Issue 2217 - Friday 15th November, 2024

Thanks Raj for filling in while I was away! I might be taking more time off next week but I'll give you a heads up if that happens.

In Today's Issue

The News

Comms Minister wants to add a Digital Duty of Care to Online Safety Act

A "Digital Duty of Care" concept is one of the key recommendations of an as-yet not public review of the Online Safety Act that was handed to the government by the eSafety Commissioner last week. According to a speech the comms minister gave on Wednesday night, updating the Online Safety Act with a Digital Duty of Care "will put the onus on industry to prevent online harms at a systemic level, instead of individuals having to enter at their own risk" and that "a Duty of Care is a common law concept and statutory requirement that places a legal obligation to take reasonable steps to protect others from harm... It is a proven, workable and flexible model".

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New QLD LNP govt to investigate dodgy PsiQuantum investment

The new Queensland LNP government announced a review of QLD's portion (approx $470m) of the $1b investment made by the previous ALP state government and the current federal ALP government into PsiQuantum. If you don't remember, PsiQuantum is an American startup that promised the governments that they'll build the "world's first useful" quantum computer in Brisbane. Since the massive investment was announced, everyone in the industry was pissed off about it - lack of scrutiny, lack of transparency and many world leading Australian businesses overlooked for a massive pot of cash. The whole thing got even more rotten when PsiQuantum announced a very similar deal to operate a quantum computer in Chicago, making Australia look like rubes.

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Waymo open to the public in LA, The Guardian leaves X, Meta fined over $1.3b by the EU again

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Something I Saw On The Internet

The M4 Mac mini sips electricity like a little bird

The M4 Mac mini is an impressive little computer. Jeff Geerling found out that the M4 mini is the most efficient computer on the market today, reaching 6.74 Gflops per watt of electricity on the HPL benchmark and a total power draw of 42W peak, including a 10GbE network interface and 32GB of RAM. He found that it uses 3-4W idle - so still turned on, just not doing anything - which is less than the 10GbE NICs on most other computers, let alone the rest of the computer! It's wild how power efficient Apple has got their SoCs and overall platforms.

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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.

Bargains

Image Of The Day

A close-up view of a commemorative plaque left on the Moon at the Hadley-Apennine landing site in memory of 14 NASA astronauts and USSR cosmonauts, now deceased. Their names are inscribed in alphabetical order on the plaque. The plaque was stuck in the lunar soil by astronauts David R. Scott, Apollo 15 commander, and James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot, during their lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA). The tiny, figurine represents fallen astronauts and cosmonauts. (NASA)

The End

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