Parler forced offline by Amazon

Conservative social media platform Parler has become unreachable after Amazon said it would lose access to its servers.

(FILES) In this file photo Tesla CEO Elon Musk talks to media as he arrives to visit the construction site of the future US electric car giant Tesla, on September 3, 2020 in Gruenheide near Berlin. (Photo by Odd ANDERSEN / AFP)

Hello and welcome to The Download, The Australian’s technology blog for the latest tech news.

Chris Griffith 8.00pm: Parler forced offline by Amazon

Conservative social media network Parler has been forced offline and will be looking for new servers if it is going to survive.

Parler became unreachable from the internet tonight a day after Amazon gave notice that it would be suspending its services.

BuzzFeed News has reported that it has obtained an email in which Amazon notified Parler that it would be cutting off the social network from its cloud hosting service Amazon Web Services, which now appears to have happened. There is no indication of whether the suspension will be permanent.

Social media application Parler. Photo: AFP

According to reports, Amazon said it had found dozens of examples of posts on Parler that encouraged violence.

The move is another blow to outgoing president Donald Trump and his supporters. Mr Trump already has had his Twitter account deleted and while he doesn’t have a Parler account, groups supporting Mr Trump do, as do many Republican politicians. Parler claims to support free speech and offers limited vetting of posts.

Apple and Google already have banned Parler’s app from their app stores, but the removal of the servers means Parler is inoperative. In any case, without available apps, Parler’s reach had already been curtailed.

Parler CEO John Matze told Fox News he was trying to get the service back online, but vendors he approached refused to work with the platform. He said the move was enough to destroy his business. Parler began operating online in 2018.

MORE DETAILS

David Swan 3.45pm: Tesla ‘taking on China’

Elon Musk’s electric car maker Tesla is searching for a design director in China as part of a bid to take on the Chinese market, Reuters is reporting.

The reports suggest Tesla wants to open a “full-function” studio in either Shanghai or Beijing, which would be used to design cars to suit the Chinese market.

Sources said headhunters have been trawling the local market, looking for ‘bi-cultural’ candidates with 20 more years of experience, and some candidates have already been interviewed by Tesla’s global design chief Franz von Holzhausen.

China is already Tesla’s second biggest market, behind the US.

Tesla is facing an unlikely rival in China in search engine giant Baidu, which today announced a partnership with auto maker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group to make smart electric vehicles.

Other tech giants revving their engines in the smart vehicle space include Google parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Tencent and Apple, which has a rumoured deal with iPhone maker Apple.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk last week raced past Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person, worth an estimated $US195bn ($251bn), with his wealth fuelled by his electric car company’s meteoric rise over the past year.

Mr Musk owns about 20 per cent of Tesla, whose shares skyrocketed eight-fold in 2020.

David Swan 11.30am: R&D system needs overhaul: ombudsman

Australia needs a new industry-specific R&D tax incentive, according to the small business and family enterprise ombudsman Kate Carnell, who says the current regimen is unsuitable for software development.

In a submission to the government‘s financial technology industry inquiry Ms Carnell said the eligibility requirements need an overhaul, in order to make it simple and clear to claim tax incentives.

Kate Carnell AO is calling for a tax overhaul.

The current system has been widely criticised by the local tech industry, including large enterprises like Atlassian, as being unworkable.

The ombudsman used her submission to call for a dedicated software development incentive, to promote investment and growth in the sector.

‘“With 80 per cent of all R&DTI claims made by Australian SMEs, it is clear that many small and family businesses rely on the R&DTI to help fund their research and development,“ she said.

“About half of all R&DTI claims come from the software development industry, so a transparent and predictable system is absolutely vital to those businesses.”

“We welcome submissions supporting my office’s long-held position on this issue, including Atlassian’s reported ‘strong endorsement’ of an interim recommendation to clarify the existing scheme and put a time-limit on any potential clawback action.

“At the end of the day we want small businesses to grow into big businesses such as Atlassian and a fit-for-purpose R&DTI scheme is a key support mechanism.“

The current inquiry has been extended to April 2021.

David Swan 11.30am: New $400m data centre for Sydney

Sydney will be getting a brand new $400m data centre, after Brookfield-owned outfit DCI Data Centre announced plans to build a third data centre in Australia.

The purpose-built facility will be located in Eastern Creek, 35 kilometres west of Sydney’s CBD, and will be operational by the fourth quarter of 2022, the company said.

The 36MW facility will be dubbed SYD02, and the company said it is specifically designed for hyperscale cloud, content and managed service providers, and will set new benchmarks for water and energy efficiency.

The planned DCI data centre. Source: Supplied.

“The team are delighted to have secured this approval which will be a crucial part of our three-stage strategy for this key site,” DCI chief executive Malcolm Roe said in a statement.

“We are also very excited to be leading the industry in delivering new cooling technologies to significantly enhance our power utilisation effectiveness and minimise our impact on the environment”.