"Nick Crocker sold his first company, We Are Hunted to Twitter and his second company, Sessions to My Fitness Pal. He now invests in Australian startups through Starmate, works as Chief of Staff at Under Armour Connected Fitness and is a Venture Partner at Australian fund Blackbird Ventures.We’re looking to bringing him to New Zealand next week and to find out what he has learnt in the process of building two successful startups. Venues Christchurh, Tauranga, Wellington and AucklandTickets here
Emirates has signed an agreement with Thales to equip its new Boeing 777X fleet with Thales AVANT inflight entertainment system.
The airline will work in partnership with Thales to develop and enhance the state-of-the-art inflight entertainment and connectivity (IFEC) system to be fitted on its Boeing 777X aircraft due for delivery starting in mid-2020.
This major investment underscores Emirates’ continued commitment to providing the best possible passenger experience, and its strategy to ensure the best and latest technology complements its young and modern fleet.
“Our partnership with Thales represents a significant investment and emphasis on customer experience, which has always been a priority for us. The new Boeing 777X aircraft will herald a new era for the Emirates fleet, and we want to ensure that our product offering on these fuel-efficient planes will be a benchmark for the industry, including the inflight entertainment experience. We look forward to revealing more details when the time is right,” said Adel Al Redha, Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, Emirates Airline.
He added: “In addition to customers, the size and long-term nature of this deal also benefits the broader aviation industry, and we are pleased that this new partnership will help support thousands of highly skilled jobs across the Thales ecosystem - in France and elsewhere around the world.”
The multi-million dollar deal covers IFEC systems for Emirates’ first 50 Boeing 777X aircraft. The airline has a firm order of 150 Boeing 777X aircraft. The new Thales AVANT system will feature an innovative and highly customisable user experience, providing a further boost to Emirates’ award winning inflight entertainment system, ice.
"Thales is proud to be selected by Emirates to provide the award winning AVANT inflight entertainment solution for their future B777X fleet. Emirates is at the forefront of innovation in passenger experience delivering remarkable services to its customers and Thales is honoured to support this continued success. We are committed to delivering excellence in customer satisfaction and driving the highest standards in passenger engagement, now and into the future,” said Dominique Giannoni, CEO, Thales InFlyt Experience.
Emirates has an unbeaten 12-year record as the winner of World’s Best Inflight Entertainment award at the Skytrax World Airline Awards. The airline offers up to 2,500 channels on demand including the latest blockbuster movies, award-winning television box sets, comedy series, live TV, music and computer games. Currently, 85% of Emirates’ fleet of 250 passenger aircraft is equipped with Wi-Fi on board including all A380 aircraft, and 107 aircraft are equipped with live TV, which has up to nine channels of live news and sport.
Victoria University of Wellington astrophysicists are part of an international team that today releases one of the widest-ever radio wave surveys of the Universe and the first to reveal it in such technicolour detail.
Published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA, or GLEAM, survey has produced a catalogue of 300,000 galaxies observed at frequencies from 70 to 230 MHz by the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), a $50 million radio telescope located at a remote site in the West Australian outback.
Victoria Associate Professor of Physics Melanie Johnston-Hollitt and postdoctoral fellows Dr Cathie Zheng and Dr Luke Hindson were the New Zealand arm of a 19-strong multi-country team that designed and executed the survey and processed the data.
Associate Professor Johnston-Hollitt is also Chair of the MWA Executive Board.
GLEAM began collecting data in 2013 and Associate Professor Johnston-Hollitt says the work has significantly expanded the parameters of scientific inquiry and knowledge.
“There are a number of questions we have about the Universe we can use this survey to answer,” she says.
Two studies by Associate Professor Johnston-Hollitt, Dr Zheng, Dr Hindson (now at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom), former student Luke Pratley (now at University College London) and current Master’s student Stefan Duchesne have already benefited from GLEAM and Associate Professor Johnston-Hollitt is preparing to publish papers on the results.
“We know from other indicators our galaxy should have about 1,000 ‘supernova remnants’—the remains of exploded stars. But before we could only see 300. One of the reasons is because the older, dimmer ones are hard to detect at high frequencies. With GLEAM, observing at lower frequencies, we have been able to find about 20 percent more remnants.
