News of New Zealanders via Global Media

How Earth’s Newest Continent ‘Zealandia’ Was Found

How Earth’s Newest Continent ‘Zealandia’ Was Found

Scientist recently discovered that “earth has a brand-new continent called Zealandia,” writes Dave Mosher in an article for Business Insider Australia. “What’s less widely known about the discovery, however, is how it…

Earth Has Brand-New Continent Called Zealandia

Earth Has Brand-New Continent Called Zealandia

“A new study of Earth’s crust, has found that there’s a seventh geologic continent called ‘Zealandia,’ and it has been hiding under our figurative noses for millennia.” New Zealand and New Caledonia are part…

Rocket Lab Is Preparing For First Launch

Rocket Lab Is Preparing For First Launch

Small satellite launch company Rocket Lab has announced that the first of its Electron rockets has arrived at its launch complex in New Zealand. “Its arrival commences a series of test items that need…

Wellington NZ Opens Doors To Tech Talent

Wellington NZ Opens Doors To Tech Talent

Wellington is welcoming tech talent from around the globe with a bold new recruitment initiative, LookSee Wellington, which launches this week and is aiming to address the city’s IT skills shortage. The…

Antimicrobials from NZ Labs Help Make an India

Antimicrobials from NZ Labs Help Make an India

Eco-friendly antimicrobial agents developed by a team of researchers at the University of Auckland could contribute in some of the key identified sectors in the nation-building “Make an India” initiative, according to an Indian-origin…

Keeping an Eye on Endace

Keeping an Eye on Endace

Designed by little-known New Zealand company Endace, a powerful piece of technology called the Medusa system, had one main purpose: to vacuum up vast quantities of internet data at an astonishing speed. And it…

Morgan Marquis-Boire Talks Tech Tough in California

Morgan Marquis-Boire Talks Tech Tough in California

New Zealand-born security researcher, hacker and journalist Morgan Marquis-Boire recently spoke on digital authoritarianism at an Ars Technica Live event in Oakland, California, “telling us,” according to the Ars Technica Facebook pages, “what we…

Inside Magic Leap, the Startup Changing Computing Forever

Inside Magic Leap, the Startup Changing Computing Forever

At Magic Leap, the start-up that secretly raised nearly $1.4 billion in venture capital, humanoid robots are walking down the halls, green reptilian monsters hang out in the lounge and there are cartoon fairies…

Michael Aitken Wins Top Science Prize for SMARTS

Michael Aitken Wins Top Science Prize for SMARTS

New Zealand-born entrepreneur Michael Aitken has been awarded an Australian Prime Minister’s Prize for Science for developing software to identify rigging in the financial markets. Aitken, founding CEO of the Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre in…

Bagpipes the Penguin Gets 3D Printed Foot

Bagpipes the Penguin Gets 3D Printed Foot

Bagpipes the Little Blue penguin, who had his left leg amputated in 2007 after it got stuck in a fishing line, has received a custom-made 3D printed foot. Having wriggled his way around his home…

Kiwi’s Genius Solution to London Jams

Kiwi’s Genius Solution to London Jams

Fancy speeding down the Thames in London to get to your hotel? “Your speedy dream could be about to come true, thanks to Kiwi entrepreneur Alan Gibbs whose amphibious vehicles are being tested this…

Martin Jetpack Turns Science Fiction Into Reality

Martin Jetpack Turns Science Fiction Into Reality

Australia-listed Martin Jetpack will begin manufacturing its P-14 aircraft next month, as reported in an article in The Financial Times. “We are at the start of the journey,” said Peter Coker, Martin Jetpack’s chief…

Ian Taylor to Speak at Inaugural Magnify Conference

Ian Taylor to Speak at Inaugural Magnify Conference

Ian Taylor, founder of Dunedin computer graphics design and production company Animation Research Ltd (ARL) will be one of the speakers at the inaugural Magnify Conference on immersive technology application, during the Auckland Tourism,…

New Zealand Firm Develops Robotic Legs

New Zealand Firm Develops Robotic Legs

Rex Bionics, a company in New Zealand, is developing robotic legs for people who have lost the ability to move their legs. “The self-supporting exoskeleton is secured to a person’s leg with straps. A console found in…

Makelight’s Joanna Alpe Winning High Tech Praise

Makelight’s Joanna Alpe Winning High Tech Praise

Co-founder and creative director of Makelight, a mobile device platform for live events, New Zealander Joanna Alpe, who is based in London, is included in a Huffington Post feature on tech femmes as part…

Meet the Real-Life Tech Wizards of Middle Earth

Meet the Real-Life Tech Wizards of Middle Earth

Have you ever heard of No. 8 wire? In the 19th century, farmers used the wire to build fences for sheep and later on turned it into a jack-of-all-trades material for getting work done….

