Digital Economy report

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has released its report Australia's Digital Economy: Future Directions. The report develops the following argument as found in its Executive Summary:

Advancing Australia’s digital economy requires action by government, industry and the community.

The key areas of focus for government, industry and the community in order to maximise the benefits of the digital economy for all Australians are:

•• for Government, to:

−− lay the foundations Australia’s digital infrastructure

−− facilitate innovation

−− set conducive regulatory frameworks

•• for industry, to:

−− demonstrate digital confidence and build digital skills

−− adopt smart technology

−− develop sustainable online content models

•• for the community, to:

−− enjoy digital confidence and digital media literacy skills

−− experience inclusive digital participation

−− benefit through online engagement.

The report makes reference to the 2007 You Decide project undertaken by a QUT-based team as "Australia's first experiment with collaborative, citizen journalism online". Details of the case study can be found here.

Digital ecosystems

From Business Week

How do you make digital entertainment more entertaining? A sprawling consortium of Hollywood content providers, consumer electronics companies, and Internet players said on Sept. 12 that its members are planning to develop a standard that will let consumers buy movies and other digital content once and play them almost anywhere, on any type of device, without the onerous restrictions that have hobbled the growth of digital downloads.

The consortium is called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE). Its members have been working since May to create rules that will let consumers share their purchased content on a number of devices in the home, or stream them over the Internet to laptops, cell phones, or other electronic gear.

Bloggers have commented on the absence of Apple from this consortium.

For more read here.