“The other thing my group at Victoria has been working on are ‘galaxy clusters’. Galaxies in the Universe are not distributed uniformly. They cluster together in anything up to thousands of galaxies and those clusters move and at some point collide, producing shockwaves and turbulence on an epic scale. But those shockwaves are very, very faint and when we have looked for signatures of collisions using radio telescopes with higher frequencies we haven’t found that many. Since January, using GLEAM, we have doubled the number previously known—identifying more than 240 radio signatures of shockwaves or turbulence in clusters.”
Lead author of the GLEAM catalogue Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker, from Australia’s Curtin University and International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), says some of the radio waves observed in the survey have been travelling through space for billions of years.
“The GLEAM survey is a significant accomplishment for the MWA radio telescope and the team of international scientists that worked on it,” says Dr Hurley-Walker.
Completing the survey is a big step on the path to SKA-low, the low frequency part of the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope to be built in Australia in the coming years.
“By mapping the sky in this way, we can help fine-tune the design for the SKA and prepare for even deeper observations into the distant Universe,” says MWA Director Associate Professor Randall Wayth, from Curtin University and ICRAR.
If tourism is producing massive income for New Zealand why are John Key and Bill English putting it in their “back pockets” and distributing just a few “coins” to the real earners?
“That’s exactly what they did this year by giving local councils just a paltry total of $12 million funding over four years to support their infrastructure costs,” says New Zealand First Leader and Northland MP Rt Hon Winston Peters.
“Meanwhile, the government has collected GST from international tourism of $1.1 billion.
“The government is out of touch with the burden put on ratepayers. In small town NZ tourist coaches, rental cars and campervans are parked up at the toilet blocks where they don’t pay a cent, and too few spend in the town on food and drinks.
“Tekapo has an $800,000 cost for its toilet project, Hot Water Beach at Hahei used paid parking to fund toilets and Kaikoura is now wondering how to pay for toilets near the popular seal pup waterfall north of the town.
“Last year, a local government working group revealed that they spent $140 million on the tourism industry mostly in funding promotions, events and I-Site visitor centres. That excluded toilets, sewerage costs, extra water costs and bylaw enforcements.
“Why isn’t a slice of the government’s take being diverted to communities to help pay for infrastructure that support tourism?” says Mr Peters.
“A Lincoln University study estimated that in 2015 councils spent $37.90 per head of population on the tourism industry, that rose to $59.60 per head in areas with less than 10,000 people and in some councils, such as Mackenzie and Waitaki, it was over $80 a head.”
A New Zealand First release
As questions mount over the Air Force’s Boeing 757’s being used as the Prime Minister’s private jet, New Zealand First can reveal that the government ignored 2010 advice to sell them.
“At $31,000 an hour to fly, the Prime Minister’s luxury fleet of Boeing 757’s were deemed poor Value For Money in a 2010 high-level report,” says New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Defence Spokesperson Ron Mark.
“Strangely, the recommendation to sell the 757’s and charter Air New Zealand instead, were one of the few recommendations not adopted from the Defence razor gang led by Dr Sir Roderick Deane and Pacific Road Corporate Finance.
“In 2010, Sir Roderick concluded: “In terms of reduced operating costs for NZDF, the sale of the [Boeing 757] aircraft and the acquisition of certain Strategic and VIP Transport services from the likes of Air New Zealand would deliver the greatest VFM [value for money]”.
“Air New Zealand was even sounded out because they said that they’d be able to: ‘meet all NZDF's needs with the possible exception of certain freight services, flights to and from the Antarctic Continent and flying in or close to hostile environments’.
“These impediments are easily solved because the Hercules can fly to the Ice, we can buy space on larger allied aircraft while specialist charters can be used for ‘hostile environments’.
“So why did National disastrously ‘civilianise’ swathes of the Defence Force and even axe territorial bands but refused to part company with their precious Boeing 757’s? These aircraft cost $31,000 an hour to fly in 2010 at 700 annual flight hours but given the current annual average of 571 hours will be costing us a lot more.
