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…

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…

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…

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…

TOKYO -- "The wound is the place where the light enters you." These words of the 13th century Persian poet Rumi sang in my head as I examined a simple, ceramic bowl in a tiny cafe in a western suburb of Tokyo. The bowl had been elevated to a luminous, compelling objet d'art, by the gold-filled cobweb of cracks snaking across it. Light had indeed entered this bowl along the lines where it had once shattered, thanks to the particular Japanese art of repairing ceramics called kintsugi. The technique uses the sap of the urushi tree, a powerful natural adhesive,…

Australia's beleaguered farmers are poised to unlock vast new export markets as producers, peak bodies and both sides of politics prepare to bury their differences to sell products into China under a "one brand, one logo" approach for the first time. The new strategy – under wording and a trade symbol designed for maximum Chinese impact – would pitch Australia in a head-to-head race against the gold-standard in export marketing, "100% Pure New Zealand". 'Grey market' exports of vitamins and baby formula to China brought in $1.3b in revenue last year. The breakthrough, facilitated by the recent free trade agreement, would…

Pacific Aerospace along with its Chinese joint-venture will announce further plans to grow China’s general aviation sector at the upcoming aviation spectacular Airshow China, just days after opening a big custom-built aircraft manufacturing plant at Changzhou. The opening of the 10-hectare facility at Changzhou airport on October 21, attended by several hundred Chinese and New Zealand businesspeople, joint venture leaders and Chinese and New Zealand government officials and plant workers, celebrated the company’s first aircraft, a reassembled P-750 XSTOL, to roll out through the new facilities. The P-750 XSTOL is the world’s most versatile utility aircraft, pioneered in New Zealand.…

The Commerce Commission has given clearance to the Wallace Group Limited Partnership to acquire up to 100% of the assets and business of Wallace Corporation Limited, Farm Brands Limited (and related companies) and Keep It Clean Limited. The merging parties are involved in the rendering of animal waste materials into finished products, such as animal feed. The Commission considered the impact of the acquisition on various buying markets. Namely it looked at the purchase of mixed animal material from shops in Canterbury, the purchase of mixed casualty material in the lower South Island and the direct purchase by individual species…

The four fastest-growing regional council areas accounted for over 75 percent of New Zealand’s population growth in the year to June 2016, Statistics New Zealand said today. Auckland’s population swelled with a 2.8 percent increase, followed by Canterbury and Waikato (2.3 percent each), and Bay of Plenty (2.2 percent). These regions all exceeded the national level of 2.1 percent growth. Fifteen of New Zealand’s 16 regions experienced growth, and three-quarters had greater increases than in the year to June 2015. “The most significant component of growth in most areas was record net migration – more people arrived and fewer departed,”…

Numbers of New Zealanders available for work are being incorrectly reported, says BusinessNZ. The Salvation Army today claimed young unemployed New Zealanders are not getting employment opportunities because of unfair competition from migrant workers. A Salvation Army report What Next - Addressing New Zealand's Youth Unemployment says 75,000 young unemployed New Zealanders would take work if it was available. BusinessNZ says this number is incorrect, as official statistics show that job-seeker unavailability – rather than work unavailability – means the number of young New Zealanders available for work is far less than the 75,000 claimed. MSD analysis of 70,000 unemployed…

A LEADING plastics scientist has won an inaugural new innovators award for creating a process that allows manufacturers to replace glass components with light-weight plastic. Dr Colin Hall and his colleagues at the University of South Australia’s Future Industries Institute have combined micron thin layers of plastics to develop a material that can replace glass in cars, aircraft, spacecraft, and even whitegoods - making them lighter and more efficient. For his efforts he was awarded the Australian Prime Minister’s Prize for New Innovators.   The team’s first commercial success is a plastic car wing-mirror.  The Ford Motor Company has already purchased…