Issue 2300 - Thursday 27 March 2025

Small technical note: the Sizzle forum emails aren’t working ATM so hold off trying to sign up or reset your password for now - CW

The News

Android goes less open and Google makes Shorts metrics useless

Android is taking its development fully private, ending its practice of accepting contributions and sharing some of its development publicly (Android Authority). Google say it is doing this because it essentially meant they had two separate branches of development, and that combining them together was a pain! Android will remain open source but entirely developed in-house. A Slashdot commenter who says they’re a Google developer reckons this won’t have a big impact as there was already limited development in public but philosophically, they still wish it was open (Slashdot). While we’re on Google, get a load of this: YouTube is going to start counting a Shorts view as whenever one plays — like when you’re scrolling past — and not for watching a minimum time (The Verge). It’s worth paying attention to the definition of these metrics because, in my mind, this makes a “view” a worthless metric because you don’t know if someone has viewed it at all.

Next up on the privacy breach conveyor belt: NSW Courts and Nine papers

Continuing on from yesterday, there’s been a few more privacy oopsies-doopsies. NSW Courts reported a “major data breach” after 9000 sensitive court files were downloaded that shouldn’t’ve been (Capital Brief). And then today, I reported that thousands of SMH, AFR and Age subscribers were caught up in a breach when an open AWS S3 bucket exposed info including names, address, contact details and info about payments (Crikey, $). I waited for Nine to secure the bucket to publish but the researcher who tipped me off contacted the company a week earlier to no avail. As a post-note, one thing about Australia’s tech industry that is under-appreciated: both big media companies Nine and News Corp have enormous digital advertising and digital advertising operations (The Saturday Paper, $, had a good write up a few years back). These companies have a lot of data about most Australians and, given that they dictate media coverage, a lot of power over privacy reforms.

Australian road rules aren’t ready for self-driving cars, which are probably a lot safer than human drivers already

The least surprising thing you’ll read this year is that Australia’s road rules are not written for self-driving vehicles yet, researchers say (The Canberra Times). At the moment, our state laws typically regulate a human driver, leaving problems for when there is, er, no human driving. Our federal road authority, the National Transport Commission, is mulling over laws to allow full self-driving but hasn’t come up with the goods yet.

I enjoyed this newsletter on US self-driving taxi provider Waymo’s safety record which made the very blunt point that these vehicles — in the limited situations they’re deployed in — are better than humans at driving (Understanding AI). This doesn’t surprise me, even with all the qualifications, and it does make me want to see these vehicles rolled out in more places, even in limited circumstances. But here’s my prediction: people are still going to struggle to accept that self-driving is safer because, emotionally, humans feel better about being in control even if it’s much riskier to them and others.

Leftovers

Oh, Also

Do you know what Apple won’t let villains do?

The godfather of the Sizzle, Anthony, dropped news that the computer terminal from Apple TV hit TV show Severance is now listed on the Apple Store (TechCrunch). It’s a great show if you haven’t watched it — please don’t spoil it for me I’m still on S02E03 — but this reminded me of another fun piece of Apple entertainment lore: Did you know that Apple will not let villains in TV shows and movies use an iPhone, MacBook or any other Apple gear? Knives Out director Rian Johnson let this slip in an interview but it had long been speculated before (The Guardian). Apparently, Apple won’t sign off over the use of its trademarks or copyrights on screen unless their products are shown “in the best light” — which means strictly no baddies. So keep this in mind next time you’re watching a whodunnit and one of the characters is using a Google Pixel 9A!

Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

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Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.