Wellington: World’s Most Feminist Tech Ecosystem

Wellington: World’s Most Feminist Tech Ecosystem

Australian tech and media geek Mat Beeche was surprised during a visit to Wellington to sit in front of so many women in tech. “The reason I found it surprising is because although…

Goat Milk Promises Cheap Cancer Treatments: New Zealand Scientists

Goat Milk Promises Cheap Cancer Treatments: New Zealand Scientists

“Genetically modified goat milk has been used to create a new biotechnology process that promises cheaper anti-cancer drugs, New Zealand scientists said Wednesday.” “Milking goats have been used to produce mono-clonal antibodies (MCA) in their…

Mike Anstis Flies for Rain over Middle East Desert

Mike Anstis Flies for Rain over Middle East Desert

At a remote airstrip outside Abu Dhabi, New Zealand-born pilot Mike Anstis is setting off to do something most would consider impossible in a desert. He’s hoping to make it rain. Anstis is cloud…

Beatrice Tinsley Acknowledged by Google Doodle

Beatrice Tinsley Acknowledged by Google Doodle

Beatrice Tinsley, “one of the least acknowledged – and most original – thinkers in astronomy is being acknowledged by Google Doodle”, writes Jess Staufenberg in an article for The Independent. The Doodle on Google’s…

Black Hole Expert Roy Kerr Honoured in Nice

Black Hole Expert Roy Kerr Honoured in Nice

One of the world’s most brilliant mathematicians, New Zealander Roy Kerr, 81, has been awarded the Crafoord Prize for his work on black holes. With an award of US$700,000 the prize is one of…

New Zealand Joins Geothermal Alliance

New Zealand Joins Geothermal Alliance

New Zealand has joined the Global Geothermal Alliance at the U.N. climate conference in Paris. “As the world transitions towards a lower carbon future, the increased demand for renewable energy, coupled with the ongoing interest…

NZ Scientists Bring Extinct Birds Back to Life

NZ Scientists Bring Extinct Birds Back to Life

A collaboration between scientists at Massey University, the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa bring extinct birds species back to life with 3D scanning. “Technology like 3D printing is the way of the…

Meet GoodWorld, the Start-up Revolutionizing Online Charity

Meet GoodWorld, the Start-up Revolutionizing Online Charity

GoodWorld, a start-up founded by New Zealander Dale Pfeifer is revolutionizing the world of online charity. The start-up is a “fascinating–and extremely fast-growing–marriage of crowdfunding, philanthropy, and social media”, and allows people to donate money…

Gibbs’ Next Generation of Fast Amphibians

Gibbs’ Next Generation of Fast Amphibians

After bringing “three fast amphibian concepts to the American International Motorcycle Expo in Orlando, Fla.”, Gibbs Amphibians is “hoping to find to find a partner that would build the vehicles under license”, as reported…

Space Revolution Hatching in a New Zealand Paddock

Space Revolution Hatching in a New Zealand Paddock

The next revolution in space will be launching next year from a paddock in New Zealand’s remote South Island – a 16-metre carbon-cased rocket powered by a 3D-printed rocket engine. The rocket designed by Rocket…

3rd Spaceflight Ground Station in Invercargill

3rd Spaceflight Ground Station in Invercargill

Spaceflight’s third ground station in Invercargill, New Zealand is now fully operational, according to an article in Space Daily. “Bringing the ground station online in New Zealand is another step in executing on…

Kiwis Save Baby Humpback Whale

Kiwis Save Baby Humpback Whale

A rescue team have “saved the life of a baby whale which was entangled in buoy lines off the coast of New Zealand’s capital”, as reported in The Daily Mail. “It was entangled…

Researchers Identify New Fossil Whale Species of New Zealand

Researchers Identify New Fossil Whale Species of New Zealand

Researchers from the University of Otago have identified three new whale species that once lived in New Zealand. The “researchers’ discovery and description of the Tokarahia kauaeroa and Tokarahia lophocephalus whales helps to fill in an important gap…

