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Asia Region Funds Passport reaches critical mass with Japanese sign-up - 14 Sep

PwC’s asset management leader, Ken Woo, said Japan’s commitment to creating a regional market for managed funds represents a ‘tipping point’ in terms of momentum for the initiative.




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Obesity to affect one-third of Australians and cost $88b by 2025 - 14 Oct

The economic impact of obesity will reach $87.7 billion and affect one-third of Australians by 2025 based on current trends and without further intervention.




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Australia and its Allies Do More With Less - 15 Oct

As global challenges increase, Australia’s defence budget is growing, while the US and most other allies have been decreasing their defence resources.




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Australia behind in getting ahead of digital disruption - 20 Oct

Australia lags behind the world's best corporate performers in all ten indicators of digital intelligence needed to drive financial performance.




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A Positive and Ambitious Govt Response to Financial System Inquiry - 20 Oct

PwC partner and financial services leader Julie Coates said the Federal Government's response to the Financial System Inquiry Report was encouraging.




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Australia Tops Asian Region for Cyber Security Risks: Report - 21 Oct

The number of detected cyber security incidents in Australia was the highest worldwide in the last 12 months with an increase of 109 percent, compared to a 38.5 percent increase globally.




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PwC named a 2015 Employer of Choice for Gender Equality - 6 Nov

PwC Australia is pleased to announce it was selected by The Workplace Gender Equality Agency WGEA as one of 90 organisations in Australia as an Employer of Choice in 2015.




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Make or break year for the future prosperity of Australia - 20 Jan

Australian CEOs are less confident about their companies' growth prospects than a year ago, and less optimistic about growth in the global economy, according to a PwC report released today.




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PwC collaborates with startups to create innovative cloud solution - 23 Feb

PwC today announced it was collaborating with a range of Australasian startups and emerging technology companies to deliver a purpose-built cloud platform that brings together some of the leading cloud solutions in the market today, all in one place.




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Plebiscite could cost Australian economy $525 million - 14 Mar

A standalone plebiscite with a compulsory vote on marriage equality could cost the Australian economy $525 million according to modelling released by PwC Australia today.




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Boomer businesses blocking next gen's digital ambitions - 12 Apr

Australia's next generation of family business leaders is more confident and better prepared for senior roles than two years ago, but is also experiencing more challenges, both inside the firm and in the wider business landscape.




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STEM agenda alive and kicking - PwC partners with McCarthy Catholic College for Sydney's first P-TECH Pilot - 30 May

PwC has today been announced as the first employer partner for a new Pathways in Technology (P-TECH) style pilot at McCarthy Catholic College, Emu Plains.




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Who's the fairest of them all? Australian entertainment & media industry needs diversity to grow - 8 June

A lack of diversity in Australia's media and entertainment workforce in terms of ethnicity, gender, age and thinking is dragging on the industry's growth, according to a PwC report released today.




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Cloudflare partners with JD to expand its network in China

Cloudflare today announced a new partnership with JD Cloud & AI that will see the company expand its network in Chinato an additional 150 data centers. Currently, Cloudflare is available in 17 data centers in mainland China, thanks to a long-standing partnership with Baidu, but this new deal is obviously significantly larger. CloudFlare’s original partnership […]




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Google Cloud opens its Las Vegas region

Google Cloud today announced the official opening of its Las Vegas data center region. With this, Google Cloud now operates four regions in the western U.S., with Las Vegas complementing Google Cloud’s existing data centers in Los Angeles, Calif.; The Dalles, Ore. and its recently opened Salt Lake City, Utah region. In total, Google now […]




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Microsoft makes it easier to get started with Windows Virtual Desktops

Microsoft today announced a slew of updates to various parts of its Microsoft 365 ecosystem. A lot of these aren’t all that exciting (though that obviously depends on your level of enthusiasm for products like Microsoft Endpoint Manager), but the overall thrust behind this update is to make life easier for the IT admins that […]




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Microsoft’s Visual Studio Online code editor is now Visual Studio Codespaces and gets a price drop

