### Issue 1889 - Monday 17th July, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Over 100 AFP staff have been using Auror retail surveillance platform without permission
- LG is gonna put ads all of its smart TVs and start subscription-based features to appliances
- Hundreds of drones plunge into Yarra river
- LiFi (802.11bb) is now an IEEE networking standard
- Cheap Crucial SSD, Amiga A500 mini, Azure cert exams, WD 22TB USB HDD, Apple gift cards, DJI Mini 3, Sony headunit

## The News

### Over 100 AFP staff have been using Auror retail surveillance platform without permission

This might be paywalled, but Crikey got back a few FOIs and discovered that the Australian Federal Police were (and possibly still are) using Auror - a facial recognition based "retail crime intelligence and loss prevention platform" that Bunnings and Woolworths are using in their stores to identify shoppers. Over 100 AFP staff used Auror and one AFP employee said in the FOI'd emails that Auror is "a great intel gathering system for me. I've found some incidents are placed on Auror but not reported to police". The only problem is, the AFP never did a security review of Auror and never had a formal agreement with Auror over its use.

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### LG is gonna put ads all of its smart TVs and start subscription-based features to appliances

LG is looking to squeeze more money out of its customers by turning its TV business into a "media and entertainment service provider" business. It'll expand its "content, services and advertisements" across its webOS platform that runs on over 200 million TVs around the world. LG plans to expand webOS to non-LG TVs and even "non-TV hardware" over the next five years. LG will also subscriptions to some of its more modern appliances in the ThinQ UP range (fridges, ovens, dishwashers, etc), that'll unlock features via the ThinQ app. Very much like what BMW and Tesla does with their cars. Nobody likes this. Please stop.

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### Hundreds of drones plunge into Yarra river

A drone light show before the Matilda's friendly match against France at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night went wrong, with 350 out of 500 drones dropping into the Yarra river mid-show. The drones are owned by Australian Traffic Network (what are they doing operating drone light shows??) and apparently "did exactly what they should've done with any technical glitch and they auto-rotated and landed" but did so over water, plunging to their death. Now there's a team of divers trying to find them all, as 350 lithium batteries are probably a bad idea to leave at the bottom of a river for eternity.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### LiFi (802.11bb) is now an IEEE networking standard

LiFi has its own IEEE standard now - 802.11bb and a company called PureLiFi is flogging a little module that allows devices to send and receive an optical signal at speeds at up to a gigabit between 20-300cm. Being light based, you need line of sight with no obstructions. Not sure what I'd use it for, but this article on Arstechnica quotes LiFi's lead developer saying it's good for "classrooms, medical, and industrial scenarios" and "ensures higher reliability and lower latency and jitter" than radios, particularly in congested areas. Cool, good luck to LiFi, will be interesting to see what people do with 802.11bb in various gadgets.

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## Bargains

- Crucial MX500 2TB SATA 2.5" SSD - $149 from Amazon
- Amiga A500 mini emulator - $139.20 from Amazon Germany
- 50% off Azure certification exam vouchers if you join the free Azure Connected Learning Experience
- WD 22TB external USB HDD - $570.95 from Amazon USA
- 20x Everyday Rewards Points on Apple gift cards at Woolworths
- 10% off Apple gift cards at giftcards.com.au
- DJI Mini 3 (DJI RC) drone with controller - $800.57 from Amazon Japan
- Sony XAV-AX6000 wireless CarPlay headunit - $569 after Sony cashback from CarAudioExcellence

## Image Of The Day

Alan Bond (yeah that Alan Bond) worked with Softime Australia and state Departments of Education to distribute this educational software package, "Cook's Endeavour", to schools across the country in 1989 (Jongleur / Internet Archive)

## 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.