A draft set of Consolidated Industry Codes of Practice for the Online Industry (Class 1C and Class 2 Material) have been cooked up by "the industry" on demand by the eSafety Commissioner. This second phase of codes (phase one industry codes were finalised last year) is trying to make sure kids don't see a wide range of content - basically all types of porn plus "simulated gambling" and "self-harm" material - on social media, search engines, app stores, "relevant" and "designated" internet services and more, pretty much anything connected to the internet. The billion dollar question is still how the hell are we going to age verify every Australian on the internet, but the framework for what needs to be age gated and the regulation of it is done, pending the eSafety Commissioner's approval. You can see the draft codes over at onlinesafety.org.au and if you feel up to it, provide feedback.
Australian made secure messaging app Session told 404 Media that the AFP showed up an an employee's home unannounced, without a warrant, demanding information about how the Session app works and details on a specific Session user they're investigating. That's shit, but expected from the bullies at the AFP. What's more concerning is that according to Session's CEO "the final straw was with end-user registration guidelines included in new regulations being introduced by the Australian eSafety Commissioner which require all online services to collect a phone number or email address from users", has resulted in moving their business to Switzerland. I assume the regulation Session's CEO is talking about are the phase 1 industry standards that'll come into effect December 2024.
Anthropic added a new feature to their Claude AI platform called "computer use". They say "developers can direct Claude to use computers the way people do — by looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text". Essentially, write what you want the computer to do, and the computer does as if it was a human, pulling data from various sources it has access to not simply an old school macro recording. Anthropic reckons it can help automate a lot of "drudge" work people do now. Anthropic's blog post has a 2.5 min video demo of computer use in action. Again, like most AI demos I've seen, it looks impressive, but who the hell trusts the AI to do this properly? It looks so prone to bugs and mistakes, what's the point? I know it will likely get better over time, but will it ever get to the point where you can blindly trust the AI to do a task that isn't riddled with mistakes?
The Verge read an interview between Tim Cook and the Wall Street Journal where Timmy casually dropped that "every day" he uses "every product" Apple makes - "an iPhone, an Apple Watch, AirPods, and then, for work, two different MacBooks, an iMac, a Vision Pro, and an iPad Pro" - which if you're even mildly aware of Apple's product line, will realise that is far from "every product" Apple makes. The Verge used that as inspiration for an interesting thought experiment to try and use literally every Apple product every day. It was pretty funny, to me, a sufferer of Apple Stockholm Syndrome.
This poster comes from a collection of Kodak campaign material kept by former Kodak advertising agency Catalyst. They worked on Kodak promotional campaigns from 1992-2000, and were the principal agency for Kodak Consumer Imaging from 1995/1996. Catalyst was headed by John Skinner, formerly of Kutt Skinner Bennett and Berry Currie Advertising - agencies that also worked closely with Kodak. This collection of marketing material complements the Kodak collection of products, promotional materials, photographs and working life artefacts collected from Kodak Australasia in 2005 when the Melbourne manufacturing plant closed down. (Museums Victoria)
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