However, according to cosmetic industry leader Dr Vivek Eranki, there is one important question that very few people ever think to ask, despite it potentially having a significant impact on the quality and integrity of their treatment – is the product compliant.  

The launch of Yooli™, a powerful and comprehensive platform that supports and manages cosmetic clinic operations, including critical compliance requirements, now provides clinics with greater transparency and visibility over product integrity.

This means that if a patient asks about the provenance of a product being used in their treatment, clinics can access information to help verify that the product is genuine, within its expiry date and has been transported and stored under the appropriate conditions.   

Dr Eranki, CEO of Yooli™, believes consumers should also be asking who is performing their injectable treatment, where the product has come from, how it has been transported and whether it has remained within the strict temperature requirements recommended by the manufacturer throughout its journey.

“Most people assume that if they are attending a reputable clinic, everything behind the scenes has automatically been taken care of,” Dr Eranki said.

“The reality is that Botox is a prescription medicine that requires careful handling from the time it leaves the manufacturer until the moment it is prepared for treatment. Consumers have every right to understand where that product has come from and how it has been managed.”

Why temperature matters

Dr Eranki said that while cosmetic medicine has become increasingly sophisticated, many patients remain unaware that injectable products are transported through what is known as a cold chain, which is designed to ensure medicines remain within strict storage and transportation conditions.

“Temperature control is not simply a recommendation. It forms part of the manufacturer’s requirements for preserving the quality and integrity of the product throughout the supply chain,” Dr Eranki said.

“If products are not transported and stored correctly, consumers deserve to know because they are placing their trust in the clinic to deliver safe, high-quality treatment.

“While patients may notice if a treatment has not delivered the outcome they were expecting, they often have no visibility over what happened to the product before it reached the clinic.”

Every vial has a journey

Dr Eranki said every vial of Botox follows a complex journey before it is injected into a patient, yet most consumers never think about what happens before they walk into the treatment room.

“Prescription medicines move through manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and clinics before they are eventually used,” Dr Eranki said.

“Consumers should be asking whether that journey has been documented, whether appropriate handling procedures have been followed and whether the clinic can demonstrate the product’s origin.”

He said another growing concern was the increasing sophistication of counterfeit cosmetic products entering global markets, making traceability more important than ever before.

“Consumers should feel confident that the product being injected is genuine, has been supplied through legitimate Australian distribution channels and has been appropriately transported from the manufacturer to the clinic,” Dr Eranki said. 

Transparency is becoming the new standard

According to Dr Eranki, transparency should become a standard part of every cosmetic consultation rather than something patients need to request.

“We have reached a point where consumers expect transparency in almost every aspect of their lives,” Dr Eranki said. 

“People can track the delivery of a parcel to their front door, yet many have no visibility over the journey taken by a prescription medicine that is about to be injected into their face.”

He believes consumers will increasingly choose clinics that are willing to openly discuss where their products come from and how they have been handled.

“The clinics that embrace transparency are demonstrating confidence in their systems, their suppliers and their commitment to patient care,” Dr Eranki said. 

Technology is giving patients greater visibility

Dr Eranki said technology is changing the way cosmetic clinics manage treatment records and communicate with patients.

“Clinics that use modern digital platforms such as Yooli™ are able to maintain comprehensive treatment records, including detailed information about the products used during treatment,” Dr Eranki said. 

“Patients can also access their own treatment history through the Yooli™ app, providing them with ongoing visibility over the products used, treatment dates and clinical records, which helps improve transparency, continuity of care and patient confidence.”

He said digital treatment records also make it easier for patients to understand exactly what products have been used over time and provide valuable information if they seek treatment elsewhere in the future.

Patients should ask questions

Dr Eranki said Australians should feel comfortable asking questions before proceeding with any injectable treatment.  

“A professional clinic should welcome questions because informed patients are confident patients,” Dr Eranki said.

“If you are experiencing different treatment responses and being told you are the issue, if the clinic uses a system that provides transparency and visibility, you will be able to check yourself whether you are being given an authentic product and whether it has been transported properly. 

“If you can’t see this information, it is impossible to know why the product is not performing as it should.”

Confidence starts with transparency

Dr Eranki said the future of cosmetic medicine will be defined not only by excellent clinical outcomes but also by greater transparency throughout the entire treatment process,”

“People rightly expect high standards when it comes to any medical treatment, and cosmetic medicine should be no different,” said Dr Eranki

“Consumers should not simply trust that everything has been done correctly.”

“They should feel empowered to ask questions, seek transparency and choose clinics that are able to demonstrate exactly where their products have come from and how they have been managed throughout the supply chain.”

“When patients have confidence in both the practitioner and the product being used, they are far more likely to have confidence in their treatment.”

“Technology now gives the industry the ability to provide that reassurance and I believe consumers will increasingly expect nothing less.” he said.

Yooli™ is powered with smart technology to automatically detect issues and alert clinic operators. 

