 | Issue 2346 |
| | The News | Europeans want un-American tech services. Maybe Australia should, too? | Amazon is launching a European arm of its cloud computing services arm to cater to companies that are increasingly concerned about putting data within reach of the Trump administration (The Register). The company joins Microsoft and Google in offering technological changes and legal promises to thwart any attempt from the US government to have a sticky beak at this data. Honestly, it would be extremely funny to see Europeans treat these companies the same way American politicians have treated TikTok. On a similar note, Australian unions like the ACTU are calling on the government to stop giving contracts — like the $300m deals signed by Amazon in just two months — to American big tech companies until they stop doing things like “tax avoidance, labour exploitation and other unethical behaviour” (InnovationAus, $). Obviously, there are plenty of reasons why governments go with companies like Amazon — but increasingly, there’s more reasons why maybe they shouldn’t. | Meta and Yandex’s dodgy new tracking exploit | Facebook and Russian tech company Yandex are secretly tracking otherwise anonymous users by exploiting an Android-specific feature connecting browsers and apps (Ars Technica). It’s a bit complicated but here’s my understanding of how it works: | Modern browsers typically run in a sandbox — which separates what happens inside from outside — for a variety of reasons including privacy. The most obvious example of this is incognito browsing. However, sometimes browsers need to talk to apps. Think like when you go to a website with a native app that’s installed, and it switches over to the apps. Yandex and, more recently, Meta figured out a way to abuse that connection to always associate your browsing with your identity as established by the app, even when you’re not using the app (via something delightfully called Web RTC (STUN) SDP Munging).
| Not only is this sketchy, it also seems on its face to be crazy illegal in places like Europe, with its GDPR requiring informed consent to tracking. Anyway, Google is apparently investigating and Meta has "paused the feature” (The Register) |  | I will take any opportunity to get a diagram in like this. |
| TikTok gives users some more control over its algorithmic recommendations | TikTok is letting you fiddle with its algorithm dial by giving users the choice to control how often they see videos of certain topics in their feeds (The Verge). TikTok users will be able to change how often they see ten topics like “Health & Fitness”, “Funny" and “Humor” (apparently two distinct categories?) on their For You Page, although it won’t necessarily eliminate the topics completely (TikTok) This, plus their keyword filter that works on video descriptions, captions and hashtags, is actually quite cool for giving people a bit more say over what they’re shown.
A few years ago at Gizmodo Australia, I wanted to coin a word for the act of intentionally manipulating your algorithm by doing certain things on an app (i.e. watching the full length of a pug video even if it’s boring to signal that you want to see more pug). We settled on the term “algo-swerve”, which I never liked, but it is a quintessentially modern behaviour of the way that we, people, are bending to the will of da computer, and not the other way around. (Also of interest, TikTok is going to start giving more granular data and AI suggestions to advertisers per the Verge 👀) | | Leftovers | Telstra penalised for disruption to emergency call support service (ACMA) AI adoption in Australian businesses for 2024 Q4 (National AI Centre) Australian universities turn to AI supercomputers (Information Age) Crypto ATMs increasingly used for scams and money laundering (ABC News) Treasury ‘hard heads’ holding back tech sector: Husic (InnovationAus, $) The tech whizzes working around the clock to catch criminals in NSW (Daily Telegraph, $) This is about NSWPol’s facial recognition team Fake CAPTCHA scam targets 2,353 WordPress sites, warns CyberCX (Security Brief) Victorian man sentenced for attacks on men he met on Grindr says TikTok vigilante videos inspired him (The Guardian Australia) Model Y rebound, and boost from Geely, BYD and Kia put Australia EV sales back on track (The Driven) Florida ban on kids using social media likely unconstitutional, judge rules (Ars Technica) Pornhub to suspend porn in France (Politico) Could we see an Australian ban? Let’s see what the eSafety commissioner does Tim Sweeney didn’t expect a five-year Fortnite ban (The Verge) Meta signs multi-decade nuclear energy deal to power its AI data centers (Engadget) Luca Guadagnino to Direct True-Life OpenAI Movie ‘Artificial’ for Amazon MGM (Hollywood Reporter) Pro-AI Subreddit Bans 'Uptick' of Users Who Suffer from AI Delusions (404 Media) Five more iOS 26 features leak from a reliable source (Apple Insider) Google quietly paused the rollout of its AI-powered ‘Ask Photos’ search feature (The Verge) Vision Language Models are Biased (GitHub) Another one for the “AI doesn’t think” pile of evidence 28 Years Later honors digital heritage with a 20-camera iPhone rig (The Verge) Looks so sick Mario Kart World Devs Broke Their Own Rule on Who Gets to Drive (WIRED, $) Claude Code is My Computer (Peter Steinberger) Don't McBlock me (Schneems) This is technically about coding but seems like good advice for, well, life
| | Oh, Also | I think I found the worst dating website | Haven’t found the love of your life on Tinder yet? Why not simply turn over your entire browsing history to a random company which will analyse it with AI to match you with other people. Meet browser dot dating! I’m honestly not sure it’s real, not because it doesn’t look legit but mostly because this seems like an insane idea. |  | Browser.dating: the dating website using browser histories |
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| | Bargains | Electrical & Electronics | | Computing | | Mobile | | | The End | 😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius. | 🗣️ Have any feedback, a tip or just want to chat? Send me an email or Signal message. I promise to reply! | 💬 Want to hang out with other Sizzlers? There’s a subscriber-only Slack server and forum if you want to procrastinate and chat about tech-related news. | 🗣️ The Sizzle is on Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn if you’re feeling social. | 💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the Beehiiv customer portal. | 🎁 Make someone's day and gift them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle. | 💔 Don’t want this any more? I won’t take it personally. There’s a unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email or here’s a guide. | 🦺 The Sizzle has been tested to meet and exceed ISO 3533 standards. | Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land | The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present. |
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