Plus: Japan gets all the cool things ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

October 22, 2025 | Read online
# Kids on the grown-up net, Musk owes Tesla owners $10K & tech lobby CEO quits Plus: Japan gets all the cool things
Edition 2444 (or TKTKTK+1)
#chip computer (Flickr: Kaspars Dambis)
# The News
### Government knows a lot of kids will get around the ban. What they’ll find on the other side of it isn’t pretty
The benefits from the teen social media ban will be undermined if people are getting around it, the government has been privately warned (Crikey, $). The Albanese goverment has always said it expects some kids to get around the ban. Now, research commissioned by the government but not released shows that 1 in 3 parents are planning on helping their kids get around it. This could “snowball” and become normalised, said the report’s authors, based on interviews they did with teens and parents.
The Sizzle: The teen social media ban is a popular policy, so I’m surprised to see that so many parents will help their kids thwart it. Add to that number kids who find ways around the ban without their parents, and you’re looking at a lot of people getting around the ban.
So what? One thing that is being massively under-appreciated is that: what kids will experience if they get around the ban is a much less friendly space (Crikey, $). Experts and tech companies have told me and warned publicly that kids will be using social media platforms without the youth safety guardrails that currently apply. Or maybe even going to dodgy, non-compliant websites. The problem with circumvention isn’t that the ban won’t work — it’s that kids are being herded to less safe parts of the internet.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Elon Musk owes roughly $10,000 to a lot of Australian Tesla owners
Some Australian Tesla owners are fuming after pointlessly forking over money for a car and software based on Elon Musk’s lies about self-driving (Electrek). The recent release of “““Full Self-Driving””” Australia is only available for people whose Teslas have the most recent self-driving hardware, HW4, and not the previous HW2 and HW3. This is a problem because Tesla said in 2016 that all of their cars would be able to support self-driving. That was a lie. People who bought vehicles and even pre-ordered software, but Tesla is now only releasing features for the latest HW4 owners.
Now, owners of the older vehicles are joining a class action to sue the company (Electrek) and the company is offering a $5,000 discount on new vehicles for people who bought FSD. Except, as Electrek notes, this isn’t just for older hardware owners, but for anyone with FSD lol. So, plenty of Australians have just given Musk a free loan and rushed to buy his products — and are now being treated like shit.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Australia’s tech lobby CEO leaves suddenly at an interesting moment
The chief executive of Australia’s tech lobby group has “abruptly” quit (AFR, $). Former Afterpay exec and Labor staffer Damian Kassabgi has resigned from the Tech Council of Australia after just 16 months in the job. In a note, Kassabgi said he wanted “better and healthier balance”. The AFR reports that members were “underwhelmed by his notably lower public profile” than his predecessor and the group’s “seeming lack of policy direction” under his leadership. FYI — TCA represents a bunch of Australian tech companies like Canva, some big global ones like Microsoft, and a few VC firms.
The Sizzle: I have no reason to doubt Kassabgi’s rationale for leaving the job, given that he lives in Byron and commutes a lot. A few people I spoke to today didn’t seem surprised that he was leaving early.
Beyond the palace intrigue, I’ve been closely watching TCA since Atlassian founder Scott Farquhar became its chair. At a time when everyone wants a piece of the tech sector, TCA’s biggest splashes recently have been (sometimes clumsily) arguments for controversial changes like watering down copyright laws or digital embassie..
Critics of the group’s direction have asked why a group supposedly representing Australian tech companies would be pushing so hard for changes that seem to primarily benefit global companies here in Australia? With Kassabgi out, I’m expecting some changes in approach — and maybe finding out how much of this recent push has come from its new chair.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Australia:
Telstra scales back national fibre rollout (iTnews) Why one company's glitch just broke half the internet (SMH, $) rare article with some good ideas about what to do about cloud consolidation Please stop putting Peter's phone number on your accounts (Information Age)
Rest of the world:
OpenAI Set to Challenge Google With New ChatGPT Atlas Browser (Bloomberg) and OpenAI’s announcement YouTube will use AI to detect and remove unauthorized deepfakes (The Verge) TikTok weakens rules around giving information to government (Forbes) Inside the Trump Administration's Bluesky Invasion (WIRED, $) AI chatbots give unreliable and biased advice to voters, Dutch watchdog finds (The Guardian) Amazon’s internal documents show that it want to replace 600,000 jobs with robots (NYT, $) Is Sora the Beginning of the End for OpenAI? (Cal Newport) Build your own database (nan dot fyi) Doomsday Scoreboard (March1studios) Bro punished ChatGPT (Reddit)
| Jai @lowercasejai.bsky.social |
LMAOOO WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE NEW XBOX HANDHELD COMES WITH MICROSOFT TEAMS AND ONEDRIVE INSTALLED??? this is the fucking goofiest company in games
7:24 PM • Oct 15, 2025
3.58K Likes 912 Reposts | 103 Replies
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### Japan gets all the cool things
One thing that Google Japan is known for is coming up with various whacky keyboard designs — as a joke, I think. I have only just come across this year’s contribution: a rotary telephone-style keyboard. It also comes with a stand that will end a call when you put your mouse on it (à la a phone handset). Google isn’t selling it, unfortunately, but it has open-sourced its design. Please tell me if you make one.
Gboard ダイヤルバージョン / Gboard Dial Version
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & Electronics
10% cashback on Samsung watch and accessories, 8% other purchases DIY Temperature Humidity Meter Soldering Kit with Expressive LED Face - $14.89 at ICStation Roborock Qrevo EdgeC (Discount Code) + Free Levoit Mini Air Purifier & Floor Cleaner - $1413 at Tech Sales Online eufy Robot Vacuum Omni E28 + 10% cashback - $1359 at Goodbuyz Bezzera Magica PID Espresso Machine + BB005 Grinder Combo - $2900 at Coffee Machine Specialist (Down from $4,020)
Computing
Samsung EVO Plus 128GB MicroSD Card - $21.25 at PocketShop Australia eBay GL.inet Flint 3 (GL-Be9300) Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Home Router - $241 at GL.inet Apac Gaming PCs: R7-9800X3D, B650 Gaming Plus WiFi, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD at TechFast RTX 5080 for $2788 RTX 5090 for $4960
Mobile
20% off Coles Mobile Recharge Vouchers Samsung Galaxy Phones at Phonebot Samsung Galaxy A15 (Open Box) for $169 Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 5G 128GB (Refurb) for $349 Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 5G 256GB (Refurb) for $399 Vodafone prepaid plus starter pack with 300GB - $199 at Vodafone Xiaomi 15T + Redmi Watch 5 at Xiaomi AU 12GB/256GB for $749 12GB/512GB for $819
# The End
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