### Issue 1921 - Wednesday 30th August, 2023

Seeing how the issue numbers currently remind me of years, I thought it'd be cool to start the issue off with a look back in tech-history. In 1921 the first electronically-transmitted photograph was sent by Western Union. It was a sort of an early fax, which in turn was originally conceived back in 1843 by a Scottish clockmaker. Crazy.

## In Today's Issue

- Google's AI 'Clippy' equivalent is rolling out today
- Virgin Australia will now track your bags
- Sportsballs want illegal streams squashed instantly
- Watch an AI learn how to play Super Mario live
- Get ya bargains! Bargains here!

## The News

### Google's AI 'Clippy' equivalent is rolling out today

Google Duet is the company's AI Frankenstein combining a Clippy like chat interface with ChatGPT's creative chops. It was originally announced at Google I/O back in May and promised to bring a raft of AI features to Google Workspace services such as Chat, Docs, Slides, Mail & more. It'll help you craft an email or summarise chats, as well as convert long documents into slide decks and a lot more. All that juice comes with a hefty price tag though. Duet will set you back US$30/user/month. A price sure to put many off, but is on par with Microsoft's Office AI equivalent "Copilot".

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### Virgin Australia will now track your bags

Are you reading that and thinking "Um, shouldn't they be doing that already?". Well you're absolutely right they should, it's just now they're going to ping you to let you know where your bags are in their system across most of Australia's major airports (sorry Perth). Launching today the system's main feature is a push notification sent to passengers just before their bags hit the carousel for pickup. Somehow I was one of their guinea pigs for this back in May and can attest to receiving a ping about 2 minutes before my bag came out at Adelaide airport. I still use Airtags though and have a lot more faith in them to be honest. Qantas are reportedly working on the same system & is expected to roll it out over the next 2 years.

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### Sportsballs want illegal streams squashed instantly

A cohort of US based sports leagues including the NBA, NFL & UFC are advocating for 'instantaneous' takedowns of pirated livestreams. The group say the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) doesn't go far enough with the requirement to "expeditiously" remove infringing content. The biggest problem being that nowhere in the DMCA do they define "expeditiously" and providers tend to shut down illegal streams by letting the games just end. Naturally the idea of blocking sites that host pirated streams is being waved around too in what's sure to be a fun little shit-show harkening back to the good old days of The Pirate Bay and alike.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Watch an AI learn how to play Super Mario live

There are a series of AI trying to learn how to play Super Mario right now and one of them called "Rupert" is doing quite well having cleared 2 levels already. You can watch its many, many, many, many attempts live on TikTok (of all places) right now. This isn't exactly new, one of the first successful attempts was a project called MarI/O, which Rupert is repurposing. It has a fascinating explainer on YouTube if you'd like to open that can of worms.

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## Bargains

- Apple Airpods Pro (2nd gen) - $338 Amazon
- Sennheiser HD560S headphones - $188.10 Sennheiser
- Lexar NM790 PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB - $129 Umart
- Google Pixel 7a 128GB - $599 Telstra (Telstra ID required)
- Diablo IV (PC) - $85.45 Battle.net

## Image Of The Day

Apple Logo Identity Guide - Apple Computer Australia Pty Ltd (Jongleur / Internet Archive)

## The End

📻 Don't Speak - No Doubt

😎 raj was ere `23

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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.