eSafety reckons X should delete video because you can still see it with a VPN

PM Anthony Albanese has called Elon Musk an "arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law" and "a bloke who's chosen ego and showing violence over common sense", after a late night hearing in the Federal Court where eSafety won an injunction that forces X to remove a video of a Sydney priest getting stabbed. Simply blocking it for Australians but keeping the video up is not good enough. The argument eSafety made to justify this is "because the posts were still available outside Australia, and to Australian users accessing X using a virtual private network (VPN)" - yes, that's as dumb as it sounds and the judge went with it. The ball is in eSafety's court still. Are they going to use the powers blessed to them via the Online Safety Act to block X in Australia for refusing to co-operate? Go on Julie Inman-Grant, I dare ya. Do it!!

Melbourne driverless truck trial thwarted by union at last minute

Transurban was supposed to start a 6-month trial of self-driving trucks on Melbourne freeways last week, testing an Iveco S-Way AS550 along the M1 and Citylink between 10pm and 5am, but it was cancelled at the last minute due to the Transport Workers' Union cracking the shits. The TWU reckons that "no automated heavy vehicle should be placed on public roads until there is unanimous agreement from government officials, the industry, and the community that these vehicles are safe" - but how do they know this unless they test it? Transurban already tested the trucks in closed environments and received permission from the government, so putting it on public roads with a safety driver is the next step. It's obvious why the TWU hates driverless trucks, but this is a pissweak argument against testing them.

Netflix's password crackdown worked really well

Remember when Netflix decided it had enough of people sharing the passwords to their accounts and introduced a bunch of IP-address and geographic based restrictions? People were pissed off about it, but did they change their behavior? Nope. According to Netflix's latest letter to shareholders, that password crackdown saw a 15% increase in revenue year-on-year. Netflix admits that most people just paid up instead of cancelling their accounts when forced with the reality of their stories going away. Good for Netflix, but I fear internet piracy (at least in developed/wealthy countries) is a dying art. It's never been easier to download this stuff but I think there's a generation of people that never did it as kids, so they don't know how and that's sad.

Atomos Ninja Phone is a HDMI input for your iPhone 15 Pro

Atomos is an Aussie company globally known for their external video recorders that allow you to record higher quality video to an SSD via a camera's HDMI/SDI port rather than the internal storage which is often limited in video codec and dynamic range. Their latest product fresh out of NAB is the Ninja Phone. It essentially gives the iPhone Pro a 1080p HDMI input that you can then use to record direct to ProRes and/or stream high quality footage from a "proper" camera to platforms like Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat. I don't know how many video pros read this newsletter, but it's a tech niche I'm into so I'll keep sharing stuff that interests me!