Showing that he is more tech-savvy than the other Prime Ministers, Kevin Rudd has signed up to Twitter, the popular micro-blogging tool that allows people to “follow” your tweets in real time. But, according to The Age, his profile managed to crash the site after more that 670 people wanted to follow the PM.

Also part of the new Web 2.0 campaign is a brand new site called “Kevin PM”, following the successful campaign on the web by Presidential-elect Barack Obama. “It’s a discussion, it’s a dialogue, it’s hearing back from you about what you think we’re doing right and what you think what we’re doing wrong, or at least what we can do better,” Rudd says in a video about the new site.

The site is, according to Rudd, a successor to Kevin 07 – which also used the internet to campaign during the 2007 Election. Rudd PM will still used the established profiles on Facebook and MySpace, while adding Flickr, Twitter and YouTube to the list.

However, he is not the only government figure to be on Twitter. Malcolm Turnbull launched a profile on Twitter in mid-October, communicating with the public on issues that were asked by those who have a profile on Twitter. You can follow him at @TurnbillMalcolm, while you can follow Rudd at @KevinRuddPM. Also, if you have a Twitter account, make sure you add me at @terencehuynh, or if you want the latest TECHGEEK.com.au news – just follow @techgeek_rss.

Now, if only Rudd axes the internet filter – then we may vote you in again for office.

Even though the response has been negative, the Government is still pressing ahead with its promise of protecting people from obsene and unwanted content, with it calling for expressions of interest from ISPs to participate in live trials of the filter - which are set to commence at Christmas Eve, or December 24, this year.

While both Optus and Telstra have said that they will be reviewing the trials, iiNet will be involved - with a twist. Talking to The Age, Malone has said that iiNet was only participating to show the public that the filter is stupid.

“Every time a kid manages to get through this filter, we’ll be publicising it and every time it blocks legitimate content, we’ll be publicising it,” Malone said. “This is the worst Communications Minister we’ve had in the 15 years since the [internet] industry has existed.”

Optus has spent $44 million on subsidising the iPhone to make it cheaper, according to its parent company Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), during the first quarter when the iPhone was released. However, its not all bad news for Optus – 55 percent of the iPhones were sold as Optus as the carrier.

Along with Telstra and Vodafone, Optus is one the three selling the iPhone in Australia. However, Optus’ 3G network has suffered major congestion because of the iPhone, with Optus saying that iPhone users were using 1.5 times more data than post-paid users who use Optus’ 3G network.

Source: ZDNet.com.au

While its not video on demand, streaming movies from Netflix, skipping advertisings or any other cool features that were taken out of the TiVo box when it came to Australia; we might be getting them soon. Thanks with the Seven Media Group’s efforts, they announced that they have struck a deal with Blockbuster to give owners of the TiVo here in Australia a free movie every week – sent via the internet to their device.

As well, it will be rolling out interactive games and information services (with advertising), and will offer movies on demand, similar to the Netflix deal in America. Some of the movies will be on a pay-per-view basis, but others will be for free from Seven or advertisers. Also, you will be able to shop from your device – but that will be limited to food and grocery shopping, like ordering pizza.

However, with the movies – people could be faced with a huge bill if they go over their limits on their data caps, but a Seven spokesperson said that they are negotiating with service providers to make an unlimited, second-tier internet connection – dubbed the “Tivo Uncapped”; and this will be separate from the home connection.

The new services are expected to be rolled out from November 17, with most of it being completed by March next year.

Already launched today is the BBC’s fourth Australian channel, Cbeebies - an extention of its UK preschool channel. It competes with Playschool Disney and Nick Jr. It can be found on channel 705. Programming includes most of BBC’s preschool programming, including Teletubbies and Andy Pandy.

Next up to be launched at 5:30PM AEDT will be the fifth BBC channel in Australia, BBC Knowledge. This competes with the range National Geographic (NatGeo, NatGeo Adventure, NatGeo HD) and the Discovery line of channels. Programming includes Dragons’ Den, Top Gear and The Appentice UK. The channel can be found on 619.

