### Issue 1855 - Monday 29th May, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Huge extension cord between Darwin & Singapore back on track
- Neuralink gets permission from FDA to do human brain implant testing
- Nvidia to join the one trillion market cap club thanks to AI hype
- AI could help people struggling with tech at work, lifting their productivity significantly
- Cheap Macs, Google Nest Hub, Edifier speakers, refurb Alienware OLED monitor, Silicon Power 4TB SSD, Philips 27" 4K USB-C monitor, used Dell 23" HD monitor, Samsung 1TB portable SSD, Solidigm 1TB SSD, Fosi Audio amp, ThinkPad T14, Ryzen 7700X CPU

## The News

### Huge extension cord between Darwin & Singapore back on track

After a protracted bidding war, Mike Cannon-Brookes has wrestled control of Sun Cable, with Andrew Forrest "unconvinced of the commercial viability" of the company's plan to build a very long high voltage DC power cable from Darwin to Singapore and pump it full of fresh Aussie electricity from a 12,000 hectare solar farm in the Northern Territory. Forrest was initially onboard with exporting the electricity to Singapore, but now wants to "use the energy it generated for local projects, such as making hydrogen". This doesn't seem like a bad thing to me - maybe Forrest will build his own enormous solar farm, it's not like there's a lack of space in Australia's interior for another one.

### Neuralink gets permission from FDA to do human brain implant testing

The USA's FDA has approved a human clinical study of Nerualink - Elon Musk's implantable brain–computer interface. There's no info on when they'll start the trial, but Neuralink put out a tweet saying "recruitment is not yet open for our clinical trial. We'll announce more information on this soon!" - yeah I'm happy to let others try this out first. If you've forgotten, Musk said his long term aim with Neuralink is to achieve "symbiosis with artificial intelligence" and that the device will be "something analogous to a video game, like a saved game situation, where you are able to resume and upload your last state" and "address brain injuries or spinal injuries and make up for whatever lost capacity somebody has with a chip".

### Nvidia to join the one trillion market cap club thanks to AI hype

Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Alphabet will soon have a new member of the US$1 trillion dollar market cap club: Nvidia. The company best known for its graphics processing units saw a giant 24% boost in its share price (and Nvidia wasn't a small company!) late last week after it released financial results for Q1 2024, saying that "the computer industry is going through two simultaneous transitions - accelerated computing and generative AI" which woke up the market to realise that Nvidia are making the best picks and shovels during this AI fueled gold rush. Nobody's even close. Intel? AMD? Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem and the leverage of TSMC's cutting edge semiconductor manufacturing is a damn powerful combo.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### AI could help people struggling with tech at work, lifting their productivity significantly

An economic study by David Autor, "widely regarded as one of the greatest labor economists in the world", who previously researched how tech innovations increased inequality, has found that AI has a good chance of doing the opposite for once. His study found that "it's the less experienced and less skilled workers who benefit the most. In this customer support center, AI improved the know-how and intelligence of those who were new at the job and those who were lower performers. It suggests that AI could benefit those who were left behind in the previous technological era". There's still a lot that has to go right to make sure AI isn't abused, but if handled properly, it might not be a shit sandwich.

## Bargains

- 10% off Macs (except the M2 MacBook Air) at JB Hi-Fi
- Google Nest Hub 1st Gen - $59 from Allphones' eBay store
- Edifier R1855DB active bookshelf speakers - $149 from Centrecom
- Refurb Alienware 34" QD-OLED AW3423DW monitor - $1169 from Dell Outlet
- Silicon Power XPOWER XS70 4TB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD - $454 from Amazon Japan
- Phillips 279P1 27" 4K USB-C monitor - $399 + delivery from Mwave
- Used Dell P2317H 23" IPS 1080p monitor - $75 delivered from UN Tech
- Samsung T7 Touch 1TB Portable SSD - $129 at JB Hi-Fi
- Solidigm P44 Pro 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD - $140.33 from Amazon Japan
- Fosi Audio BT10A-S Bluetooth amplifier - $41.99 from Amazon
- Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 3 (14" 1920x1200, Ryzen 6650U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1219 from Lenovo
- AMD Ryzen 7 7700X CPU - $451.24 from Amazon USA

## Image Of The Day

At 10:30 p.m., 29 October 1969, the first ARPANET message was sent from this UCLA site to the Stanford Research Institute. Based on packet switching and dynamic resource allocation, the sharing of information digitally from this first node of ARPANET launched the Internet revolution. (BillinGlendaleCA / Flickr)

## 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.