Issue 2327 - Thursday 8 May

The News

NZ isn’t set to get a teen social media ban as Australia figures out our policy

New Zealand’s prime minister has thrown his support behind an Australia-like teen social media ban (The Guardian). The thing that a lot of the international coverage isn’t making clear is that it doesn’t look like it’s actually happening. What’s been proposed is a private member’s bill from one member of one party of the governing coalition, and the other governing parties haven’t supported it. Meanwhile, in Australia, we’ve got just seven months to figure out the details of a plan. The eSafety commissioner has made a call out for people to weigh in on the implementation (eSafety). One suggestion floated has been using Google Wallet to store an “age credential” but, as friend of the Sizzle Josh Taylor reports, it’s not a whole solution considering many teens don’t have a driver’s license or passport (The Guardian Australia) .

Apple ready to add AI search as a sign of them opening up?

Apple is looking to put AI search options into Safari after its searches through Google dropped for the first time ever (CNN). This downward trend was attributed to the competition of ChatGPT, Perplexity and others by Apple executive Eddy Cue, as part of his testimony in the US antitrust trial into Alphabet. Going back to Apple’s AI problems, this suggests that the right people might be hearing Stratechery’s Ben Thompson’s case that Apple’s best path to continued device domination is to fling the doors open to other AI companies to hook into Siri (Spotify). He’s probably right — but between opening up Siri, maybe losing their grip on the app store and warning signs about the future success of their devices — like dropping Apple Watch sales (Counterpoint) — there’s a case that this is the most vulnerable Apple has been in a long time.

NSW’s stolen document register is a good tech government stuff

It’s very easy to rag on government tech policy. In fairness, they do make it easy by often being bad at it. That’s why I wanted to shout out the NSW government which has been leaps and bounds the best government when it comes to using technology to make their services easier and better. Like take its plan to introduce a “state register of compromised documents” that would let banks, telcos and government agencies see if people are using stolen documents (InnovationAus, $). It’s not flashy, it won’t make many headlines, some may not even consider it sexy — although I wouldn’t rule it out for some Sizzlers — but this is good stuff government can do using tech.

Leftovers

Oh, Also

Did you know that Angry Birds was spying on you?

“Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden suggest that spy agencies have a powerful ally in Angry Birds and a host of other apps installed on smartphones across the globe,” reads the start of a 2014 story that resurfaced recently (NBC News). The story is a little unclear about how this data is making it into the hands of intelligence agencies but we can probably assume it’s through ad tech.

I was thinking 10 years on —  would anyone be surprised about this anymore? Probably not. But also, I’m not sure people understand how just about everything they use leaks info about them. For example, a OSINT tool I have access to will check whether an email address is associated with an ABC iView or SMH account. If we’re being honest, there’s no way to live a normal life online and not leave info everywhere.

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.

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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.