### Issue 2012 - Wednesday 24th January, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- Optus says 2,700 calls to 000 didn't go through during network outage
- How did UK & Spain intercept a kid's private Snapchat messages so quickly?
- Apple Car delayed, Google ads lame AI features to Chrome, Death Stranding comes to Mac & iOS Jan 30th
- The Xinfrared InfiRay P2 Pro Smartphone Thermal Camera is good
- Cheap Kogan Mobile pre-paid, Sony earbuds, Blu-rays, Tamron e-mount lens, 8BitDo keyboard, Samsung soundbar, Vretti thermal printer

## The News

### Optus says 2,700 calls to 000 didn't go through during network outage

Optus has told ACMA that at least 2,697 calls to 000 didn't go through during its network outage on the 8th of November last year. Those calls also did not receive a follow-up welfare check once the outage. That's a significant number more than the 229 they initially told the government. Optus said they are "writing to each customer individually to apologise for this and provide the opportunity to discuss their specific circumstances and whether there is anything we can do to assist them further". If I had to guess why these emergency calls didn't work, I would say that these 2,697 people had some Optus signal so it didn't fall back to another network when the call goes through, as that only happens when you have no signal at all on your "home" network. Will be interesting to see if any recommendations are made in the government's review into this situation, which is due to report to the minister by the 29th of Feb.

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### How did UK & Spain intercept a kid's private Snapchat messages so quickly?

Back in 2022, Aditya Verma was about to board a plane at Gatwick airport in the UK on his way to Menorca in Spain had a bit of cheeky banter with the lads on Snapchat with his mates, saying "On my way to blow up the plane (I'm a member of the Taliban)". A few hours later two Spanish F-18 jets intercepted his flight mid-air and escorted the Easyjet plane to Menorca, where Aditya was arrested, questioned, held in prison for 2 days, released on bail, sent back to the UK, questioned again by MI5 and MI6 then charged with "public disorder". Aditya's lawyer is arguing the joke was made "in a private group that British authorities had intercepted in breach of his right to privacy", which raises the question, how the hell did Spanish and UK authorities manage to get fighter gets in the air so quickly based on a random kid's private Snapchat conversations??! No details on how the messages were intercepted are in any other news articles about this story.

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### Apple Car delayed, Google ads lame AI features to Chrome, Death Stranding comes to Mac & iOS Jan 30th

- Old mate Gurman writes that Apple's decade old skunkworks car project "has pivoted to a less ambitious design with the intent of finally bringing an electric vehicle to market", which "with the latest changes, the company looks to introduce the car in 2028 at the earliest, roughly two years after a recent projection, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private". Cool, whatever, wake me up when Timbo drives it on stage at WWDC.
- Google's added a bunch of pretty mild "Experimental AI" features to Chrome. The browser can organise your tabs for you, grouping them by similarity to create groups and create some custom themes using AI generated art. The only feature that sounds useful, "Help me Write", which will fill in text boxes/text fields for you based on the context on the page, is coming in next month's Chrome release. That actually sounds kinda handy for filling in forms that needs a response but you don't care enough to put in any effort.
- Apple gamers (yes, both you) rejoice! The director's cut of Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding is coming to iOS and Mac. Only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPads/Macs with M-series SoCs can play it, but it's coming January 30th and you can pre-order it now for $30 on the App Store. You can buy it on iOS and play the same game on Mac without having to repurchase it, which is cool. I already own this game on the PS4 but I'm tempted to play it on the iPad with an Xbox controller, just to see what it's like.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### The Xinfrared InfiRay P2 Pro Smartphone Thermal Camera is good

Gough Lui has a very thorough review of the Xinfrared InfiRay P2 Pro Smartphone Thermal Camera. It's cheaper, lighter and better quality than the popular FLIR thermal cameras you can stick to a smartphone. In his words: "There really is no competition – the FLIR ONE and FLIR ONE PRO both have lower resolution, worse NETD of 70mK and 8.7Hz frame rates. Worst of all, they are bulkier and have their own batteries that need charging and can wear out", further adding that "the Xinfrared InfiRay P2 Pro really is an outstanding, well-designed, well-performing, value-for-money product which is really hard to fault". So there you go, if you want a little IR camera to slap on a smartphone, get this one.

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## Bargains

- Kogan Mobile 365-day SIM with 500GB/300GB/200GB data plus unlimited calls & SMS - $200/$180/$160 from Kogan
- Sony WF-1000XM5 Noise Cancelling Earbuds - $320 from MyDeal
- 20% off Blu-rays, plus 2 for the price of 1 4K Blu-rays at JB Hi-Fi
- Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8 Di III-A VC RXD Lens for Sony E-Mount - $953.95 from Amazon Germany
- 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard - $149 from Amazon
- Samsung Q990C soundbar with sub & surrounds - $960 from Appliances Online
- Vretti TP6-S Thermal Wireless Printer - $18 from Vretti

## Image Of The Day

A prototype of the Macintosh from 1981 at the Computer History Museum (Wikimedia Commons)

## The End

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