Nicta News

Australia Day Honours for NICTA leaders past and present

NICTA congratulates former CEO Dr David Skellern and current Research Evaluation Committee member Professor Mandyam Veerambudi Srinivasan on their inclusion in the prestigious Australia Day Honours lists.

NICTA appoints bionic ear pioneer to lead new hearing research

Graeme Clark, one of Australia�s greatest scientists and the pioneer of the bionic ear, is joining NICTA. In the position of Distinguished Researcher, Professor Clark will lead a new project aimed at developing technologies capable of providing new types of hearing implants that can improve various aspects of auditory perception for hearing loss patients.

Canberra student catches express bus to success with Android app

NICTA and Optus are pleased to announce the winner of the inaugural �Unleash Your App� Android app development competition - Zakaria Bouguettaya, a final-year Software Engineering student from the Australian National University. His winning mobile app, MyBus2.0, displays and searches Canberra public bus timetables, and then uses the GPS capabilities in the user�s mobile phone to map a path to the nearest bus stop.

Optical fibre transmission discovery earns NICTA PhD student a prestigious Victoria Fellowship

A prestigious Victoria Fellowship has been awarded to NICTA�s Liang Chen. NICTA, Australia�s national Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence, is delighted to recognise this outstanding achievement. The $18,000 Victoria fellowship will support Liang to visit the United States and Europe to pursue research collaboration and industrial training with leading scientists in the optical communications field.

Australian face recognition technology wins major international ICT award

NICTA face recognition technology that improves the speed and accuracy of identifying faces in CCTV footage has won the ICT R&D prize at the Asia-Pacific ICT Alliance Awards (APICTA) in Pattaya, Thailand.

Ballarat hosts NICTA�s first-ever regional technology showcase

Come to the Ballarat Mining Exchange this week for a feast of exciting, advanced technology developed at NICTA, Australia�s ICT Research Centre of Excellence. We will be demonstrating the latest developments from the �bionic eye� team, novel software to help farmers make better decisions about their crop production, and much more.

Scalify networking technology receives $98K funding boost from Commercialisation Australia

NICTA, Australia�s Information and Communications Technology Research Centre of Excellence, congratulates our spinout company Scalify for securing a $98,000 grant from Commercialisation Australia.

NICTA and Optus launch student comp to find 'killer' Android app

NICTA and Optus are calling on undergraduate university students from around Australia to fire up their computers, test their imaginations and stir up a storm of open platform innovation for the inaugural �Unleash your App� competition.

ICT industry joins forces with Government to shine international spotlight on innovative SMEs

Innovative Australian small to medium enterprises (SMEs) will have the chance to drive their products and services onto the international stage when the FutureGov Australia Congress opens at the Canberra Convention Centre next week.

Leading computer scientist Pascal Van Hentenryck joins NICTA

Pascal Van Hentenryck, a pioneer in the field of constraint programming, has joined NICTA to lead its Optimisation Research Group. He was most recently Professor of Computer Science at Brown University and Director of the university�s Optimisation Laboratory. Professor Van Hentenryck will lead a team of 48 staff to tackle research challenges in areas such as supply chains, smart grids, disaster recovery, computational biology and social networks.

NICTA�s June Andronick Recognised by MIT Technology Review as one of World�s Top Young Innovators

NICTA is pleased to announce that senior researcher June Andronick has been recognised by Technology Review magazine as a TR35 Honoree for 2011. The TR35 recognises the world�s top innovators under the age of 35, in fields spanning energy, medicine, computing, communications, nanotechnology, and other emerging fields.

NICTA Board Member Brand Hoff wins Pearcey Medal

Brand Hoff, NICTA Board Member, has won the 2011 Pearcey Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in the technology industry. Mr Hoff was founder of TOWER Software, the developer of TRIM, the Australian Electronic Document and Records Management (EDRM) system. The prestigious prize was awarded to Mr Hoff at the iAwards ceremony in Melbourne. NICTA also won two Merit iAwards at the event.

