At Dell's User Forum in Sydney the company announced new cloud collaborations, as well as an NFV platform and next-generation firewall. [ + ]

SAP and IBM have teamed up to accelerate the adoption of cloud-based enterprise applications, in part to quell data sovereignty fears over US surveillance. [ + ]

Pacnet will offer network and managed services to New South Wales Government departments using the consolidated Silverwater data centre. [ + ]

This week we look at a UK government tax computer system that can't add up, continuing problems with Sydney's Opal transport card, a Tor router that keeps you anonymous on the 'net, US$110 million up for grabs for photonics chips, and cute but sinister swarming drones. [ + ]

With big data and services growing six times faster than the overall ICT market, data centre operations must be capable of handling the rapidly increasing costs that come with retention of big data so as to save money and cut down on inefficiencies. [ + ]

Leaked documents suggest the US National Security Agency may have placed undercover operatives inside technology companies, Twitter has taken the US government to court over surveillance requests and Telstra wants to raise fixed-line rates by 7.2%. [ + ]

Digital Realty Trust's Sydney and Melbourne data centres have become the first facilities in Australia to be certified under the LEED green building scheme. [ + ]

The real estate mantra is 'location, location, location' - which often means 'inner city'. But for data centres this is no longer necessarily true, especially when easy access to energy and low-cost rent in rural and regional areas is factored in. [ + ]

High-quality, low-cost sensors have entered the market, putting biometrics in the hands of consumers for the first time. But availability doesn't necessarily translate to viability. [ + ]

Symantec has become the latest tech company to resolve to separate into two listed companies, new permanent CEO Michael Brown revealed. [ + ]

Managing and automating service relationships and interactions is the next major software frontier in the enterprise, and it's where orders of magnitude of efficiency improvements will be realised. [ + ]

Deakin University plans to deploy a student advisor application that uses IBM's Watson cognitive computing platform and can adapt its answers to individual students. [ + ]

Dr Larry Marshall has been appointed the new chief executive of the CSIRO, bringing with him 25 years' experience as an international technology entrepreneur and the founder of six successful US companies in biotechnology, photonics, telecommunications and semiconductors. [ + ]

Optus Business and FireEye have partnered to offer joint-managed security services, open two advanced security operation centres and research APTs targeting APAC firms. [ + ]

This week we take a look at a US$617 billion fat-finger earthquake in Tokyo, the Nobel Prize research that brought us blue and white LEDs, Elon Musk’s aim for 90% autonomous cars in the next 12 months, and a quaint 1960s view of what today's computers would be like. [ + ]