### Issue 1606 - Friday 13th May, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- ALP's Critical Technologies Fund & Battery Manufacturing Precinct vs Coalition's Tech Workforce Roundtable
- Bitcoin tanks, Ethereum having a moment, NFTs are worthless, UST stablecoin shits itself
- Texas law to protect internet cranks and weirdos from getting banned off social media is resurrected
- Couldn't fit this stuff in during the week but you can read it now
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Belkin Magnetic Phone Mount, Lenovo Tab P11, eufy Smart Scale, ThinkPads, JB gift card & Telstra contract, MacBook Air, SVS subwoofer, Red Dead Redemption 2, Edifier bookshelf speakers, Poco X4 Pro 5G, Timezone credit, Ryzen 5 5600G

## The News

### ALP's Critical Technologies Fund & Battery Manufacturing Precinct vs Coalition's Tech Workforce Roundtable

One week left in the election campaign and both parties have rolled out a few more tech related thought bubbles. The ALP will set up a Critical Technologies Fund and seed it with $1b to invest in things like quantum computing, artificial intelligence, robotics and blockchain development. They'll also create a $100m "Battery Manufacturing Precinct" in Gladstone, in partnership with the QLD state government and launch a National Battery Strategy. The Liberal party wants a Tech Workforce Roundtable, made up of various think-tanks, government bodies and the private sector to help improve digital skills and get more women into tech jobs.

### Bitcoin tanks, Ethereum having a moment, NFTs are worthless, UST stablecoin shits itself

The cryptocurrency scene is currently experiencing an existential crisis. As interest rates rise above fuck all and frothy stock markets come back to reality, people are looking to capture profits. This sell off has resulted in Bitcoin's price falling to the lowest since 2020 (down 57% since November). NFTs are also getting liquidated as interest rates go up, but nobody wants them, which hit the value of Ethereum - though not as hard as Bitcoin. The latest shit show is "stablecoin" UST and its sister token LUNA. As the stablecoin got sold off rapidly (who knows why exactly), the price tanked and the algorithm designed to keep it pegged to the USD via the LUNA token spiraled out of control, wiping out over US$15b of cold hard cash from "investors".

### Texas law to protect internet cranks and weirdos from getting banned off social media is resurrected

Texas has this crazy law called HB20. It prohibits social media companies from censoring (banning, demonetizing, limiting etc) user content based on "the viewpoint of the user or another person" (whatever the fuck that means) and forces social media companies to produce quarterly transparency reports listing who got banned and why. HB20 gives the Texas Attorney-General the right to sue any social media companies they feel have slighted a user, or the user themselves can sue. This was smacked down by a US District Court back in December, but Texas appealed and today was told they're allowed to enforce the law while other appeals take place. If you told me 20 years ago there would be laws so people salty about getting banned from a website could sue, I would have laughed my arse off - but here we are.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Couldn't fit this stuff in during the week but you can read it now

Lots of news happened this week I couldn't squeeze in, so I'm gonna dump it here so you don't miss out:

- Thoughtworks won the gig to build a digital birth certificate for the NSW government. It'll work in a similar fashion to the digital drivers licence. Should be ready by the end of the year.
- Sony released the 5th generation of its active noise cancelling headphones, the WH-1000XM5. Slightly superior everything compared to the XM4. Goes on sale next week for around $599 (wait for a sale IMHO).
- WD showed off 22TB & 26TB HDDs and reckons they have HDDs up to 32TB coming out in the near future. Past that, they're "co-engineering" 50TB archival drives with "a few customers" but didn't talk much about it.
- The ASX's blockchain based CHESS replacement has hit fresh delays. The previous target of April 2023 (which was initially July 2020), is now called off. There's no new date announced.
- Mercedes-Benz started selling its level 3 self-driving system DRIVE PILOT in Germany this week as an option for the S-Class. It's the first level 3 system to meet the legal requirements for UN Regulation No. 157.
- West Australians will soon get a $3500 rebate for buying an EV. The government is giving out $22.6m to fund more chargers and will introduce a road usage fee for EVs (like VICs) in July 2027.
- Telstra opened up their 5G network to MVNOs (i.e: Aldi, Woolworths, Boost), should start seeing plans available in July. MVNOs will also be able to sell CAT-M1 LTE services for low bandwidth IoT devices.
- Sonos has a new soundbar - the Ray. It's the cheapest and smallest one in their lineup, doesn't have HDMI ARC or a voice assistant but does have AirPlay 2 support and of course works with the rest of the Sonos ecosystem.
- EA Sports FC is the new name for the FIFA range of games, as EA and FIFA couldn't agree on a new deal for licensing the brand. FIFA is gonna make their own, bigger and better "official" game apparently.
- Woolworths is introducing QR code based payments via the Everyday Rewards app. Add a payment method in the app then at the checkout scan a QR code to pay. Dunno why you'd use it over a card/Apple Pay/Google Pay.
- The EU has agreed to ban internal combustion engines for new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles by 2035. There's also stronger average fleet emission targets for 2025 & 2030. Australia hasn't got any.
- Southern Cross/Telstra reckon the NEXT fibre optic cable should be ready for action in July. It runs 15,000km+ from Sydney all the way to Los Angeles and provides 72Tbps of capacity across the Pacific.

I told ya there was a lot of news this week!

## Friday Forum Update

Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.

- g-bhushan needs a NAS
- davidgeoffreyh wants a car stereo with wireless CarPlay
- Gavin is after a standing desk
- toothbrush wants to know more about laser eye correction
- el_maluco is struggling to find a place that sells rugs other than IKEA

## Bargains

- Belkin Magnetic Phone Mount with face tracking - $38 at Harvey Norman
- Lenovo Tab P11 (11" screen, Android 11, 4GB RAM/64GB storage) - $230 from Lenovo's AliExpress store
- eufy Smart Scale C1 - $34 from Amazon
- Lenovo ThinkPad E15 (Ryzen 7 5825U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1271.20 on Lenovo's eBay store
- ThinkPad E14 Gen 4 (Ryzen 5 5625U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1188 from Lenovo
- $900 JB gift card if you go on a 24m Telstra contract ($89/m for 300GB data/m)
- MacBook Air (M1, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1587 from Amazon
- SVS PB-3000 Subwoofer - $2639 from West Coast Hi-Fi
- Red Dead Redemption II - $24 from Amazon or JB Hi-FI
- Edifier R1855DB active bookshelf speakers - $169 from Amazon
- Xiaomi Poco X4 Pro 5G (8GB/256GB) - $395.55 from Amazon UK
- Load up $50 at Timezone and get a bonus $50 credit
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600G CPU - $273.07 from Futu Online's eBay store

## The End

📻 Demolition Girl - The Saints

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