and a similar amount to Farquhar’s.
“Mike and I built Atlassian with the long-term in mind, which remains as true today as it ever was,” Farquhar told this masthead in a statement.
“These results are testament to both Atlassian’s durability, and the huge runway ahead with AI. There’s never been a more exciting time to work in the technology industry in Australia.”
Farquhar stepped back from the co-chief executive role in August 2024 but kept his shareholding and a seat on the board. Cannon-Brookes told investors he would buy up to $US250 million ($355 million) of Atlassian stock on the open market.
Labor launches review of flagship climate policy
A review of the federal government’s flagship climate policy has kicked off today.
The Safeguard Mechanism caps the amount of pollution the biggest emitters can produce, and progressively decreases the permitted level every year. Companies must cut their emissions to stay under the cap or buy tradeable carbon credits, or ACCUs.
The policy was introduced by the former Coalition government, but tightened significantly by the Albanese government in 2023. The review that opened today is a statutory review that was planned in 2023.
Prominent environmentalists and economists have criticised the reformed policy for not covering enough of Australia’s industrial pollution and for the ACCUs being too cheap to spur action, at about $38 per credit, to offset a tonne of carbon dioxide.
There have also been concerns raised about the integrity of some carbon credits, and the fact the impact of the policy is negated by the fuel tax credits to rebate excise on diesel used off-road.
Coles to move several hundred jobs to India
Coles is planning to outsource hundreds of back-office jobs, with many moving to India, after extending a deal with consulting giant Accenture to cut costs in its headquarters.
The move follows reports that Qantas is contemplating a similar arrangement as major Australian companies try to manage a wave of AI-driven digital disruption.
The $32.4 billion supermarket giant confirmed several hundred local jobs would be made redundant to tap into “global skills and resources” to deliver “seamless, personalised, digital experiences” for its customers.
“Some work in our corporate workforce will move to Accenture overseas and in Australia,” a Coles spokesperson said. “The partnership will also help reduce costs in order to continue delivering value for our customers at the checkout.”
‘That’s Malcolm’s right’: Joyce voices support for colleague after hoax claims
One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce was just interviewed on News 24 – formerly known as Sky News.
While Joyce was not asked about reporting in this masthead about his leader’s trip to England, he did answer questions about his colleague Malcolm Roberts and “the difficulty of reining in” the Queensland senator.
Roberts had expressed strong support for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who claims the Sandy Hook school massacre was faked.
“Now, just because one person says it doesn’t mean that the party condones it,” Joyce said.
Trump snubs US Supreme Court with fresh attack on birthright citizenship
US president Donald Trump is having another stab at limiting the number of people who are born in the country who can become American citizens, despite the Supreme Court rejecting his first attempt to limit birthright citizenship.
Trump on Thursday (US time) said he was signing two executive actions on immigration, including one limiting the number of people eligible for US citizenship after being born in the United States, while another focused on curbing “birth tourism” by stopping people from coming to the US to give birth.
Previous administrations have also sought to prosecute so-called “birth tourism” schemes that helped women hide their pregnancies while travelling to the United States to give birth.
The latest executive order is narrower in scope than the one shot down by the Supreme Court in June and is focused on restricting automatic citizenship to specific categories of people, including children born to adults with connections to foreign embassies or organisations as well as anyone considered an “alien enemy” of the United States.
Government confirms 123 detections of bird flu
Australia now has 123 confirmed detections of H5N1 bird flu in wild birds, according to the latest figures from the Department of Agriculture, as the government continues to strengthen the country’s biosecurity measures to prevent further spread of the virus.
Detections of bird flu by state
- 10 in Western Australia (WA)
- 87 in South Australia (SA)
- 2 in New South Wales (NSW)
- 1 in Queensland (QLD)
- 23 in Victoria (VIC)
There are no detections of the virus in poultry or the agriculture industry.
The risk to human health remains low.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
