### Issue 1997 - Monday 18th December, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Google to move Maps location history to on-device only
- Intel's new mobile CPUs are pretty average
- An Aussie is the world champion in Excel esports
- Telstra's AI-powered free Santa calling service is cute
- Cheap Kogan Mobile, PS5 & Xbox controllers, Cricut Maker 3, 49" Philips monitor, Google Pixel Tablet, Pixel Buds Pro, Red Dead Redemption 2, Panasonic 4K Blu-Ray, Ryzen 7800X3D CPU, Thrustmaster Captain Pack, Xbox Series S, Echo Show 15, Logitech webcam

## The News

### Google to move Maps location history to on-device only

Google Maps has long had a "Timeline" feature that essentially is a historical map of everywhere you and your device loaded with Google Maps has been if you've turned on the "Location History" setting. That data is stored in the cloud, but Google is going to stop doing that and will keep it on the device only, as well as encrypting it on the device. They're also changing the location history auto-delete time frame to 3 months by default instead of 18 months. This will make it impossible for law enforcement to force Google into handing over data like "give us a list of everyone in this area at this time" or even "give us the history of this user's activity for this time frame" as they simply won't have that data available. I wonder how much of a hit, if any, it has to Google's ad business? If the point is to avoid law enforcement involving Google in investigations, presumably they don't have enough data to also target ads at users based on fine-grained location too?

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### Intel's new mobile CPUs are pretty average

Intel's got some new laptop CPUs - the Core Ultra H, codenamed Meteor Lake, using the "Intel 4" fabrication process. These are 28W parts (except for the Core Ultra 9 185H, which is 45W), so compete in the same space as Apple's M3 Pro/Max and AMD's Zen4 CPUs. According to Notebook Check's initial benchmarks on a pre-production Asus ZenBook 14 with a Core Ultra 7 155H inside, it's still a long way behind the M3 Pro and Ryzen 7840U in terms of power efficiency and even worse than the previous generation i7-1360P. The Arc-based internal GPU however (which is fabricated by TSMC) is pretty bloody good in synthetic benchmarks and better than the Radeon 780M in the Zen 4 CPUs, but suffers in real-world use as the Arc drivers and game support just isn't at the same level as AMD's Radeon. Looks like Intel still has a long way to go before it's back to being competitive with Apple and AMD unfortunately.

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### An Aussie is the world champion in Excel esports

36-year old Sydney actuary, Andrew "the Annihilator" Ngai, is the Microsoft Excel e-sports world champion after defeating a global cohort of competitors in Las Vegas. Yeah, Excel can be competitive and there's a world championship in it! If you're curious how it works, "in each round, eight players are given a big ream of data, plus a set of instructions. Contestants need to create formulas and subsets to process the data, working against the clock to solve stages of the case and earn bonus points. Every seven and a half minutes the lowest scorer is eliminated". You can watch Andrew's victory on YouTube. I'll admit, I have no idea what is going on here. Is this how people that hate sports view a cricket test match or a game of tennis??

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Telstra's AI-powered free Santa calling service is cute

Telstra has had free calls from payphones to Santa for a few years now, but this year they've upped their game and given Santa an AI boost. Instead of an IVR-tree style setup, Telstra is now using "tech built on Google Cloud's Dialogflow CX and the PaLM 2 large language model (LLM) to answer everyone's calls", so it's way more realistic. Gough Lui figured out the phone number the system works on, dialed it at home and spent hours probing the system and making recordings of the output. Regardless of your views on AI/LLMs, you gotta admit this is pretty cool and if you were a 6 year old with a phone you'd have a ball chatting to Santa, even if it is just a computer on the other end.

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## Bargains

- Kogan Mobile (TPG/Vodafone MVNO) 365-day pre-paid vouchers with unlimited calls & SMS to 56 countries, 120GB/200GB/300GB/500GB - $100, $140, $160, $180 from Kogan
- PlayStation Dualsense Controllers - $79.45 from Amazon
- Xbox Series X/S Wireless Controller - $66 from Amazon
- Cricut Maker 3 Cutting Machine - $598 at Officeworks (can get Spotlight to price beat)
- Philips 498P9Z 49" 5120x1440 165Hz curved monitor - $1199 from Computer Alliance
- Google Pixel Tablet with Speaker Dock - $579 from Officeworks
- Google Pixel Buds Pro - $178 from Officeworks
- Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC - $19.88 from Epic Games
- Panasonic DP-UB450GN 4K Blu-Ray player - $279 from JB Hi-Fi
- AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU - $549.46 from Smart Home Store's eBay store
- Thrustmaster TCA Captain Pack X Airbus Edition - $377.65 from Amazon UK
- Xbox Series S 512GB Console Starter Bundle with 3 months Game Pass Ultimate - $399 from Amazon
- Echo Show 15 smart display - $295 from Amazon
- Logitech BRIO 500 webcam - $123.99 from Amazon

## Image Of The Day

Ascii art becomes mainstream (Kai Hendry / Flickr)

## The End

📻 Rapp Snitch Knishes - MF DOOM

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