AUSTRALIAN business is gearing up for its biggest investment burst in almost 20 years, defying market turmoil and the Reserve Bank’s inflation fight.

OIL prices in New York today soared past $US102 a barrel for the first time, lifted by strong demand and a further decline in the dollar.

Nortel staff in Australia and New Zealand are likely to escape the thousands of redundancies announced at the company’s fourth quarter results briefing.

In a series of reforms announced this week, the Australian Domain Name Administrator (auDA) has regulated against domain traders by outlawing the practice of registering a domain name for the sole purpose of reselling it.

THE Australian stock market was weaker at noon, with the banks dragging the bourse lower on the prospect of an interest rate rise next week.

THE Australian dollar was higher at noon, posting a fresh 24-year high on strong economic data, and analysts say it could hit 95 US cents today.

Originally designed to service drought affected areas, Centrelink’s Drought Buses are being used for all emergency conditions. ZDNet.com.au talks with Centrelink’s acting national manager for IT service delivery, Matt Rodgers, about how tech keeps the agency on the road.

THE stock market opened lower today on the back of a flat Wall Street lead and following straight days of gains.

Opera has given Yahoo the boot and made Google the default search engine for its Opera Mobile and Opera Mini Web browsers designed for mobile devices.

Apple distributed invitations Wednesday morning for “an iPhone software road map” event next week, which means we’re finally going to hear details on the plans for an iPhone software development kit.