Senate wants Telstra & Optus to delay 3G network shutdown

Nationals senator Matt Canavan (the politician I would love to punch in the face the most, not for this, but just his general existence) has politely asked Telstra and Optus to "voluntarily" delay shutting down their 3G networks - which were already pushed back from July to September earlier this year. He, along with the Senate's Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, wants to delay the closure until "the 4G network provides coverage equivalent to or better than the coverage provided by the licensee's 3G network", which honestly, makes a lot of sense. A broken clock is correct twice a day I guess. Optus and Telstra responded that they're not gonna stop as they've done all they practically can to get people off their 3G devices.

Intel kicks off some serious belt tightening, huge layoffs, no more dividends

As part of its 2024Q2 financials, Intel announced a "comprehensive reduction in spending" that'll sack 15% of its workforce (approx 15,000 - 19,000 people worldwide) and suspended dividend payouts indefinitely in an attempt to cut US$10b of expenses by the end of 2025. CEO Pat Gelsinger put out a memo saying "our costs are too high, our margins are too low", "it takes too long for decisions to be made, so we need to eliminate bureaucracy", and that "the actions we are taking will make Intel a leaner, simpler and more agile company". Intel is one of those "too big to fail" companies like Boeing or General Motors that the USA will prop up indefinitely due to its importance in national security, so it isn't going anywhere. Still sucks to see the company that put Silicon in Silicon Valley struggling though.

Banks, telcos and social media platforms could be on the hook for scam losses

Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones gave a speech at the National Press Club this week where he introduced a plan to legislate a Scams Code Framework and mandatory industry codes to do something about online and phone scamming. Not much detail on what the framework and codes will entail, but "banks will need systems that identify dodgy payments and accounts and then take action", telcos "will be required to block known scam numbers" and social media platforms will "need to have stronger anti‑scam actions – including verifying advertisers and taking down scam pages". The contentious part of the proposal seems to be banks/telcos/platforms having to compensate a scam victim if they didn't do enough to prevent it.

Seagate planning 32TB HDDs that use plasmonic writers and photonic tunnels

Seagate announced earlier this year that they're set to manufacture 30TB & 32TB HDDs that'll use a technology called Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording. From the article: "Data bits are written to the media using a plasmonic writer, which has several elements to it. These start with a nano-photonic laser. Its 830 nm light photon pulses pass through a photonic tunnel or wave guide to a quantum antenna, a near field transducer, which focuses them on a 35 nm spot on the media surface, thus heating it up to more than 400°C". "Once written, the bit area spot cools and its magnetic pole direction is stable. The heating and cooling cycle takes about a nanosecond. Although the disk is actually spinning at 7,200 rpm, the laser pulse happens so quickly that it is as if the disk is momentarily still beneath the quantum antenna". That's fucking insane! Who the hell thinks of this stuff? God bless them.