Australian scientists have invented a small helicopter that can see, think and navigate by itself. I want one of these for babies Christmas!! :) In TV footage they seemed quite at home buzzing between high voltage power lines. Read the full article...

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT)* has recently passed a bill requiring ACT Government agencies to consider Open Source software. Although this is only state legislation it does set a significant precident for other states and, God willing, Federally. Microsoft has labelled the bill as "anti-competitive". No surprise there. Amidst Microsoft's latest rhetoric of Quality & Cost / Benefit, they seemed to have over looked the ACT Gov's $15M spent simply on licensing costs. That's not including consulting, training or support costs. The real equation is probably more acurately $1M Value for money + $14M Microsoft's 2004 marketing budget.

--- * The ACT is home to Canberra, Australia's captial. Apparently similar to the Washington DC concept.