Tech Jobs & IT Jobs at ITJobs.com.au

Clear all

Location Subsector

Salary (may include benefits)

Work Type Search Last Clear all

Latest News

BigPond hit by email issues

in brief Email for some Telstra BigPond customers may not be reaching its final destination, with the company investigating a delivery issue that has been hitting the company since the weekend. The issue is believed to be affecting at least several hundred users, who are currently not receiving email, while senders receive bounce back notices for emails sent to the BigPond addresses. Telstra told ZDNet Australia that the issue had started on the weekend and has been affecting a "small number of BigPond customers". "The issue is under full investigation and we are checking the email addresses concerned. We apologise for any inconvenience and hope to have the cause identified quickly and full services restored for those affected customers," Telstra said. BigPond.com has also suffered outages today, preventing access to its MyAccount Portal, Account Management and Signup pages. more

E-health records on track: government

The Department of Health and Ageing and the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) have rejected claims that NEHTA has mismanaged the national e-health record implementation. Responding to criticism levelled at the government-owned company by the <a href="http://www.zdnet.com.au/e-health-records-risk-patient-safety-msia-339331094.htm">Medical Software Industry Association</a> (MSIA) that NEHTA staff are not qualified, NEHTA CEO Peter Flemming said that his staff are "very skilled and dedicated", with some being the "world's leading experts in their field". The MSIA had suggested that specifications around health identifiers would not correct health records when a new identifier was issued to a patient. Flemming denied this, saying that Medicare Australia has a system in place to correct problems with multiple identifiers being used for the one person. "There is a small possibility that something may be keyed in incorrectly. Medicare, the HI system operator, has very advanced systems to detect that, identify it and rectify it." The Department of Human Services general manager for health e-business Sue Kruse told the hearing that the issue has been "worked through", and MSIA's claims that Medicare held back reports was news to the department. "I'm not aware of what the MSIA was referring to. We do monthly reports for NEHTA on data-quality issues, and there are none that have been reported to us," she told the hearing. Flemming acknowledged that NEHTA has "detractors", adding that their concerns are valid and that NEHTA is listening. He said that nothing happens in NEHTA "without clinician approval", and the organisation already has 1.4 million health identifiers being used at the lead trial sites. Department of Health and Ageing deputy secretary, Rosmary Huxtable, said the $466.7 million in e-health funding set out for e-health record implementation will be available until 1 July, and, although there is no guaranteed funding from the government after that date, there are plans in place for after the launch. "Clearly, there is consideration ... about future funding, but I can't really comment further than that. But we are planning," she said. Despite <a href="http://www.zdnet.com.au/reset-expectations-on-e-health-ama-339331082.htm">criticism from the Australian Medical Association</a> that in its current form, e-health records wouldn't be ready by 1 July, Huxtable said that the "national infrastructure" for e-health records is on track to be delivered by 1 July, and that Australians will be able to register for a PCEHR on that date. more

SA govt preps for 2012 procurement

The South Australian Government is <a href="http://www.tenders.sa.gov.au/tenders//tender/display/tender-details.do?id=22063&action=display-tender-details" target="_blank">planning a briefing</a> with the IT industry to discuss the next items in its strategic ICT procurement program. The government plans to approach the market on a number of planned procurements set for the first half of this year, according to its <a href="http://www.sa.gov.au/upload/entity/1670/Doing%20business%20with%20us/Procurement_Status.pdf" target="_blank">procurement program status document (PDF)</a>, including finding new vendors for network services and equipment contracts (including an internet service provider (ISP0 contract and PABX maintenance support contract), as well as messaging and Microsoft software licensing and services contracts. The procurement strategy for networking and messaging services is being approved, while the department plans a direct approach to Microsoft for its licensing and services contract, according to the strategic ICT procurement program status document. The Microsoft deal was estimated at $50 million for a three-year period. Currently, Dimension Data provides network support and maintenance under a three-year contract, which ends on 31 July 2012 and the government valued at $80 million, according to a document <a href="http://www.sa.gov.au/upload/entity/1670/Doing%20business%20with%20us/Completed_Procurements_Summary.pdf" target="_blank">detailing completed procurements under the strategic sourcing program (PDF)</a>. Internode has provided ISP services to the government for the last six years. The government expected its ISP spend over three years to be $3.8 million. The messaging services contract, for an Exchange 2007 messaging service, is currently held by Telstra. The government estimated the spend over a three-year term to be $17.2 million. Procurement for storage equipment, mainframe computing services, hosting services and Microsoft large account reseller contracts are still on the cards for later consideration. more