About a year ago, Microsoft launched Visual Studio Online, its online code editor based on the popular Visual Studio Code project. It’s basically a full code editor and hosted environment that lives in your browser. Today, the company announced that it is changing the name of this service to Visual Studio Codespaces. It’s also dropping […]




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Cloud Foundry renews its focus on developer experience as it looks beyond the enterprise

The Cloud Foundry Foundation (CFF) just went through a major leadership change, with executive director Abby Kearns stepping down after five years (and becoming a CTO at Puppet) and the CFF’s CTO Chip Childers stepping into the top leadership role in the organization. For the most part, though, these changes are only accelerating some of […]




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Microsoft opens registration for its free, online Build 2020 developer conference

Microsoft has now opened registration for the virtual edition of its online-only Build 2020 developer conference, which will take place from May 19 to 20. Typically, the event draws more than 6,000 developers, but because of the coronavirus pandemic, that’s obviously not an option. In contrast to Google, which completely scrapped its I/O developer conference […]




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Backblaze challenges AWS by making its cloud storage S3 compatible

Backblaze today announced that its B2 Cloud Storage service is now API-compatible with Amazon’s S3 storage service. Backblaze started as an affordable cloud backup service, but over the last few years, the company has also taken its storage expertise and launched the developer-centric B2 Cloud Storage service, which promises to be significantly cheaper than similar […]




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AWS launches the $995 Elemental Link for streaming video to its cloud

AWS today announced the launch of the Elemental Link, a small hardware device that makes it easy to connect a live video source to the AWS Elemental Media Live service for broadcast-grade live video processing in the cloud. The $995 Link, which weighs in at less than a pound, is meant to allow Media Live […]




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Orca Security raises $20M Series A for its multi-cloud security platform

Orca Security, an Israeli cloud security firm that focuses on giving enterprises better visibility into their multi-cloud deployments on AWS, Azure and GCP, today announced that it has raised a $20 million Series A round led by GGV Capital. YL Ventures and Silicon Valley CISO Investments also participated in this round. Together with its seed […]




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GitHub gets a built-in IDE with Codespaces, discussion forums and more

Under different circumstances, GitHub would be hosting its Satellite conference in Paris this week. Like so many other events, GitHub decided to switch Satellite to a virtual event, but that isn’t stopping the Microsoft-owned company from announcing quite a bit of news this week. The highlight of GitHub’s announcement is surely the launch of GitHub […]




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Hub Security raises $5M Series A for its cryptography platform

Hub Security, a Tel Aviv-based startup that developed a software and hardware platform for cryptographic operations, today announced that it has raised a $5 million Series A round led by AXA Ventures. Crowdfunding platform OurCrowd also participated in this round. Like most companies at the Series A stage, the company plans to use the investment […]




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Locatee raises $4M Series A for its workplace analytics platform

Locatee, a Swiss startup that uses existing sensors and IT infrastructures to provide employers and commercial real estate owners with detailed data about how their spaces are utilized, today announced that it has raised a $4 million Series A funding round led by San Francisco-based FYRFLY Venture Partners and Zurich-based Tomahawk VC. “We started the […]




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Google’s Duo video chat app gets a family mode with doodles and masks

Google today launched an update to its Duo video chat app (which you definitely shouldn’t confuse with Hangouts or Google Meet, Google’s other video, audio and text chat apps). There are plenty of jokes to be made about Google’s plethora of chat options, but Duo is trying to be a bit different from Hangouts and […]




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WTI crude oil futures prices fell below zero because of low liquidity and limited available storage (4/22/2020)

On Monday, April 20, 2020, New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil front-month futures prices fell below zero dollars per barrel (b)—at one point, trading at -$40.32/b (Figure 1)—and remained below zero for part of the following trading day. Monday marked the first time the price for the WTI futures contract fell below zero since trading began in 1983. Negative prices in commodity markets are very rare, but when they occur they typically indicate high transactions costs and significant infrastructure constraints. In this case, the WTI front-month futures contract was for May 2020 delivery, and the contract was set to expire on April 21, 2020. Unless they have made other arrangements ahead of time, market participants that hold WTI futures contracts to expiration must take physical delivery of WTI crude oil in Cushing, Oklahoma. Typically, most market participants close any futures contracts ahead of expiration through cash settlement in order to avoid taking physical delivery, and only about 1% of contracts are physically settled. The extreme market events of April 20 and April 21 were driven by several factors, including the inability of contract holders to find other market participants to sell the futures contracts. In addition, in this case, the scarcity of available crude oil storage meant several market participants sold their futures contracts at negative prices, in effect paying a counterparty to close out of the contracts. ...




