The News

The internet just got quicker for millions of Australians thanks to an NBN upgrade

There’s a good chance that the Sizzle arrived in your inbox a little bit earlier today thanks to a NBN speed upgrade for millions of Australians (NBN Co). Yesterday, the NBN’s “Accelerate Great” network upgrades for FTTP and HFC customers began rolling out for the 2.1 million households on eligible plans (SMH, $). All up, 4 out of 5 of the 12 million-ish households on NBN will get faster speeds on the right plan (AFR, $). Telstra, Optus, TPG and Aussie Broadband are rolling out the upgrades immediately, but people on Dodo and iPrimus will have to wait another month or so.

(I doubt I need to give this to any Sizzle subscriber but here’s a website to check your NBN tech and see if you’ll get the bump)

The Sizzle: With 100Mbps download plans going to 500, 250 to 750, and 500 to 1000, this will be a pretty significant upgrade for a lot of people which is cool as! I probably don’t need to tell you that a lot of people have had shitty experiences with internet in Australia. An instant, free speed bump is a pleasant surprise that will improve the public’s view of a crucial public infrastructure.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Is Australia becoming a quantum computing hot spot?

Earlier this year, Senator Ted Cruz held up Microsoft’s Majorana 1 quantum computing chip, saying “This breakthrough is led by an American company.”

But an interesting Financial Times article points out that’s a little misleading. Large parts of the chip previously covered in the Sizzle were designed in Australia — which, the article says, is emerging as a “quantum computing player”. Among other Australian companies, there’s PsiQuantum, the Australian-founded start-up, part-funded by Australian governments, that has just been valued at AU$10.5 billion and is working with Nvidia (Reuters). Also, Q-CTRL, a company developing “quantum sensing technology for military vehicles” that just got $38 million in US Defense funding (InnovationAus, $).

The Sizzle: I feel like I’m being a disappointing tech news journo but quantum computing remains completely inscrutable to me. It’s cool that Australia seems to be becoming a “powerhouse in quantum” — as one investor put it — that would be a vindication of the federal government’s “national quantum strategy”. But while it all looks promising and interesting but, without a commercially viable technology, I’m not going to count our chickens just yet.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Using RSS to take control of our internet and our attention

Continuing on from last week’s Sizzle about taking control of our internet, I stumbled across this fascinating 2018 article about the history of RSS: about how it started off as a competing standard as a way to share information, gained widespread adoption culminating with Google Reader, before becoming more niche, used mainly by podcasts and nerds like us.

Despite this dip in popularity, the potential of RSS remains the same:

The Sizzle: This moment has a lot of potential for RSS. So many people I speak to are sick of being served shitty material by their social media feeds and various apps. RSS is great because not only does it let you choose who and what you want to listen to, but also how: no ads, formatted like you want, on your phone or computer or wherever.

So, if you want to introduce RSS into your life, here’s a few basic resources:

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

The Royal Melbourne Show is getting roasted for AI ads

Across various social media channels including Reddit, I’m seeing a lot of people complaining about what appears to be an AI generated campaign for the Royal Melbourne Show. Look at the girl’s bizarre jacket, the rippling cow, the hellish stalls. (Naturally, the Cadbury branding is perfect).

Posts featuring the graphic have been removed from the show’s Instagram account, but unfortunately for them advertisements are being run on trams and on posters across Melbourne. I think it’s only a matter of time until advertisers realise that it’s actually a really bad PR move to associate your brand with AI slop.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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