The post AI Meets Botox as Yooli Helps Cosmetic Clinics Manage Compliance appeared first on Tech Business News.

Karikalan is challenging one of the entertainment industry’s most entrenched beliefs, that making an extraordinary feature film requires millions of dollars, enormous crews and mountains of equipment.

The Western Sydney filmmaker is pioneering the radically stripped-back approach.

Combining modern technology, multiple filmmaking skills, creative energy and dramatically smaller budgets, prudent filmmaking enables filmmakers to take a project from script to screen without the traditional production machine behind them. 

Karikalan said the process works and he has already put the concept to the ultimate test.

He made his feature film Let’s Go Below The Rainbow for approximately AUD $24,000, operating effectively as a one-person film crew outside of the actors.

Karikalan personally managed the filmmaking process from script through production and post-production.

The film went on to generate more than 10 times its production budget in gross revenue through OTT platforms organically, finding much of its audience in the United States despite remaining relatively unknown in Australia.

Karikalan believes the result demonstrates just how dramatically technology has changed what is possible for independent filmmakers.

“The old idea is that if you want to make a feature film, you need a huge budget, a large specialist crew, lots of equipment, investors and an enormous production infrastructure,” Karikalan said.

“I don’t believe that is necessarily true anymore.  Technology, distribution and audiences have changed over the years so it makes sense that the way we make films should change too,”

“Prudent filmmaking is about stripping filmmaking back and asking a very simple question: what does the audience actually need to see, hear and feel for a story to work?”

The rise of the micro filmmaker

Karikalan believes a new generation of micro filmmakers can emerge as technology increasingly enables one person to perform tasks that traditionally required multiple specialists.

Cameras have become smaller and more capable. Editing and post-production tools have become accessible on ordinary computers. Digital platforms provide international distribution opportunities and filmmakers can now develop multiple technical and creative skills themselves.

Karikalan said the implications could be profound.

“Filmmaking has traditionally divided every part of production between different people. There is a writer, director, producer, cinematographer, camera operator, editor and a long list of other roles,” he said.

“Those skills are enormously valuable, but the question I started asking was how many of those jobs can one person learn to do when the budget doesn’t allow you to employ everybody?

“Instead of saying I don’t have enough money to make my film, I started to focus on how much of this can I actually do myself.”

From a crew of 10 to a crew of one

Karikalan’s filmmaking evolution began with Love and Love Only, which he made during 2013–2014 for approximately $100,000 with a crew of fewer than 10 people. 

The film, which featured music by celebrated Indian composer Maestro Ilaiyaraaja, ultimately recovered its investment.  However, Karikalan wanted to push the concept much further.

For Let’s Go Below The Rainbow, he reduced the budget to approximately $24,000 and effectively reduced the filmmaking crew to himself.  He self-funded the project without financial support from film funding bodies or private investors.

“The first film showed me that you could make a feature with a small crew,” Karikalan said.

“The next challenge I focused on was whether I could make one virtually by myself and once I worked through everything, I realised that I could and so I did.”

A $24,000 film that returned more than 10X

For Karikalan, the most important validation did not come from within the film industry, it came from audiences.  Let’s Go Below The Rainbow went on to generate more than 10 times its approximately $24,000 production budget in gross OTT revenue organically.

The achievement was particularly significant because streaming can generate relatively small amounts per viewing, requiring the film to reach a substantial audience to generate six-figure gross revenue.  Ironically, much of that audience was thousands of kilometres away.

“Most Australians have probably never heard of the film, but people in America watched it,” Karikalan said.

“That is another part of the revolution.  A filmmaker sitting in Western Sydney can make a movie for $24,000 and find an audience on the other side of the world.

“You no longer necessarily need somebody in the traditional industry to decide that your story deserves to reach an audience.”

Stop making films for filmmakers

At the heart of prudent filmmaking is another idea Karikalan believes the industry needs to confront: filmmakers can spend too much time and money trying to impress other filmmakers.

He argues that every dollar, piece of equipment and person involved in a microbudget production should ultimately contribute to the experience of the viewer.

“Filmmakers notice things that ordinary audiences often don’t.  If you have unlimited money, you can spend it everywhere but if you only have $24,000, you can’t.  You have to become incredibly disciplined about identifying what actually matters,” Karikalan said. 

“My philosophy is to make films for audiences, not for your filmmaking peers.

“If the audience believes the characters, becomes emotionally invested and wants to know what happens next, you’ve achieved something incredibly important.”

An alternative for filmmakers waiting for their break

Karikalan now wants to turn prudent filmmaking from his personal production methodology into a broader filmmaking movement.

He is developing the concept for aspiring filmmakers who have stories to tell but believe they cannot begin because they lack funding, equipment, industry contacts or access to traditional production pathways.

His intended audience includes aspiring writers and filmmakers, independent creatives, film-school graduates and what he affectionately describes as ‘film school rejects and curious rebels’. 

