Nathan Cochrane

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Deal or No Deal host, Andrew O'Keefe (nephew of famed Aussie rocker Johnny O'Keefe), right, in this 2003 Seven Network promotional image with Nathan Cochrane.

Nathan Cochrane (1970- ) is an Australian journalist for the Fairfax newspaper group. He previously edited the NEXT IT section in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers. Prior to this, Cochrane edited the IT section of The West Australian newspaper in Perth in 1996 after a stint as its communications roundsman and general reporter.

His 2002 story on exploding CD-ROMs sparked the imagination of Beyond Television Productions and featured in the second episode of the first season of MythBusters.

A story the previous year, Melbourne Man Patents the Wheel, blew the lid off the growing absurdity of Australia's patent system and, after it was featured on Slashdot, led to MIT awarding jointly an Ig Nobel Prize to the patent applicant and IP Australia. Cochrane also broke the story that exposed the video compression scandal surrounding Adams Platform and its founder Adam Clark , and first brought to light the plight of Adam Hinkley ("Hinks") the young creator of the first modern peer-to-peer application, Hotline, and its company Hotline Communications. Cochrane was among the first journalists to sound warning bells about emerging music and video filesharing applications in 1996 and 2000, respectively.

At age 24, and after a decade online, he became Australia's first journalist on the web with the internationally acclaimed GameWave website. From age 15 he held posts at many IT companies, such as Commodore Business Machines, maker of the renowned Commodore 64 8-bit microcomputer, as well as running his own IT consultancies and video production business.

He is one of the world's biggest TV gameshow cash prize winners, winning $A515,000 in a single episode of Deal or No Deal.

With extensive radio and television experience, Cochrane is often asked to comment on tech issues on Australian radio and TV and at public speaking engagements. He will soon be seen by Australian audiences on a new, experimental digital television production set to air later in the year.