Features
The heart of business
Australia’s infatuation with start-up culture is at an all-time high. Last year 20,000 new small businesses were created in New South Wales alone. And according to the latest annual Startup Muster survey, of the 1500 ‘approximately’ new business founders interviewed, 70 per cent were based in co-working spaces. And this, according to Mara, is where the problem lies. The stereotypica...
Is Facebook listening to our conversations?
Is Facebook listening to our conversations? Professor Dali Kaafar, Scientific Director, Optus Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub and Leader of Data61 Information Security and Privacy Group, explains. The way that sites like Facebook can anticipate our interests can feel quite uncanny, especially if ads pop up for something we’ve thought about but haven’t searched for. Despite...
Wetsuits that hide humans from sharks
A discovery about the eyesight of sharks has led to a real-life application that could save lives. Western Australia was reeling from a series of fatal shark attacks on surfers, swimmers and scuba divers when Dr Nathan Hart teamed up with a marine technology company to develop, with the support of WA government funding, a shark-deterrent wetsuit. Hart, now an Associate Professo...
Winners are grinners: Macquarie’s Sport Scholars bring home medals from the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games
Macquarie University Sport Scholars have bagged two gold medals, one silver and one bronze at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. Sport Scholar Esther Qin (pictured above right ) won a gold medal at the women’s three-metre board synchronised diving event (with Georgia Sheehan, pictured above left) and a bronze medal in the women’s one-metre springboard final. Esther and...
Could your car be hacked?
Our smart vehicles are increasingly vulnerable and it’s time for stronger safety standards, warns security expert John Baird (B Science 1989, PD Computing 1995, M Computer Forensics 2013). Self-parking cars which also stop you from crashing are now commonplace in Australia’s new vehicle market; but with this rise in automation comes an increased risk of being car-hacked – wi...
MQ Research: major study of homelessness finds housing policy is failing Sydney’s most vulnerable
There is an urgent need for more low-cost housing and alternative housing models of supported housing for Sydney’s homeless, given the high rates of serious mental illness among the homeless, according to new research from Macquarie University and the Matthew Talbot Hostel Clinic run by the St Vincent de Paul Society. In one of the largest studies of its kind, and the largest ev...