ABC | Paul Wallbank - Communications Professional

Alternatives to the National Broadband Network – ABC Nightlife

What are the alternatives to the National Broadband Network? For the February 2017 Nightlife we explore what to do if you can’t get the National Broadband Network.

If you missed the show, you can listen through the ABC Nightlife website. Sadly we didn’t get to half the topics but our callers, as well as the NBN PR guy, were fabulous.

Paul Wallbank joins Phillip Clark on ABC Nightlife across Australia from 10pm Australian Eastern time on Thursday, February 16 to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

Last week the NBN announced a third of the country was now covered by their services and the company’s CEO, Bill Morrow, said Australians really don’t want super fast internet. A few weeks before, Telstra announced a new service that will deliver gigabit broadband over their mobile network. We can expect their competitors to offer similar products soon.

At the same time we’re seeing a blast from the past as Nokia are rumoured to be soon releasing an updated version of their classic 3310 phone – are we going to see the ‘tradie phone’ making a comeback?

While the old phone is nice, many people need fast broadband so how is the NBN going and, if you can’t get it, what can you do? Some of the questions

So how is the NBN going?
Wasn’t the government’s revised plan going to mean the whole thing is going to be cheaper and faster than the original project?
Who can get it?
Is it as good as promised?
So what alternatives to the NBN are there?
Doing the sums on those mobile plans, using them can be a pretty expensive business?
It seems we’re going backwards. How does Australian broadband compare globally?
How is this affecting regional communities and businesses?

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

ABC Nightlife: Pokemon Go and the end of the ideas boom

On this month’s ABC Nightlife we look at what Pokemon Go tells us about the future of Augmented Reality and the post election future of the ideas boom.

This Thursday night join Tony Delroy and myself on ABC Nightlife to discuss Pokemon Go, how tech is changing the workforce and the future of Australia’s technology industry following the Federal election.

It’s taken a while but we finally have a video game that gets people off the couch and onto the streets. For the last two weeks we’ve been hearing stories of how hundreds of people are dodging cars, invading police stations and stampeding across parks as they try to catch virtual reality animals in the Pokemon Go game.

What is Pokemon Go and is this the future of augmented reality are two of the questions Tony and I will be discussing. We’re also looking at what the Federal election means for the government’s much lauded Innovation Statement along with the Moonhack record of the greatest number of kids programming at one time.

Some of the questions we cover include;

What is Pokemon Go?
Isn’t Pokemon somewhat old school?
Why did it take off?
So we’ve heard a bit about augmented reality. Is this what it’s really about?
Beyond games, are there any useful purposes for AR?
Are we all going to have strange headsets strapped to our heads?
Can we expected Australia to provide many of these AR applications?
What sort of support is the government giving these developers?
Apart from what was already announced what did the Federal election mean to the Aussie tech sector?
After all the noise late last year, tech and innovation wasn’t really much of an issue during the election?
Does all this talk of tech really matter to the average Australian worker?

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

ABC Nightlife: Beyond the ideas boom

Is Australia facing a brain drain as the Ideas Boom dries up? That’s one of the topics we’ll be covering in this month’s Nightlife.

While Australia talks about innovation, some of our most exciting tech companies are moving to Silicon Valley. For the May 2016 ABC Nightlife we asked why are they moving and what can we do to encourage them to stay down under?

Along with discussing why Australian startups are moving to the United States we also looked at some of the announcements out of the recent Google I/O conference. If you missed the show it’s available for download from the ABC website.

If you’re in Sydney, we’re also debating whether innovation really exists in Australia in a Cloud Crowd debate on June 9. Tickets are free.

Some of the questions Tony and I looked at included;

Who is making the move over the US?
What reasons do they have for going over?
Why aren’t they going to Europe, the UK or SE Asia?
Is Australia having a brain drain?
It seems the much vaunted Ideas Boom has been lost in the election, is it over?
One of the things Google announced at Google I/O was their new Google Home device which listens to your spoken commands to control the house. Doesn’t Amazon already have one of these?
Another thing Google announced was they are looking at putting intelligence into every device. How far away is that?

Cloudcrowd innovation debate

On June 9 in Sydney we’ll be debating whether innovation is a myth in Australia, tickets are free and you can sign up through Eventbrite.

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

ABC Nightlife – is the smarthome worth the trouble?

