statistics

Official: Australia Hopelessly Hooked On Cars

It shouldn’t be news that Australians are heavily reliant on private motor vehicles, but this infographic using Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data highlights just how dependent we are. The number that jumps out at me? While our average vehicle age is 10 years, there have still been 1.2 million new vehicles added to our roads since 2007.


Top IT Skills: Security, BI, Mobility

Work in IT and want to know what your boss will be spending money on next year? A recent survey suggests security will be at the top of the pile.


House Prices Mostly Flat, Unless You Live In Canberra Or Perth

The latest statistics on housing price changes in Australia suggest there’s not much changing. The only shifts above 1 per cent in the last quarter were in Perth, which went up 1.8 per cent, and Canberra, which fell 1.1 per cent, according to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).


How We Misinterpret Medical Statistics

If I told you that reported chlamydia infections in Australia had risen eightfold over a ten year period and that the majority of infections were in people under 29, you might conclude that those pesky youngsters are routinely indulging in unsafe sex. You’d be wrong — a reminder that you need to consider the full context of statistics before drawing conclusions.


Do We Really Want Cheap Android Phones?

Android phones cover a huge range of price points, from sub-$100 devices running Gingerbread badly to $1000 chunks of Jelly Bean gorgeousness. The cheap end of the spectrum is going to grow rapidly over the next four years according to NPD DisplaySearch, but cheap smartphones still won’t make up the majority of the market.


Our Mobile Phones Are Merely Highly Evolved Tools For Locating Good Coffee

At least, that’s what this infographic from Roamz would suggest. The Aussie-developed mobile tool for finding neat stuff near you added a search facility in its most recent update, and the most popular search term turns out to be coffee.


Men Shop More Carefully Online For Phones

It’s a dull stereotype that women spend more time and energy shopping than men, but does that behaviour translate online? An analysis of shopping habits by comparison site Lasoo suggests that while women compare more items than men on average, it’s a different story when it comes to phones and entertainment.


ABS Pulls iPhone App After Census Snafu

We reported on Monday that there was an official and free Australian Bureau Of Statistics (ABS) app for the iPhone, but you would have needed to grab it quickly. The ABS has pulled the app after it emerged that it was using data from the 2006 census rather than the 2011 version.


The Internet Isn’t Changing The English Language As Quickly As You Might Imagine

I’ll be the first to argue that the internet has ruined everyone’s ability to spell, but we can easily overestimate the effect that being online has on our language and presume wrongly that the rate of change today is faster than ever before. Research conducted at the University of Slovenia suggests that word frequency for the most common phrases in English was much more variable 500 years ago than in the present day.


The Most Common Causes Of Preventable Suffering (And Their Simple Solutions)

Chances are you’re not as concerned about your health as you should be. At the same time, sensational news consistently scares us into thinking everyday actions are killing us. When statistics tell you that eating certain foods, using certain products, or simply sitting down to work will destroy your body, it can feel like there’s no escape. However, that’s not true. Let’s look at some of those daunting numbers, and consider just how easy it is to avoid becoming an unpleasant health statistic.


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