Optus and TPG cooked up a mobile network sharing arrangement that'll begin early 2025 and last for 11 years. Under the deal, "Optus will provide TPG Telecom with access to its regional radio access network and they will share spectrum in regional Australia. TPG Telecom will gain access to 2,444 Optus mobile network sites in regional Australia, increasing its current national 4G coverage from around 400,000 sq km to around 1,000,000 sq km and 98.4% of the population". In return, Optus will get some of TPG's spectrum to boost its regional coverage. It'll still need the ACCC to approve it, but should go ahead unlike TPG's attempt with Telstra, as the ACCC preferred TPG make a deal with Optus instead of further boosting Telstra's already significant mobile network. TPG's ASX announcement of the deal can be found here.
A review of the Online Safety Act has begun and an issues paper made public this morning. The government wants to look at "the effectiveness of the current framework, including whether more powers are needed to address new and emerging harms" and will be "examining options to reduce harms caused by online hate, as well as new harms raised by emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence". Reading between the lines, this review will be the excuse the government needs to beef up the Online Safety Act to be even more draconian and give the eSafety Commissioner even more powers that they really don't need. This is also a great time to make a donation to Digital Rights Watch so they have the resources to fully participate in this review and provide a voice of common sense in sea of big tech lobbyists and somebody-think-of-the-children hyperbole.
The USA's NHTSA released its multi-year investigation into Tesla's Autopilot, concluding that the system's "insufficient controls can lead to foreseeable driver disengagement while driving and avoidable crashes". The NHTSA also said "Autopilot invited greater driver confidence via its higher control authority and ease of engagement" and that crashes involving Autopilot "are often severe because neither the system nor the driver reacts appropriately, resulting in high-speed differential and high energy crash outcomes". There is carelessness on both ends - the driver is careless because they're lulled by Autopilot's capabilities and Tesla is careless for not doing more to force the driver to be more active when using Autopilot considering it is a level 2 system that cannot operate on its own. Now the NHTSA has opened a new investigation to find out if the "fix" Tesla released in December to address these concerns actually did so.
Did you have weird Apple ID issues over the weekend, like being signed out across all your devices and forced to reset your password? You aren't alone, as many people reported the same thing. Apple hasn't acknowledged this, leaving users in the dark about the status of their precious Apple ID/iCloud accounts. It was worse for users with Stolen Device Protection enabled, as they were unable to reset their password for a few hours (as per the SDP policy) and totally unable to log back in if they were away from one of their trusted locations. The fact this happened isn't necessarily a bad thing. Apple may have a good reason to reset the cookies and passwords of what appears to be thousands of users, but when you fuck around with people's highly sensitive iCloud accounts you gotta be more transparent about what's happening or people will panic and start catastrophising.
Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs, 1988 (National Library of Australia)
📻 MY MEDS ARE WORKING - Alex Walton
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