He is exploring a prudent filmmaking community, training and educational resources, as well as a potential book explaining the methodology.

“I think there are thousands of people sitting on extraordinary stories because they’re waiting for somebody to give them money or permission to make them,” he said.

“Some will keep waiting for the traditional door to open.  I want to show people there may be another door.

“Micro filmmaking isn’t about making a lesser film. It’s about finding a smarter, more prudent way to get an extraordinary story onto the screen.  The technology is here, the distribution platforms are here and the audience is out there.”

“Sometimes what is missing is simply somebody deciding: I’m going to make this film.”

About Julian Karikalan

Julian Karikalan is a Western Sydney-based independent filmmaker, writer, founder of JUVI Films and creator of the concept, prudent filmmaking, a microbudget filmmaking methodology combining technology, multidisciplinary skills, minimal crews and carefully targeted resources to create films for everyday audiences.

His feature Let’s Go Below The Rainbow was produced for approximately AUD $24,000 using an effective one-person-crew model outside of the actors and subsequently generated more than 10 times its production budget in gross OTT revenue organically.

Julian’s films have received recognition at independent international film festivals including the Amsterdam International Film Festival, Tiete International Film Festival and Anatolia International Film Festival.  

He is now developing prudent filmmaking into a broader movement to help independent storytellers turn their ideas into completed films without waiting for traditional budgets, crews or industry permission.

The post One Man, One Camera, One Movie: Australian Filmmaker Pioneers Radical New Way To Make Feature Films appeared first on Tech Business News.

While the survey was conducted in North America, the findings point to challenges facing large organisations more broadly, including the difficulty of moving from isolated AI experiments to enterprise-wide implementation.

Paul McNamara, CEO and Co-Founder of ADAPTOVATE, said the findings highlight a fundamental shift in the AI conversation.

“The research shows the question is no longer whether organisations should invest in AI. Most already are. The real challenge is whether they can transform their organisation quickly enough to realise value from that investment,” McNamara said.

He said the scale of concern among executives showed the issue had moved beyond technology adoption and into leadership, organisational design and execution.

“More than six in 10 executives believe their organisation could cease to exist within two years if it fails to successfully embed AI, yet 90% are concerned they aren’t scaling successful AI initiatives and 81% admit they’re better at identifying opportunities than acting on them. That’s a leadership and execution challenge, not a technology challenge.”

McNamara said many of the barriers holding back AI adoption already existed inside organisations before the technology became a major business priority.

“Across almost every large transformation I’ve led, the technology has rarely been the biggest barrier. AI doesn’t create organisational weaknesses – it exposes them. If decision-making is slow, teams work in silos or governance is unclear, AI simply amplifies those issues.”

While many organisations continue launching AI pilots and experimenting with new tools, McNamara said the survey suggests too many remain focused on isolated initiatives instead of enterprise-wide transformation.

“It’s relatively easy to launch an AI pilot. It’s much harder to redesign the way work gets done across an organisation. That’s why so many organisations are struggling to move from experimentation to scale.”

The research also identified organisational structures, skills shortages and resource constraints as significant barriers to broader AI deployment.

“The survey shows that 82% of executives believe innovation is slowed by gatekeepers controlling AI implementation or workflow redesign, 86% report a shortage of AI-capable talent, and 78% say they know what needs to change but lack the resources to make it happen,”

“These aren’t technology problems – they’re organisational capability problems.”

McNamara says the findings reinforce that AI should be viewed as a business transformation agenda rather than an IT project.

“The organisations that succeed won’t necessarily be the ones investing the most in AI. They’ll be the ones that remove organisational friction, empower leaders to make decisions closer to the work, build the capability to execute change, and create the conditions for AI to scale across the enterprise.”

He said leadership capability and the speed at which organisations can implement change would become increasingly important as AI adoption accelerates.

“Leadership will become one of the defining competitive advantages of the AI era. The next phase of AI won’t be won by organisations building more pilots or deploying more AI tools – it will be won by organisations that can implement change faster than their competitors,”

“The businesses that redesign how work gets done, strengthen leadership capability and embed AI into everyday operations will be the ones that outperform over the next decade.” said McNamara

The post ADAPTOVATE Research: Six in 10 Leaders Say Survival Depends on AI appeared first on Tech Business News.

The ASX-listed property and infrastructure group said the capital was raised for the US$2.7 billion Goodman Hong Kong Data Centre Partnership, known as GHKDC, from a combination of existing and new institutional investors.

Most of the proceeds will fund the full mechanical and electrical fit-out of Goodman HKG10 in Tsuen Wan, where an existing Goodman warehouse is being converted into a modern data centre rather than demolished and rebuilt.

Goodman will operate the facility, with the first capacity expected to be ready for service in early 2028.

Once completed, HKG10 will add another 50 MW of capacity to Hong Kong, taking GHKDC’s completed portfolio to 275 MW.

A further 50 MW is already under construction for a pre-committed customer, highlighting the continuing requirement for large-scale computing and digital infrastructure within the territory.