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AEO2020: Alternative Policies - Varying Residential Solar Photovoltaic Utility Rate Structure




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How this startup built and exited to Twitter in 1,219 days

By the summer of 2016, Marie Outtier had spent eight years as a consultant advising media agencies and martech companies on marketing growth strategy. Pierre-Jean “PJ” Camillieri started as a music software engineer before joining one of Apple’s consumer electronics divisions. Inspired by Siri, he left to start Timista, a smart lifestyle assistant. When the […]




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Poynter Institute launches WhatsApp chatbot to debunk coronavirus-related hoaxes

You can now debunk thousands of coronavirus-related hoaxes with a few texts on WhatsApp . Poynter Institute, a non-profit organization that supports journalism, today launched a bot on the Facebook -owned service that will allow people across the globe to debunk over 4,000 hoaxes surrounding the pandemic such as whether the infectious disease originated in […]




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Facebook to add gift cards, jobs and donation tools to its COVID-19 Community Help hub

Facebook is expanding its Community Help hub to better serve local communities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The hub has already seen significant usage by those requesting food, supplies and information about local resources, as well as use by volunteers and groups willing to lend a hand. Now, Facebook is adding more features to the hub […]




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Tumblr now removes reblogs in violation of its hate-speech policy, not just the original posts

Tumblr is making a change to how it deals with hate speech on its blogging platform. The company announced today it will also remove the reblogs (repostings) from any blogs that were suspended for violating its policies around hate speech. Already, the company says it’s identified nearly 1,000 blogs that were banned for blatant violations […]




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Twitter runs a test prompting users to revise ‘harmful’ replies

In its latest effort to deal with rampant harassment on its platform, Twitter will look into giving users a second chance before they tweet. In a new feature the company is testing, users who use “harmful” language will see a prompt suggesting that they self-edit before posting a reply. When things get heated, you may […]




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A security expert says India’s contact-tracing app has flaws; New Delhi says they are ‘by design’

The Indian government has said that its contact-tracing app Aarogya Setu “by design” fetches the location data of its 90 million users and allows them to view the concentration of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in their vicinity. New Delhi issued the statement after France-based security researcher Baptiste Robert found what he […]




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Twitter rolls out changes to threaded conversations following tests in its prototype app, twttr

Twitter announced today it’s introducing a new layout for replies that will use lines and indentations to make it easier to understand who you’re replying to and how the conversation is flowing. The company will also test putting engagement actions — including likes, Retweet and reply icons — behind an extra tap to make replies […]




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Discover is Facebook’s new effort to help people access websites for free — but with limits

Facebook has a new connectivity app called Discover to help those who can’t afford to get online access information on the web. The service, available through mobile web and Android app, allows users to visit any website in text format (no video, images, audio and other elements that eat up large amounts of data) and […]




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Facebook users are buying and selling pangolin parts, even though it’s illegal

In spite of their protected status under international laws, pangolins remain one of the most trafficked animals in the world — and at least some of that trade is taking place right out in the open on Facebook . A new report from tech watchdog group the Tech Transparency Project details how Facebook users are […]




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Facebook’s redesign goes live with simplified navigation and dark mode

After months of testing, Facebook’s redesign is finally official. Announced last year at F8, the more minimalist approach to its desktop design has been rolled out in waves. In March, the company added an option to try out the new version. Users could switch back and leave feedback for why they had done so. This […]




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CRV’s Saar Gur wants to invest in a new wave of games built for VR, Twitch and Zoom

Saar Gur is adept at identifying the next big consumer trends earlier than most: The San Francisco-based general partner at CRV has led investments into leading consumer internet companies like Niantic, DoorDash, Bird, Dropbox, Patreon, Kapwing and ClassPass. His own experience stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic spurred his interest in three new investment […]