Engineers at the University of New South Wales have developed a way to dramatically improve the quality of low-grade silicon to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of solar panels.

The Bureau of Meteorology will be the first federal government agency to accept commercial advertising on its website starting this week.

Earth dwellers with a spare US$200,000 may have the opportunity to become astronauts next year if Virgin Galatic's commercial flights blast off on time.

CA Technologies has unveiled an app that enables C-level executives to manage IT investments from their iPads.

Modern CIOs need to become "brokers of technology" as the move from distributed to cloud computing places pressure on them to deliver IT infrastructure in an era where consumers are in control.

Carsten Larsen, GM, corporate and co-ordination at the Australian Communications and Media Authority discusses why the organisation has gone down the private cloud path.

Peter Bourke, CIO at Westfield discusses how the retailer has created mobile apps that help internal leasing and shopping centre staff to do their jobs better while improving the experience for customers.

Steve Fox, CIO at Caltex discusses why the organisation took the plunge with a public cloud service.

Mass production of incredibly powerful quantum computers may be only 10 years away thanks to researchers at the University of New South Wales who have demonstrated a quantum bit based on the nucleus of a single atom in silicon.

In April 2008, the Australian government engaged Sir Peter Gershon to lead an independent review of its use and management of ICT. At the time, the government was spending $870 million per year on outsourced and insourced data centres.

The Department for Child Protection in Western Australia is on the hunt for its first CIO to create a co-ordinated IT strategy to improve service delivery to around 2200 staff across the state.

Newcastle Permanent is looking for a CIO to lead a team of 70 IT staff and drive the $8 billion retail banking provider’s systems development, IT operations and overall technology direction.

Software specialist Filipa Preston has weighed in on the IT pricing debate, saying although prices are in most instances too high, many of the figures quoted during last week’s parliamentary inquiry were “not representative of the reality.”

The IT pricing inquiry committee will take up Apple boss Tony King’s suggestion of approaching record labels to discuss the issue of Australians paying higher prices for digital music.

The scrutiny applied to Adobe, Apple and Microsoft at last week’s IT pricing inquiry was a small victory for consumers despite each vendor's response not “coming close to a justification for higher prices”, said Matt Levey, head of campaigns at Choice.