The development also illustrates the growing challenge facing data centre operators in Hong Kong, where available land is limited and new infrastructure must increasingly compete for suitable sites, power and access to established connectivity zones.

By converting an existing warehouse within one of Hong Kong’s established data centre availability zones, Goodman is seeking to expand capacity while retaining much of the building’s existing structure.

Paul McGarry, Goodman’s Head of Asia, said: “This equity raise is a clear endorsement of the strategy we set out when we launched the US$2.7 billion investment Partnership just over a year ago.

The continued support of existing investors, alongside contributions from new investors, reflects confidence in the quality of the portfolio, the depth of customer demand and the opportunity for well-located data centre capacity in Hong Kong.

It positions the Partnership to continue delivering the scale, reliability and quality our customers require.”

The HKG10 project also places greater emphasis on adapting existing industrial property for the next generation of digital infrastructure, potentially reducing some of the environmental impact associated with constructing an entirely new building.

McGarry continued: “Goodman HKG10 is a long-term investment in Hong Kong’s digital future. By revitalising an existing building, we are reducing the project’s environmental impact and making responsible use of Hong Kong’s limited land.

Retaining the building’s existing structure avoids emissions associated with demolition and reduces the need for new carbon-intensive structural materials such as concrete and steel, while adding critical infrastructure that underpins Hong Kong’s position as a leading technology hub in Asia.”

Goodman’s broader Asian data centre platform now includes more than 500 MW of stabilised capacity across Hong Kong and Japan, with another 150 MW currently under active construction.

The company’s global pipeline is considerably larger. Goodman reported a 6.4 GW power bank as of 30 June 2026, including 3.6 GW of secured power, 0.7 GW of stabilised capacity and approximately 0.5 GW of data centre capacity under construction across ten projects in eight cities.

The latest Hong Kong investment adds to that expansion while increasing the amount of operational data centre capacity available in a market where physical space and suitable infrastructure remain tightly constrained.

The post Goodman Raises US$455 Million to Add 50 MW of Data Centre Capacity in Hong Kong appeared first on Tech Business News.

Miss the deadline and the fines climb as high as $49.5 million, a number big enough that even the platforms who grumbled loudest have quietly complied.

It’s a genuinely significant shift. For years, age gates on app stores were a checkbox, not a barrier. Now there’s real friction between a 16-year-old and a gambling app icon.

But here’s the part nobody’s talking about yet. The law governs the download. It says nothing about what happens once an adult is inside the app, and it says even less about the platforms that never sit in an Australian app store at all.

BetStop, Australia’s national self-exclusion register, works on a similar logic gap. It blocks a self-excluded player from licensed local operators. It has no reach whatsoever over platforms operating from outside Australian jurisdiction.

Age verification and self-exclusion are two separate locks, and a growing number of Australian bettors have found ways to walk around both of them, sometimes without realising there’s a difference.

According to a review published by Pokerology brand, verification standards on these non-BetStop platforms vary sharply, some run KYC checks that would satisfy any Curaçao-licensed operator, others barely ask for a name and an email.

That inconsistency is the actual story here, not the app store checkbox.

Two different locks, two different keyholes

BetStop was built for a specific job: stop a self-excluded person from re-registering with a licensed Australian bookmaker. It checks a name and date of birth against a national register. It does this well, within its own borders.

App store age verification checks something narrower still. It confirms the account holder is over 18 before the download completes. It doesn’t check whether that account holder has self-excluded. It doesn’t check what happens after install, either.

So you end up with three possible outcomes for any given user in September 2026:

1. An adult, not self-excluded, downloads a locally licensed app. Both checks are irrelevant because nothing’s flagged.
   
   
2. A self-excluded adult tries the same download and gets blocked by BetStop’s register, assuming the operator checks against it properly.
   
   
3. That same self-excluded adult finds an offshore platform, passes a basic age check (if there even is one), and starts playing with no BetStop cross-reference at all.

Option three is where the compliance conversation actually needs to go. The IEEE Standards Association has flagged this exact fracture point for global apps more broadly. Local age gates only bind operators who choose to be bound by local law. Everyone else keeps operating exactly as before.

What operators are actually doing about it

I spent a chunk of last week going through onboarding flows on a handful of platforms that sit outside BetStop’s reach, partly out of curiosity, partly because the fintech press has been circling this topic hard. The variance was bigger than I expected.

One platform wanted a selfie, a passport scan, and a proof-of-address document before releasing a first withdrawal. Took me four days start to finish, and my passport photo got rejected once because of glare. Annoying, but it’s the same friction you’d get opening a Revolut account.

Another platform let me deposit $200 in Tether, play for two hours, and cash out $340 with nothing more than an email confirmation. No document upload requested at any point. Zero.

That gap matters more than the app store law does, honestly. A downloaded app with a robust age gate but no ongoing KYC is still, functionally, wide open.

