Researchers Unlocking Renaissance Beauty Secrets
Associate professor of art history at the University of Auckland Erin Griffey is a bit of a beauty maven. “I’m one of those people who reads the backs of beauty products,” she says. That’s…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Rocket Lab Grabs Booster With a Helicopter
Rocket Lab aims to join Elon Musk’s SpaceX in reusing rocket boosters, which can lower costs and increase the frequency of launching to orbit, Kenneth Chang writes for The New York Times. The small…
GAIT’s Saurav Bansal Using AI in Real-Time Carbon Measurement
New start-up GAIT Global claims its technology, using artificial intelligence and spatial data, is the only real-time measure of carbon in the atmosphere and will help catalyse the world’s efforts in combating climate change….
Auckland AI at Forefront of New Virtual Workplaces
Auckland-based AI developers UneeQ and Soul Machines’ “array of digital colleagues act as advisors and assistants, doing much of the heavy lifting of work in the metaverse and, in theory, free up human workers…
New Tech-Forward Platform ZQRX Pushes for Regenerative Wool Across New Zealand
ZQRX, a collective focused on the sustainability of New Zealand wool, is building what it calls the first regenerative wool platform, Esha Chhabra reports for Forbes. About 460 farms which sit across 3.7 million acres…
Miruku About to Disrupt Global Dairy Industry
Founded in 2020 by former New Zealand dairy executive Amos Palfreyman (pictured left) and Israeli food tech innovator Professor Oded Shoseyov, molecular farming startup Miruku, which has been operating in stealth until now, is…
Wayve’s Alex Kendall Teaching Cars to Drive
UK autonomous driving start-up Wayve, co-founded by New Zealander Alex Kendall, has been backed by a host of big name investors including Microsoft, Virgin and Baillie Gifford in a US$200 million funding round that…
Space Man Peter Beck Makes Annual Bloomberg 50
“In high school a guidance counsellor told Peter Beck that a career building rockets was ‘absurdly unachievable’. And it did take the New Zealander a while to realise his teenage dream. For more than…
See-Level Harnesses the Power of VR for the Seasick
Christchurch-based start-up See-Level may have found a seasickness cure using virtual reality to provide relief for sufferers. Yachting World’s Will Bruton reports on the innovation. See-Level founder Dudley Jackson, originally from the Isle of…
Howick Partners with US Construction Company
Together with New Zealand-based steel framing machinery designer and manufacturer Howick, Massachusetts company Windover Construction are renovating a century-old YMCA building in the US city of Beverly. By way of an Autodesk programme, Windover…
Oceanographer Kerry Black Helps Save India’s Beaches
Puducherry in India is a seaside city of nearly one million people. This 40km strip of coastline, divided into seven zones, used to be home to some of the country’s most beautiful beaches. But…
New Zealand Signs Space Agreement with NASA
New Zealand has announced it is the latest country to sign a space agreement with NASA, just as the country’s nascent space industry begins to take off, Associated Press correspondent Nick Perry reports. New Zealand became…
Allbirds and Adidas Make Planet-First Running Shoe
“Competition between running shoe brands is never-ending. Successful products don’t just boost profit margins, they help win medals, too,” tech reviewer Kieran Alger reports for Wired. “This new, shared – and frankly formidable –…
Largest Glowing Shark Species Discovered Near NZ
During a month-long expedition in waters off the coast of New Zealand, researchers identified the largest glow-in-the-dark species with a spine – on land or sea – that has ever been found, the kitefin…
Ancient Ngawha Kauri Witness to Great Change
About 42,000 years ago, Earth was beset with oddness. Its magnetic field collapsed. Ice sheets surged across North America, Australasia and the Andes. Wind belts shifted across the Pacific and Southern Oceans. Prolonged drought…
Rocket Lab Welcomes Electron Back to Earth
In a major milestone, the New Zealand-based launch company Rocket Lab has successfully recovered an orbital-class rocket after parachuting it back to Earth from near-space – only the second company in history ever to…
Soul Machines’ AI Florence Helps Smokers Quit
With smokers at great risk of Covid-19 complications, Auckland-based Soul Machines, leaders in artificial general intelligence (AGI), and the World Health Organization (WHO) have developed Florence, an embodied AI who offers online counselling for…
Climate Change Graphics Made Simple by John Lang
New Zealander John Lang has just finished an unenviable task: taking a jargon-packed, number-heavy report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and turning it into a graphic the average person might read,…
Mint Innovation Saves Valuable Metal from E-Waste
