Hurricane Helene threatens quartz mining operation critical to US semiconductor industry

While the role of TSMC, and Taiwan, in the global microchip industry has long been the focus of geopolitical analysis, a natural disaster on the other side of the world is signalling possible supply chain disruption. As reported by WIRED and NPR, Hurricane Helene, which has devastated parts of North Carolina, has also disrupted quartz mining operations in Spruce Pine - the only source of high-quality quartz in the US. Quartz is critical to the manufacture of semi-conductors, and other electrical products such as solar panels. Another weak signal that our changing climate will continue to cause economic disruption. What impact will this have on the consumer electronics market? It's too early to tell - as of the time of writing, it hasn't appeared to impact the share price of Belgian company Sibelco, the operator of the Spruce Pine mine. I'm so glad we have a mighty fine Australian superconductor industry so we're isolated from global supply chain issues. Oh, wait ...

Kangaroo LLM promises an open source, you-beaut ridgy-didge, true blue, all-Aussie LLM - by scraping your .au websites

What's that Skip? The tech industry has identified the need for an Aussie-flavoured foundation language model because no government department or even CSIRO are working on one? Enter Kangaroo LLM, a consortium of big tech players that include HP, Katonic and RackCorp. The pitch is that Kangaroo LLM will be open source (Apache 2 licensed, according to the T&Cs), however I can't find a single line of code on GitHub for Kangaroo LLM as yet, leading me to be sceptical. Kangaroo LLM was recruiting for two specialised "volunteer" roles, including a Bot Manager and Data Engineering Manager - although those roles no longer appear on LinkedIn - likely due to the ACS calling this practice in to question in a recent post. Kangaroo LLM are also calling for "volunteer contributors" to help scrape .au website data "ethically". Personally, I think it's great that industry has identified the need for an Australian-based LLM / foundation model, however this approach definitely feels like open-washing to me. I am pleased though to see that the company has provided instructions on how to block their bot from scraping your websites. What's the business model? Will the data be open sourced? Who will have access to the LLM? And how do we increase representation of all Australians in foundation models? In my view, a truly open source Australian foundation model would be the product of industry, academia, government, and the open source community working together to align with pieces such as the Voluntary AI Safety Standard and CSIRO's Artificial Intelligence Roadmap. Will I be volunteering to help them at this stage? Yeah, nah.

Work from home debate continues, amid more return to office mandates

The WFH debate continues to smoulder, after reports in recent that Amazon had issued return to office mandates, with similar moves by the NSW public service. Atlassian responded by launching its Team Anywhere strategy - codifying a working culture centred around flexible working, and inviting Amazon employees to apply. A recent report by Robert Half, a technology recruitment company, also underscored the value to professionals of flexible working arrangements, showing that nearly two in five workers would resign if their job no longer offered flexibility around where they work from. As someone who has contracted for major companies like NVIDIA and Mozilla entirely remotely, my views may be biased - but I see WFH options as a key strategic differentiator for companies looking to attract top talent, particularly when salary budgets are constrained.

A sub-$USD 1000 wheelchair? It's possible.

New Mobility reports, via Hacker News, on the efforts of the US-based company Not a Wheelchair to manufacture a durable, flexible wheelchair for under $USD 1000. It's a story of personal experience, ingenuity, and using YouTube as a revenue stream to fund product development. Worth a read!