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Yesterday’s edition prompted some interesting questions about if I’ve thought about changing ISP (no but maybe I should) and if I could make a plain-text only version of the Sizzle permanent (I’ll look into it).

The News

NBN Co is thinking about charging for AI-related traffic

NBN Co is sizing up AI-related traffic as a new way of making money for the national network (ITNews). NBN Co’s Asif Khan made comments at a Cisco event about “monetising our investment” into its fibre network by charging extra for the growing amount of AI traffic. It’s unclear who would be paying in this suggestion — presumably the providers and not the users. If this sounds like deja vu, that’s because this was NBN Co’s abandoned 2019 plan to charge extra for traffic to Netflix and other streaming video platforms (ITNews).

The Sizzle: NBN Co has never seen a source of traffic that it hasn’t wanted to charge extra for. It ditched its 2019 “Netflix tax” idea soon after it floated it after widespread opposition to the idea of getting rid of net neutrality. My understanding is that one of the fundamental challenge is the technical problem of determining the nature of traffic — something that NBN says it can do with AI traffic thanks to Cisco’s technology if you believe what was said at the Cisco event.

Thanks to MMC who dropped this story in the Slack today.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Maybe phones shouldn’t come preinstalled with data harvesting bloatware, OK?

Samsung has been accused of selling phones to developing countries that have hard-to-remove invasive bloatware pre-installed (Android Authority). Earlier this year, credible Lebanon-based digital rights organisation SMEX released a report highlighting “the significant amount of data” collected by an application, AppCloud, that comes preinstalled on Samsung A and M series smartphones and is developed by an Israeli-based company. Because the app is built into the operating system by Samsung, it can only be removed with root access.

The Sizzle: Not entirely sure why this story has bubbled up this week but clearly the implication is that this is some kind of Israeli government op. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing concrete that suggests that AppCloud more than your standard, data-hungry bloatware that comes pre-installed on cheap Android devices… which is to say, it’s really bad! Samsung (and Google) should release a fix to make it easy for people to uninstall this shit ASAP.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

AI critic’s book may have overstated data centre water usage by 1000x and everyone is handling this very normally

There’s been a little bit of AI-critic related drama playing out over the past day or so: An US effective altruist Andy Masley wrote a newsletter criticising Karen Hao’s wildly popular book Empire of AI. He had a bunch of issues but the biggest was the claim that Hao miscalculated the water use of a data centre by 1000x — a claim that Hao appears to accept may be true, based on her response to the post (Hao’s reply). It was a very cordial interaction between the two, so, naturally, both AI boosters and critics are going crazy about it.

The Sizzle: Hao’s book is on my summer to-read list so I can’t give much of a take re: how much this impacts how we should think about the book. But, as a recent author, let me tell you something: an error like this is both my worst nightmare and something that is wayyyy more prevalent than you might suspect.

Fact-checking non-fiction books is a hugely time consuming, expensive and imperfect process. And that’s for the people that bother. Many books either receive a cursory fact-check by subeditors as they go through the editing process, or aren’t fact-checked at all. Clearly, Hao tried to check this error that appears to have arisen from a translation issue — and even that is more rigorous than many other authors.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of the world

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

This homemade kiddie synth is TOOOOO CUTEEEEE

I saw this pop up on Hacker News and thought it is sooo cute. London-based software engineer Alastair Roberts built the sweetest step-sequencing synthesiser for his kid (bitsandpieces). Reminds me of the DIY music player that I shared earlier this year.

Roberts has uploaded the design files in case you want to build one for yourself or — if you’re like me and know that embarking on this project means ending up with a bunch of bits stuck on your desk for the next year — has also made a callout for anyone who would be interested in buying one.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

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.