### Issue 1982 - Monday 27th November, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Banks implement new round of checks and verifications to slow down scammers
- Australian Signals Directorate updated the Essential Eight Maturity Model
- Bard can watch YouTube, Tesla applies for electricity retailer licence in Aussie states, Tesltra buys up large chunk of 5G spectrum
- Best looking TV you can buy is a Sony OLED according to colour experts
- Cheap soldering iron, GoPro, SSDs, HDDs, Thunderbolt 3 dock, webcam, AirPods, OLED TV, ergonomic mouse, 10% off at Jaycar, Timezone gift cards, Android game controller case, microSD cards, Pixel 8 phones, Roon audio software, handheld game emulator

## The News

### Banks implement new round of checks and verifications to slow down scammers

Australian banks are going to invest $100m in a "confirmation of payee" system so "customers know who they are dealing with, mitigating the possibility of people being manipulated into paying a scammer when the name does not match" - something I can't believe has taken this long to happen and should hopefully avoid a common scam technique where bank details are changed on an invoice or in an email but the name of the account remains the same. Banks will also "adopt further technology and controls to help prevent identity fraud, including major banks using at least one biometric check for new individual customers opening accounts online by the end of 2024" and "introduce warnings and payment delays to protect customers" such as "more questions, warnings and delays from their bank" when sending "money to someone they haven't paid before or raising payment limits".

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### Australian Signals Directorate updated the Essential Eight Maturity Model

Heads up for the hardworking people down in the IT support dungeon - there's an update to the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD)'s Essential Eight Maturity Model. The big change is Maturity Level One now includes a new minimum standard that requires multi-factor authentication to "something users have and something users know, or something users have that is unlocked by something users know or are" and cannot be opt-out. Also in Maturity Level One, Internet Explorer 11 has to be disabled or removed and systems must be patched within 48 hours "when either vulnerabilities are assessed as critical by vendor" as well as when working exploits exist. The ASD's website has the full list of changes to all the Maturity Levels. Thanks TRS-80 for posting this in The Sizzle's Slack group!

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### Bard can watch YouTube, Tesla applies for electricity retailer licence in Aussie states, Tesltra buys up large chunk of 5G spectrum

It's still the Thanksgiving holiday season in the US so news is thin on the ground. Here's some recent-ish stuff from my bookmarks that didn't make cut when it was fresh but is still interesting a few days later:

- Google's answer to ChatGPT, Bard, got an update to "understand" YouTube videos. You can slap a YouTube link into Bard, ask it to summarise it or ask it questions about the video and it'll respond as if it's watched the video. Apparently it works well for recipe vids.
- According to Renew Economy, "Tesla is seeking a retailing licence for Tesla Energy Ventures in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, and the ACT, and says it will target households and small and large scale commercial customers". All those Powerwalls make for a nice virtual power plant.
- Telstra spent $546m last week buying up a 326 lots of radio spectrum in the 3.4Ghz & 3.7GHz bands for extra 5G capacity, vastly outbidding TPG ($128m for 44 lots) and Optus ($33.5m for 3 lots). NBN snapped up 200 lots for $14.4m so it can get more premises off satellite and onto fixed wireless.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Best looking TV you can buy is a Sony OLED according to colour experts

HDTVTest's TV Shootout is back for 2023! A bunch of colour experts got in a room to do a blind test of various flagship TVs to see which one they like look of best. Watch the video, but if you can't be bothered to do that despite all the effort Vincent went to in order to arrange this test (shame on you) - the favourite TV was once again a Sony OLED, the A95L. The 65" XR65A95L isn't cheap in Australia at $4500 compared to $1,500 for a still nice 65" TCL 65C845 Mini LED TV I think most of us wouldn't really tell that much of a difference with unless we were looking for one, but that's the price you pay for perfection. There's also not much of a difference between the Samsung, Panasonic (which aren't on sale in Australia), LG & Sony TVs in the eyes of the experts, but they preferred the Sony's colour accuracy and HDR performance.

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## Bargains

- Micron T2065 Temperature Controlled 90W Vacuum Desoldering Station - $199 + delivery from Altronics
- GoPro Hero12 Black - $492 from The Good Guys eBay store
- Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD 1TB - $87 from Bing Lee's eBay store
- Samsung T7 Shield 4TB Portable SSD - $343.07 from Amazon USA
- Crucial P3 Plus 4TB PCIe 4.0 SSD - $262.45 from Amazon USA
- SanDisk 1.5TB Ultra microSDXC UHS-I Memory Card - $209.25 from Amazon USA
- Toshiba 2TB Canvioa Basics Portable HDD - $79 from Amazon
- Seagate ST16000NM000J 16TB EXOS X18 SATA 3.5" HDD - $309 from Eastdigital HK's eBay store
- Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Dock Pro - $148 from Amazon
- Elgato Facecam - $168 at Harvey Norman
- Apple AirPods (2nd Gen) - $139.30 from Techciti's eBay store
- LG OLED42C3PSA 42" 4K TV - $1228 from The Good Guys eBay store
- Arpoza 16.1" 1080p IPS 144Hz portable USB-C monitor - $158 from Aliexpress
- Logitech Lift Vertical Ergonomic Mouse - $68 from JB Hi-Fi
- 10% off full priced items (some exclusions) at Jaycar until 24/12/2023
- 15% off Timezone arcade gift cards
- Backbone One for Android PlayStation Edition - $118 at Big W
- Samsung EVO Plus MicroSD Card 64GB/128GB - $7/$13 from Amazon
- Get a $100 JB Hi-Fi gift card when you buy a Pixel 8/8 Pro from JB Hi-Fi
- 3 months of Roon audio jukebox/player/media centre software for US$3
- MIYOO Mini Plus handheld game emulation device & 128GB memory card - $71 from Aliexpress

## Image Of The Day

Cracked gallium arsenide solar cell films, 50x magnification. Dennis Callahan, California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Department of Applied Physics & Materials Science (2011 Nikon Photomicrography Competition)

## The End

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The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.