### Issue 1759 - Friday 6th January, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Louisiana implements age verification for porn, locks up wrong guy for a week based on weak facial recognition match
- NYC schools block ChatGPT, machine learning conference does the same, Microsoft adds it to Bing, Apple uses AI to read audiobooks, Adobe scraping user content to train AI
- Random Crap from CES 2023
- WhatsApp adds proxy feature to get around government internet blocks
- Friday Forum Update
- dghdf5h

## The News

### Louisiana implements age verification for porn, locks up wrong guy for a week based on weak facial recognition match

The US state of Louisiana has lived up to its reputation as backwards, selfish and straight up stupid. They've passed a law requiring age verification in order to view "adult content" on any website where such content is more than 33.3% of the content on the site. Pornhub has already implemented a system where you link your "LA Wallet" (I guess the Louisiana equivalent of MyGov) to Pornhub. What could possibly go wrong? Meanwhile, police in Jefferson Parish used a shitty facial recognition system to lock up an innocent dude from a different state for almost a week, over a crime he didn't commit. This is what happens when you give technology to mean and righteous people.

### NYC schools block ChatGPT, machine learning conference does the same, Microsoft adds it to Bing, Apple uses AI to read audiobooks, Adobe scraping user content to train AI

New York City public schools have blocked ChatGPT, saying that "while the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success". The International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) did similar, banning "papers that include text generated from a large-scale language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT". Microsoft however, loves ChatGPT and will be adding it to Bing to improve search results. Apple announced they're going to make a shitload of audiobooks available that have been read by a "digital voice based on a human narrator". Check out the demos of Madison, Jackson, Helena and Mitchell. Adobe decided to scan "your content using techniques such as machine learning" and made it an opt-out rather than opt-in feature, understandably pissing off anyone paying attention.

### Random Crap from CES 2023

- Sony is hooking up with Honda to create a joint-venture car company called Afeela (lol) to make and sell EVs. First cars will go on sale in the USA some time in 2026. That's a long lead time, but good luck. I wouldn't mind a Sony car. Sony also announced "Project Leonardo", a controller for the PS5 aimed at accessibility like the Xbox Adaptive Controller, but with no price or date.
- Lenovo has a shitload of stuff announced at CES, but the most captivating is the Yoga Book 9i. It's a laptop with dual 13-inch OLED screens and despite its comical first glance, I think could be very handy. Who hasn't wanted dual monitors on the go? It's not officially announced, but should cost around US$2,100 and go on sale in April.
- AMD has new CPUs. 7000-series Ryzen 9 and Ryzen 7 get the 3D V-Cache cache treatment, which AMD pitches as being the ultimate gaming CPUs. More interesting are new 7000-series mobile CPUs based on the TSMC 4nm process. AMD reckons the Ryzen 9 7940HS is 30% faster than Apple's M1 Pro - but didn't go into specifics on power consumption (just "30 hours of video playback") and didn't compare it to the M1 Pro Max.
- Qualcomm announced that Android phones using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC will be able to send SMS and emergency messages via the Iridium satellite network. They call the feature "Snapdragon Satellite" and it's similar to Apple's Emergency SOS via satellite feature in the iPhone 14. It requires OEM integration, so it's probably only for new phones and not all of them will actually implement it.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### WhatsApp adds proxy feature to get around government internet blocks

WhatsApp has added a handy new feature for those living in ratbag countries blocking users from using the relatively secure messaging app - proxy servers. Volunteers around the world can set up and operate proxy servers for WhatsApp users that are then shared around the presumably non-blocked infrastructure. According to WhatsApp "using a proxy doesn't change the high level of privacy and security that WhatsApp provides to all users. Your personal messages and calls will still be protected by end-to-end encryption", but proxy operators will know your IP address. Here's instructions on GitHub explaining how to install and run the WhatsApp maintained Docker container. Looks pretty easy if you've ever done anything with Docker in the past.

## Friday Forum Update

Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.

- fuzzygel wants to play Windows games they've purchased in Steam on their Apple Silicon Mac and needs some guidance in doing so.
- atomic is after tips for paying for US services that require US credit cards when you haven't got a US credit card.
- wolfjay has some info on Netflix adding film-grain to videos on the client side to save on bandwidth as it compresses better.
- jez wondered "why so much Google Analytics city data showed Coffeyville, Kansas" and found it's probably because Coffeyville is in the geographic centre of the USA.
- A bunch of people are sharing remote access to their Plex servers if you're keen to view the personal media libraries of your fellow Sizzle subscribers.

## Bargains

- WD Elements 12TB external HDD - $299 at Officeworks
- Crucial P3 4TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 SSD - $399 from AusPCMarket
- Google Nest Doorbell (Battery) - $269 from Mobileciti
- Canon EOS R10 Mirrorless Camera with RFS 18-45STM/RFS 18-150STM lens - $1188/$1516.13 at Amazon

## Image Of The Day

Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (CT4390) soundcard. RIP Sim Wong Hoo, founder of Creative Technology. (Konstantin Lanzet / Wikimedia Commons)

## The End

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