Both channels are part of BBC Worldwide, which owns the already established BBC HD, BBC World News and UK.TV.

The third channel is 111 Hits, located on channel 111. Owned by Foxtel, it mostly takes the drama and comedy programming from Arena after it became more culture-orientated. Programming includes Friends, Will and Grace, Lost and the Drew Carey Show. It will launch at 6:30PM AEDT, with a special Countdown episode - hosted by Molly Meldrum.

We want to hear your thoughts on the new channels. Comment below.

The only good news out of this is that there is one supporter for the new classification change – Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls. His spokesperson told a Fairfax newspaper that it was still on the agenda, but "it appears unlikely that there will be unanimity from all jurisdictions to proceed further at this stage with introducing an R18+ category for computer games."

Under the current system, video games can only be classified up to MA15+; unlike their DVD and film classification systems, where it exceeds up to R18+ (and X18+ in DVDs). As well, the law cannot be changed, unless it gets the consent from the attorney-generals from the Commonwealth and the states and territories. This law has seen several big titles, like GTA4, being banned until they edit the game to suit an MA15+ rating.

According to a study by the IEAA showed that 91 percent of Australian respondents of its survey said that they supported an R18+ rating. As well, it mentions that the average age for a gamer is 30 – double the age of the maximum age limit of 15 for games.

According to technical experts talking to the Courier Mail, internet speeds could slow down the already crippled connection speeds by 30 percent if the new government filter scheme goes ahead; among other warnings – including that it would do little to block any illegal content, expose financial details of users during online banking and could see popular websites like Facebook banned from Australian computers.

The risk of exposing financial details comes after a report from ACMA saw that five of the six filters tested would filter HTTPS sites – a secure web protocol. This would effectively mean that your details would be seen by the ISPs in charge of the filter. As well, according to the president of the System Administrators Guild of Australia Donna Ashelford, the filter will only filter web traffic and not P2P networks like BitTorrent and LimeWire.

So, what do you think about the filter now? Make sure you vote in our poll - just click on the Read More link.

Image: Skye Suicide/Flickr

The level of censorship is being compared to the censorship that has been placed in countries like China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea. This is also a huge backflip after saying that the filter would allow users to opt-out of the national filter – which would require you to contact your ISP and ask to be excluded from the filter.

The debate over whether we should have internet filtering is split between groups saying that it would increase costs on internet access, slow internet speeds and restrict access to the web; and others who say that it should be there to protect our children. And with no idea on which content is being blocked, we don’t even know if the sites would be blocked over information critical of the current Australian Government.

However, we want to see what’s your reaction about the filter. Vote is below.

The downtime also affected Vodafone customers, who Optus has been providing data services for 18 months. Vodafone has advised them they switch to GSM mode on their phones, which does not allow them to access the 3G services.

Both Optus and Vodafone share mobile infrastructure, and both are scrambling to upgrade their networks to match the high data speeds found on Telstra’s Next G network.

An R18+ rating would allow games with sexually explicit and violent scenes be allowed to be sold in Australia; as under the current rating system, games that exceed the MA15+ rating are automatically refused classification, meaning they are banned. Grand Theft Auto 4 and Manhunt 2 were given refused classification ratings before releasing an edited version of their games.

According to the new campaign, it is claimed that the average Australian gamer is aged 30, doubled that of what the maximum age limit of 15 for games. Also, 88 percent of Australian households have at least one computer game, with 95 percent of Australians aged 6-10 play games.

However, not all are happy with the proposal, with the Australian Family Council spokesman telling the Herald Sun that the age limit should remain.

The issue is expected to be on the agenda when the state and federal attorney-generals meet next month.

"The regional broadcasting licence covering the Sunraysia district in northern Victoria has the highest penetration of digital TV in Australia, at over 70 per cent of homes, so it makes sense to start there," Senator Conroy said in a statement to the press.

