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Senate Probe Calls Uber, Airbnb

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Ride sharing company Uber and accommodation sharing online outfit Airbnb have been hailed to appear before the Senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance tomorrow.

The inquiry is chaired by Labor Senator Chris Ketter, who has replaced former leader Sam Dastyari.

Executives from a number of other companies including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Caltex, BP, Viva Energy, Woodside, Santos and Origin Energy are also slated to appear, as is Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan.

In written submissions to the inquiry, Uber and Airbnb have argued that they comply with Australian tax laws and their Australian operations merely provide support services to parent companies based in the Netherlands and Ireland.

Senator Dastyari told Fairfax Media that “there’s a lot of buzzwords around at the moment in politics about disruptive technology and innovation. I’d also like to see us get back to the old-fashioned principle where companies actually pay their taxes in Australia.”

Uni Takes Equity In Solar Team

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SYDNEY – Redback Technologies, a start-up specialising in electricity storage systems for solar power installations, has teamed up with UniQuest, the University of Queensland’s commercialisation arm, to research and develop solar power technologies.The two have signed an MoU under which UniQuest will take a minority stake in Redback in return for giving Redback exclusive licences to UQ technologies developed under a research partnership agreement.

Redback’s main product is a unit combining battery, control technology and inverter that is designed to store solar-generated electricity in the home and to minimise reliance on grid power by balancing consumption and storage of solar and grid power.

Redback founder and MD, Philip Livingston, told CDN: “Underlying the sophistication of these types of systems is the development of algorithms, and that requires significant bandwidth in terms of computer science, machine learning and artificial intelligence. That is the guidance we are trying to get from UQ, to kick-start our ability to think more laterally.” – Stuart Corner

PM Turnbull Puts ‘innovation’ Up Front And Centre

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The IT sector has largely welcomed Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to reinstate innovation into the industry-and-science portfolio and offer better access to the start-up community. As reported (CDN yesterday), Turnbull has appointed Christopher Pyne, formerly Education Minister under Tony Abbott, to the role of Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science. Victorian Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield has become the country’s new Communications Minister.

“I think the major issue is that Malcolm Turnbull is now in charge,” independent communications analyst Paul Budde told CDN. 

“I assume Christopher Pyne will have to change his tune a bit and now follow the more liberal one from Malcolm Turnbull, rather than the attacking one from Tony Abbott. While I don’t know Mitch Fifield, I assume that Turnbull will remain the key person in charge for the moment on the NBN.”

Said Turnbull: “Christopher’s department, the Ministry for Industry, Innovation and Science, will drive the Government’s focus on investing in science, promoting science technology, engineering and mathematics, education, supporting start-ups and bringing together innovation initiatives right across government.”

Research and technology innovations organisations such as the CSIRO, formerly threatened by funding cuts and axings, may breath a bit easier after Pyne emphasised their importance.

“We have the researchers, the universities, the institutions such as CSIRO, Questacon and others who are world leading,” Pyne said. 

“We have cooperative research centres and industry growth centres and a very wide range of collaborative ventures around the globe. We have a major agenda in the commercialisation of research outcome.”

Meanwhile Mitch Fifield will assist the PM with a new “digital government” portfolio, presumably embracing the recently established Digital Technology Office (DTO). He has experience with the Communications portfolio, having previously represented Turnbull in the Senate.

Samsung, Apple Gather Ammo For 4G Patent Battle

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Samsung Electronics and Apple are reportedly building patent portfolios involving 4G mobile-network technology, as they prepare for the next instalment of their continuing battle over intellectual property.

LTE 4G technology – currently being installed into telecoms networks round the globe – is at the heart of both Samsung’s most recent Galaxy S III smartphone and Apple’s new iPhone 5.

The Wall Street Journal claims Samsung is holding some 819 LTE patents, while Apple has 318 – up from none last year – and Nokia has 389.

It quotes an unnamed source as saying the blow from Samsung’s recent courtroom defeat at the hands of Apple in the US hasn’t diminished the Korean company’s appetite to continue the legal dispute

ACT Got Wrong NBN Information

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CANBERRA – A probe is under way into whether some households have been given incorrect information during rollout of the National Broadband Network.NBN installers informed Gungahlin, ACT, residents they

needed to call in an electrician before the free installation of the service to

their homes, or face a wait of four weeks, according to an ABC report.

NBN Co spokesman Darren Rudd said requirements for installation are listed

online and an electrician is only needed for internal rewiring, cabling or a

new powerpoint.

“I’ve asked our operations manager for the ACT to do an investigation into

this particular case,” he said. “We’ve got very strict policies – we

have contractors who are trained and accredited.”

Pole Upgrade Hampers Wi-Fi Net

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A plan to spread a free Wi-Fi network across Canberra has fallen well behind schedule due to light pole problems.