Artificial Intelligence Experts are Building the World’s Angriest Robot

Artificial Intelligence Experts are Building the World’s Angriest Robot

“It sounds like the beginning of an apocalyptic sci-fi film. A New Zealand artificial intelligence company” – the Touchpoint Group, “is building the angriest robot in the world in the hopes…

San Francisco Cops Flaunt Epic, Amphibious ‘Quadski’ at Giants Game

San Francisco Cops Flaunt Epic, Amphibious ‘Quadski’ at Giants Game

A Gibbs Quadski XL – a New Zealand invention has been sighted in San Francisco. An SFPD officer was spotted on his Quadski in McCovey Cove for the first time at Saturday’s clash between the…

Cars in NZ Are Running on Beer-Flavoured Petrol

Cars in NZ Are Running on Beer-Flavoured Petrol

New Zealand brewers DB Export have turned their leftover slurry of yeast and grain into a biofuel. Brewtroleum is available for a limited time at Gull petrol stations throughout the country. One of the leftovers…

Harjinder Singh Receives IDFA Dairy Research Award

Harjinder Singh Receives IDFA Dairy Research Award

Harjinder Singh, Ph.D., has received the 2015 IDFA Research Award in Dairy Foods Processing at this month’s annual meeting of the American Dairy Science Association. “This award recognises Professor Singh’s contribution to the dairy industry….

Kiwi DNA Study Reveals Bird Lost Colour Vision

Kiwi DNA Study Reveals Bird Lost Colour Vision

Scientists at the University of Leipzig in Germany say they have sequenced the genome of the brown kiwi for the first time, revealing that the shy, flightless bird likely lost its ability to see…

Sir Edmund Hillary’s Name Taken to New Heights

Sir Edmund Hillary’s Name Taken to New Heights

A newly discovered mountain range on Pluto has been named Hillary Montes in homage to New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, half of the pair who first climbed Mount Everest in 1953. Tenzing Norgay, his…

Seb Chan Is Digitally Revitilising Museums

Seb Chan Is Digitally Revitilising Museums

New Zealand-born Seb Chan, lauded for his leading role in transforming the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York with a human-centred digital renewal, has been appointed chief eXperience officer (CXO) at the…

World Economy Model Inspires NZ artist Michael Stevenson in New York exhibit

World Economy Model Inspires NZ artist Michael Stevenson in New York exhibit

A hydro-mechanical computer that models world economic flows, invented in 1949 by New Zealander Bill Phillips, is the inspiration for artist Michael Stevenson’s installation at Long Island City’s SculptureCenter in…

Scientists to Study Silent Earthquakes off NZ

Scientists to Study Silent Earthquakes off NZ

Scientists have proposed a 2018 pioneering project beneath the seafloor off New Zealand aimed at understanding the mechanisms of silent earthquakes, also known as slow-slip events. “An important way to understand the true cause of…

Dean Hall Tackles New Game Post DayZ Success

Dean Hall Tackles New Game Post DayZ Success

Dean Hall was on stage at Microsoft’s E3 press conference this year to unveil a name and a teaser for his studio RocketWerkz’s brand new game, Ion. But despite his role in helping Microsoft…

Artist Kristina Webb Prospering in Insta-Economy

Artist Kristina Webb Prospering in Insta-Economy

Kristina Webb, a 19-year old New Zealander, has built a full-time job on Instagram with colourful, Disney-like pictures, which are appealing to a huge teenage base of viewers. “It is sort of my perfect job…

Next-Gen Facial Animation with the Auckland Face Simulator

Next-Gen Facial Animation with the Auckland Face Simulator

A team located at The Laboratory for Animate Technologies at the University of Auckland’s Bioengineering Institute, is developing multidisciplinary technologies to create interactive autonomously animated systems that will define the next generation of human…

Rescue Drones Aid New Zealand Search Operations

Rescue Drones Aid New Zealand Search Operations

A New Zealand Volunteer Coastguard uses new purpose-built unmanned drones in search and rescue operations. Sending out drones fitted with cameras and other technology is much faster than traditional means such as planes…

Scrabble Genius Nigel Richards’ Talent Helping Science

Scrabble Genius Nigel Richards’ Talent Helping Science

The boardgame Scrabble is giving psychologists a better understanding of the underpinnings of complex skill and a clearer picture of the origins of greatness. New Zealander Nigel Richards is widely regarded as the best…

