After global markets swung last week amid changing bets on the odds of a US interest rate hike this year, investors will scrutinise Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s comments at the annual meeting of top central bankers on Friday. Continue to article  

For many business to manage their chemical and hazardous substances compliance to meet the requirements of the 1996 HSNO Act is, many company owners put in the too hard basket. Now there is a simple and smart way to do this using a multi-functional software program, Hasmate. Hasmate is a one stop shop that provides you with a easy process to record all the key information about your chemicals for the training of your employees prior to them using them. Hasmate also provides you with the facility to produce a training procedure as well as allowing you to attach the…

In the shadow of a snow-dusted volcano on a corner of New Zealand’s North Island, a sprawling expanse of stainless steel vats, chimneys and giant warehouses stands as a totem of the tiny nation’s dominance in the global dairy trade. The Whareroa factory was until recently the largest of its kind, churning out enough milk powder, cheese and cream to fill more than three Olympic-sized swimming pools a week. Begins the story written by Emma O'Brien in BloombergMarkets - Continue to full article

The NSW government has awarded a $2.3 billion contract for 500 intercity train carriages to a multinational consortium, with the trains to be made in South Korea. AAP reports that the first batch of intercity trains would be delivered in 2019, with the tender awarded to the RailConnect Consortium. This group included UGL, Hyundai Rotem and Mitsubishi Electric Australia. Andrew Constance, the state transport minister, said the winning bid offered a 25 per cent cost advantage. “If I didn’t go with this winning bid you’d be criticising me the other way,” the ABC reports him as saying. Continuw to full…

The Reserve Bank today released a Bulletin article reviewing forecast performance.  The article uses forecasts from a suite of statistical models as a benchmark to evaluate the performance of forecasts prepared for the Reserve Bank’s quarterly Monetary Policy Statements. It concludes that since 2003, MPS forecasts have shown similar forecast accuracy to the statistical model forecasts, with slightly more accurate forecasts for near-term interest rates and GDP growth, and inflation at longer horizons. Neither the MPS forecasts nor the statistical model forecasts performed well at forecasting the exchange rate. The Bank has under-predicted the level of the TWI, leading to…

Intel believes the days of using copper wires for data transfers, both between computers and inside of them, are numbered because optical communications are on the horizon. The chipmaker has started shipping silicon photonics modules, which use light and lasers to speed up data transfers between computers. The silicon photonics components will initially allow for optical communications between servers and data centers, stretching over long distances, said Diane Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Data Center Group. Over time, Intel will put optical communications at the chip level, Bryant said during a keynote at Intel Developer Forum…

Why additive manufacturing isn't a fad and how it's transforming the way companies design and make things. Additive Manufacturing (AM). or 3D Printing (as it's more commonly known), is already changing the way manufactures design and make things. From small commercial units to large production machines, the adoption of AM is happening at a rapid rate. In particular this is happening in Australia with 100's of manufacturers implementing additive manufacturing into their processes, often in unique and novel ways. This session will look at the latest advancements in AM, the ways that manufacturers are or can implement AM and break…

Silence from Shanghai has New Zealand First asking if Shanghai Maling will invest into Silver Fern Farms given the financial woes faced by its parent – Bright Food Group. “Where is the reassuring media release from Shanghai Maling/Bright Food following Silver Fern Farms special resolution? Or are there increasingly cold feet up in Shanghai? ” asked Mr Peters. “That would explain the three-month extension and their silence since last Friday’s vote. “The Australian Financial Review speculated two months ago that all was not well with this deal, while in May, ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Bright Food’s outlook from stable to…

A climate change expert from Victoria University of Wellington says New Zealand's decision to ratify the Paris agreement this year shows a welcome commitment to addressing climate change. Professor Dave Frame, Director of the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University, says the Government announcement today is positive. “It's good to see an early signal. Coordinated action is vital in solving the climate change problem. By showing enthusiasm for the recent agreement, early ratifiers make it easier for other countries to justify their own commitments. "Big countries will lead on this issue, globally, because of the importance of…

Meet Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s vision of the future of computing. It’s called simply ‘The Machine’. It’s a radical departure from today’s computer architecture that is being developed HPE’s R&D arm, Hewlett Packard Labs, to deal with the conflicting trajectories of computing hardware and software. Jaap Suermondt, vice president, software and analytics at HPE, who is responsible for The Machine’s software stack and applications, told Computerworld Australia that it was designed to cater for the growing requirement to perform analytics on every-larger datasets at the same time as the annual doubling price/performance in line with Moore’s Law is coming to an…

Firefighters serving with New Zealand Fire Service will benefit from improved safety and communication while working in fire grounds through an innovative two-way radio solution. The new solution from Motorola Solutions and Spark will enable the service’s 10,000 career and volunteer firefighters to stay connected to their colleagues in the field via reliable and robust voice communication. Having attended around 73,000 incidents in the past year alone, New Zealand Fire Service needs the best tools for the job. The organisation will receive more than 4,500 new radios designed for use in the most severe fire ground environments. A major feature…