### Issue 1857 - Wednesday 31st May, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- AI experts & CEOs release statement saying that AI is as dangerous as "pandemics and nuclear war"
- Meta & TikTok reveal how many Australian government requests for data they respond to
- Apple & Broadcom invest in USA chip making, Meta sells Giphy in a fire sale, ACMA fines SMS providers sending scams, Aus Post vehicles enlisted to make national mobile coverage map, Force System's solid state cooling device
- Anyone need an ExpressCard/34 to PCIe NVMe SSD adapter?
- Cheap QNAP NAS, Bluetti power station, $99/m Telstra contract, Amaysim pre-paid SIM, TeamGroup SSD, Philips Hue Lightstrip, Logitech Lightspeed wireless mouse, Samsung Galaxy phones & tablets, Legend of Zelda, Surface Laptop 5, TCL 4K TV, Pixel 7, UE Boom 3 speaker

## The News

### AI experts & CEOs release statement saying that AI is as dangerous as "pandemics and nuclear war"

A bunch of academic AI experts, along with the CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind and others have used the Center for AI Safety to put out a "succinct statement" to "voice concerns about some of advanced AI’s most severe risks". The statement in its entirety is as follows: "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war". Cool, thanks for that. Maybe you, as the people who make this fucking shit, could do something about it then? What the fuck do you want us to do???

### Meta & TikTok reveal how many Australian government requests for data they respond to

Meta and TikTok have revealed in their latest biannual transparency reports that they've "complied with 3654 of 4517 requests for user data from Australian authorities relating to 5338 accounts last year". Those authorities include the AFP, eSafety Commissioner and various courts around the country. Meta had the bulk of them, but TikTok "complied with 91 of 224 requests relating to 229 users, including 179 legal requests and 277 emergency requests". Dunno what Meta and TikTok are handing over exactly, but they're certainly co-operating with the bulk of requests.

### Apple & Broadcom invest in USA chip making, Meta sells Giphy in a fire sale, ACMA fines SMS providers sending scams, Aus Post vehicles enlisted to make national mobile coverage map, Force System's solid state cooling device

Some old news from my bookmarks that didn't make the cut when it was fresh, but seems useful enough to dig out on a slow news day:

- Apple signed a "multi-year agreement with Broadcom will see Apple use 5G radio frequency and wireless connectivity components, including FBAR filters, that are designed and manufactured in the US". Yeah, eat shit China, USA number 1.
- Meta was forced by the UK government to sell Giphy after it found that Meta acquired Giphy illegally and created a monopoly "in the GIF and social media marketplaces". Meta sold it to Shutterstock for US$53m last week after buying it in 2020 for US$315m.
- ACMA has busted Sinch, Infobip and Phone Card for sending "non-compliant SMS", impersonating "well known Australian road toll companies", Medicare and Australia Post. Sinch sent over 100,000 scam SMS so it's not like they didn't know what waas going on.
- A program that'll use Australia Post vehicles to create a national mobile signal coverage map along with "commercially available" data is progressing and will start collecting data "towards the end" of 2023. Looking forward to this!
- A started called Force Systems has made "a micro-electromechanical system that shoots air out of a solid-state chip, cooling with a device thinner and quieter than most fans could manage". Zotac are gonna ship it on some mini-PCs later this year.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Anyone need an ExpressCard/34 to PCIe NVMe SSD adapter?

Remember ExpressCard 3G modems and soundcards? Well the wizards of Shenzhen have made an ExpressCard/34 to PCIe NVMe SSD adapter. That's right, find yourself a 2242 size SSD (its like a 2280 SSD, but shorter - 42mm instead of 80mm), shove it in this enclosure then jam it into your laptop. According to this blog post, it "worked right out of the box" on a ThinkPad T430 running Fedora 36 and Linux kernel version 5.19.12. Performance is more or less like a SATA SSD as ExpressCard is hooked up via a PCIe 2.0 x1 link, but damn the life people are getting out of these T430 ThinkPads is insane.

## Bargains

- QNAP TS-464-8G 4-bay NAS - $799 from HT's eBay store
- Bluetti EB55 power station - $749 from Basic Value's eBay store
- $1300 JB Hi-Fi gift card if you port over to a Telstra $99/m 24m contract
- Amaysim $12 pre-paid SIM starter pack - $6 at Chemist Warehouse
- TeamGroup MP34 4TB PCIe 3.0 SSD - $289 + delivery from PC Byte
- Philips Hue Lightstrip Outdoor 2m - $97 from Amazon
- Logitech G502 LIGHTSPEED wireless gaming mouse - $129 from Amazon

JB Hi-Fi has a 10% off sale for Perks members (free to sign up), a few good deals around:

- Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 128GB - $741.60
- Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G - $512.10
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for Switch - $71.10
- Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 (i7-1255U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1798.20
- TCL C835 4K Full Array Mini LED QLED TV 65"/75" - $1076.40/$1436.40
- Google Pixel 7 128GB & $150 JB Hi-Fi gift card - $674.10
- Ultimate Ears Boom 3 Bluetooth speaker - $102.60

## Image Of The Day

Microsoft's CEO Bill Gates, left, takes delivery of a picture from Intel's CEO Andy Grove, right, at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, May 13, 1993. Gates bought the picture last month for $25,000, which was donated to the Software Education Foundation. The picture is called "Die Plot of Pentium Processor". The two were meeting at Microsoft. (AP Photo/Barry Sweet)

## The End

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