Mentioned in today’s edition: Meta, Ben Thompson, SpaceX, Android, Duolingo, Microsoft, Threads and the iPhone 17. Plus, deals on ASUS desktops, Soundpeats earbuds and Govee TV backlights.

The News

Social media researchers not disclosing tech company links

Close to a third of scientists with social media-related research published in mainstream journals aren't properly disclosing ties to tech companies, a new paper claims (Science). A pre-print article analysing 300 of the most cited papers since 2010 found that half of them had a connection to social media companies, but only 20% declared it (arxiv). 

The Sizzle: This gets to a really thorny issue in science and tech. Researchers are encouraged by universities to collaborate with industry, but sometimes this involvement is used to claim they're not independent. Some experts I spoke to during the teen social media ban were painted as shills for their unpaid involvement in social media companies’ academic advisory boards. At the same time, tech companies (and other industries) do have an incredible amount of power to influence research by choosing who to fund and limiting who can access their black-box systems.

I asked friend of the Sizzle and Australia’s greatest science journalist Jackson Ryan about this, and he said this problem isn’t limited to social media researchers:

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Australian rocket startup's valuation soaring (higher than its vessels)

Gilmour Space has cemented its status as a unicorn, locking in a valuation of more than $1 billion in its latest funding round (SmartCompany). As you might remember, Gilmour's previous achievement was a 14 second maiden flight. This was apparently enough to convince investors to chip in $217m in funding, including the $75 million from the National Reconstruction Fund which is paid by you, the taxpayer (NRFC). This comes amid a big rush of money into the global space sector and, maybe, a SpaceX IPO (Reuters).

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Not even Apple gets the Apple Vision Pro

With Meta backing away from the metaverse (TechCrunch), I liked this impassioned blog from stud tech analyst Stratechery's Ben Thompson about how Apple doesn't understand the AVP. He says the company's sports content is built for TV (lots of cuts between cameras, etc) which is flashy but terrible for VR, rather than staying in one position and letting people look around which is the point of VR. Have you ever watched anything in VR? Is there something that you think would be a "killer app" viewing experience? Let me know!

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of World:

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Oh, Also

Your group chat messages are not legally binding contracts, UK court finds

A UK court has ruled that, no, your shitposts in a group chat are not legally binding (Archive). This came up in divorce proceedings where a soon-to-be-bankrupt husband said in a message to his wife that he was signing over the house to her, something that she would later claim was an official contract.

The wife's lawyer's argument was that having the husband's name in the header above the message counted as a legal signature. The judge disagreed: "I consider that the header within a WhatsApp ‘chat’ identifying the sender is analogous to the email address that is added by the relevant service provider to the top of an email, utilising the sender’s email address...It is, I consider, therefore, properly to be regarded as incidental to the message itself, rather than as forming part thereof."

A follow-up from me: would a newsletter count asfue a contract? Shall we find out? 

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Bargains

Electronics

Computing

The End

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