Australian industry the winner as NICTA takes home three iAwards

NICTA technology that makes road freight movements more efficient has won the Research and Development category of the NSW iAwards, with two other NICTA technologies taking out Merit awards.

NICTA engineers feature in prestigious �top 100� list

NICTA CEO Hugh Durrant-Whyte and Research Group Leader Gernot Heiser have both been named in the Engineers Australia 2011 �top 100� list of Australia�s most influential engineers. Professor Durrant-Whyte is represented in the Academia/Research category and Professor Heiser in the Innovation/Expertise category for his leading role in NICTA spin-out company Open Kernel Labs.

Automated cell tracker software saves weeks of image data analysis

An Australian-developed software tool that dramatically reduces the amount of time it takes cell biologists to analyse the results of their experiments was unveiled today at Bio2011, the largest global event for the biotechnology industry.

New genome assembly tool brings complex DNA research to the desktop

Genome assembly, the construction of DNA sequences from sample sequences, has received a boost with the release of Gossamer, a tool which allows researchers to assemble DNA fragments using cheap commodity computers rather than supercomputers.

NICTA microchip accelerates Australian bionic eye project

NICTA has developed a new microchip which is accelerating progress towards an Australian bionic eye.

Professor Stan Skafidas, NICTA Research Group Leader, Optics and Nanoelectronics, explains: �This microchip is one step towards the driver of our high-acuity retinal implant, which aims to restore a sense of vision for people with retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.�

News Alert � NICTA flies to Singapore for CommunicAsia 2011

In its fourth visit to Asia�s largest communications industry trade show, NICTA will showcase some of Australia�s most exciting information and communications technology (ICT) innovations at CommunicAsia 2011 Singapore Expo this week. Seven of NICTA�s early stage businesses and research projects will exhibit at CommunicAsia, which runs from today, Tuesday 21 June, through to Friday, 24 June 2011.

Bruce McCabe appointed to drive NICTA cloud computing business strategy

NICTA has appointed senior ICT industry expert Dr Bruce McCabe to drive its cloud computing business strategy. Bruce has most recently served as Director, Innovation at KPMG.

NICTA and secunet work together to deliver highly secure computing

NICTA and German IT security specialist secunet Security Networks AG have entered a strategic research collaboration to develop high-security information technology (IT) products for the defence and government sectors. The research will combine secunet�s experience in designing and building high-security devices with NICTA�s expertise in formal verification and secure microkernel technology.

Leading broadband innovators to test for 'NBN readiness'

CSIRO and NICTA have today signed a four-year agreement with NBN Co giving them access to the nascent national broadband network (NBN) for the development and testing of broadband technologies and applications.

DB Schenker and NICTA forge powerful transport and logistics alliance

NICTA, Australia�s ICT Research Centre of Excellence, has joined forces with leading global logistics company DB Schenker to tackle the important task of improving productivity in the transport and logistics sector. To pursue these efficiencies, Schenker Australia Pty Ltd, which belongs to Schenker AG - a privately held subsidiary of Germany�s national railway company - will engage with NICTA as a partner and project collaborator in NICTA�s Future Logistics Living Lab (FLLL) in Sydney.

News Alert! Cloud bursts onto NICTA�s radar as CeBIT Australia 2011 gears up

Technology to accurately forecast the costs associated with migrating business applications to the cloud, tools to model the performance of enterprise systems and the latest work from the Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation are among the exciting technology demonstrations NICTA is taking to CeBIT Australia next week.

$1.4M boost from Commercialisation Australia for NICTA �GiFi� technology

NICTA, Australia�s Information and Communications Technology Research Centre of Excellence, welcomes the announcement by the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, that its high-speed gigabit wireless communications technology (�GiFi�) is to be further developed with $1.43 million in funding from Commercialisation Australia.