Meanwhile a browser-based platform outside the app store ecosystem entirely, which is how most of these non-BetStop operators are accessed, isn’t touched by the new law at all. It was never built to be.

Where the fintech angle actually bites

The crypto rails a lot of these platforms run on complicate things further. A Solana or USDT deposit clears in under a minute in most cases I tested, no bank in the loop to flag age or spending pattern.

Trade press covering the sector has been blunt about this: identity and age verification is becoming the defining compliance question for iGaming operators heading into 2026, not bonus terms, not game selection.

Australia’s own privacy regulator has been explicit about the legal basis for the download-stage check, and the OAIC’s guidance is worth reading if you want the actual statutory language rather than the headline version.

But read closely and you’ll notice it’s scoped to the download and the platform’s registration flow, not to ongoing player protection once someone’s inside a product hosted overseas.

That’s not a criticism of the law. It’s doing the job it was built for. It’s a reminder that a business dashboard tracking SME compliance risk (the kind covered on this site around the BrightHR Fair Work Act rollout) and a player protection framework solve completely different problems, even when the headlines make them sound like the same fight.

The KYC patchwork nobody’s regulating

Here’s the thing. A licensed Australian bookmaker runs KYC because ACMA and state regulators require it, with real enforcement teeth behind the requirement.

A platform incorporated in Curaçao or Anjouan runs KYC because its payment processor requires it, or because it wants a reputation for paying out cleanly, or because it genuinely doesn’t want a 16-year-old on the platform. Those are three very different motivations producing wildly different verification depths.

I’d put money on this: within 12 months, at least one major offshore operator gets caught with an age-verification failure serious enough to make headlines in Australia, purely because there’s no single body checking consistency across this segment the way BetStop checks consistency across licensed local ones.

Nobody’s coordinating.

The gap won’t close on its own

App store age checks are a real, overdue step. Fines up to $49.5 million will focus minds fast, and they already have. But the download gate and the self-exclusion register solve two narrow problems that don’t overlap nearly as much as the headlines suggest, and offshore platforms sitting outside both systems aren’t going anywhere.

Gambling involves risk. Please play responsibly and only wager what you can afford to lose. If you feel gambling is becoming a problem, visit BeGambleAware.org or call 1-800-GAMBLER.

Whatever comes next, whether that’s a BetStop-style register with international reach or something else entirely, it needs to close the gap between what an app store checks and what happens after the install. Right now, in September 2026, it doesn’t.

The post Age Verification Law Hits Betting Apps Outside BetStop, But the Real Gap Is Somewhere Else appeared first on Tech Business News.

New research from Page Executive’s 2026 Executive Compensation & Trends Report reveals a growing disconnect between personal enthusiasm for AI and organisational readiness.

83% of Australian executives using AI in their daily work and reporting positive results, but only 66% believing it is improving productivity across their organisation. While 75% of senior leaders do not expect AI to affect their own role at all.

Molly Green, Head of Page Executive Australia warns Australian executives are personally embracing AI without fully appreciating its potential to reshape their own jobs, creating an interesting problem for businesses spending heavily on AI.

The technology appears to be making individual executives more productive, but that benefit is not necessarily making its way through the rest of the organisation.

“The findings show that Australian business leaders are already embracing AI and seeing tangible benefits in their own work. The challenge now is translating those individual gains into organisation-wide productivity improvements,”

“As AI adoption matures, businesses that invest in the right skills, processes and culture will be best placed to unlock its full potential,” Ms Green said.

The report also highlights that Senior leaders and managers aren’t seeing the future the same way.

Some 76% of Australian senior leaders and executives are confident their organisation can adapt to changing market conditions. However, among senior managers, that figure falls to 67%.

It may not sound like a huge difference, but senior managers are often the people who have to turn a strategy decided at the top into something that actually happens.

That is particularly relevant for major technology and AI projects, where enthusiasm at executive level does not always translate into adoption across the business.

“This was a surprising result. It really points to a strategic execution gap emerging at a time where businesses need to be agile in the face of volatile economic conditions and geopolitical shocks, from oil supply disruptions to AI and the rising cost of doing business,”

“Leadership alignment is critical here. Execution risk often sits between layers of leadership rather than in the strategy itself and that could mean expensive change initiatives stall – and it’s not because the strategy is wrong, but because the people expected to deliver it were never fully on board,” Ms Green said.

For businesses, the risk is that major initiatives can look successful in the boardroom while running into problems further down the organisation.

The research also suggests employers may need to rethink how they retain senior people.

Work-life balance was more important than salary for respondents, with 53% naming it as a key driver of job satisfaction compared with 46% for salary.

Two-thirds would also turn down a promotion if it came at the expense of their wellbeing.

Flexible and hybrid work was the most valued executive benefit.

That could make the return-to-office debate particularly relevant for companies trying to hold on to senior talent.

“Business leaders are also becoming increasingly value-driven. The data tells us they aren’t willing to compromise their wellbeing and work flexibility for a paycheck.”

