The building and manufacturing industries had the highest prevalence of unlicensed software use in Australia during the first half of the year, judging by the cases filed by BSA | The Software Alliance. [ + ]

The Australian Smart Communities Association will work with major companies including Telstra, Intel and Cisco to assist local councils in planning and executing smart city projects. [ + ]

A new not-for-profit government-industry alliance aims to ensure Australia does not get left behind in the Internet of Things revolution. [ + ]

Digital health company iPug has relocated to San Francisco to support its expansion and has collaborated with UQ to apply its mobile-friendly gamification technology to a burn injury prevention campaign. [ + ]

The Australian IT sector is grappling with a worsening skills shortage as digital transformation efforts including cloud migrations leave qualified professionals in short supply, research suggests. [ + ]

Despite reporting its third consecutive year of declining revenue, Symantec remained on top of the global security software market in 2015, according to Gartner. [ + ]

The Smart Cities Council Australia New Zealand launched today, part of a growing global network of smart cities organisations whose goal is to make cities more liveable, workable and sustainable. [ + ]

Nano-Nouvelle's 3D battery technology, which can boost lithium-ion capacity by 50%, will be trialled by two US companies. [ + ]

Following a contract sourcing process, nbn has selected six delivery partners for the hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) component of the multitechnology mix NBN rollout. [ + ]

Sydney's Sitback has secured an exclusive three-year deal to bring to market a web optimisation tool, designed to provide analytics based on the entire user journey, developed by CSIRO's Data61. [ + ]

Seagate will slash 6500 jobs in a restructure, Avast plans to spend US$1.3bn on AVG, and Google's DeepMind AI to be used to diagnose eye disease. [ + ]

Over the past three years at least 22,000 organisations worldwide have fallen victim to BEC scams, which involve criminals sending spoof emails from the CEO asking for large money transfers. [ + ]

KPMG Australia has placed Telstra CEO Andy Penn at the top of a list of the top 20 Australian business leaders in terms of the effective use of Twitter. [ + ]

The Turnbull government must address the dearth of technology skills stemming from the lack of interest in STEM degrees and careers in order to to foster Australia's digital economy, according to the ACS. [ + ]

Australian cloud-based job management software provider simPRO has opened a new office in Colorado as part of efforts to break into the US market. [ + ]