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Of the total, ABS reported that 6.1 million forms were submitted online through the Census digital service and the remainder was via post. The peak period online was at 8.06pm when the ABS received about 141 submissions per second. No interruptions, excessive wait times, or security breaches were reported by the ABS, according to Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar. “I want to thank the millions of Australians who have played their part in making the 2021 Census a success so far, and we want to continue to see the numbers ticking up and the forms coming in,” he said....

Now, Chromebooks are integral to the lives of millions of students and professionals. Google and a few partners (including Acer) have now decided to see if they can use the same reliance on cloud-based services to create Chromebooks for gaming. Services like Nvidia’s GeForce Now and Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass make this possible by shifting the heavy lifting to a remote server. Acer’s Chromebook 516 GE aims to be the ideal device for those cloud services by providing inexpensive hardware and excellent connectivity (Wi-Fi 6E, 2....

Acer Attacked Acer is a Taiwanese multinational specializing in computer hardware and advanced electronics. As of January 2021, the company is the sixth-largest PC vendor with consolidated revenues of around US $9.7 billion. The company was reportedly attacked by the REvil ransomware group last week, who then published various Acer documents over the weekend as proof of the breach. REvil, also known as Sodinokibi, was first discovered in 2019 by the threat intelligence firm Cisco Talos....

AUPDNS has already inspected 10 billion queries, and blocked 1 million connections to malicious domains, Assistant Minister for Defence Andrew Hastie said on Thursday. “A single malicious connection could result in a government network being vulnerable to attack or compromise, so it’s vital we do everything we can to prevent cybercriminals from gaining a foothold,” he said. “Currently AUPDNS is protecting over 200,000 users, and this number is growing”. The blocklist functionality was developed with Nominet Cyber....

In an update about the cyberattack that initially forced them to remove all connections to their central data center, the company said business operations are back up and running but the “number of so-called fraudulent calls and mails has generally increased.” “The forensic investigation has meanwhile confirmed that data was extracted from our servers before our systems were taken offline on December 9. We are currently investigating what type of data was extracted and will proactively provide further information as soon as possible....

Think earbuds, and most people will think Apple’s AirPods or AirPods Pro. But they’re not for everyone. People who aren’t in the Apple ecosystem, or those who don’t want to pay the sort of money that Apple is asking for these products, still deserve decent earbuds. Well, you might have noticed that there are a lot of sales going on, making it a great time to pick up a quality set of earbuds for a lot less than you normally pay....

An offshoot from Deepmind, another AI subsidiary of Alphabet, the idea for Isomorphic Labs came after Deepmind’s AI system AlphaFold 2 solved a 50-year old protein folding challenge by predicting the 3D structure of a protein directly from its amino acid sequence to atomic-level accuracy. Following this breakthrough, Deepmind and Isomorphic Labs founder and CEO Demis Hassabis said he now believes AI techniques and methods have become powerful and sophisticated enough to be applied to real-world problems, including scientific discovery itself....

“The surprisingly manual and bespoke process of teaching robots how to do things, which hasn’t changed much over the last few decades, is currently a cap on their potential to help more businesses,” Wendy Tan-White, Intrinsic’s CEO, wrote in a blog post. “Specialist programmers can spend hundreds of hours hard coding robots to perform specific jobs, like welding two pieces of metal, or gluing together an electronics case. And many dexterous and delicate tasks, like inserting plugs or moving cords, remain unfeasible for robots because they lack the sensors or software needed to understand their physical surroundings....

The TVs feature HDR 10+ adaptive technology and adaptive brightness. Coupled with the Dolby Vision IQ and 96 specialized dimming zones to add contrast to your picture screen, the picture was also upgraded with ambient technology features. They also use smart technology to feature 1,500 artworks from famous artists to display on the screen when not in use. You will also be able to feature your own family photos. Finally, the upgraded TV version will also offer the use of widgets, calendar notifications, and all the other features users love about their Echo Show models....

Layoffs abound, with even the biggest names affected. This, you see, is the company’s annual holiday ad, which sometimes embraces humor and this year bathes in a veritable hothouse of, oh, joy. Here we have a little girl who adores her snow globe. Who knows why? People have all sorts of predilections and why shouldn’t she love her snow globe? This little girl does take it to extremes, however. She wants to take her snow globe to school....

