Plus: a website on a vape ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

September 16, 2025 | Read online
# Australia tech swagger, final teen social media ban rules & TikTok sale maybe Plus: a website on a vape
Edition 2419
"In preparation for the guerrilla tour, an open workspace was installed in the Künstlerhaus, with computers for research, printers to allow the results to flow immediately into the Möglichkeitensraum, a large-format city map for planning the route in the middle of the room. All work processes were designed to be as transparent as possible. activists, NGOs and civil society organisations were invited to participate in the process." (Flickr: Ars Electronica)
Hello!
I’m writing this from Town Hall in Sydney listening to a panel at Australia’s tech industry group’s annual summit, while simultaneously watching a captioned livestream of the government announcing its final details for the teen social media ban.
There’s never been a better time to write an Australian daily tech newsletter. Enjoy! CW
# The News
### Australia’s tech sector has a bit of swagger at the moment
“There’s been a significant shift in tone the last six months,” a grinning Tech Council of Australia (TCA) CEO Damian Kassabgi told me and a buzzy crowd at the opening night drinks of their annual conference.
TCA represents Australian tech companies like Atlassian, Canva, Airtree, Afterpay, and a few Australian arms of tech giants. Kassabgi reckons he’s hearing a lot of optimism about how the local tech industry is making new jobs and “efficiencies here” (whatever that means). Of course he would say that — but what I found noteworthy is just how much TCA is acting like they know everyone wants a piece of them at the moment.
Best seats in the house baby
The fact a handful of federal, state ministers and a premier are slated to appear at the summit shows just how keen governments are to be seen to be a friend of the Australian tech industry. When federal assistant Minister Andrew Charlton spoke on stage this morning, he credited TCA for how much influence they’ve had in public debate.
Of course, AI was the hot topic that was brought up in every panel. There was plenty of lionising of Canva and Atlassian and talk about finding the next “Canvas” and “Atlassian”.
One of the big messages they’re really trying to sell: the next tech boom, be it AI, quantum computing, whatever — it can happen in Australia.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### The final teen social media ban rules leave a lot of questions to still be answered
If you were hoping for the answers to many of your questions about the teen social media ban, the final set of rules probably won’t scratch that itch. This morning, Communications Minister Anika Wells and the eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant announced the drop of the “reasonable steps regulatory guidance” which lay out the vibes, not the rules, of what social media companies need to do to stop 16 year olds from having accounts on their platforms (PDF).
The Sizzle: I haven’t had a chance to go through the full regulations yet but the biggest news from watching the announcement was a requirement for an appeals process in case your account is wrongly deemed to be underage — a sensible idea.
Zooming out, there is a lot that is unanswered about the teen social media ban. We don’t know how confident social media platforms need to be with their methods. We don’t know what methods will be acceptable. We don’t know how much circumvention (i.e. kids getting around the ban) is acceptable. We don’t know how the government will measure whether the policy is a success or failure. It’s really just vibes all the way down.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### There might be a US TikTok sale… maybe?
A deal has been struck to bring TikTok under US ownership, according to American and Chinese negotiators (Guardian). You might have forgotten this because so much has happened since then, but Joe Biden passed a law last year requiring TikTok to be banned in January unless it was majority owned by US interests. Now, there’s a “framework” with “commercial terms agreed upon”.
The Sizzle: When details come out, I will be very interested to find out the identity of the American owners. I’m also curious to see if this will be like Trump’s last TikTok deal which ended up with the video platform just signing a random contract with Oracle to have American servers but fundamentally not changing anything else (The Verge). Somehow, I don’t think this will be a simple sale. With Trump, it’s never simple.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
'We hire fewer entry-level engineers': Aussie firms on AI impact (Information Age) Canva rules out Australia listing, Nasdaq move will have to wait (The Australian Financial Review, $) Google brings in Labor-aligned lobbying heavies amid policy skirmish (Capital Brief, $) Apple finds a new market with Watch for kids (Pickr) Total porn ban proposed by Michigan lawmakers (FOX 2 Detroit) Google releases VaultGemma, its first privacy-preserving LLM (Ars Technica) Facebook gave our data to Cambridge Analytica and all I got was this $38.36 (The Verge) Wanted to spy on my dog, ended up spying on TP-Link (Joshua Kennedy's Blog)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### A website on a vape
Just the other day, I was looking at someone’s disposable vape with amusement. The $40 device had a colour, pretty detailed LED screen to show animations with clouds and other gimmicks to indicate how much juice it had left. Pretty crazy how advanced it was (not to mention wasteful).
Anyway, Bogdan the Geek decided to do something with this and has shared on Github how they’ve turned their vape into a web server.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & Electronics
$70 off for Appliances Online referrers and referees (minimum $500 spend) Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 Peony - $179 at Officeworks (Down from $379) Google Pixel Watch 3 Wi-Fi 41mm - $347 at Officeworks RingConn Gen 2 (Matte Black) - $391 at Amazon AU (Down from $499) Hisense 40" A4QAU Full HD Smart TV 2025 - $395 at Harvey Norman ECOVACS DEEBOT T30S Pro Robot Vacuum - $899 at Ecovacs Robotics via Amazon AU (Down from $1999) Roborock Qrevo EdgeC Robot Vacuum and Mop (White) - $1499 at Amazon AU LG 86" NANO80 AI LED UHD 4K Smart TV - $1900 at Costco (Membership Required) (Down from $2650)
Computing
15% cashback at Lenovo - at TopCashback AU NOVOO USB C Docking Station Triple Monitor, 11 in 1 USB-C to Dual HDMI Adapter 4USB Ports - $41.99 at Amazon 9100 PRO with Heatsink PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD at samsung.com 1TB for $197.40 2TB for $293.40 Dell UltraSharp U3415W 34" 3440x1440p, IPS 60hz Curved Monitor & Monitor Arm (refurbished) - $199 at BPC Tech Lenovo Xiaoxin Pad Pro 2025 (12.7" 2.9K 144Hz, 8GB/128GB, Widevine L1) - $264 at Goldway AliExpress Sapphire Radeon RX 9060 XT Pulse 16GB Graphics Card - $560 at Mwave
Mobile
Telstra pre-paid 28 Days 65GB - $17 at Telstra (Down from $49)
# The End
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