Robert Hickson • Apr 03, 2019 •
It’s easy to get momentarily excited about robots on the farm, particularly if they are close to home, picking apples or herding stock. Robots have been rolling out onto farms elsewhere for several years and the pace is picking up, so NZ is in … Read More
Robert Hickson • Mar 14, 2019 •
Like business and politics, futurism and foresight are susceptible to short-termism, shallow historical perspectives, and a focus on parts not the whole. That’s not necessarily bad, but you need to recognise what perspective you are taking. Good foresight needs to balance the tension between detail and distance. As one interviewee noted for the Thinking the unthinkable report: … Read More
Peter Kerr • Nov 23, 2015 •
There’s more than one way to bake the cake of “we don’t have enough developers”. Universities produce some, polytechs some others. Many are self-taught. Enspiral in Wellington through its Dev Academy has a fulltime nine week course that turns non-coders into people with digital development skills, ready for employment, open to much more learning. Industry Connect in Auckland has taken … Read More
Peter Kerr • Nov 17, 2015 •
Occasionally, you come across a piece of thinking that makes you go, ‘oh, right, that’s a very interesting point’. So it is with a recent article by Toby Ruckert, CEO and Founder of Unified Inbox, a platform to bring and display all your social media and email communications in one place. Toby Ruckert, CEO and founder of … Read More
Peter Kerr • Nov 04, 2015 •
Finance Minister Bill English, speaking at the Wellington launch of the 11thTIN100 report, gave Greg Shanahan and his team what amounts to a pretty nice endorsement. “You effectively invented this sector,” English said at the Thursday 29 October gathering at NZX’s relatively new presentation space. Which, as we’ve all come to habitually expect each October, is a reminder … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 12, 2014 •
by Laurent Lebreton, data scientist at dumpark A recent study on marine plastic pollution published in the journal PlosOne estimates that some 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing more than 268.000 tonnes are floating on the world’s oceans. Over a six-year period, researchers from six different countries collected plastic density data from 24 expeditions into the five main oceanic basins … Read More
SciBooks • Feb 21, 2014 •
by Dion O’Neale Review: Hidden Agendas: What we need to know about the TPPA by Jane Kelsey Bridget Williams Books, 2013 e-book RRP $4.99 Jane Kelsey makes no bones about the fact that she thinks that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is bad news for New Zealand: the first page of … Read More
Peter Griffin • Jan 22, 2013 •
I just stood in the cold on the National Mall in Washington D.C. along with 600,000 people to listen to Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. The National Mall in all its glory photo: Peter Griffin Factions of the media have analyzed it as a very “progressive” or “liberal” speech. I didn’t take that away from it. For me it … Read More
Peter Griffin • Jan 07, 2013 •
I’m about to leave for Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, which sets the tone annually for the year in terms of what technology will hit the market. The Vuzix M100 I’ll be posting updates throughout the week from CES here and at Listener Online, so keep an eye on the websites or follow my twitter feed … Read More
- Wayne Linklater • Dec 04, 2012 •
Pesky varmints – not a cartoon, not a dream, but a real-life nightmare in New Zealand. “Did you know New Zealand has a pest problem?” New Zealand is waking up from a nightmare to discover it is real. At least 2788 New Zealand species are threatened with extinction. Our iconic native … Read More