NICTA's eGov technology cluster backs FutureGov Congress in ACT

A prominent conference featuring local and international experts in eGovernment will be held in Canberra this year from 12 -14 September. The FutureGov Australia Congress, announced by The Hon. Kate Lundy, Senator for the Australian Capital Territory at Parliament House this morning, is organised by FutureGov Magazine. This year it will be co-hosted by NICTA through its Australian e-Government Technology Cluster.

University of Melbourne and Victorian Government Become NICTA Members

NICTA is pleased to announce that the University of Melbourne and the Victorian Government were admitted as NICTA Members at last week�s Annual General Meeting. They join NICTA�s founding members the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales Governments, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales.

QUT's Simon Kaplan to lead NICTA's Queensland Lab

NICTA is pleased to announce that Professor Simon Kaplan, Executive Dean, Faculty of Science and Technology at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), has been appointed as Director of the NICTA Queensland Research Laboratory.

Crash proof code from NICTA makes MIT Technology Review�s 2011 TR10 list of world�s most important emerging technologies

NICTA is delighted to announce the inclusion of its formal code verification technology in MIT Technology Review�s 2011 TR10, an annual list of the world�s ten most important emerging technologies.

NICTA beams Graeme Clark Oration to regional universities

As a major sponsor of the 2011 Graeme Clark Oration, NICTA is pleased to announce that the ICT for Life Sciences Forum will webcast this important public science event to two sites in regional Victoria - Deakin University and the University of Ballarat. The live webcast will give the ICT business and university communities in Geelong and Ballarat the opportunity to participate in this event.

NICTA P2P network engine speeds into US and Europe

A NICTA-developed peer-to-peer network engine is fuelling two new children�s online entertainment and education applications in the US and Europe. Badumna, developed by NICTA�s Scalify research team, has been adopted by Finnish company Fantastec Oy and US company WishB LLC.

Living Lab fuels new technology for transport and logistics industry

Australia�s ICT Research Centre of Excellence NICTA, enterprise software company SAP and Europe�s largest application-oriented research organisation Fraunhofer are pleased to announce the opening of the Future Logistics Living Lab.

Media Alert: NICTA opens Australia's biggest ICT research showcase - Techfest 2011

NICTA, Australia�s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence, invites you to a national showcase of groundbreaking ICT research from each of its five research laboratories in Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. Over thirty NICTA teams will be represented at the event. See and experience an array of ICT innovations including:

NICTA joins Microsoft Research Asia to improve online video search

NICTA is collaborating with Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) to develop technology to improve the performance of online video search engines.

NICTA and RTA road test innovative traffic incident management system

NICTA and the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) have reaffirmed a research agreement under which they are developing new systems to improve the management of traffic incidents on the state�s roads. The agreement is part of the RTA�s ongoing commitment to improve incident responses, consistent with the Moroney Report on the F3 traffic incident in April 2010.

NICTA and OK Labs build safety net for critical systems

In a future where everything from cars to hospital operating theatres will depend on the flawless performance of sophisticated computer systems, the availability of completely reliable hardware and software will be vital. Up until now, the tools to guarantee this level of reliability have not existed, but with today�s release of software based on breakthrough NICTA research, all this has changed.

CSIRO, NICTA join forces in Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation

CSIRO and NICTA welcome the NSW Government�s $7.5m investment in the Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation (ACBI), which was launched today at the headquarters of CSIRO�s ICT Centre at Marsfield.

Smart infrastructure opportunities the focus of new agreement between NICTA and Japan's Nomura Research Institute

NICTA, Australia�s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Japan�s Nomura Research Institute to study the use of ICT in urban, industrial and social infrastructure, with a view to developing recommendations for research and commercial applications.

NICTA Queensland Lab celebrates fifth birthday with exciting ICT research showcase

The NICTA Queensland Research Laboratory (QRL) is five years� old and is celebrating with an innovative showcase of home-grown ICT applications to meet challenges in safety and security, health and the environment.