Nerdcam in space

This week we venture into space to celebrate NASA's latest achievements and to announce a special project of our own. NASA <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/news/grail20120201.html" target="_blank">recently received</a> the first images from one of its Gravity Recovery and Interior Recovery (GRAIL) spacecraft that were sent to photograph the dark side of the moon. These images will be used as part of an education program for middle school students in the US. The GRAIL mission sees two washing-machine-sized spacecraft orbit the moon with a view to mapping lunar gravity, learning about its interior and thermal history. Congratulations to NASA for successfully kicking off this complex mission and best of luck for the remainder of the project. You're likely asking why we're talking about space so much. That's because we're going to go there. All of us, together. Nerdcam is officially announcing a plan to journey to the moon, or as close as it can possibly get using a large balloon attached to a tiny craft. Best-case scenario, we'll be able to photograph the curvature of the earth before plummeting back down through the atmosphere at an estimated speed of close to 40km/h with a camera on hand to capture the whole ordeal. Sounds fun, but what we need is a mission. It's all well and good to go to space, but we need a reason to be there. What we want you to do, dear reader, is to leave a note in the Talkback below about what we should do. Should we send up an Australian Lego man to show <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwLmGR6bPA" target="_blank">those Canadians</a> what a proper makeshift space program looks like? Should we send a signal to distant galaxies to ask them politely not to attack Australia? Should we attempt to contact the Doctor and his TARDIS? Should we just go up there to take some pretty pictures? Also, if you want to go one better, you can leave your golden idea for a spacecraft we could make, too. Should it just be a bit of rigging fired into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, or a foam esky craft with a hole for the photos? You decide. Welcome to the Nerdcam space program. Watch the video to see the dark side of the moon, and our new mission briefing. more

E-health records risk patient safety: MSIA

The Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA) has claimed there are systemic problems with the government's e-health identifier specifications that risk patient safety and has called for an overhaul to the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA). Speaking before a Senate hearing today, MSIA president Dr Jon Hughes said that a fundamental flaw exists with the specification of the Health Identifiers used for e-health records, which surfaced when a person was issued with a new identifier by Medicare to, for example, correct a date of birth or changing the gender. In this case, there is no way for Medicare to inform all health organisations using the e-health record system to update their records accordingly. "Consequently, it becomes impossible to validate that identifier against the service; both the new identifier and the old identifier will fail validation," Hughes said. "It means that any health record based on that health identifier as the key to that record will no longer be usable and hence any information within the PCEHR [personally controlled electronic health record] will disappear. That has significant consequences in patient management." He said the specification is "inadequate, poorly designed and unsafe", and that Medicare had seen the scenario he'd described a number of times in the trial of e-health records, but had not released this information to the industry. In order to allow time to fix this up, Hughes suggested delaying the full implementation of the e-health record system, scheduled to occur by 1 July, and instead just offer a document-sharing system to doctors. "The current implementation program is extremely complex. A feasible solution for the first of July could simply contain images of the reports that are currently generated by various health systems." "The doctor would read the report online, on his computer, just like he would read a fax." There were also security issues with the software commonly used to connect different patient record systems with one another. In the organisation's written submission to the inquiry, MSIA pointed out issues with what it called "parasitic" third-party software that may be used to aggregate the data from one e-health management system to another that uses different software. The MSIA alleged that this software is open to being maliciously exploited because it often suffers from buffer overflows. At the heart of all of the problems with the e-health roll-out, Hughes blamed mismanagement by NEHTA. "NEHTA has become what I would classify as a toxic workplace," he said. "The CEO of NEHTA admitted that their turnover rate for staff was 30 per cent per annum, which is extraordinary. Our information is that in the current financial year, this has climbed closer to 40 per cent." He said there have been losses from NEHTA's management in the four crucial areas of standards, security, terminology and safety over the last six months. He claimed the standards manager came home from an overseas trip to find she no longer had a job, the national authentications services manager "was dismissed summarily" with rumours of bullying involved, the terminology manager had a similar dismissal before Christmas and the manager of clinical safety left NEHTA a few weeks ago "in a distressed state". Hughes added that the clinical document architecture area of NEHTA had also lost three out of five technicians in the last four months. "There have been serious concerns about how NEHTA is functioning internally," he said. "There are concerns about the competence of NEHTA personnel. The people in charge of the roll out of the IT implementations have no experience in either IT or Health." Hughes said NEHTA could not be improved "without removing the cloak of secrecy and lack of accountability" that currently protects it from public scrutiny, as it does not fall under Freedom of Information laws that apply to other government entities. "There needs to be a formal inquiry into why things have gone so badly. [The government must] replace, restructure or supplement NEHTA with an e-health management team that has a proven record. MSIA proposes that an industry-led taskforce could provide the capability." As the government was expected to save billions per year when the e-health system was in place, Hughes also said that the clinicians and technology companies supporting those clinicians should receive some funding to get the system in place. "A sustainable outcome in the long term depends on healthcare providers ... being paid a fair reasonable fee for helping to develop the nation's e-health resource and for that fee to be partially spent on the technology that makes that happen. Without that the solution will wither and die," he said. NEHTA is also set to testify this afternoon about its efforts on the e-health records. more

