Start Up

It’s National Reconciliation Week, and if you’ve been getting involved on social media you might have noticed an absence in the Aboriginal flag emoji department. Good news is we could be one step closer to getting it on the keyboard real soon, but how? On Thursday, New Zealand became the 11th country on earth to send a rocket to space... New Zealand - 1; Australia - 0

A computer virus called Wannacrypt, or WannaCry, infected thousands of computers around the globe on Friday. It’s a piece of self-replicating ransomware, which makes users pay money to decrypt their files. If they don’t pay up, the files will be deleted within a week. The developers of the MP3, Fraunhofer IIS, ended its licensing program for the audio format after two decades (it was invented in 1993). So basically software makers who have programs that make MP3s don’t have to pay a license fee to use the format

Facebook has been under fire recently for failing to remove extreme content quick enough — specifically relating to Facebook Live where deaths have been broadcast and recorded. In response to these issues, Facebook will add 3,000 moderators to its community operations team to improve its review process, on top of the 4,500 employees it has already. The thing is... it sounds like an awful job. QR codes were deemed as lame after brands were overusing them every opportunity they got. Now they seem to be making a comeback with Snapchat and Spotify using them as a way of sharing files and expanding connections. Facebook is also working on a rewards system for stores using QR codes. We might see more of them soon... hopefully they will be used smartly and practically.

Australia had it's first metadata breach when the Australian Federal Police admitted last Friday it had illegally accessed the call records of a journalist. What does this mean for us? How much information can they access and is our private information safe? You would’ve seen the images and videos already, but Fyre festival was a “luxury event” set up by Ja Rule and and an entrepreneur by the name of Billy McFarland. But everything that could go wrong went wrong, and people were left stranded at airports, there was barely any food or water, tents weren’t the luxury pads they had paid thousands for. Now the organisers face a $150 million dollar class action lawsuit. Is this the proof we need to show that celebrity instagram influencers are a bad idea?

Tech giants including Elon Musk's Neuralink are trying to connect your brain to computers. LinkedIn is a quiet achiever in the social media world.

Instagram stories are killing snapchat. Oh and remember how excited we were for smartwatches? Well it seems like they're pretty much doomed.

Facebook has started testing an entirely new feed with a subset of its users. Users may have woken up over the weekend checked their facebook feed, and noticed a new rocketship in their features? What’s the deal? Youtube is racing to stop its ads being placed next to hateful content. It’s been facing an advertiser revolt for the past 3 weeks because ads were surfacing on YouTube videos from terrorists and hate-mongers, like the Westboro Baptist Church and neo-nazis.

The UK government wants there to be no place for terrorists to hide, including on WhatsApp :: AirBnB are hitting the tour industry with 'Trips' feature, getting a step closer towards becoming your travel agent.

Youtube has always been a place to 'Broadcast Yourself' especially in the LGBTQ+ community, but over the weekend some of their content was suddenly deemed inappropriate. Several LGBTQ vloggers - Rowan Ellise and Tyler Oakley - said youtube was incorrectly censoring their videos using its 'Restricted Mode', site has addressed the error and offered an apology. Snap Inc. is chasing deals with Australian sporting codes in an effort to monetise it's claimed 4 million daily active users locally- On Monday it announced a partnership with the Australian Football League.

Yesterday, Tesla's Vice President for energy products Lyndon Rive (who is Musk's cousin) said the company could build enough battery storage capacity with its Powerwall 2, to solve lingering energy supply concerns in the state of South Australia, within 100 days. Standard Innovation, the maker of digitally-enabled vibrator the We-Vibe 4 Plus, has learnt the hard way that you shouldn't make data collecting vibrators. On Thursday, it settled a U.S. privacy violation suit to the tune of $3.75 million (A$4.95 million).

At the Mobile World Congress, Nokia showed three new Android phones, but the one that got the most attention was the rebooted Nokia 3310, which is essentially a lowly, cheap feature phone... but... it has snake!! Facebook's reactions just turned one and the company is finally revealing how its revamped like button impacts your News Feed. It turns out the company weighs reactions — love, haha, wow, sad and angry — over "likes" in determining what content to surface in your News Feed.

Less than a month since ride-share company Uber faced a heavy wave of backlash that led to the #deleteuber hashtag - since publishing. According to an essay by a former Uber engineer the company has a big problem with sexism in the workplace. Susan J Fowler has accused Uber of institutional sexism, HR incompetence and organisational disorder. On Friday, the Google-owned video giant announced that it will no longer offer its 30-second pre-roll ad format without a skip button in 2018. Hovever- they will continue to show 15-20 second ads without the option to bypass them.

Ariel Bogel says her last goodbyes to Start Up and introduces Mashable Tech Reporter Johnny Lieu, who will be taking the reigns every Wednesday from now on. Twitter adds anti-abuse feature, then removes it after two hours. The company gets slammed for taking the wrong approach to abuse. Snap Inc, a.k.a. Snapchat is set to go public in one of the biggest tech initial public offerings (IPO) to date. But will it hurt them, like it did with Twitter?

Two Aus men may be facing legal action after they streamed a highly anticipated boxing match on FB Live. (Danny Green v Anthony Mundine on Foxtel). Both streams attracted tens of thousands of viewers. More than 90 technology companies, many of which were founded by and employ thousands of immigrants, have filed an amicus brief opposing Pres Donald Trump's 'Muslim travel ban.'

The hashtag #DeleteUber has been spreading on social media amid protests against Trump's Muslim travel ban. The ride hailing service was accused of "strike breaking" in New York Saturday, while others condemned remarks made by Uber CEO Travis Kalanick indicating he would work with the president. As a country, Australia makes a great petri dish. It has a relatively small population, it's English-speaking and it has an estimated smartphone penetration of 84 percent — all qualities that make it the ideal place for Tinder to test its new features, according to the dating app's founder.

Following Trump's expression of interest in data collection, an encrypted texting app has been designed so you can safely message on your smartphone without the messages content being intercepted and SHEBAH - an Uber alternative run by women and for women exclusively is set to launch in Australia in February, but is it really a good idea?

Lucy and Ariel spoke with Diana Kalkoul and Neda Robat-Meily, the girls behind Winkd- a new LGBTQI dating app scheduled to launch at Mardi Gras.

President Elect Donald Trump invites Silicon Valley tech leaders to Trump Tower, what do they talk about? Plus the role of technology in 2016: the influence on the US Election and the birth of trends like 'Fake News' and #Pizzagate, what were the most talked about topics according to Facebook and Twitter?

Medibank ventures into the Virtual Reality world with an experience designed to relax hospital patients and allow them to escape their hospital environment. Amazon launches a physical store in Seattle with no checkouts which uses sensors, cameras, AI and your Amazon account to track you throughout the store. Plus the Amazon truck designed to transfer massive volumes of data across America.

What happened when Gable Tostee started posting in a 'true crime' Facebook group dedicated to the investigation of the death of Warriena Wright? Plus: Australian banks reach out the ACCC to let them collectively bargain with Apple to access the iPhone's NFC chip, with the intent of removing Apple's share of the vendor fees.