The High Court has overturned a Victorian Supreme Court decision that ordered Google to pay $40,000 to lawyer George Deftros for having an article about him he didn't like appear in search results for his name. The Victorian Supreme Court found that Google was the "publisher" of the article, even though it was The Age that wrote it and put it online. The High Court saw common sense and realised how stupid that interpretation was. However, if Google was paid to promote that link, the legal position in those cases may be different because there was a degree of "enticement or encouragement to click on the hyperlink".
American Airlines has paid a non-refundable deposit on 20 of Boom's "Overture" supersonic passenger planes, with an option for an extra 40. Boom, if you don't remember, are pretty much trying to build a modern Concorde. Their demo plane, the XB-1, has been delayed multiple times. The latest date for a test flight is September 2022, but who knows if it will happen. We don't know how much American Airlines paid Boom for a deposit on these vaporware aircraft, could have been $10 a plane. As much as I'd love to fly on a supersonic plane, this is just American Airlines looking for some hype and Boom looking for some legitimacy.
A NSW parliamentary inquiry into the huge floods earlier this year found that Telstra "has not learnt from previous flood experiences" and " continues to place support equipment and energy supply at ground level, rendering them useless during floods". The inquiry also found a "lack of availability of satellite phones during the crisis, and emphasised the need for the distribution of satellite phones and terminals to community hubs in flood prone areas". This is life with climate change now - what used to be suitable locations for infrastructure and what was adequate emergency comms equipment are no longer good enough. It'll be expensive to mitigate.
The National Archives of Australia has a blog post about the Telecom stand at Expo 88 in Brisbane. The booth's slogan was "together, we'll show the world" and the stand a touch screen information kiosks that contained a "Sony Videotex Workstation" and "boasted a videodisc player, speakers and an impressive 20 MB hard drive". Please click the link I've provided and check out the 39 photos of kiosks and touch screen interfaces, they are glorious. The National Archives' Flickr account is cool too, I wish they'd update it more often.
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