The regional broadcast areas of South Australia will then switch off in the second half of 2010; followed that by regional Victoria in the first half of 2011. Queensland will switch off their analogue systems in the second half of 2011.

New South Wales will be split in two timetables, with the broadcast areas of Griffith, the Eastern Riverina (inc. Wagga Wagga), Illawarra (inc. Wollongong), the Central Tablelands (Dubbo and Orange) will switch off their signals at the first half of 2012, with the ACT. Those switching off their signals in the second half will be the North West Slopes and Plains (Tamworth and Inverell), Tweeds (Byron Bay and Lismore), the Newcastle area and the Northern Rivers area (Coffs Harbour).

The entire state of Tasmania, Perth, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Noosa will switch to digital transmission at the first half of 2013. Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney will switch in the second half of 2013, with regional and remote WA and remote areas of Central and Eastern Australia.

It seems that people may start hating Optus now, well – most from their engineering and technical division anyway. Optus has announced that 115 jobs from that division will be cut, resulting in a restructure of the division. This comes after Optus reviewed the performance of the division somewhere in August.

“As a result of the review and restructure there will be a reduction in headcount through contractor terminations, redundancies and cancelled vacancies,” a spokesperson for the company said. “The roles are from across all levels of the networks division, including senior and middle management as well as operational, engineering and support roles.”

While the majority of the cuts will affect employees based in New South Wales; those in Victoria, ACT and Queensland will also be expecting cuts.

Image from KayVee.INC (Flickr)

TECHGEEK has produce a list of several sites that we think might help. Let’s start of the list:

ABC iView

The ABC has decided to follow its British counterpart, the BBC, in making content available online. While it has been doing it since 2005, it was only limited to news and current affairs programming (and Media Watch). With the iView, it allows users to watch shows for 14 days after transmission, longer than what the BBC allows.

However, unlike the BBC’s iPlayer, its content is limited – with not everything on the ABC’s two channels being put up. But you will be able to watch The Bill and Doctor Who, both not produced by the ABC. The interface is entirely in Flash, and it has four “channels”, with different content in all of them. One is dedicated to catching up to shows, one is dedicated to documentaries, one is dedicated to news programming and another is for the kids.

While the video claims to be in high quality, which it is, Australians will see their internet sucked up pretty quickly – since Australians don’t have unlimited internet usage. The good thing is that the ABC is negotiating with the ISPs to have it unmetered, but only one has signed up – iiNet.

Channel Ten

Channel Ten has decided to offer up some of its shows online, from 90210 to Good News Week. The interface is sort-of ugly, but it is understandable, but choosing a video gets a bit confusing, but there are links at the bottom that will take you straight there. But, some of them are a bit misleading, like the Rove link will just show clips of a previous episode.

Ten has put in limited commercials, with some having no commercials at all, in the videos; and it offers the entire back catalogue of the show (that I know of), but we think that it will take them down after 2008. But like the iView, it’s interface is made up of Flash, but it does not take up the full screen of your computer.

The great thing is that you can share the video, but we wish they expand the options to include other social bookmarking sites. As well, you can keep up to date by subscribing to the RSS feeds, so once a new episode is posted, you can see it in your RSS reader.

SBS

SBS started to provide full episodes online a year back with Newstopia; and after that became a success, it has slowly adding more content. All the episodes last for a week. The interface is clean, and you can tell if it has finished progressively download (meaning to download the show while you are watching it, similar to YouTube).

Content, however, is limited to Newstopia, Bogan Pride (a new SBS comedy), RockWiz and a couple of documentaries, like the one you see above. However, since SBS is a “niche” channel owned by the Government, you can expect the quality of the programming to be high.

But you can also blame SBS for not letting us watch South Park episodes online.

The Daily Show/The Colbert Report

Funny enough, Comedy Central has allowed full episodes of both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report available to Australian users, even though Foxtel/The Comedy Channel has the rights to air the show. The interface combines Flash and HTML, so it won’t take long to load the page. Like Channel Ten, you can add it to many social bookmarking sites, and you can share your opinions on a certain episode by commenting.

