Today, we are excited to be launching our first air delivery service in North Canberra . Our service allows customers to order a range of items such as fresh food, hot coffee or over-the-counter chemist items on our mobile app, and have them delivered directly to their homes by drone in minutes.

Initially a Google X-Moonshot project like Waymo & Loom, Wing has been running trials for over 18 months and completed nearly 3000 test deliveries.

Available to residents in Grace, Palmerston & Franklin Wing drones will embark on a world first in delivering goods after receiving CASA approval today.

Initially product offerings will be slim, with launch partners including Bakers Delight, Guzman Y Gomez, Drummond Golf and Capital Chemist. More are expected and a callout to local businesses has been raised as the service continues to grow to other ACT suburbs such as Harrison and Gungahlin.

Interestingly the drones flightpath and a large part  of the approval by CASA require them to avoid major roads and aren’t allowed to cross them or get too close to people whilst flying, hence the extravagant winch system.

Customers whom sign up to use the service will also be required to undergo training on how to receive a delivery as a part of the regulatory requirements.

Source: Wing launches commercial air delivery service in Canberra

Released on behalf of the US, UK, Canada & NZ the Australian government has decided it will carry the torch for thinly veiled threats to tech companies whom they want to:

…create customized solutions, tailored to their individual system architectures that are capable of meeting lawful access requirements.

Now they’ve also begun warning that there could be repercussions for failing to provide the access their after essentially saying they’ll just make up laws to enforce it:

…we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions,”

It’s interesting that Australia’s essentially falling on the sword here on behalf of everyone else, or more precisely the US & UK. Perhaps pumping out press-releases “down under” come under less global scrutiny, perhaps its a pat on the back for standing up and telling the world we have no respect for the laws of mathematics. Either way they refuse to call it a back door, ignore the gross misuse and abuse by government employees of existing systems, let alone this new one and play down the huge privacy implications every citizen is affected by.

Source: ‘Five Eyes’ governments call on tech giants to build encryption backdoors — or else | TechCrunch

TPG and Vodafone Hutchison Australia have announced that they will proceed with their merger to form a telecommunications giant that they say will have an enterprise value of approximately AU$15 billion.

Sing it..

Two strong hearts,
We stick together like the honey & the bee,
But we’ll be called TPG!

Poised to become Australia’s 2nd largest telco in the next five years. Optus potentially getting the ass by a compatriot of it’s Singaporean parent.

Source: TPG and Vodafone Australia to merge into AU$15b telco named TPG | ZDNet

Under the legislation, tech companies would have to: remove protections on devices; give law enforcement agencies the design specs of their devices; install software on a device when asked; provide access to devices; and help agencies build their own systems.

The draft legislation was introduced by cyber security minister Angus Taylor and is open for submissions until September 10th. The sitting government is aiming to have it introduced by years end but will struggle to do so given its sensitive nature in affectively removing an individuals right to privacy and thus likely being submitted to a committee for review.

Under the legislation companies who do the right thing will be compensated for their time, however for those that don’t, expect a fine of up to a lazy A$10m.

For individuals, failing to unlock your device or decrypt any information requested by the powers that be, you’ll face a A$500k fine or a lazy 5 years in jail for “simple offences” or 10 years for crimes deemed “serious”.

Source: You Could Go To Jail For 10 Years For Refusing To Unlock Your Phone

Cricket Australia has sacked a female employee after she campaigned for abortion reform on social media, telling the woman that concerns she had insulted the Tasmanian government were central to her dismissal.

Due to the closure of the last publicly run abortion clinic in Tasmania Angela Williamson, whom was working as the manager of public policy & government relations for Cricket Australia, was forced to travel to Melbourne for a termination.

The mother of three had criticised the Tasmanian government in a series of tweets beginning in January of 2018 and was told they’d “damaged [her] relationship with the government”.

Cricket Australia has confirmed that the matter is now in the hands of each party’s legal teams and has made a statement saying that whilst they “respect an individual’s right to their opinion” they expect “employees will refrain from making offensive comments that contravene the organisation’s policies.”

Personally, my takeaway from the statement is that Cricket Australia doesn’t believe women should have publicly available local options for pregnancy terminations in the state of Tasmania.

Source: Cricket Australia sacks worker over series of tweets about abortion