“A lot of people in the C-Suite are in the sandwich generation and are raising a family and also dealing with older parents. They are looking for that balance that allows them to juggle both.”

“Despite the widespread commentary about returning to the office, the data tells us that Director and C-Suite employees value the flexibility they’ve become accustomed to and many are not willing to sacrifice it in changing jobs.”

Traditional executive perks may not be doing much to change that equation either.

Company cars remain a common incentive, but they did not make the top five benefits executives said they wanted.

The report also found that 73% of organisations are using skills-based hiring, although only 15% of executives said skills were prioritised over pedigree.

Taken together, the findings paint a picture of an executive workforce that is not necessarily looking to leave because of dissatisfaction with pay.

Instead, senior leaders appear to be weighing up whether their organisations are keeping pace with the changes around them from AI and productivity to flexible working and the ability to actually deliver on strategy.

For Australian businesses, that could make retaining experienced leadership more difficult at exactly the time they are asking those leaders to navigate another major period of technological and economic change.

The post AI Is Helping Executives But Is It Helping Businesses? appeared first on Tech Business News.

The carrier has now established an additional path between Perth and Singapore via Jakarta, allowing affected Layer 2 Ethernet services between Australia and Singapore to be temporarily restored

The development provides some relief following the Australia-Singapore Cable failure first reported on September 4, which removed a major direct route between Western Australia and Singapore and contributed to Australian traffic being diverted through significantly longer international paths.

Vocus is also adding capacity between Guam and Japan in an attempt to strengthen internet connectivity into Asia while the ASC remains unavailable.

Network equipment required for the new route has arrived in Guam, with Vocus expecting the additional capacity to be brought online within 24 to 48 hours through work with its international network partners.

The additional routes are important because internet traffic has continued to use alternate international paths during the outage, leaving some Australian users with considerably higher latency when connecting to services hosted in Singapore, other parts of Asia and Europe.

Tech Business News previously reported testing showing Melbourne-to-Singapore traffic travelling through Sydney, San Jose in California, Tokyo and Hong Kong before eventually arriving in Singapore.

That route produced sustained round-trip latency of between 258ms and 350ms, with peaks exceeding 400ms, despite Singapore ordinarily being one of Australia’s closest major international hosting and connectivity hubs.

The route observed during that testing was:

Melbourne → Sydney → San Jose → Tokyo → Hong Kong → Singapore

The latest Vocus restoration work should provide additional capacity and reduce pressure on those contingency routes, although the company has warned customers that increased latency may continue while internet traffic remains diverted.

Physical cable remains broken

While services are gradually being restored through alternative capacity, the physical Australia-Singapore Cable has not yet been repaired.

Vocus said permanently restoring the cable remains its highest priority, but the operation depends on regulatory approvals and the mobilisation of specialist marine repair resources.

The carrier is working with its marine repair partner to secure Indonesian permits and other regulatory approvals, confirm the necessary repair materials and equipment, and finalise the repair procedure.

Mobilisation arrangements for the repair operation are also still being developed.

Vocus expects to have greater clarity on the permanent repair timetable within the next seven days.

The fault has previously been located in Indonesian waters between Anyer and Singapore following testing from the Perth cable landing station.

The cable stretches approximately 4,600 kilometres between Perth and Singapore, with connections through Christmas Island and Indonesia, and has been operating since 2018.

Australia remains exposed to reduced Singapore capacity

The ASC failure has had a greater impact because another major Perth-to-Singapore system, Indigo West, has also been experiencing an outage.

The simultaneous problems have reduced the amount of direct low-latency capacity available between Australia and Southeast Asia and forced telecommunications providers to rely more heavily on alternative international routes.

For most Australians, the faults do not mean the domestic internet is unavailable. Australian websites, local streaming services and traffic delivered from domestic content delivery networks can continue operating normally.

The impact becomes much more apparent when Australians connect to infrastructure in Singapore and elsewhere in Asia.

Higher latency can affect cloud applications, corporate VPN connections, online gaming, remote desktop sessions, website administration, API calls and businesses operating infrastructure in Singapore.

Singapore is widely used by Australian companies as an Asia-Pacific hosting location partly because of its relatively short network distance from Australia. When traffic is instead forced east across the Pacific before returning through Japan and other Asian hubs, much of that latency advantage disappears.

The temporary Perth-Jakarta-Singapore route represents an important improvement, but it does not amount to a permanent resolution of the incident.

Until the ASC is physically repaired and normal capacity is restored, Australian carriers remain more dependent on contingency routes and additional capacity being brought online elsewhere in the international network.

Vocus says its next formal update on the incident will be provided by 7pm AEST on Friday, September 18, 2026.

The post Vocus Restores Perth-Singapore Capacity as ASC Cable Break Continues to Disrupt International Routes appeared first on Tech Business News.