“This 2010 report reinforces New Zealand First’s point that VIP aircraft like the B757 are square pegs in the Defence Force’s round hole. The opportunity cost for each VIP aircraft is a new C130-J Hercules type aircraft and New Zealand First knows which one we’d prefer in RNZAF colours,” says Mr Mark.
Microsoft wrapped up its New York Windows 10 event a few hours ago and the two-hour keynote packed a lot of announcements about upcoming Windows 10 features, new Surface hardware and more. As usual, these kind of fast-paced events are a bit hard to digest and if you’re looking for a good summary of everything Microsoft unveiled today, the company just helped us by highlighting its top announcements from the conference.
Following the release of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update last summer, the next major Windows 10 release will be called the Creators Update and will be available as a free update in early 2017. While Windows Insiders already had a chance to test some new features and improvements in recent preview builds (codenamed “Redstone 2“), this upcoming Creators Update, as it names suggests, will turn the lights on designers, makers, and content creators. Expect to read a lot about 3D design, game streaming, and more in the coming days and weeks.
Microsoft wrapped up its New York Windows 10 event a few hours ago and the two-hour keynote packed a lot of announcements about upcoming Windows 10 features, new Surface hardware and more. As usual, these kind of fast-paced events are a bit hard to digest and if you’re looking for a good summary of everything Microsoft unveiled today, the company just helped us by highlighting its top announcements from the conference.
Following the release of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update last summer, the next major Windows 10 release will be called the Creators Update and will be available as a free update in early 2017. While Windows Insiders already had a chance to test some new features and improvements in recent preview builds (codenamed “Redstone 2“), this upcoming Creators Update, as it names suggests, will turn the lights on designers, makers, and content creators. Expect to read a lot about 3D design, game streaming, and more in the coming days and weeks.
Corrs Chambers Westgarth and Canadian technology start-up, Beagle, have today announced the launch of Beagle Asia Pacific Pty Ltd, a new entity established to provide practical and accessible artificial intelligence technology.
The 50:50 joint venture is set to revolutionise the way Australian and New Zealand companies are using AI technology, with Beagle’s TANR™ (Technology Assisted Narrative Review technology) and productivity tools, which can be used for automatic contract analysis, offering companies a scalable and affordable product unlike anything currently available on the market.
“This is an AI-based narrative review which gives clients the benefits of AI without having to commit to the expensive and lengthy process which is the current norm,” said Corrs Chambers Westgarth Partner James Whittaker.
“Up until this point, many companies have had to rule out using AI for contract analysis because they haven’t had the scale or the budget. Beagle’s software addresses this market gap and, rather than being confined to use within legal departments, it can create benefits right across the enterprise structure, from legal, to procurement, contract administration and management, risk, insurance, IT and IP,” added Whittaker.
Beagle’s TANR™ digests and identifies important elements within text at about one page per second, and then learns the culture-specific way that an entity manages those elements. The platform augments a user’s ability to make appropriate decisions and does so in a way that increases the uniformity of these decisions in accordance with the organisation’s policies and procedures.
“Instead of adopting the common reactive approach of other software platforms in the market which look at what a company has agreed to previously, this platform is focused on quickly learning what is needed by a company based on its own policies and culture, and then helping decision-makers stay within those boundaries,” said Beagle Founder and Top Dog, Cian O’Sullivan.
“This approach drastically improves corporate compliance and provides exceptional transparency, in fractions of the time currently invested,” concluded O’Sullivan.
The product is being introduced to the market as a pilot program for a select number of Corrs’ clients, though the platform will ultimately be available to all of Corrs clients and non-clients throughout Australia and New Zealand.
The Beagle JV is both Beagle and Corrs’ first joint venture and reflects Corrs’ strategy to embrace technology and pioneer new ways of adding value.
“At Corrs, we recognise the continued and increasing importance that technology is playing throughout the business landscape – both in legal departments and more broadly. Our aim is to be at the forefront of these changes, to catalyse them. The key to ensuring we thrive in the shifting delivery of legal services is to ensure our innovations deliver value to the market. At times, this extends beyond our immediate client base, and our joint venture with Beagle is a great example of this,” said Corrs Partner and CEO John W.H. Denton.
