### Issue 1761 - Tuesday 10th January, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- VALL-E only needs a 3 second clip to "synthesize high-quality personalized speech"
- Techstars gets NSW funding to set up shop in Sydney's Tech Central district
- NHTSA looking into Elon's tweet about disabling safety protocols for FSD
- Detailed look at first residential V2G setup in Australia
- Cheap Chromecast, Homekit smart plugs, DDR4 RAM, Sony Mini-LED TV

## The News

### VALL-E only needs a 3 second clip to "synthesize high-quality personalized speech"

Microsoft's shown off VALL-E, a new text to speech AI model that can clone someone's voice with only 3 seconds of audio. It generates "discrete audio codec codes from text and acoustic prompts. It basically analyzes how a person sounds, breaks that information into discrete components (called "tokens") thanks to EnCodec, and uses training data to match what it 'knows' about how that voice would sound if it spoke other phrases outside of the three-second sample". Microsoft's website has more info on VALL-E along some samples of the audio it generates. They're also aware people are 100% gonna use this to cause mischief, so the code isn't public. It's not hard to imagine all the ways super accurate voice emulation could be abused.

### Techstars gets NSW funding to set up shop in Sydney's Tech Central district

Techstars, "a global investment business that provides access to capital, one-on-one mentorship, a worldwide network and customized programming for early-stage entrepreneurs" with "2,900 companies in its accelerator programs with a combined market capitalization of US$71b" got a NSW government handout of undisclosed value to set up shop in Sydney's Tech Central district. It'll join companies like Atlassian, Canva, ROKT and Safety Culture, hoping to build a little Silicon Valley around Central station. Hope it goes better than Techstar's Melbourne adventures, which received Victorian government funds (also an undisclosed amount) to fund sports tech related startups and only ended up funding a single local business, with the other 9 businesses located overseas.

### NHTSA looking into Elon's tweet about disabling safety protocols for FSD

Elon Musk sycophant cult, Whole Mars Blog, tweeted that "users with more than 16,093 km on FSD Beta should be given the option to turn off the steering wheel nag". The big man liked the way Whole Mars Blog licks his boots, replying with "Agreed, update coming in Jan". The NHTSA however are like "wtf???" and asked Tesla to explain why they think it's a good idea to let people drive around testing beta software that Tesla themselves say "are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment". I can't wait for the NHTSA to release its full investigation into Tesla's FSD/Autopilot, it's gonna be spicy and hopefully expose Musk's shenanigans with some hard data.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Detailed look at first residential V2G setup in Australia

Solar Quotes has an in-depth look at the first person in Australia to get a proper vehicle to grid setup with their electric car. Ballycroft Wines in South Australia splashed out $10,000 plus install (approx $800 to $2,000) for a Wallbox Quasar bi-directional charger. It plugs into a Nissan LEAF, the only EV on the market that'll let you suck power out of its battery at a rate that's usable for a house (7.2kW output). It powers their premises first, then any excess can be sent to the grid if needed, just like a domestic battery. Unfortunately, it can't be used when there's a blackout. That functionality is coming in a new version of the Wallbox Quasar in about a year or so. Interesting stuff, but still expensive guinea pig territory.

## Bargains

- Chromecast with Google TV 4K - $75 from Amazon
- Meross Smart Plug Wi-Fi Outlet 2-pack (HomeKit support) - $31.50 from Amazon
- Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3600MHz RAM - $84 from Amazon
- Sony 65" X95K Mini LED 4K TV with Google TV - $2999 from Sony

## Image Of The Day

Rock star David Bowie working on desktop computer in office. (Dave Allocca / LIFE Photo Collection)

## The End

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