A specialist supplier of industrial consumables, Wurth Australia distributes more than 22,000 products to over 56,000 active customers across the automotive, transport, earthworks, fabrication, MRO, construction and mining sectors.

Its customers range from independent workshops and tradespeople to large industrial businesses, all of whom rely on dependable access to essential consumables and workshop supplies.

Wurth Australia Chief Executive Officer & Senior Vice President of the Wurth Group Oceania, Serge Oppedisano, says the investment will help the company deliver a faster and more reliable service to customers, while creating an efficient and scalable approach to order fulfilment.

“The customer experience is incredibly important to us here at Wurth, and a big part of that is ensuring our customers receive accurate and complete orders when they expect them.” said Oppedisano

“Wurth is a specialist in smart inventory management solutions, with thousands of customers relying on our flagship ORSY systems to keep their workshops organised and running efficiently.”

“This investment reflects those same values in our own operations – strengthening how we manage inventory, fulfil orders and move products through our national distribution network.”

“Investing in automation across our Yatala and Keysborough facilities will enable us to process orders faster and more efficiently, as well as reduce our reliance on manual processes. It gives us a stronger foundation to consistently deliver the speed and accuracy our customers rely on.” he said

The Dematic solution will be built around an AutoStore Goods-to-Person (GTP) system, providing high-density automated storage and supporting efficient split and full case picking.

The automation will operate alongside dedicated manual picking areas for products suited to different storage and handling requirements.

Orders will move between the automated and manual picking areas as required, before progressing through the final stages of order processing.

They include automated conveyor transport, document insertion, carton optimisation and sealing, labelling and despatch sortation.

Dematic’s Warehouse Control System (WCS) will integrate with Wurth’s warehouse management system (WMS), acting as an optimisation layer between the WMS and automated equipment to coordinate picking tasks and the movement of goods throughout the system.

“We are proud to partner with Wurth on this significant automation project across its Australian distribution network,” said Terry Jamieson, Business Development Manager, Dematic.

“Wurth’s extensive product range means there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to fulfilment.”

“Bringing together AutoStore with dedicated picking areas and downstream automation allows different products and orders to move through the most appropriate process, while Dematic iQ helps coordinate those elements as one integrated system.”

The Yatala solution is expected to be operational in August 2027, followed by the larger Keysborough facility in December 2027.

The post Wurth Australia Expands Automated Fulfilment with Dematic appeared first on Tech Business News.

This operational disconnect is reaching a tipping point. Healthcare leaders are beginning to recognise that Australians no longer evaluate care solely on clinical outcomes.

Instead, patients remember the friction points: how difficult it was to book an appointment, whether navigating the system felt exhausting, if they had to repeat their medical history to three different providers, and whether anyone followed up after treatment.

As Australia’s healthcare system faces growing demand from an ageing population, workforce shortages, and increasing expectations for digital services, improving the patient experience is becoming just as critical as driving operational efficiency.

While artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a growing role, its true value lies in removing the administrative friction that prevents healthcare professionals from delivering the empathetic care patients expect.

“The next frontier in Australian healthcare isn’t AI but patient experience,” says Richard Valente, VP – Customer Experience Strategy – TP in Australia, as he shares his insights on the five shifts redefining the Australian patient experience.

1.  Closing the consumer convenience gap

Patients expect healthcare to work like every other service. Consumers can track parcels in real time, check into flights on their phones and resolve banking issues through an app, and they expect initial interactions with healthcare providers to be just as seamless.

Currently, patients are still routinely required to complete paper forms, wait on hold, and repeat their medical history across touchpoints.

Closing this expectation gap isn’t merely about digitisation; it requires designing experiences around the patient rather than internal legacy systems. Providers that simplify access will ultimately build stronger trust and long-term engagement.

2.  Transforming contact centres into care navigators

The contact centre is becoming part of the care journey. Healthcare contact centres were historically viewed as purely administrative functions, but they are increasingly serving as the initial touchpoint in the care sequence.

Whether assisting patients with service navigation, addressing post-discharge queries, or supporting chronic disease management, every interaction directly shapes trust in the healthcare provider.

By leveraging AI to surface relevant information instantly, front-line staff can spend less time searching systems and more time engaging in meaningful, supportive conversations.

3.  Scaling empathy without adding complexity

Every interaction should build trust. Healthcare is different from most consumer industries because patients usually interact during stressful, uncertain moments.

Technology must enhance, rather than depersonalise, these sensitive interactions. By equipping staff with instant visibility into previous conversations, appointment histories, and communication preferences, AI enables highly tailored support without added complexity.

Ultimately, while patients may not retain every clinical detail, they always remember whether they felt heard and understood.

4. Turning administrative simplicity into a clinical advantage

One of the biggest frustrations in Australian healthcare isn’t the quality of treatment – it is the administrative burden surrounding it.

Booking appointments, managing referrals, navigating billing, and coordinating across multiple care providers generate significant unnecessary friction.

