Technology

With winter officially here, Australians across the country are turning off air conditioners and relying on heaters to stay warm, but while temperatures may be dropping, the risk of house fires increases during the colder months. ARR.News asked Jackson Holt from Brooks Australia about particular risks faced and specific advice for people in rural and regional Australia.

The Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) says Victoria’s $25b dollar agriculture sector must not be forgotten in the face of a rapidly expanding data centre infrastructure boom sweeping the state. The VFF has today released an issues paper outlining the scale of potential development and competition for resources like land, water and energy. 

SA Power Networks has issued an urgent warning about the use of agricultural drones around powerlines, after a large drone crashed and dropped a high voltage line to the ground at Wasleys, east of Mallala. The incident is the first of its kind to have occurred in South Australia.

Krissy Barrett. When I became AFP Commissioner last year, I said I would have candid conversations with Australians to inform them about the threats they face ... But parents and caregivers now need to be aware of entrenched and emerging criminal threats because of rapidly-evolving technology.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) CEO Heather Cook will help spearhead new tech partnerships and AI solutions at a meeting with Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group (FELEG) agencies in London this week, amid growing online threats seriously impacting youth and vulnerable communities.

Michael Vardon. Australia’s data centre rush now rivals the mining boom. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman last week said Australia could become a “data centre capital of the world”. This would come at an environmental cost ... Before committing fully, we need granular detail on how much water and energy these centres use.

Agri-fintech company DAS (Digital Agriculture Services) has developed a Rural Sales Dashboard, an interactive tool for interrogating the data behind rural property sales across Australia's mainland states and the NT. DAS has now released its first quarterly report using findings from the dashboard. "Australian farmland remains one of the country's most important asset classes, but we're seeing greater variation in performance between regions": Sarah Gormon, DAS cofounder.

South Australian farmers received $4.7 million in tag discounts and rebates during the first year of mandatory electronic identification (eID) for sheep and farmed goats. The state’s farmers continue to implement a national roll-out of individual eID tags for sheep and goats to strengthen our world-leading livestock traceability systems and support rapid responses to biosecurity threats.

As part of the Finocchiaro CLP Government’s year of Growth, Certainty and Security, Minister for Trade, Business and Asian Relations Robyn Cahill is leading a targeted government delegation to Taiwan this week, advancing the Territory’s position as a trusted and competitive partner for one of our most important trading partners.

For Pit Stop Technologies founder Plato Lagoudakis, the win still feels a little surreal. "Starting a business in a country town comes with its share of pressures and doubts. Being recognised on a national stage tells us we got it right, by staying true to who we are and where we're from."

TTV met with six parties yesterday, calling for pre-election commitments on three policies, one of which proves technology that has already detected 90 unplanned fires across Victoria in two seasons.

“Mobile connectivity in the regions is not a luxury; it is a critical and essential service.” That was the tone set at the Senate inquiry into the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025 where the Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association (ICPA) gave evidence on behalf of remote families.

A ground-breaking artificial intelligence (AI) system has detected almost 90 unplanned fires since it was rolled out across more than a million hectares in South Australia, helping firefighters coordinate earlier bushfire responses.

The most sheep producers ever assembled on stage will headline LambEx26, with a freshly released program designed to bring the entire supply chain together - and onto one agenda.  

A Riverland school has become the first in the region to introduce Virtual Reality (VR) education into the classroom, allowing students to now completely immerse themselves in their learning – whether that includes being launched into space, walking through ancient civilizations, or exploring a world of their own digital creation.

The first major project unveiled by the Australasian Space Innovation Institute, the National Digital Twin for Australian Agriculture holds immense potential for the agricultural industry to harness existing national datasets and observation systems to model scenarios, test options and inform discussions and decisions, including at scale. Australian Rural & Regional News found out a good deal through an in depth interview with Andrew Beveridge, Director of the National Digital Twin for Australian Agriculture.

TasFarmers welcomes the Tasmanian Government’s decision to update its gene technology policy, enabling farmers to access advanced plant breeding technology. TasFarmers CEO Nathan Calman said the decision reflects a practical, evidence-based step forward for the state’s agricultural sector.

Austinn Lane. A large bronze whaler shark was spotted at the recent Berry Bay Surf Jam on southern Yorke Peninsula, thanks to drone technology. South Australian Shark Watch founding director, Anton Covino took drones to the event to test their potential for monitoring shark activity.

Global investment in data centres is accelerating – and Australia is well-placed to lead – but this must happen on terms that benefit the community and deliver for the national interest. The Albanese Government’s National AI Plan, released in December 2025, sets out our ambition: to harness the benefits of AI while ensuring all Australian’s shares the benefits.

Professor Bhattacharya from Monash University says advancing domestic refining and feedstock technologies is critical to improving long-term fuel security. Monash engineers have developed a pyrolysis technology that converts end-of-life tyres and plastics into high-value liquid hydrocarbons, creating a new, circular source of refinery-ready feedstocks.

Continence Health Australia is once again on the hunt for Australia’s missing public toilets. The Great Dunny Hunt is back in 2026 to help uncover the hidden toilets and add them to the National Public Toilet Map.