Happy 30th birthday to mobile phone calls in Australia – 9/8/11
The Telecom call was made in Melbourne in 1981 on an in-car phone that weighed 14kg & was 45cm long & cost $5000. The network covered the greater Melb. area….now we are heading for the Telstra 4G network with higher data speeds & better video quality. Trials have started.
http://www.itwire.com/your-it-news/mobility/49034-30-years-ago-today-australias-first-mobile-call
Facebook to have an executive in Aust. this week
Mia Garlick, a senior bureaucrat from Stephen Conroy’s Dept of Broadband, Communications & the Digital Economy, will have responsibility for Aust. operations & will hopefully be able to act quickly on complaints about Facebook postings & cyberbullying.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers Aust. Entertainment & Media Outlook 2011-2015
The report on Australia’s media & entertainment industry was issued 1/8/11. The fastest moving sector is the gamer market (9.5% growth by 2015), with gamers using consoles, phones, tablets & social media. Australians will own 5.5 million tablet devices by 2015. Empowered consumers often expect content for free – what incentives can be offered to encourage consumers to pay? Subscription TV revenue will grow by 5.1%. Films will grow by 4%. The internet as an industry will see a slowing of growth (7.4% by 2015). Newspapers will remain stagnant (0.1% growth). Consumer magazines & recorded music will be the only sectors to shrink. Live entertainment will see growth. And as for the book industry…..despite the closure of many A&R stores & Borders, the report predicts the industry will recover with annualised growth of 2.5% over the next 5 years.
http://www.pwcoutlook.com.au/outlook11.nsf/Pages/Press+Materials
Plagiarism!
Andrew Denton’s company Zapruder’s Other Films is looking at legal action over a pilot British TV program with the same format as The Gruen Transfer. Meanwhile, the BBC has aired a satirical series about preparations for the London Olympics, that is very similar to John Clarke’s The Games. The concept had been pitched to the BBC by Clarke in 2008.
Scarecrow and the army of thieves – Matthew Reilly
Available in October; the 4th book in the series starring Scarecrow, the heroic guy who was introduced in Ice station.
Inheritance – Christopher Paolini
Available 8/11/11. Book 4 & the conclusion to the series that began with Eragon. Can Eragon & his dragon topple the evil king and restore justice to Alagaesia?
http://www.randomhouse.com.au/Kids/Default/Page/General/Section/inheritance/
Jane Eyre
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2058367,00.html
Yay for Canberra’s Mia Wasikowska in the new film directed by Cary Fukunaga, based on the book by Charlotte Bronte. Also starring Michael Fassbender as Rochester. Some say she is the best Jane ever J Opens 11 August.
Batavia by Peter FitzSimons: the miniseries.
Screentime (makers of Underbelly & Cloudstreet) will make the 6 part series based on the 1629 Dutch shipwreck & the battle of good vs evil. FitzSimons describes the tale as an “adults-only version of Lord of the flies meets Nightmare on Elm Street”.
The white mouse – directed by Bruce Beresford
New bio-pic about the life of war heroine Nancy Wake, the highest decorated woman of WW2. Begins filming end of 2012.
http://www.encoremagazine.com.au/beresford-directs-nancy-wake-story-9830