### Issue 1824 - Thursday 13th April, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- ACCC wants stronger powers to regulate tech companies
- USA proposes strong CO2 emissions cap for new vehicles
- Record label UMG wants Apple and Spotify to prevent AI bots using their data for training
- Interesting book alert: Shareware Heroes
- Cheap 100" TV, Samsung microSD card, Kogan Mobile & Catch Mobile 365-day SIMs, Ryzen 5700G CPU, Samsung 1TB portable SSD, The Last of Us Part 2, 20x EDR points on Apple gift cards

## The News

### ACCC wants stronger powers to regulate tech companies

The ACCC's boss gave a speech at the National Press Club outlining how they want upgraded regulation to handle technology company mergers and their anti-competitive behaviors. Their argument is that "a handful of large tech companies are playing increasingly important roles in our lives, as gatekeepers over how we interact with each other and businesses, and yet in many cases, these companies face only limited competitive constraint". That's correct, but we still haven't seen any willingness from government to do anything about it - unless it's the eSafety Commissioner who gets to use "won't somebody think of the children!" or the AFP/ASIO who pull out "terrorists!" when they want a law designed for them.

### USA proposes strong CO2 emissions cap for new vehicles

The USA's EPA has published proposed vehicle emissions standards for new cars between 2027-2032. The key stat is that as of 2026 the fleet average for each car maker has to be at least 186g of CO2 per mile, dropping to 82g of CO2 per mile in 2032. That includes not only cars, but trucks and SUVs too - which the USA loves just as much as we love utes. It's not as strict as the EU's 95g of CO2 per km (~152g of CO2/mi) by 2024, but for a country like the USA it's serious progress. Hopefully it inspires Australia to do the same, as based on what we've seen in the EU, it is one of the strongest incentives to get people into less polluting vehicles.

### Record label UMG wants Apple and Spotify to prevent AI bots using their data for training

Universal Music Group is worried about AI bots training itself on their artist's work. According to emails obtained by the Financial Times, UMG has asked streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music to block AI's access to those platforms, adding that "we will not hesitate to take steps to protect our rights and those of our artists". Similar to developers grumpy that Microsoft/GitHub's Co-pilot feature is scraping repos it doesn't have permission to and artists upset with their work subsumed by Midjourney, if these AI based companies want to train their models on this kinda work, they need to license it or use royalty free/public domain stuff instead.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Interesting book alert: Shareware Heroes

Richard Moss is the author of Shareware Heroes, a book that "tells the story of the developers and games from the 1980s and 90s that dared to be different - relying not on flashy marketing but rather on making great games that speak for themselves, and that were distributed across the nascent internet for anyone to enjoy (and, if they liked it enough, pay for)". I have fond memories of my plastic box of floppies containing shareware games and utilities back in the 90s. Richard is also a Melbournian, so grab a copy and support a local nerd - sounds like a great book.

## Bargains

- Refurbished Hisense 100L5FSET 100" 4K TV - $2000 + shipping (VIC only) from Bestbuy Electrical
- Samsung 256GB EVO Plus MicroSD Card - $26.04 from Bing Lee's eBay store or $25 from The Good Guys (pickup)
- Kogan Mobile 365-day SIM (Vodafone MVNO, eSIM capable) 500GB data, unlimited calls & SMS - $199
- AMD Ryzen 7 5700G CPU - $303.42 from Amazon Germany
- Samsung T7 Portable SSD 1TB - $109 from Bing Lee's eBay store
- Catch Connect (Optus MVNO) 365-day pre-paid SIM with 60GB/120GB data, unlimited calls & SMS - $89/$109 from Catch
- The Last Of Us Part II for PS4 - $14.98 from the Playstation Store
- 20x Everyday Rewards Points on Apple gift cards at Woolworths (starts 19th April)

## Image Of The Day

John Carmack at id Software in 1995 — Photo: John Romero (Nine Inch Nails / The Internet Archive)

## The End

📻 Little Honda - Yo La Tengo

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