The network, being set up by iiNet – now part of TPG – was expected to have more than 700 Wi-Fi hotspots operating by June this year. But the ACT’s Chief Minister has revealed that only 174 sites have so far been established.

A further 76 access points are expected to be rolled out by the end of October, leaving the rollout still 450 sites short of the June target, his report says.

A spokesman for the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate (CMTEDD) said the rollout had been delayed due to upgrades to light poles where the access points were being installed.

The network is expected to provide free Internet access in 12 of the territory’s major business districts, at a cost of around $4 million.

ASIC Stop Channel CEO From Leaving OZ

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The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has obtained a court order temporarily barring the CEO of an ASX-listed IT distributor from leaving Australia as it investigates what it says is the misappropriation of about $1.2 million after a public share issue last year.

The Federal Court heard that Kim Wong, managing director of Melbourne-based service provider WinTech is being investigated by ASIC over claimed transfers of funds from the company’s account to those of Wong and his Korean girlfriend, Yun Jung Choi, according to a Melbourne Age report.
ASIC’s counsel, Daniel Crennan, told Justice Alan Goldberg the regulator was concerned that some of the funds WinTech raised from a $2.53 million share issue in early 2009, which should have been held on trust, appeared to have been transferred firstly into the company’s trading account and then into private bank accounts.
The judge was told that records obtained from Crown Casino by ASIC indicated that Wong attended the casino on 188 days from the start of 2009 until September 9, and in that period lost $407,900.
Wong’s travel ban is in place until June 24. Wong’s lawyer, Murray Gerkens of FCG Legal, told The Age that his client denies any wrongdoing and will challenge both the travel ban and any allegations levelled at him by ASIC.
Activities of WinTech (www.wintechgroup.com.au) are listed on the ASX as importation and wholesale distribution of computers, computer parts and accessories.
The company’s shares have not been traded on ASX during the past six months.

Broadband To Add $100 Billion To Economy Claims Analyst

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Broadband will add more than $100 billion to the Australian economy over the next 10-15 years, says a new report by Paul Budde’s BuddeCom _ but it warns Australia is still trailing two years behind penetration levels in Europe and Asia, and growth rates are slowing.

Broadband will add more than $100 billion to the Australian economy over the next 10-15 years, says a new report by Paul Budde’s BuddeCom ­ but it warns Australia is still trailing two years behind penetration levels in Europe and Asia, and growth rates are slowing.

Because the rest of the world is progressing much faster, Australia is losing out on competitive advantage, Budde says in the report titled 2008 Australia ­ Broadband Market ­ Overview and Statistics

Furthermore, according to Budde, Australian people are missing out on important lifestyle improvements, including home healthcare systems. The problem, the report says is not so much technology as affordability: the price of ADSL2+ is too high for 60 percent of current broadband users.

“After having struggled for nearly a decade to get ULL implemented, it is rather ironic that the Government has now proposed to close this level of competition with its National Broadband Network request for proposal,” the report says,

“Without any structural changes proposed under the RFP either, it is very much in Telstra’s interest to build as quickly as possible a new monopoly, this time based on FttN.”

The report says Australia’s current ULL and DSLAM infrastructure will become obsolete once the FttN network is in place, though the copper network will linger on in regional areas.

Budde forecasts about 90 percent of Australia’s national network could be upgraded via FttN by 2018 ­ the remainder of the national network will have to be serviced by wireless and satellite access providers.

BuddeCom says the Australian market for broadband is already beginning to approach a natural subscriber ceiling of around 7 million. Subscriber growth started to slow in 2007, and will taper off further by 2010. The report is available from www.budde.com.au for $795.

Dell Unleash SMB Cloud

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SAN FRANCISCO – Dell is making use of technology inherited when it bought Boomi in 2010 to create new “integration packs” designed to merge data between applications in the cloud.
The first packs are aimed at synchronising critical data between financial applications Intuit QuickBooks and Microsoft Dynamics GP with Salesforce CRM.

The packs will improve order accuracy and eliminate time-consuming manual data re-entry between systems, Dell claims.

Tesla E-Car Sales Jump 49pc

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Electric-car maker Tesla Motors sold 11,580 vehicles in Q3, a 49 percent increase over the same period a year earlier.

The company is aiming to deliver between 50,000 and 55,000 this year but would need a surge in output of its US$76,000-and-up Model S sedans and Model X SUVs. In all Tesla has sold 33,117 vehicles this year.

The carmaker didn’t reveal sales of its new Model X, pictured, but because it has only just been released, it is unlikely to have impacted heavily on sales figures.

The price of a Model X starts at $132,000, with Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Tesla board member Steve Jurvetson among the first to receive the vehicles. Australia’s Simon Hackett, an NBN director, has also ordered one – for his missus.