This is a story about the intersection of automation and customization, previously considered incompatible. Miso Robotics makes fast food fry cook robots named Flippy 2 and Flippy Lite. But to compete in the hyper-competitive quick-serve space where major brands have signature styles and offerings, the company needs to ensure its robots can adapt to very specific cooking and preparation outputs. Miso has already teamed up with big chains like White Castle and Chipotle, but the prototyping process is very time-consuming....

Cloud WAN “actually builds it for you in minutes using the big AWS backbone for you, to give you a highly reliable, highly available, software-defined wide area network running over AWS infrastructure,” Vogels said. Customers also segment pieces of their SDN, creating one network, for example, for manufacturing sites and one for offices. These segments would not be able to communicate with each other unless explicitly allowed. The service includes a dashboard for monitoring network health, security, and performance....

According to the SIA, 2021 saw the highest ever annual total for the industry. Even so, it failed to keep up with demand, leaving computer manufacturers and the auto industry, in particular, short of components. Despite the shortages felt by these sectors, the industry shipped a record 1.15 trillion semiconductor units in 2021. The SIA notes that it represents 99% of the US semiconductor industry by revenue and about two-thirds of non-US chip firms....

In documentation [PDF] prepared for the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA), ANAO said it was clear that auditing and reporting alone has not driven improvement in compliance with the government’s cybersecurity policy. “Non-corporate Commonwealth entities have not been held to account for not meeting the mandatory cybersecurity requirements under PSPF Policy 10,” it wrote, in reference to the Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF) Policy 10, which is centred on safeguarding information from cyber threats....

After installing the Windows Subsystem for Android on several test PCs, I can confirm that it works as advertised. But as with Windows 11 itself, system requirements (and geographical restrictions) mean that many users are unable to test the new feature for themselves. If you’re among those who can install and run the necessary bits, be prepared to be underwhelmed by the extremely limited selection of apps. There’s good reason for the scarcity, though; the Android-on-Windows feature (which is still officially in Preview) doesn’t use Google’s version of Android, nor does it allow access to the enormous collection of apps in the Google Play Store....

As calls have been growing in Congress and in the European Union for Apple to allow third-party app stores for its iPhone and iPad, company executives such as CEO Tim Cook have been speaking out, arguing that such a change would “destroy the security” of Apple’s products. In a report released on Wednesday, June 23, Apple argued that 3rd-party app sideloading would subject users of the company’s platforms to increased risks, create l app and OS instability – and potentially allow malware to install itself....

Artemis I is the first step in NASA’s effort to restart human lunar exploration. This first SLS launch will send an unmanned Orion capsule around the moon to test systems before sending a crew to the moon in 2025 or 2026. Since standing down the SLS launch on September 3, engineers have been working to replace two leaky seals in lines connecting fuel tanks to the SLS’s core stage. SEE: What is Artemis?...

The company, best known for its Jira workflow tools, reported fourth quarter revenue of $559.5 million with a net loss of $213.1 million, or 85 cents a share. The net loss was due to a charge relating to exchangeable senior notes and related cap calls. Adjusted earnings were 24 cents a share in the first quarter. Atlassian launches Forge, a new cloud app development platformAtlassian claims it’s a step closer to achieving ’nirvana’ with its dataAtlassian broadens Jira’s reach beyond tech teams with Jira Work Management...

The original AirSelfie drone has also clearly attracted the attention of “camera company” Snap, Inc., whose device market path has included a series of camera-enabled Spectacles. These have seen limited distribution and, more recently, a more limited audience as the social sharing company has pushed into augmented reality with the Spectacles 3. But unless you’re one of the greenlit “creators looking to push the limits of immersive AR experiences,” they’re not for sale....

The service “leads you to a solution in minutes,” Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of AI and ML for AWS, said in a keynote address at the re:Invent conference. Meanwhile, AWS also introduced database tools to ease the migration process. The new AWS Database Fleet Advisor, launching in preview, automates migration for an entire fleet of databases. “Building a migration plan for an entire fleet of databases is a challenging thing to do,” Sivasubramanian said, noting that it entails conducting an inventory of databases, creating the right migration path for each and determining the right AWS target service....