### Issue 1788 - Friday 17th February, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Microsoft didn't expect people to get so weird with Bing's AI chatbot
- YouTube's CEO and one of the very first Google employees is "starting a new chapter with my family"
- Apple finally allows push notifications for web apps on iOS
- Command line charms, Astrofox, About Boxes, Winamp Skin Museum and The Crazy Small Wheel
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Klipsch wireless earbuds, refurb Lenovo T480, Age of Empires IV, TCL Mini LED TV, 4-pack AirTags, Meross HomeKit smart wi-fi power plugs with energy monitoring, 34" Samsung QD-OLED monitor, Google Pixel Buds Pro, BlitzWolf 6-port USB charger, Creative Pebble speakers

## The News

### Microsoft didn't expect people to get so weird with Bing's AI chatbot

Microsoft's published a blog post saying that people are using the new Bing chatbot in ways "we didn't fully envision". Like, hello, did you not think that people would get all freaky with the AI? Did you learn nothing from Tay's adventures in 2016?! New York Times columnist Kevin Roose is one of many journalists poking Bing's chatbot to get a headline worthy response, but he poked it so hard that "it declared, out of nowhere, that it loved me", then "tried to convince me that I was unhappy in my marriage, and that I should leave my wife and be with it instead". The whole experience left him worried "that the technology will learn how to influence human users, sometimes persuading them to act in destructive and harmful ways, and perhaps eventually grow capable of carrying out its own dangerous acts". Apparently Kevin's experience is not uncommon and Microsoft told the New York Times that AI models going "down a hallucinatory path" is "difficult to fix".

### YouTube's CEO and one of the very first Google employees is "starting a new chapter with my family"

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is resigning after 25 years at Google, telling staff that she wants to "start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I'm passionate about". Susan has been involved with Google since day one, renting her garage to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998. Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan will take over after a transition period and Susan will stick around indefinitely as an "advisor" at Alphabet. The new boss, Neal, worked at Doubleclick before it was acquired by Google and was the VP of video and display ads before his current role as CPO. Hopefully his ad background doesn't mean YouTube Premium dies off because without it I can't stand watching YouTube.

### Apple finally allows push notifications for web apps on iOS

One of the key features of iOS apps are push notifications - something "web apps" (better known as Progressive Web Apps, PWAs) can't do. With the beta release of iOS 16.4, Apple finally blessed Safari with the ability to show notifications for web apps installed on the device's home screen. This means many "apps" can be published outside of the App Store without Apple's blessing and work pretty much like an app on the Store would if they're not doing anything too fancy. There's no reason Apple couldn't have done this a decade ago. Wouldn't surprise me if the pile of App Store investigations and looming regulation motivated Apple to finally release it.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Command line charms, Astrofox, About Boxes, Winamp Skin Museum and The Crazy Small Wheel

- Seen those people on YouTube with cute looking command lines full of colours and ASCII art and want some of that in your life? Brighten up your CLI up with Charm. They've got a bunch of templates for snazzying up a variety of shells and scripts.
- Need to turn audio into video? Astrofox can make interesting looking animations (wave forms, trippy colours, distortions of images, etc) pretty easily. Handy for social media so there's something for people to look at while they listen to whatever it is you're sharing.
- Riccardo Mori goes down memory lane, sharing screenshots of the About Boxes (you know, the credits, version info and a little graphic) of various Mac applications from yesteryear. Some classics in there.
- If you want to keep hanging around memory lane, pop in to the Winamp Skin Museum. Readers of a certain age know exactly what I am talking about. I loved the skins that turned Winamp into a sick Marantz, Sony or Pioneer component hi-fi setup.
- Want a scroll wheel for your feet? The Crazy Small Wheel has got you covered. Besides some not so obvious to me accessibility uses I'm not sure what you'd use this for, but I like the fact it exists.

## Friday Forum Update

Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.

- Wallamba wants to know what your favourite "low tech" (i.e: not a computer dork thing) purchase is that's made your life better
- Quilgy is going on a snorkelling trip and wants a nice 4K underwater camera to capture their adventure
- andyb found a new article claiming that Aussies are back pirating media after falling numbers over the last 2 years
- Mitty has been playing around with the new Bing and finding many errors in its answers
- Manaz started a thread to discuss MyHeathRecord and other electronic medical record issues

## Bargains

- Klipsch T5 II True Wireless Earphones - $139 from MyDeal
- Refurb Lenovo ThinkPad T480 (i5-3850U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $359 from MetroCom's eBay store
- Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition - $29.97 on Steam
- TCL C835 55" 4K Mini LED TV - $1095 from Appliance Central & JB
- Apple Airtag 4-Pack - $127 from digiDirect
- Meross Wi-Fi Smart Plug with Energy Monitor & HomeKit support single/2-pack/4-pack - $18.99/$31.50/$59.99 from Amazon
- Pre-order the new Samsung 34" LS34BG850SEXXY QD-OLED monitor and get a bonus 2TB 990 Pro SSD - $1999 from Samsung
- Google Pixel Buds Pro - $269 from the Qantas Store
- BlitzWolf BW-S25 75W 6 Port USB-PD PPS Charger (AU plug & AU stock) - $41 from Banggood
- Creative Pebble V3 Speakers - $49.95 from Creative Australia

## Image Of The Day

A screen shot from an computer game which displays anti-Osama Bin Laden sentiments October 4, 2001 at an internet cafe in London, England. Companies offering the games have been inundated with hits on their websites, with one company reporting 340,000 users on their site in eight days. (Sion Touhig / Getty Images)

## The End

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