Since both shows are partnered up with each other, you can watch the episode of its sister show right after watching the episode, by clicking on the link that shows up. However, the video is not in widescreen, but this is because the show is recorded using the 3:4 aspect ratio.

Videos are available for four weeks after transmission, and the interface is pretty clean. The video is at the very top, and does not have any distracting graphics or images on the sides of the player, except for the logo and the two buttons. However, since the interface is in HTML, every time you play a episode, it will send you to a new page containing the episode.

But that is just the full episodes page for both their sites. Their main pages include almost every moment from the previous episodes, and when we mean previous episodes, we mean their entire length. All the videos from the main site are embeddable, so you can put it up on your blog.

Got any other suggestions? Why not comment below and tell us, so we can add it to this list.

David Anthony McIntosh, a 28-year-old computer engineer, said that he felt alone and isolated from his colleagues at CSG Services, which was hired by the NT government to maintain their IT systems; and was disciplined for mistakes because he was the “newbie”. He also said to the court that he was feeling “stressed” from being segregated.

Prosecutors have said that he hacked into the computers after resigning. During the hacking, McIntosh is alledged to have crashed several government servers – including servers at the Supreme Court, Berrimah prison and the Royal Darwin Hospital; and deleted 10,475 public servants from the systems.

He is said, according to the prosecutors, by using a colleague’s password and her home computer. He is to stand trial at the Darwin’s Supreme Court on 13 charges.

Currently, advertising has been handled by ninemsn since last December as part of a global deal done by Microsoft, which saw Microsoft paying US$240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the company.

Its rivals, however, have set up offices to sell local advertising in Australia. MySpace has an an Australian team since 2006, while Bebo appointed Francisco Cordero as its general manager last year.

After waiting in the queue for one hour, with many people in front of me who managed to get there early, the store opened to huge fanfare, from both the staff and those who waited to have a look inside.

The first 1,000 people (which included me) got a free t-shirt, and I managed to snag a iPod Touch while I was there - with me giving my input soon. The store still looks like what you expect from Apple, and this store has the Genius bar, meaning that you can always ask them for support.

Pictures of the store are after the jump.

Gallery

The new propsoal will see the broadcaster allowed to offer foreign children’s programming for the first time, and offer English tuition and wider coverage of the Asia-Pacific region.

It will also use the money to launch two more channels by 2013, bringing that to a total of four television channels - with SBS World News Channel being renamed as SBS World. The two other channels will be titled SBS3 and SBS4.

It will also launch 9 new digital radio networks, and will add another 100 hours of original programming.

However, users can use the UK number (+44 762 480 1423) to send updates to the site, but won’t give any updates to users. Twitter has also recommended the use of Twitter mobile or any third-party client like TwitterBerry, Twitterrific, TwitterMail or Cellity.

The company’s US, Canada and India’s numbers are not affected by the move as they have find a "sustainable" agreements. As well, Australian users are not happy with the move.

"It was bad enough to be forced to use the UK number. Now, it appears that Australian twitter users are completely invisible," one of the comments posted on the blog post.

Co-founder Biz Stone has written at a blog post that they are still negotiating with operators in Australia - as well in Asia and China.

No word on what has been changed in the game.

Read the full story at GamesArena >

The report, For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice, was released this morning and found that the current laws were struggling to keep pace with modern technologies, social networking and many other services on the web.

Key recommendations from the report include regulating cross border data flows, drafting new regulation for people’s health information and how to manage the records, and educating children of ownership issues around personal information that is posted on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

The government is set to review the changes over the next 12 to 18 months in two phases. Phase One will see the government review on unified privacy provisions, protecting and maintaining health information and credit reporting reform - as well as educating children on privacy.

The second phase will focus on the recommendations, including any exemptions to the Privacy Act, and data breach notifications within government agencies and businesses.