This month’s ABC Nightlife show will look at whether the smarthome is really worth the trouble

Is the smart home worth the trouble? We live in an age of connected smoke alarms, kettles and even egg trays. For this month’s ABC Nightlife we’ll ask if these devices add to our lives or just make things more complex.

Earlier this month Google announced it would down their Evolv home automation platform leaving hundreds of users stuck with useless devices. So what happens to smart gadgets when they are disconnected from the Internet? We’ll also look at the new folding phone and just what a dire state the Australian telecoms industry is in.

Some of the questions we’ll cover include;

What was Google’s Evolv system?
Disabling the devices is a bit dramatic, why have they done that?
Do customers have any recourse?
Is this a risk with all connected devices?
What about connected cars, could they be turned off?
My computer needs updating, what about these devices?
What happens when the internet is disconnected, will my internet fridge work?
Samsung showed off a new folding phone last week. What exactly is it?
When will we see it on the market?
The Annual CommsDay conference was held last week in Sydney. Is there any good news for Aussie consumers?
Is the National Broadband Network looking any better?
How is the global telecommunications industry looking, can we expect anything exciting?

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

ABC Nightlife – Virtual Reality and Apple encryption

On ABC Nightlife tonight we’ll be discussing Virtual Reality and Apple’s encryption challenge

Pundits are saying 2016 will be the year Virtual Reality comes to the home, with Silicon Valley investors pouring money into the technology, the long awaited Oculus Rift due to be released this year and the heavily hyped Meta launching soon.

If you missed the show, you can hear it podcast through the Nightlife website.

Tonight on ABC Nightlife we’ll look at what VR, and its cousin Augmented Reality, are and what they mean to us ordinary people. Some of the questions we’ll be looking at include;

Exactly what are Augmented and Virtual Reality?
Why all the hype now?
Why are investors putting so much money into the space?
Apart from games what can this tech be used for?
Do you always have to wear the funny glasses?
Does the headsets always need to be connected to a computer?
What are the devices and brands we should be watching out for?
Is it likely consumers will be able to afford this technology in the near future?
Will 2016 really be the year of virtual or augmented reality?

If we get time, we’ll also look at Apple’s fight with the FBI over encryption (security researcher Troy Hunt has an excellent run down of the issues at stake) and what happens if you change the date on your iPhone to 1970.

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

ABC Nightlife – Australia’s startup goldrush and the overhyped world of wearables

The November ABC Nightlife radio program will look at Australia’s startup goldrush and the overhyped world of wearables

For November’s Nightlife tech spot we’ll be asking if wearable technologies overhyped and looking at what is going on with Australia’s sudden discovery of startup businesses.

Wearable technologies have been the next big thing. Two years ago Google Glass was all the news and earlier this year the Apple Watch was released to great fanfare.

Now Google Glass has been wound back in the face of widespread indifference and Apple are discounting the new watch as market experts find that wearable technologies are just not interesting to customers.

So are wearable technologies overhyped? We’ll be discussing where having a computer on your wrist or in your glasses may be useful and taking your questions on them.

Australia’s startup goldrush

There’s been a shift in the Australian business community since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister and now tech startups have become the new black with a wave of corporate initiatives being launched to support fledgling companies hoping to be the next Facebook or at least Atlassian.

So why now all the interest and can Australia be the next Silicon Valley?

Some of the questions we’ll be answering include.

So where can we get a cheap Apple watch?
Have Apple done this sort of thing before?
What are the experts saying about wearable technologies?
Are there some industries they can be used in?
So why is Malcolm Turnbull so keen on startups?
What sort of things are governments doing to support the startup communities?
How many Australian tech industry successes have there been?
Can Australia be the next Silicon Valley?

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to@paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

Why do we still use fax machines?

Fax machines were once a standard form of business communication, today they are a superseded transition effect. Why do still use them?

If you’re in the ABC Canberra area at 4.05pm, I’ll be talking about this with Adam Shirley. Listen live here.

One of the most frustrating statements in modern business is “you’ll have to send a fax.”

Facsimile machines, once the pinnacle of 1980s business communications although they were first invented in 1843, started to die once the internet became common and email became the dominant messaging system.

Once dial up modems started becoming standard on computers, receiving faxes electronically became feasible and for while businesses struggled with the notoriously unreliable software to receive facsimile messages without the hassle of paper.

