### Issue 1624 - Wednesday 8th June, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- EU mandates USB-C charge port on most portable electronic devices
- Classified tank-related info leaks onto internet via game forum, again
- Fair Work Commission to launch award API
- Upload data to YouTube encoded as a video
- Cheap Viofo dashcam, Nintendo Switch, 1TB NVMe SSD, Nokia T20 tablet, Apple Watches, Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card

## The News

### EU mandates USB-C charge port on most portable electronic devices

The mad bastards over in Europe finally did it - they've mandated that "all new handheld mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, handheld videogame consoles, headphones, headsets, portable speakers, e-readers, keyboards, mice, portable navigation systems, and earbuds will have to be equipped with a USB-C charging port" by 2024. They're also harmonising fast charge technology and unbundling the charger from the sale of the device. Laptops will also need to use USB-C, but they have a 40-month window to sort their shit out. Apple is yet to comment, but I look forward to seeing how the stubborn pricks handle this.

### Classified tank-related info leaks onto internet via game forum, again

A very excited player of military vehicle MMO game WarThunder has posted classified specifications on a "Chinese DTC10-125 tungsten penetrator" (a type of ammunition designed to penetrate vehicle armour) on the WarThunder forums. It isn't even the first time this has happened, with classified details of French Leclerc and British Challenger 2 tanks posted on WarThunder forums in the last 12 months on separate occasions. I'm sure any official army probably knew this stuff already, and who knows if it's not some sort of counter-intelligence false flag dick waving, but it's still wild to see this classified stuff leaked because some dude wants to prove a point on a forum.

### Fair Work Commission to launch award API

This sounds super useful - an official Fair Work Commission API is almost ready. It will allow business software providers to implement a "source of truth" for automated systems so all pay rates, allowances, penalties and overtime are correctly calculated and paid to workers on a federal award. Right now businesses and developers manually add all this stuff into their admin software and unsurprisingly, fuck it up, leading to wage theft (sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional). The project is "nearing completion" and should go live after the next annual wage review.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Upload data to YouTube encoded as a video

A few weeks ago I linked to a video of TiVo's "Advanced Paid Program", which broadcast data as an image on TV that I thought was very cool. Today I discovered YouTube Drive, a "Wolfram Language (aka Mathematica) package that encodes/decodes arbitrary data to/from simple RGB videos which are automatically uploaded to/downloaded from YouTube". In theory this lets you store an unlimited amount of data on YouTube, as YouTube has no video storage limits. This is what data looks like on YouTube. 10MB of data roughly needs 5-10 minutes of video. Very impractical but I love it.

## Bargains

- VIOFO A129 Plus Duo dashcam - $195.50 from Amazon
- Nintendo Switch Console Neon - $348 from Amazon
- Gigabyte GSM2NE3 1TB NVMe SSD - $120 from BPC Tech
- Nokia T20 10.36" Android tablet - $312.30 from Amazon UK
- Apple Watch Nike Series 6 44mm (GPS + Cellular) - $399 at JB Hi-Fi
- Apple Watch Series 7 (GPS, 45mm) - $597 from Amazon
- Gigabyte RX 6600 XT EAGLE 8GB graphics card - $419 + delivery from PC Byte

## The End

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