Cloud services adoption will accelerate the creation of smarter cities by overcoming organisational inertia and enabling more rapid propagation of innovation. Cities that remain bogged down with outdated ICT capabilities will fall behind their peers and be overlooked by globally mobile investment, businesses, events and citizens. [ + ]

The federal government has been caught quietly blocking access to websites, leading some to declare that it has attempted to sneak mandatory web filtering in on the sly. [ + ]

The Department of Broadband has warned the ACCC against interfering in NBN pricing and negotiations, while an ex-Google executive has blown the whistle on the company’s “immoral” tax avoidance. [ + ]

Virtualisation is the single biggest change to how we manage our systems for the last decade or so. As a result of virtualisation we have slashed the number of physical devices we have to manage, resulting in smaller data centres, lower power consumption, better business continuity and greater flexibility. But what about everything else? And does virtualising everything need a new set of skills? [ + ]

With the expectation, if the polls are to be believed, that we’ll have a new government installed in September, does the federal Budget mean anything to the IT industry? [ + ]

Lawyers of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom last week launched a white paper discussing America’s prosecution of Megaupload, in which they accuse the US of using “dirty tactics” and “due process abuses” in their case against the file sharing company. [ + ]

The New Zealand government has declared that software alone cannot be patented under NZ law, in a move it hopes will please local software developers. [ + ]

CeBIT StartUp 2013 is a dedicated three-day event for Australia’s vibrant and growing startup ecosystem. [ + ]

Researchers from the UK and the US claim to have found a link between reader activity on Wikipedia and subsequent falls on the stock market. [ + ]

Earlier this week at Interop in Las Vegas and to a small group of journalists in Sydney, ShoreTel announced a new product for its unified communications users. The ShoreTel Dock fuses the office phone with mobile devices. Is this a sign that UC is coming of age? [ + ]

The cloud gives unprecedented opportunities for IT to adapt to rapidly shifting business priorities. [ + ]

Details of potential data breach notification laws in Australia were revealed last week when the Federal Attorney-General’s Department shared its Exposure Draft Privacy Amendment (Privacy Alerts) Bill 2013 with a small number of key stakeholders. [ + ]

Personalisation is one of the most polarising aspects of e-commerce today: while many website operators love the potential benefits to their bottom line, users often consider it a breach of privacy and a corruption of the levelling effect the internet has on markets around the globe. [ + ]

Last week ispONE agreed to stop booting Kogan Mobile customers from its network without Kogan’s approval and the federal government launched an issues paper on the topic of multinational tax trickery. [ + ]

The rapid global take-up in mobile devices has been breathtaking - a trend that is creating opportunities as well as serious challenges for organisations. [ + ]