### Issue 2226 - Thursday 28th November, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- FTC coming for Microsoft again, maybe, depends
- Senate makes 13 recommendations for AI adoption in Australia
- Three AI stories I take no joy in reporting but do it anyways
- If you want the best TV, get an LG OLED but if you want a value for money TV get a TCL Mini-LED
- Cheap Microsoft cert book bundle, Dell 34" monitor, TCL TVs, Bose Bass Module, Apple & Nintendo gift cards, DJI gimbal camera, Frugal Usenet, Samsung Galaxy Buds FE, Mac mini, Sennheiser headphones, Samsung Tab S9, Kings 24Ah battery

## The News

### FTC coming for Microsoft again, maybe, depends

The FTC is done with Google and is coming for Microsoft now according to The Verge and Bloomberg. They've asked Microsoft for "information that spans hundreds of pages and culminates over a year of informal discussions with Microsoft competitors and partners", mostly relating to "how Microsoft bundles productivity and security software with its Azure cloud", but also Microsoft's "cybersecurity services, and AI offerings". The FTC hasn't announced anything, so it may never go public now that there's a change of administration over in the USA and it's unsure how Trump and his acolytes will swing on this topic. Satya could buy Trump a large Big Mac Meal and this could all go away, who the fuck knows.

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### Senate makes 13 recommendations for AI adoption in Australia

Locally, the Select Committee on Adopting Artificial Intelligence published its final report this week and Senator leading it, ALP's Tony Sheldon, said that tech companies like Amazon, Google, OpenAI and Meta are "pirates" that are "pillaging our culture, data, and creativity for their gain while leaving Australians empty-handed". Some of the report's 13 recommendations include a "new, whole-of-economy, dedicated legislation to regulate high-risk uses of AI", "consult with creative workers, rightsholders and their representative organisations through the CAIRG on appropriate solutions to the unprecedented theft of their work", "require the developers of AI products to be transparent about the use of copyrighted works in their training datasets, and that the use of such works is appropriately licenced and paid for" and much more.

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### Three AI stories I take no joy in reporting but do it anyways

- More than half of the "long posts" (posts more than 100 words) on LinkedIn are generated byAI according to research done by Originality.ai. So much shit on LinkedIn already has that bland corpo-speak that AI excels at, so are we really missing anything here? No. No we are not.
- Capital Brief is reporting that Seven West Media, the ABC, SBS and Australian Community Media (lots of regional/rural newspapers) are gearing up to ask the ACCC if they can have permission to collectively bargain a deal to sell access to their content to AI firms, including Google and OpenAI.
- OpenAI's turned off its Sora video generation platform because some people in test program made public a range of video clips made with Sora. The PR Puppets group published an open letter explaining why they did this - fair compensation to artists.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### If you want the best TV, get an LG OLED but if you want a value for money TV get a TCL Mini-LED

I'm in the market for a new 65" TV so I wrote a blog post to help me decide which one to get. I was surprised how little choice there is in Australia if you want a high quality TV as there's really only 5 brands - LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL and Hisense - selling them. Everyone else is selling old or basic stuff. It's worse if you want an OLED, with only three choices - LG, Samsung or Sony. It gets even more dire as Samsung TVs do not support Dolby Vision, which IMHO makes them useless as there's so much stuff in Dolby Vision these days, including games, that you'd be a bit stupid to get a fancy TV and not also have Dolby Vision HDR available. TLDR: I'm probably gonna get a TCL 65C855 as it's the best value for money by far.

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## Bargains

- Microsoft Certification Prep Bundle 3, 12 or 23 items - $1.54/$27.89/$38.74 from Humble Bundle
- Dell S3423DWC 3440x1440 curved USB-C monitor - $430.64 from Dell
- TCL 115X955 MAX 115" 4K TV - $19,995 from Bing Lee
- Bose Bass Module 500 - $499 from Amazon
- 20x Flybuys points on Apple gift cards next week at Coles
- DJI Osmo Pocket 3 gimbal camera - $777.87 from Amazon
- Frugal Usenet (who has AU servers now) - US$32/yr via Frugal
- TCL 75C855 75" 4K TV - $1956 delivered from Appliances Online
- Samsung Galaxy Buds FE - $89 from Amazon
- 10% off Nintendo eShop gift cards at JB Hi-Fi
- Apple Mac Mini M4 (10-Core, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $887 from MacApp's eBay store
- Sennheiser HD 620S over-ear headphones - $249.95 from Sennheiser's eBay store
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 128GB - $798 at Amazon
- Kings 24Ah 12.8V LiFePO4 60W USB-C Power Pack - $167.16 from 4WD Supa Centre's eBay store

## Image Of The Day

John Howard having internet gambling explained to him while he is building a protective brick wall around Australia, 2000 (Geoff Pryor / National Library of Australia)

## The End

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