Eliminating these barriers improves far more than patient satisfaction. It actively reduces missed appointments, boosts adherence, and frees clinicians to focus on delivering care rather than managing paperwork.

5. Healthcare organisations to design the connected patient journey  

The most successful healthcare organisations will no longer treat scheduling, billing, digital channels, and post-care follow-up as isolated silos, but as a single connected journey.  

While AI makes this integration possible by unifying data and predicting patient needs, technology alone is not a differentiator – the end-to-end experience is.

Healthcare is fundamentally rooted in human relationships, and the organisations that lead the next decade will be those using technology to make care feel more personal, proactive, and accessible.

The post Top 5 Shifts Redefining Patient Experience In Healthcare appeared first on Tech Business News.

The Lenuk-Tasi Rescue and Conservation Center (LTRCC), a youth-led sea turtle conservation organisation based in Kasait, Ulmera, Liquiçá Municipality, has been selected as the initiative’s founding conservation partner. 

Since 2022, the youth led organisation has released more than 15,000 turtle hatchlings, protected more than 120 nests and delivered more than 80 community awareness campaigns.

Under the new 12 month partnership, Vorakai will provide four Starlink kits and free internet service for a year, connecting LTRCC’s rescue and education hub in Kasait with coastal monitoring activities across Liquiçá, Dili and Bobonaro municipalities.

Vorakai Chairperson Tammy Kassiou said the project demonstrates how satellite connectivity can be used to support practical conservation work in remote areas.

“These young conservationists are walking beaches, protecting nests, releasing thousands of hatchlings and educating communities, often with very limited resources,” Ms Kassiou said.

“Now we are putting powerful technology into their hands.

“Imagine what they can achieve when a young conservationist standing on a remote beach can record a turtle nest, map its exact location and connect that information with researchers and conservation partners around the world.

“This is technology being used for something incredibly tangible, helping protect wildlife and supporting the communities doing the work.”

From the beach to the satellite

The partnership will also fund the development of a purpose built conservation database and tracking system to record coastal patrols, GPS mapped nest locations, egg translocations, incubation outcomes and hatchling releases.

The information will help LTRCC strengthen its conservation programs while supporting scientific research, government reporting and international partnerships.

LTRCC Executive Director Jinu Braz de Araujo said technology could transform the organisation’s ability to monitor sea turtles.

“Through Starlink for Youth we are developing a GPS based tracking and database system that will help us improve the way we monitor and record our conservation activities,” Mr de Araujo said.

“We are particularly excited about the potential to develop satellite supported sea turtle monitoring, patrol and tagging programs.

“For a small conservation organisation in Timor Leste, being connected to the world can make an enormous difference.

“It allows our young people to collect better information, learn, collaborate with others and show the world what is happening along our coastline.”

Turtles could also drive local tourism

The project is also designed to turn conservation into a greater economic opportunity for surrounding communities.

Vorakai will fund the complete redevelopment of LTRCC’s website, creating a bilingual platform enabling online donations, volunteer registrations and bookings for turtle watching and hatchling release experiences.

The longer term objective is to grow community managed ecotourism that supports conservation while creating opportunities for local families and women led enterprises.

“A turtle nesting beach is not only environmentally important. Managed responsibly, it can also create sustainable economic opportunities for the surrounding community,” Ms Kassiou said.

“Visitors can come to experience something extraordinary, spend money locally and directly contribute to protecting the turtles they have travelled to see.”

Four Starlink sites across three municipalities

The partnership will provide:

• Four Starlink kits and 12 months of free connectivity across LTRCC’s conservation network

• A GPS enabled conservation database recording nests, patrols, incubation and hatchling releases

• A completely rebuilt bilingual website supporting donations, volunteers and ecotourism

• Digital capability development to strengthen research, education and international collaboration

• Support for community based conservation tourism benefiting local families and women led enterprises

All four Starlink locations are targeted to become operational during the first quarter of the program.

Vorakai intends to use the project as a model for future partnerships with youth, community, conservation and research organisations across Timor Leste.

“This is about putting Timor Leste’s changemakers on the map, literally and digitally,” Ms Kassiou said.

“LTRCC has already demonstrated what young people can achieve with limited resources.  Our job is to give them better tools and connectivity so they can take that work much further.”

About Lenuk Tasi Rescue and Conservation Center

The Lenuk Tasi Rescue and Conservation Center is a youth led sea turtle conservation organisation based in Kasait, Ulmera, Liquiçá Municipality.

LTRCC conducts coastal monitoring, nest protection, hatchling releases, community education and marine research across Liquiçá, Dili and Bobonaro. Since 2022, it has released more than 15,000 hatchlings and protected more than 120 nests.

About Vorakai Lda

Vorakai Lda is a Timor-Leste-based company committed to delivering innovative technology solutions that enhance connectivity, drive digital transformation and support sustainable national development.

With deep local expertise and a forward-thinking approach, Vorakai is helping shape the future of digital infrastructure across the country

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