Technology
Business
Telstra lifts dividend 10.5% and launches $1bn buyback
Telstra set its full-year cash dividend at 21 cents per share, up 10.5 per cent on the prior year, with a final payment of 10.5 cents on 13 August. The company also announced a new on-market buyback of up to $1 billion, following the $1.25 billion programme it completed in June.
Business
Pixel Watch 5 tracks insulin resistance without a blood test
Google is shipping a wearable feature that attempts to track insulin resistance without a needle, a lab requisition or a finger-prick device.
Politics
Court blocks Australia’s online safety regulator from double-regulating X
The Federal Court has ruled X cannot sit under two online safety regimes at once, exposing a structural flaw in how the regulator chose to police the platform.
Business
One company now controls every property settlement in Australia
Australia's property settlement system was designed around competition. Multiple Electronic Lodgment Network Operators were meant to process transactions, keeping fees down and service quality up. That architecture has now effectively collapsed.
Marketing
A Wikipedia vandal had Google showing Sam Altman as dead for 41 minutes
For 41 minutes, Google told anyone who searched Sam Altman's name that he was dead. The Knowledge Panel republished a vandalised Wikipedia edit automatically, and no one at Google touched it.
Business
Mastercard and PEXA trial synchronised UK home settlements
On completion day in England and Wales, a homebuyer's money moves through a chain of sequential bank transfers before title finally changes hands.
Finance
Apple sell ratings rise as memory costs test new CEO
Apple's fiscal third quarter, ending 27 June 2026, looked strong on the surface. Revenue came in at US$109.4 billion, up 16 per cent year-on-year, and diluted earnings per share reached US$2.02, a 29 per cent jump.
Opinion
How China's cheap AI could crash the American AI market
OpenRouter's traffic data does not leave much room for interpretation. Chinese-developed models in OpenRouter's daily top 50 grew from 5 in January 2025 to 20 by May 2026. That is not a blip. That is a structural redistribution of developer attention, across roughly 16 months.
Technology
DeepMind loses four top scientists as Hassabis steps back
Demis Hassabis formally stepped back from running Google DeepMind on 5 August, appointed chairman of Google DeepMind and chief scientist of Alphabet, ending more than a decade of direct operational control.
Nintendo profit up 53.5% on a US tariff refund it won't pass on
AI models breach test sandboxes in three separate incidents
Enrola raises $2.1m seed to scale its AI sales agents
Google folds Local Services Ads into Performance Max from August
Nobel winner Demis Hassabis steps down as Google DeepMind CEO
One in eight Australian businesses now uses AI, up from 1%
Who decides what Australians see online, and how fast it changed
GovTech cuts 93 jobs as Singapore phases out coordinator roles
Elders signs Octopusbot for AI crop forecasts after $1m raise
Claude models broke into live systems during safety tests
DeepSeek AI agent runs autonomous attacks on 460 targets
Apple posts record $109bn June quarter as Cook era closes
EU delays high-risk AI rules but keeps disclosure date
ChatGPT users do other people's jobs, OpenAI finds
Google bans fake and undisclosed paid reviews from search
Google now shows businesses how social posts rank in Search
OpenAI agent accessed four services in sandbox breach
Pangram's new detector catches AI text that tries to hide
Google's new format tells AI which sources to trust
ChatGPT nears a billion weekly users, seven months late