Rocket Lab Deems Space Open for Business

Rocket Lab Deems Space Open for Business

A New Zealand rocket company, founded by inventor Peter Beck in 2007, says it has found a way to drastically cut the cost of satellite launches, by 3D printing rocket components. The Rocket…

Rocket Lab Unveils 3D-Printed, Battery-Powered Rocket Engine

Rocket Lab Unveils 3D-Printed, Battery-Powered Rocket Engine

Auckland-based commercial space company Rocket Lab has unveiled their 3D-printed battery-powered Rutherford engine. The liquid-fueled, battery powered engine is capable of 4,600 pounds of thrust and will power propulsion of Rocket…

Drive NZ’s Off Road in a Virtual Chevy Colorado

Drive NZ’s Off Road in a Virtual Chevy Colorado

“Chevrolet has developed an immersive virtual reality experience for its Chevy Colorado truck that lets showroom customers experience a drive through the mountains of New Zealand via not just an Oculus Rift headset, but…

Professor Harjinder Singh Elected a Fellow of the United States Institute of Food Technologists

Professor Harjinder Singh Elected a Fellow of the United States Institute of Food Technologists

Riddet Institute Co-director Distinguished Professor Harjinder Singh has been elected a Fellow of the United States Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) – the largest union of food scientists in the world. The leading New Zealand…

Kura Nutrition Showcases Its Protein’s Origin on Packaging

Kura Nutrition Showcases Its Protein’s Origin on Packaging

Kura Nutrition uses their packaging to tell the story of its protein’s New Zealand origins for their new Smoothie Powder, which is a healthy, wholesome addition to any meal. Each serving provides 14 g of…

NASA super-pressure balloon has been launched in Wanaka

NASA super-pressure balloon has been launched in Wanaka

A NASA super-pressure balloon has successfully been launched at Wanaka Airport around 1.15 am. It will continue to inflate and increase in size while rising 33 kilometers above Earth. The launch of the balloon and…

New Zealand Man 3D Prints the World’s Smallest Working Drill

New Zealand Man 3D Prints the World’s Smallest Working Drill

Kiwi maintenance engineer Lance Abernethy has 3D printed the world’s smallest working drill with his Ultimaker 2 3D printer. The functioning drill measures 17mm tall, 7.5mm wide, and 13mm long and holds a 0.5mm…

Rare Glimpse of Cloudless New Zealand from Space

Rare Glimpse of Cloudless New Zealand from Space

A rare image of New Zealand without a ceiling of cloud has been captured from the International Space Station as it orbits 418km above the South Pacific Ocean. According to NASA, New Zealand is seldom…

New Zealand’s NIWA Discovered 141 New Marine Species in 3 Years

New Zealand’s NIWA Discovered 141 New Marine Species in 3 Years

New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has discovered a range of 141 new marine creatures in the past three years. “Marine research in recent years have discovered new species on Wellington’s…

NZ Design Firm Helps Museumgoers “Touch” Cities Around the World

NZ Design Firm Helps Museumgoers “Touch” Cities Around the World

For nearly 20 years, New Zealand-based experiential design company the Gibson Group has designed and built one-of-a-kind, interactive, multimedia visitor experiences for museums, galleries, archives, libraries, tourist centers, and businesses around the…

Geologists Solve Tectonic Mystery with Explosives

Geologists Solve Tectonic Mystery with Explosives

Local geologists may have finally explained how tectonic plates shift by blowing up hundreds of kilograms of dynamite in a 100km line from Glendhu Rocks in the Wairarapa to Queen Elizabeth Park on the…

New Zealand Hails Expert For Crowned Chinese Scientist Award

New Zealand Hails Expert For Crowned Chinese Scientist Award

Dr. Phil Rolston, senior scientist at New Zealand’s AgResearch Lincoln institute, has been awarded China’s top science prize for his work in farming. Dr. Rolston, received the award at a ceremony hosted in Beijing earlier…

Near-Death Experience Inspiration for Mark Major’s Game

Near-Death Experience Inspiration for Mark Major’s Game

Seven years after New Zealander Mark Major, 28, fell down a 9m-deep hole in Beijing and broke his back, he has turned his near-death experience into a tongue-in-cheek mobile game called, Plummet Free Fall,…