### Issue 1818 - Monday 3rd April, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Italy not a fan of ChatGPT, bans it and wants answers on how it handles data
- General Motors to ditch CarPlay/Android Auto in new electric cars
- Google Drive imposes hard limit on number of files, Disney ditches metaverse division, new book about Steve Jobs by his mates & widow, games with loot boxes & gambling to get M or R18+ classifications
- Open Circuits looks like a cool coffee table book for nerds
- Cheap Logitech mechanical keyboard, 14" 1080p portable USB-C monitor, Oculus Quest 2 VR headet & two bonus games

## The News

### Italy not a fan of ChatGPT, bans it and wants answers on how it handles data

Italy's data-protection authority has seen ChatGPT and doesn't like what it sees, banning and investigating the fancy chatbot "with immediate effect". According to the press release, "there appears to be no legal basis underpinning the massive collection and processing of personal data in order to 'train' the algorithms on which the platform relies". They also note that ChatGPT "exposes children to receiving responses that are absolutely inappropriate to their age and awareness". Open AI has to respond to the complaint within 20 days or it gets fined 20m euro or 4% of its worldwide annual turnover.

### General Motors to ditch CarPlay/Android Auto in new electric cars

General Motors has come out of nowhere and said it is dropping the popular Apple CarPlay and Android Auto features from its upcoming electric cars. GM told Arstechnica that "we can do more than ever before with in-vehicle technologies and over-the-air updates" and will have apps we know and love like Google Maps and Spotify run natively on its Ultifi software platform. Sounds like the dumbest move you could possibly make, but hey, this is General Motors. God help us if other car makers get inspired by this move and remove "phone projection" (that's the brand agnostic term for it) from their upcoming cars too.

### Google Drive imposes hard limit on number of files, Disney ditches metaverse division, new book about Steve Jobs by his mates & widow, games with loot boxes & gambling to get M or R18+ classifications

- Google Drive seems to have recently added a hard limit of 5 million files, even if you have plenty of storage to keep all those files there. It's not a bug, but there on purpose as a "a safeguard to prevent misuse of our system in a way that might impact the stability and safety of the system". 5 million files isn't that many IMHO.
- Disney's given up on the metaverse according to the Wall Street Journal. Disney hasn't given a reason why, but it has eliminated "the small division that was developing metaverse strategies, according to people familiar with the situation, as part of a broader restructuring". Mickey never stood a chance against Mark "Lord of the Metaverse" Zuckerberg.
- The Steve Jobs Archive, founded by his widow Laurene together with Tim Cook and Jony Ive back in September last year, announced they've got a book called Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs In His Own Words, that will go on sale April 11th. Get amongst it Apple nerds and LinkedIn quote masters.
- Comms minister sent out a press release last week saying they're gonna ask the states and territories if its okay to "introduce a mandatory minimum classification of R18+ for games which contain simulated gambling and M for computer games containing paid loot boxes". Fair enough, fuck loot boxes and gambling.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Open Circuits looks like a cool coffee table book for nerds

Interesting book alert! "Our phones, computers, and appliances are made of hundreds of internal components, each precisely engineered to perform a certain function, but none intended to actually be seen. Through painstakingly executed, vividly detailed cross-section photography, Open Circuits reveals the surprising — and often accidental — beauty hiding inside the electronic components that drive our everyday devices". Heaps of high resolution photos and cut-aways of relatively mundane electronics? Yes please.

## Bargains

- Logitech K855 wireless mechanical TKL keyboard - $74.50 from Harvey Norman
- ELSA 14" FHD IPS 100% sRGB USB-C portable monitor - $124 from AliExpress
- Oculus Quest 2 128GB VR Headset + 2 Games - $556.99 from Meta

## Image Of The Day

Internet network test bed 7/16/1998 (NASA Glenn Research Center / Internet Archive)

## The End

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