Eventually however they passed away as most business found there was no need for faxes and anything requiring a signature could be electronically signed or a scan of the original document sent.

Some industries and sectors – particularly the legal world and some government agencies – still hold out the need to send an ‘original’ by fax, party under the fallacy a facsimile copy is more secure, reliable and legally more valid than an email or electronically lodged document.

During the ABC Canberra program one listener pointed out the medical industry is dependent upon the older technologies, “we couldn’t operate without them” she told the producers. In a time of connected medical equipment and electronic data interchange, the medical industry has little justification in using outdated manual methods but habits die hard in a very conservative industry.

None of the myths around the reliability of fax are true and the reality is details sent by fax are just as easily intercepted by nefarious employees or third parties as emails. In many respects a fax is less secure than electronically interchanged data.

If you do have the need to send or receive a fax though all is not lost, services like eFax will still send or receive messages and then, ironically, email them onto you.

However there is a downside with these services, as one harried PA whose organisation still receives faxes due to its dealings with the legal profession described, the vast bulk of messages they receive are junk messages mainly offering cheap deals on office supplies.

The fax machine is another example of a transition effect where a stop gap product was effective for a short period as businesses adapted to new technologies, the SMS is going through a similar process now. Neither will be the last example of this.

Security, smartcars and Microsoft Windows – ABC Nightlife July 2015

Security problems with smartcars and dating sites along with asking if a new version of Microsoft Windows matters any more

Security problems with smartcars and dating sites along with asking if a new version of Microsoft Windows matters any more are the topics for July’s Nightlife tech spot.

Paul Wallbank regularly joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightlife on to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

If you missed this month’s show, you can listen to the program through the ABC website.

July’s Nightlife

A decade ago people lined up all night for a new version of the Windows operating system. Next week Microsoft will be launching Windows 10 to an indifferent market place, does what was once the world’s biggest software company matter anymore in a world of smartphones, connected cars and cloud computing?

Some of the questions we’ll be answering include.

So what are Microsoft announcing next week?
What happened to Windows 9?
Does Windows really matter any more?
The internet has changed things but not always for the better. What about connected cars being hacked?
Is this a bigger problem than just connected cars when we’re seeing things like kettles being wired up to the internet?
Of course it’s not just cars suffering problems on the Internet, adult dating site Ashley Madison has had potentially 37 million customers’ details leaked online.
Could this happen to any business? How do we protect ourselves?

Listeners’ questions

A few of the questions from listeners couldn’t be answered on air.

Running Flash of iPhones and iPads: Steve Jobs’ hatred of Adobe Flash was legendary and as consequence iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad don’t come with the ability to run the software. That’s a problem for those who need Flash for some packages.

The Puffin web browser gives iPad and iPhone users the ability to use Flash on their devices and is available from the iTunes store.

Securing Android: While smartphones are less prone to viruses and malware than personal computers, they still are at risk. For Android users there is no shortage of choice for security packages, some of which include;

Android power hogs: A downside with smartphone apps is they can drain battery life. One excellent feature on Android phones is the ability to easily check what’s using your juice.

Open device settings
Scroll to “about phone”
Click on “battery use”

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to@paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

Your TV is watching you. ABC Nightlife February 2015

For the February 2015 Nightlife we look at spying TVs, the internet of rubbish bins and robot hotels

Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightlife nationally from 10pm Australian Eastern time on Thursday, February 19 to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

If you missed the show, the program is available for download from the ABC site.

For the February 2015 program Tony and Paul look at robot driven hotels, the internet of rubbish bins and how your TV could be listening to you.

Last year a lawyer read the terms and conditions of his new Samsung TV and discovered that the company recommended people don’t discuss sensitive information around it. This has lead to widespread, and justified, concerns that all our smart devices – not just TVs but smartphones and connected homes – could be listening to us. What happens to this data and can we trust the people collecting it?

The internet of rubbish bins

It’s not only your TV or smartphone that could be watching you, in Western Australia Broome Shire Council is looking at tracking rubbish bins to make sure only council issued ones are emptied.

Shire of Broome waste coordinator Jeremy Hall told WA Today the council’s garbage truck drivers had noticed more bins than usual were getting emptied and a system needed to be put in place to identify “legitimate” bins.

While Australian councils are struggling with rubbish bins a hotel in Japan is looking to replace its staff with robots and room keys with face recognition software. The Hen-na Hotel is due to open later this year in Nagasaki Prefecture, the Japan Times reports.