Our “throwaway” culture often means consumers are guilty of getting rid of old devices as soon as new ones come to the market, a habit that can have a significant effect on waste streams…
Digital Human Creator Uneeq Shares Its Tricks
Auckland start-up UneeQ, that counts Salesforce’s former head of AI Richard Socher as an investor, has a new tool that aims to make building virtual humans to answer questions as easy as creating a…
Search for Life on Venus Could Begin at Rocket Lab
New Zealand-founded company Rocket Lab may be able to send a small spacecraft to probe the clouds of Venus long before NASA or other space agencies are able to do so, industry journalist Jonathan…
Maps Reveal New Details About Zealandia
New Zealand’s research institute GNS Science has published two maps revealing new research about the underwater continent Zealandia, where dinosaurs once roamed – and is allowing the public to virtually explore it on an…
Robotic Spot Put to Work Shepherding Flocks
A collaboration between New Zealand-based cloud-based software platform Rocos and American robotics company Boston Dynamics, has been heralded as the future of farming, Luke Andrews reports for the Daily Mail. The two companies have developed…
AI and Bias Removal a Herculean Task
“Google’s algorithm for detecting hate speech tended to punish tweets written by African Americans, classifying 46 per cent of non-offensive messages as hate language, even if they were not, according to a report by…
Wayve Genius Alex Kendall Makes Forbes 30 Under 30
New Zealander Alex Kendall, 27, who went to the University of Cambridge to pursue a PhD in Computer Vision and Robotics, and today serves as the CTO (and co-founder) of London-based Wayve, an AI…
How Our Space Industry is Causing Turbulence
Life on the Mahia Peninsula used to be quiet: surfing beaches, historical monuments, and good snapper fishing, Eleanor Ainge Roy writes for The Guardian. Then space came to town. Four years ago, Rocket Lab’s Peter…
Physicist Stephen Parke Makes Maths Discovery
Three physicists, including one New Zealander, wanted to calculate how neutrinos change. They ended up discovering an unexpected relationship between some of the most ubiquitous objects in maths, Natalie Wolchover reports for online publication,…
Four NZ Tech Superstars Bound to Become Global
New Zealand is a country that immediately brings to mind a number of images upon its mention, London-based music and culture magazine The 405 reports. Jaw-dropping nature, a beacon of stability and commonsense governance…
Otago Scientists Explain Loch Ness Mystery
The most famous photo of the Loch Ness monster has long been discredited as a hoax, but University of Otago scientists have come up with a new explanation for other sightings of the elusive…
Rocket Lab Aims to Catch Boosters with Choppers
New Zealand-founded California-based Rocket Lab wants to use a helicopter to “catch” the first stage of its Electron rocket as it floats toward the ground with a parachute, according to Robert Mogg reporting for…
Statistician Hadley Wickham Wins Global Award
Hadley Wickham, a statistician from Hamilton who is now based in Houston, Texas, has won the international 2019 COPSS Presidents’ Award. The prize is awarded annually to a statistician under 40 in recognition of…
New Zealand Study Looks At Robot Racism
The reason for shades of technological white in the creation of robots may be racism, according to new research undertaken by the Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ) and published…
Barbara Rae-Venter’s Revolutionary Cold Case Crime Breakthrough
Auckland-born genetic genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter has become the go-to expert for law enforcement agencies hoping to crack the cases that defy traditional investigative methods, according to a profile in the San Francisco Chronicle by…
On the Anniversary of Ernest Rutherford’s Find
“In 1907, a New Zealander named Ernest Rutherford moved from McGill University in Canada to the University of Manchester. There, he conducted a series of experiments where he fired alpha particles at different materials,”…
Pioneering Facial Reconstruction Work Of Harold Gillies Carries Graphic Warning
The pioneering work of Dunedin-born surgeon Dr Harold Gillies is graphically displayed in a Daily Mail spread featuring the facial reconstructions of soldiers wounded in WWI. Under the headline “The rebuilt faces of war:…
Rocket Lab Now Building Customisable Satellites
Small satellite launcher, New Zealand-founded Rocket Lab is getting into the business of making satellites in addition to launching them. The company has announced that it is offering a new service to customers: a…
Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck at TED in Vancouver
Peter Beck is a space entrepreneur with a rocket and launch pad in New Zealand that has permission for flights “every 72 hours for the next 30 years”. Beck recently spoke at the TED…
