### Issue 1873 - Friday 23rd June, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- NSW premier wants Meta to stop "broadcasting illegal acts" somehow
- Robotaxis keep getting in the way of San Francisco emergency services
- TPG call NBN uncompetitive, Canada passes their own News Media Bargaining Code, OpenAI lobbies EU for less regulation
- Videos of visionOS simulator hit YouTube, some new features discovered
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Ryzen CPU, Ring doorbell, 83" LG OLED, Sony A7III camera, Kingston SSD, Amazon Fire TV Cube, Logitech mouse, Sonos Arc, Xbox controller, Lenovo Apple & Sony cashback

## The News

### NSW premier wants Meta to stop "broadcasting illegal acts" somehow

The NSW premier told the Daily Telegraph yesterday that he's requested a meeting with Meta to join him and the police, to discuss stopping "the broadcast of illegal acts", after members of Blockade Australia spent the last week being mildly inconvenient to fossil fuel companies for their crimes against the planet. Ignoring the civil liberty and democratic issues with this thought bubble, and ignoring the technical aspects of implementing this, it really demonstrates the extremely low, lizard brain, level of operation politicians in Australia operate at when it comes to technology. Shit like this should be laughed at when uttered out loud, not published in a daily newspaper as a legitimate thing to do.

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### Robotaxis keep getting in the way of San Francisco emergency services

San Francisco's Fire Chief is pissed off with robotaxis from Waymo and Cruise that keep getting in the way of emergency vehicles, logging at least 39 incidents since they started operating without a safety driver in the last year or so. Some examples include "sitting motionless on a one-way street and forcing a firetruck to back up and take another route to a blazing building", "entering an active fire scene, then parking with one of its tires on top of a fire hose" and "blocking firehouse driveways, requiring another firehouse to dispatch an ambulance to a medical emergency". Imagine if it was your house burning down, or your heart collapsing, and a goddamn robotaxi was holding up assistance.

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### TPG call NBN uncompetitive, Canada passes their own News Media Bargaining Code, OpenAI lobbies EU for less regulation

- TPG's submission to the ACCC over NBN's price increases says that "in a competitive market, NBN Co would be expected to reduce or minimise price increases, increase service quality, or do both. The fact NBN Co is comfortable imposing annual price increases close to its potential maximum demonstrates it is not at all concerned with competition from other providers". TPG is correct.
- Canada's copied our News Media Bargaining Code and passed a law that once worked through a bunch of box ticking exercises, will force Meta and other tech companies to negotiate with publishers and pay them for linking to their content. In response, Meta will do what it did here and remove news from Facebook and Instagram for Canadians. That didn't go well for the media companies, did it?
- Time has seen documents from EU officials showing how despite begging for AI regulation, OpenAI lobbied to have general purpose AI systems taken off the "high risk" list, attracting strict rules that would place a burden on OpenAI's products in the EU. They succeeded too, with the latest EU draft watering down the level of transparency and human oversight systems like ChatGPT would need to comply with.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Videos of visionOS simulator hit YouTube, some new features discovered

Now that the visionOS SDK is live, there's a few YouTube videos of the Apple Vision Pro simulator in action from AppleInsider, MacRumors and TechLead. It's obviously not as good as wearing the headset, but it's a way for developers to see if their apps even work. One feature I saw in the demos that was nice is a "guest" mode where users can't see messages, photos, and other private info when they bug you to try out your fancy new headset. There's also a "travel mode" built-in that's designed for use on an airplane and adapts the headset for the "specific constraints of an airplane cabin". MacStories has a collection of tweets & toots from iOS developers getting their apps running on visionOS.

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## 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.

- chendo is after people with Bluetooth enabled Sony cameras to test their geotagging iOS app
- petecohen wants to get a laptop for their primary school aged child and is after some tips
- andrew needs a US freight forwarder now that Australia Post's ShopMate no longer exists
- josephb kicked off a chat about Mastodon and how often people use it - there's also a thread to post your Mastodon username that got bumped recently
- gurgle hooked up a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera to a Pi Zero to turn it into a fancy USB camera

## Bargains

- 15% cashback (no cap) at Lenovo's online store via Cashrewards
- 7% cashback (no cap) at Apple's online store via Cashrewards
- 14% cashback (no cap) at Sony's online store via Cashrewards (PlayStation excluded)
- AMD Ryzen 9 5900X AM4 CPU - $471.73 from Scorptec's eBay store
- Ring Doorbell 4 & Chime - $279 from Ring.com
- LG 83" OLED83C2PSA 4K TV - $5,888 from JB Hi-Fi
- Sony A7III digital camera - $1,602 after 14% cashback via Cashrewards and Sony's $400 cashback offer
- Kingston NV2 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD - $117.95 from Amazon Germany
- Amazon Fire TV Cube - $109.50 from Amazon
- Logitech MX Master 3S wireless mouse - $119 from Bing Lee's eBay store
- Sonos Arc soundbar - $1095 from West Coast Hi-Fi
- Xbox Series Wireless Controllers - $62.10 at Big W, $69 at JB & Amazon

## Image Of The Day

My Sportsbet receipt for the clearly inevitable cage fight between Zuck & Musk. Let's go Zuck! Put Elon into the ground!! (Sportsbet)

## The End

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The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong 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.