Founded in Canada in 2014, Beagle is already gaining significant traction, with German automaker Volkswagen (VW AG) deploying Beagle’s technology to assist in all car part procurement decisions for its entire family of companies and brands.
Beagle was one of 14 recipients of Microsoft Ventures’ 2015 Seattle-based Accelerator Program, a graduate of the prestigious Rotman School of Management (University of Toronto) Creative Destruction Lab, and one of the recipients of the Canadian Innovation Exchange top 20 most innovative companies of 2015 (CIX Top 20 2015). Beagle’s founder, Cian O’Sullivan, is a fellow of CodeX, the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics.
BISON, the specialist developer of portable container weighing solutions, today announced the launch of a world first system for weighing containers on trailer chassis.
The new container weigh system is a timely innovation, with recent amendments to the SOLAS convention forcing shippers around the world to verify the weight of every export container with certified weighing equipment or processes. The SOLAS rule change has added cost and complexity to container shipping operations, with many shippers having to adopt inefficient or poorly timed weighing processes, such as hauling containers extra distances to offsite weighbridges or weighing every single cargo item before it is loaded into the container.
"BISON C-Legs solve this problem," says BISON CTO, Dr Mark Fahey. "They equip shippers to accurately weigh containers on chassis in any location, without reliance on capital-intensive weighbridges, cranes and container handlers, which are not always available at the right time or in the right place."
BISON C-Legs are self-contained scales that attach to and lift a container just clear of the chassis, then transmit the gross container weight via Bluetooth to a feature rich smart phone App. The App confirms the container’s weight distribution, captures photos and shipment details and sends weight certificates and related data via email.
Targeted at exporters and logistics companies needing to weigh containers outside of ports and other high volume container hubs, BISON C-Legs provide a flexible solution for SOLAS VGM compliance and allow shippers to optimize cargo loads, manage container weight limits and weigh containerized cargo for trading purposes.
C-Legs are compatible with shipping containers of all types and sizes up to 35,000kg and work with both air and spring suspension chassis. Full OIML certification and type approvals in Europe, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and other countries will be completed by the end of 2016.
BISON C-Legs build on the success of BISON’s pioneering C-Jacks, the portable system for weighing grounded shipping containers. BISON CEO, Mr Greg Fahey remarks:
"Our ground based container scales have sold well this year and are now being used in over 20 countries to produce SOLAS VGM certificates. However we’ve had strong pull for a similar solution to weigh containers on chassis, especially from Europe and North America where chassis based loading is mainstream. C-Legs really are a market led innovation."
BISON will mark the C-Leg launch, plus the opening of a new sales office in Europe, by showcasing its weighing hardware and data management systems at the Intermodal Europe exhibition in Rotterdam in mid-November. The BISON team will be based at stand 74. BISON CTO, Dr Mark Fahey, will give a presentation at the conference, talking about the benefits of verifying container weights before they enter the logistics chain.
Product innovation is critically important for business because it’s one of the keys to unlocking growth, says Mondelez International’s New Zealand Country Head James Kane.
Speaking in a NZ Food and Grocery Council Leaders Series video interview, he says innovation was critical to staying ahead of the competition.
“We know as a business we have the ingredients in people and brands and broad portfolio to be successful, but innovation really gives us another platform to genuinely grow the category.
“The approach we take is to try and leverage the growth of our global network for innovation but also to take the best of local where we can as well.”
He says the best recent example of local product innovation was the Jaffa block, which Cadbury developed last year after asking Kiwis via a social media campaign what they were looking for. The block “struck a chord” with consumers and sold more units than any other block.
Another example of innovation was taking a global product and developing it for New Zealand tastes. Consumers told them they wanted higher cocoa content so they developed Cadbury Cocoa, which “was a great example of taking a global product but localising it by bringing it to the New Zealand marketplace”.He says innovation is going to continue to be a massive focus for Mondelez.
FGC Chief Executive Katherine Rich says innovation is one of the main ingredients that keeps business growing, be it domestically or in export markets.
“The old saying ‘innovate or die’ has never been more accurate than in today’s ultra-competitive marketplace.”
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242