### Issue 1639 - Thursday 30th June, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- FCC tells Apple and Google to remove TikTok from app stores
- South By Southwest conference is coming to Sydney in October 2023
- New Attorney-General is making reform of the Privacy Act a priority
- App corner
- Cheap iPad, Huoin graphics tablet, Samsung SSD, Settlers of Catan, Intel NUC laptop, Dell backpack, Baseus battery, Audioengine speakers, Alienware monitor

## The News

### FCC tells Apple and Google to remove TikTok from app stores

The USA's Federal Communications Commission has sent a letter to Apple and Google's CEO asking them to remove TikTok from their app stores. The FCC reckons that due to the crazy level of data TikTok collects on its users (recently exposed in a Buzzfeed News article), that is readily available to the Chinese government because TikTok is a Chinese app, the app violates Apple's and Google's store policies and should be removed. If TikTok isn't removed by the 8th of July, the FCC wants a statement to explain why. You can read the letter for yourself on Twitter. I'd be very surprised if TikTok goes dark in the US, but we are in the post-COVID era where weird things happen on a regular basis.

### South By Southwest conference is coming to Sydney in October 2023

Sydney is getting its own version of the popular conference South by Southwest in October 2023. It's traditionally held in Austin, Texas, but Destination NSW convinced the Texans (presumably with a pile of money) to put on a variant of their show in Sydney to cater for the Asia Pacific region. The media is going around saying it's the first time SXSW has held a conference outside of Texas, but a quick Wikipedia search says they've held SXSW variants (albeit at a smaller scale) all over the world. SXSW used to be more tech focused back in the day and quite cool, but lately is more pop culture and media stuff and full of wankers. See you there!

### New Attorney-General is making reform of the Privacy Act a priority

Freshly minted Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus is gonna have a crack at the Privacy Act and plans to finally do something with the review of the Privacy Act that kicked off in 2019. He said in an interview with the AFR that "everyone agrees that the Commonwealth Privacy Act is out of date and in need of reform for the digital age" and he isn't wrong - except the Business Council of Australia who are saying that "we are yet to see compelling evidence that there is a need for these". They're anti-everything that doesn't line their own pockets, so not surprising they're against using data as they see fit, consequences be damned. Dreyfus plans to publish a list of proposals and reforms for the Privacy Act "in coming months".

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### App corner

- Barrier is an open-source software KVM fork of Synergy (which costs money now). Install it on multiple computers and operate them via a single keyboard, mouse and display. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Great alternative to a physical KVM which can be expensive and/or cumbersome.
- Messages for Macintosh lets you send and receive iMessages on a classic Mac. It's requires running a server to get and send iMessages, but the client works on any Mac running System 2.0 up to MacOS 9.2.2. Not exactly practical, but a nice party trick.
- Shrugs is a native macOS Slack client. Runs leaner and integrates with all the built-in macOS stuff. There's a free version, but if you want to use channels besides #general, you'll need to pay US$19.99. It also lacks a few features that the developer is still working on.

## Bargains

- iPad 9th-gen 64GB wi-fi - $449 from Amazon
- Huoin Kamvas Pro 13 (2.5K) graphics tablet - $599 from Huion
- Samsung 980 NVMe M.2 SSD 500GB - $78.50 from Amazon
- Settlers of Catan board game - $39.20 from Amazon
- Intel NUC M15 laptop (i5-1135G7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 1080p) - $899 + delivery from Umart
- Dell Gaming Backpack 17 GM1720PM - $29.38 from Dell
- Baseus 10,000mAh powerbank with wireless charging - $34.39 from Baseus' eBay store
- Audioengine A2+ active bookshelf speakers - $319 (free delivery VIC/NSW/QLD) from Scorptec
- Alienware 27" AW2721D gaming monitor (2560x1440, 250GHz G-Sync) - $664.05 from Dell

## The End

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