Quickflix looks to avoid Netflix's failures

Home-grown streaming service Quickflix is rapidly gaining momentum after content giant Home Box Office (HBO) today made a multimillion-dollar investment in the company, but Quickflix founder Stephen Langsford told ZDNet Australia that the company needs to be careful to avoid the mistakes of US streaming giant, Netflix. <div style="width:300px" class="alignright"><img width="300" alt="Quickflix" title="Quickflix" src="http://cdn.cbsi.com.au/story_media/339331098/quickflix_1.jpg" height="225" /> (Credit: Quickflix) </div> The deal, <a href="http://investor.quickflix.com.au/IRM/Company/ShowPage.aspx/PDFs/1836-30088996/InvestmentbyTimeWarnersHomeBoxOfficeInc" target="_blank">announced to the Australian Stock Exchange today (PDF)</a>, sees HBO invest $10 million in Quickflix in exchange for 83.3 million preference shares (at 12 cents per share), or 15.7 per cent of the company after conversion of the stock into ordinary shares. HBO, which is fully owned by Time Warner, will also score a seat on the Quickflix board as part of the deal, which is yet to be approved by company shareholders. The company board has fully endorsed the deal and is encouraging shareholders to do the same. Langsford told ZDNet Australia in an interview that the multimillion-dollar investment will propel the company forward on its growth plan. "We're right at the beginnings of this massive wave with IPTV-delivered movies and TV series. We're running hard to propagate Quickflix across consumer devices and round out content from big studios ... and you'll see a continual roll-out of more studios, more content and more devices over the coming months," the Langsford said. However, Langsford added that new investment, new content partners and new subscribers will all have to be carefully handled to avoid the mistakes of companies like Netflix. The last 12 months have been less than kind for Netflix, as <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20124885-261/netflix-subscribers-down-wall-street-disappointed/" target="_blank">it shed hundreds of thousands of subscribers</a> and failed to successfully launch a spin-off DVD-by-mail business called <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20117888-261/netflix-cancels-qwikster-spinoff/" target="_blank">Qwickster</a>. The company's share price tanked, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/17/idUS78565620720120117" target="_blank">leading to a class action lawsuit</a> led by angry shareholders. Langsford said that Netflix brought its woes largely upon itself after <a href="http://cnettv.cnet.com/9742-1_53-50107869.html" target="_blank">an unwelcome price hike</a> and providing a poor customer experience, both in <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20046091-261.html" target="_blank">uptime</a> and usability. He believed, however, that the company was on the rebound. "Netflix's issues were of their own making in large part. What we believe is that the best experience for customers is to have one great interface [and] that usability is important for customers. We've made a substantial investment in Quickflix's customer platform, streaming in particular over the last couple of quarters and that investment is ongoing [to support subscriber growth]," he said. As Quickflix continues to expand its content offering for Australian consumers, Langsford said that he is less and less concerned about piracy, adding that content producers see Quickflix as a cheap and effective way of distributing copy-protected content in the Australian market. "I think I'd turn the problem of piracy on its head when it comes to Quickflix. It's widely acknowledged that piracy is resulting around $1 billion in lost revenue to content owners. The reaction we're getting is support and enthusiasm from studios as a legitimate and high-growth means of distribution that sees them launch to more consumers and get their content out," he said. Quickflix has recently announced streaming deals with cross-platform partners including Sony and Samsung Electronics that sees its content streamed to gaming consoles, IPTVs, tablets and mobile phones. more

Search

Jobs by sector

Jobs by location