### Issue 2163 - Thursday 29th August, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- Official charges for Pavel Durov made public, released on bail, can't leave France
- California passes Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act
- A dump of Elon Musk related news
- Sony's A95L OLEDs are the best looking TVs on the market
- Cheap Kindle Scribe, Blu-rays at JB, 1TB Samsung microSD card, LG 4K monitor, Ryzen 5700X3D CPU

## The News

### Official charges for Pavel Durov made public, released on bail, can't leave France

France charged Telegram CEO Pavel Durov with "web-mastering an online platform in order to enable an illegal transaction in organized group", "refusal to communicate, at the request of competent authorities, information or documents necessary for carrying out and operating interceptions allowed by law" and a bunch of cryptography related crimes like without declaring the use of cryptography or something? I'm no expert on French law, but that sounds a bit weird. That said, I get the feeling France isn't necessarily pissed off about E2EE, but more the fact Telegram doesn't lift a finger to help them crack down on the blatant illegal shit on their platform. Pavel's posted a 5 million euro bail so is free to leave custody, but is not allowed to leave France and has to check in with the police twice a week.

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### California passes Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act

California has passed the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act. According to Reuters, the bill requires "safety testing for many of the most advanced AI models that cost more than $100 million to develop or those that require a defined amount of computing power", "developers of AI software operating in the state also need to outline methods for turning off the AI models if they go awry" and "hire third-party auditors to assess their safety practices and provide additional protections to whistleblowers speaking out against AI abuses". This article on Lawfare has more detail on the bill if you're keen.

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### A dump of Elon Musk related news

- The Brazilian Supreme Court has told X that unless it names a legal representative within 24 hours, it will be banned countrywide. Stop threatening us with a good time Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes!
- xAI is illegally running 18 gas turbines to power its huge datacentre in Memphis without a permit, spewing nitrogen oxide in the air while they wait for electricity grid upgrades.
- The Boring Company is expanding its tunnel in Las Vegas, but there's still no timeframe for when the Teslas in the tunnels will operate autonomously - an environment where you'd think 100% self-driving would be ideal.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Sony's A95L OLEDs are the best looking TVs on the market

TVs are a pain in the arse to buy if you aren't an informed shopper. Dozens of brands, they all do more or less the same thing, prices all over the place. Which one do ya choose? If image quality is your main concern, a TV shop in the USA got a bunuch of current model 65" units, had them professionally calibrated and invited a group of TV nerds to pixel peep them. The overall winner, once again, is the Sony A95L OLED - which if you remember HDTVTest's same style test but in the UK instead of the USA - had the same result last year. Too bad if you're in Australia though, as Sony seems to have stopped selling the A95L here without any direct replacement! The Samsung S95D OLED was a bee's dick behind the Sony and easily available (QA65S95DAWXXY is the 65"), so get one of those instead for a lazy $5,000.

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## Bargains

- Kindle Scribe 32GB with Premium Pen - $489 from Amazon
- $30 off $300+ purchase for Perks members is back at JB Hi-Fi
- 20% off DVDs, Blu-Rays and 4K Blu-Rays at JB Hi-Fi
- Samsung PRO Plus 1TB MicroSDXC card - $179.01 or $161.11ea for 3x from Amazon USA
- LG 27UL500-W 27" 4K 60Hz monitor - $249 + delivery & surcharge at Centrecom
- AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D CPU - $247 from Aliexpress

## Image Of The Day

IBM's OS/2 shaped the history of the PC in extremely important ways. For a product that was only mildly commercially successful (it succeeded in very specific market niches), its impact is felt by anyone using an IBM compatible PC to this very day. I happened upon a sealed copy of OS/2 2.0 and I simply couldn't pass it up. After well over a year, it’s time to open it. Unlike previous unboxings, this one will be more thorough as I imagine that not many people will have ever seen OS/2 in box. (Abort Retry Fail)

## The End

📻 Oasis - Cigarettes & Alcohol - Remastered

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