Air NZ Uses 3D Printing to Install Spare Part
“Air New Zealand’s exploration of 3D technology for parts and tools has ratcheted up a notch after it successfully ordered a 3D bumper protector for seats from Singapore and had it made and installed…
Your Apples May Soon Be Picked By Laser-Shooting Robots
Roboticists are creating crop-specific machines to harvest fruits and veggies. One of these inventions is “the apple-picking robot, a metallic farmer that just graduated from R&D and won a job in a New Zealand…
40,000-Year-Old Log Explains Earth’s Mystery
A 40,000-year-old 60-tonne kauri log discovered during excavations for a new power station in Ngāwhā could explain a mysterious global event, which may have dramatically changed the Earth’s climate. Scientists in New Zealand believe the…
New Zealand Farmers Herd Sheep with Barking Drones
In New Zealand, farmers are using drones to herd and monitor livestock, assuming a job that highly intelligent dogs have held for more than a century, and though the robots have not replaced the…
Blockchain Tech Opportunites Abound for Aotearoa
A new report commissioned by New Zealand’s innovation agency, Callaghan Innovation, suggests the country is fertile ground for blockchain tech. The crown entity has published an opportunity report on blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT)…
24/7 Geohazards Monitoring Centre Debuts in NZ
A new centre providing enhanced monitoring of natural geological hazards manned 24 hours a day in New Zealand has officially opened in Lower Hutt. The National Geohazards Monitoring Centre is a purpose-built facility located on…
Rocket Lab Launches First NASA Mission
New Zealand-founded spaceflight startup Rocket Lab has launched 13 tiny satellites on its first-ever mission for NASA, just a month after acing its first commercial flight. All of the payloads separated from the Electron’s “kick…
124-Year-Old Telescope to be Restored in NZ
One of the world’s most famous Victorian telescopes will be restored and available for public viewing in autumn 2019 at Lake Tekapo after spending five decades in storage. Dallas Poll, who is restoring the 124-year-old…
Flying Pioneer Richard Pearse Never Claimed Honour
New Zealander Richard Pearse may have beaten the Wright brothers, but never claimed the honour. Jeff Glorfeld reports for Australia’s Cosmos magazine. “The story of human flight is filled with many daring characters, and even…
Amy Maslen-Miller a Force for Samoan Scientists
New Zealander Amy Maslen-Miller is a new kind of researcher focused on indigenous agriculture. Young and passionate about what science can bring to food security, she is also keen to understand traditional approaches to…
Rocket Lab the FedEx of Space Industry
A small rocket from a little-known company lifted off last weekend from the east coast of New Zealand, carrying a clutch of tiny satellites, New York Times journalist Kenneth Chang wrote last week. That…
New York Is a Genuine Tech Hub
“In 2003, Craig Nevill-Manning, a computer scientist at Google, wanted to set up an engineering outpost in New York. Google’s top leaders were sceptical, but they told him that he could go ahead if…
Peter Beck Discusses Ambitious Space Plans
In an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck discusses his company’s ambitious plans to tap the growing market for transporting satellites into space. He sees a bright future for…
Richard Kavanagh’s Smart Mirror Adopted by L’Oreal
The interactive invention of top New Zealand hairstylist, Sydney-based Richard Kavanagh is set to transform salon visits here and overseas. Kavanagh’s smart mirror allows customers to shop for their style on screen and provides…
Rocket Lab Unveils New Production Facility
“Rocket Lab has expanded its global footprint with the unveiling of a new production facility that ‘rethinks the way orbital rockets are built’”. Space Tech Asia reports. “The new 7,500 sq/m…
Air NZ Debuts Magic Leap Virtual Reality Game
“Air New Zealand has ventured into the world of virtual reality marketing with its Fact or Fantasy concept game that features a world where people witness a giant kauri tree grow, meet a grumpy…
How Magic Leap Is Making the Magic
“When I met Rony Abovitz at Magic Leap’s Developer Conference (aka LEAPCon) in downtown Los Angeles yesterday, I told him it was like meeting all four Beatles at once. He’s defined for me and…
Claudia King’s Automio Shaking Up Tech World
New Plymouth-based legal tech startup Automio, which was founded by Claudia King, has made the Forbes’ list of 60 women-led tech companies, “shaking up” technology across the world. Allyson Kapin, a contributor at Forbes, recommends: researching…
Peter Beck is Changing the Launch Equation
Rocket Lab is aiming high. The California-based company, founded in New Zealand by Peter Beck, plans to make space much more accessible via its 17m Electron rocket, which can loft about 225kg of payload…
