Australian National University (ANU) astronomer Brian Schmidt has been named a joint winner of the 2011 Nobel physics prize for research that discovered the universe is expanding at an accelerating pace.

Draft laws which will pave the way for the rollout of the NBN through the structural separation of Telstra, have passed the lower house of parliament.

Virgin Blue's schedule could suffer a second day of chaos with the computerised airlines reservations and check-in systems still offline Sunday evening.

An Australian academic and anti-tobacco campaigner has called out Bill Gates for his "plainly inconsistent" philanthropic partnership with another of the world's richest men, who has links to a tobacco company.

The plan for an underground fibre optic network to deliver high-speed broadband to Australians may be up in the air, but a Telstra tech boss says bigger is better.