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

ABC Nightlife – security, dropping off the grid and 4D printing

Apple Security, the Heartbleed bug and dropping off the grid are the topics of the May 2014 ABC Nightlife spot

Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightlife across Australia from 10pm Australian Eastern time tonight to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

For the May 2014 spot we looked at computer security, specifically Apple ransomware and The Heartbleed bug along with dropping off the grid, 4D printing and the future of design.

To protect from the Oleg Pliss ransomware – or any similar problems – have a strong password, enable the screen passkey and enable two factor authentication.

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

What’s coming in tech for 2014 – ABC Nightlife computers

On ABC Local Radio we’ll be looking at the big tech stories for 2014

For the first Nightlife tech spot of 2014 Paul will be joining Kate O’Toole to look at what’s going to big technology news in the year ahead.

The show has been and gone. If you missed it, you can download it from the ABC Nightlife website.

A lot of this year’s technology stories will be around things we’ve been talking about for a while, but a wave of cheap devices is making things like the connected car and smart house more affordable and accessible to homes and businesses.

The Connected car

While it’s early days for the connected car, in the near future we’ll see them talking to intelligent roadsigns to reduce the roadtoll and to our smart houses to let our airconditioners and kettles know we’re on the way home.

2014 is going to see these vehicles become common, by the end of next year we’ll be expecting most models to have these features.

Wearable tech

We’ve been hearing a lot about Google Glass, but the real advances in wearable tech are in devices like the Fitbit that tracks your daily exercise.

The next wave of wearable tech will be intelligent clothing, a good example of this is the Mimobaby kimono that measures a baby’s movements and repiration during the night.

The Internet of Things

One of the truths of the tech industry is that it loves buzzwords – in recent years we’ve had social media, cloud computing and crowdsourcing – the next big one is The Internet of Things.

The Internet of Things deserve the hype. With cheap sensors, accessible internet and cloud computing it’s now possible to connect, monitor and analyse everything from cows to refrigerators. This will have big effects on most industries.

Smartphone wars

For the past few years we’ve seen the iPhone and then Android, primarily Samsung phones, dominate the smartphone market. This is about to change as a wave of cheap Chinese phones flood the market.

Expect smartphone and tablet prices to fall dramatically as a range of new devices appear on the shelves. We will probably see Apple and Samsung respond by increasing the features available on their more expensive, higher margin devices.

3D Printing

Another technology that’s become affordable in recent years is 3D printing. At the CES show, a new range of 3D printers was released that have cameras so you can make copies of items.

3D printing is rapidly gaining acceptance and the worldwide makers’ movement is showing what we can do with these machines.

National Broadband Network

In Australia the NBN will continue to be the biggest local tech story. Unfortunately the project will remain mired in contractual and political problems as the government tries to figure out exactly what it wants to build.

While Australia plays games, the rest of the world is getting on a building their networks and Australians can expect the country to fall further behind the global leaders on almost every measure.

Security

With the revelations of Edward Snowden we can expect security and privacy to be an ongoing story in 2014.

As corporations and social media companies struggle with the challenge of storing and protecting customer’s data, there will be more discussion of how we can protect our vital information both on and offline.

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Eastern Summer time on Thursday, January 10 or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

Where next for the NBN – ABC Nightlife technology

With a change of government, Australia’s troubled National Broadband Network is facing big changes

The National Broadband Network has always been a hot political issue in Australian politics and with the election of the new Federal government the often delayed project is being reviewed.

What does this mean for communities and businesses struggling with inadequate internet connections? Join Tony Delroy and Paul Wallbank from 10pm, October 17 on ABC Local Radio across Australia.

If you missed the program, you can listen to it as a podcast through the ABC Tony Delroy’s Nightlife page.

Some of the questions Tony and Paul be covering include;

Why did we need the NBN in the first place?
What’s happened to the NBN since the new government was elected?
Why are we are we having political arguments about an infrastructure upgrade?
What are the differences between fibre to the node versus fibre to premises?
Why is the NBN running so late?
How will the coalition’s change the slow rollout?
Australia’s come in around 40th on an international survey on Internet use. Is this because of the NBN?

We’ll also be looking at some other topics such a Google’s new advertising plan and how to drop out of it.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on the night on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia. If you’re outside the broadcasting area, you can stream the program through the ABC website.