Vittorio Hernandez

New Councilor Richard Foster is pushing for a total ban on smoking in public places throughout the city of Melbourne. The planned prohibition would include Bourke Street, City Square and even footpaths.

A report released on Wednesday by the National Australia Bank (NAB) estimated that the number of jobless Australians would rise to 700,000 by the end of 2013. That means 50,000 Aussies would be added to the ranks of the unemployed.

Google Maps have recently released an update containing a detailed map of the isolated country, North Korea. The update was released three weeks after the visit of Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, to Pyongyang.

The social networking site Twitter said that worldwide data requests from government offices have risen by almost 20 per cent. In the July to December period, information requested government offices went up from 849 to 1,009.

Research in Motion (RIM) will finally launch Blackberry 10 and this is one of the most expected event in technology of the once dominant OS in the United States. Currently, Blackberry owns only 1.1 percent of total market share in mobile devices which is now populated by Google's Android.

For 2013, oil and gas seem to be the "in" resource in Australia, while iron ore and coal are "out." Even Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest person, is jumping into the oil bandwagon by investing $4.25 million in Lakes Oil (ASX: LKO) by purchasing the company's unsecured notes.

While several Australian states are now suffering from too much water the second year in a row, with just four deaths so far, the inundations are still mild compared to flooding that hit other nations the past few decades or centuries.

Having risen 1.3% last week ,the local share market maintained its constructive note, rising by more than 1 on the Tuesday, the first day of a holiday shortened week . The Australian stock market tradeded at new 21-month highs despite the news pulse from US and European hemespheres being less than positive.Every sector measured by the ASX registered solid gains. The impact of the east coast storms was the main focus for insurers and miners as investors attempted to 'bottom line' the matter...

The Australian share market continues to trade at 20 month highs, resuming trade after the Australia Day long weekend on a positive note. Investors are focusing on strong gains on offshore markets at the end of last week, rather than the subdued finish during Monday's session on Wall Street. In early trade, the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) rose above 4900 points for the first time since early May 2011, after the Dow Jones Index added 1.8pct over the course of last week.

TV shows and stand-up comedians as well as men over 40 joke over prostate digital exams, but when it is the partner of Prime Minister Julia Gillard who delivers a one-liner about the medical procedure, the bad joke created an uproar.

Besides destroying homes and placing lives of residents at risk, the flood water that has inundated New South Wales and Queensland is also threatening the two states' major source of income - coal.

Twitter launched its first video service client to iPhone and iPod touch users that currently have issues about inappropriate content. The app is called Vine which can be used to search pornographic video clips. Vine allows a user to shoot and upload high quality videos with a run time of 60 seconds, which also loops.

The Java 7 Update 10 on December 2012 was exposed to vulnerabilities against hackers and cyber criminals. The new update on Jan 13, 2013 has two new flaws which also makes it susceptible to digital attacks.

There are many applications that can be used in Facebook including games, horoscopes, inspirational quotes and other useful info. The Useful Info app delivers trivial information about health, touching stories, food, technology, quotes, and politics. One of the finds of that app featured a political icon that would put other politicians to shame for their lavish lifestyle. He is Jose Alberto Mujica Cordano, the current president of Uruguay since 2010. He is an entry in Useful Info Facebook app w...

There are different theories why Apple continues to weaken while Samsung zooms past its main rival but once business partners. Some experts explained it to Samsung's engineering marvel and marketing expertise.

Australian DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian's controversial radio show, Hot 30, got bumped off the air by a new interactive radio show aptly titled The Boot. Their call to the King Edward VII hospital in London to inquire about the state of Duchess Catherine's pregnancy led to the suicide of nurse Jacinta Saldanha who passed on the call to another nurse, who in turn, divulged the medical information, thinking it was the Queen herself who was on the line.

An Australian Industry (AI) Group study of the impact of the carbon tax on the energy cost of doing business indicated it is lesser than anticipated. The analysis seems to support the contention by Treasurer Wayne Swan that the tax also did not lead to runaway prices, contrary to the scare campaign initiated by the Opposition against the measure.

Harvard geneticist George Church clarified on Monday reports that he is seeking an adventurous woman willing to allow science the use of her womb to give birth to a Neanderthal child from ancient DNA.

Thirteen McDonald's outlets the past two weeks across Australia had been using the fastfood chain's Aussie nickname, Macca's, to celebrate Australia Day. They will temporarily use that name until Feb 3.

To celebrate Australia Day, 17,059 people from 145 nations took their citizenship oath as Australians on Saturday. Among them is British actress Miriam Margolyes, best known for her role as Professor Pomona Sprout in the Harry Potter series.

A video blooper by Life Education Australia turned out to be prophetic. A mistake two weeks ago that named magazine icon and health advocate Ita Buttrose as the 2013 Australian of the Year in its Web Site turned out to be correct after all. On Sunday, in celebration of Australia Day, Prime Minister Julia Gillard bestowed the Australian of the Year award to the 71-year-old journalist for her work in battling dementia.

Inch by Inch. This sums up the progress of the market over the course of the last 5 days. A series of unspectacular daily gains which yielded a rise of 1.2% for the week. It's precisely this type of weekly improvement that has seen the market advance by more than 10% since the end of November. More than $6.5 Billion in shares were transacted on Friday, a figure substantially inflated by an option expiry the previous day. At its highest point of the session the market hit a fresh 20-month high...

Since Australia is a multi-cultural country, it would not be surprising that Aussies would celebrate their national day in different ways. While Australia Day is Jan 26, since it is a Saturday, the country would observe it on Monday, Jan 28 which is a public holiday.

If Gina Rinehart is Australia's richest person, and once the world's richest woman, her counterpart in Angola is Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the country's president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Forbes reported on Wednesday that Ms dos Santos's wealth breached the one billionth mark, making her Angola's first woman billionaire.

The local sharemarket is higher for the eighth straight session, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) up 0.4 per cent or 17.8 pts to 4851.6. Global markets rose overnight, with the Dow gaining for the fifth day while European equities aren't far off two year highs.

Samsung introduced in 2012 the feature called Smart Stay technology. The feature keeps the screen on by detecting via front-facing camera to determine if the user is looking at the screen. This feature is included to the Galaxy S3 devices, and it is not based on whether the user's eyes are closed or not.

Google Now is software that acts as an intelligent personal assistant and is the counterpart of the iOS' Siri. It is capable of various tasks such as answering questions, making recommendations, performing actions for web services, and displaying cards in Gmail with information about flight, package tracking, and hotel and restaurant reservations.

The world cannot cope with the increase of data files and digital information going to the Internet and elsewhere against the storages available. The demand for storage increases and the costs for these storages become more and more expensive, but the money to purchase often grows at a slower pace.

Like other famous athletes of this generation, eight-division boxing title holder Manny Pacquiao loves expensive and latest-model sports car. Reports indicate that he has a collection of these toys for the big boys, mostly purchased in California during his major fights.