Plus: What kind of bug is that? ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

February 06, 2025 | Read online
# Aussie start-ups scene doing OK, anti-scam law set to pass and banning phones at schools doesn't do anything Plus: What kind of bug is that?
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Issue 2265 - Thursday 6 February, 2025.
# In Today’s Issue
Australia’s start up scene is doing… fine? Government to pass anti-scam law but stops short of forcing loss refunds Schools banning phones doesn’t help kids What kind of bug is that? Deals on a cheap power board, iPhone screen protector, GL.iNet Wi-Fi router, Transcend external SSD, Samsung OLED 4K smart TVs.
# The News
### Australia’s startup scene is doing… fine?
Australian startups got more money in 2024, a report has found (The State of Australian Startup Funding), but the spoils are going to fewer companies. There’s a fair bit in this annual report that you can slice in a few different ways, here’s some key takes.
“Australian startups raised approximately $4 billion in venture capital during 2024, navigating an increasingly intricate funding environment. International investors became more active, while local venture firms struggled to raise capital.” (Capital Brief, $) “A quarter of the money going to firms building products based on artificial intelligence… The analysis found 104 Australian companies that cumulatively raised $1 billion were positioning themselves as having AI-led products or services.” (AFR, $) “Women-led or mixed-gender founding teams accounted for 42% of angel and pre-seed deals and 29% of seed rounds… At the Series A stage, representation fell to 19%, down from 22% in 2023, and it remained stuck at just 16% for Series B+ deals… Only 15% of the share of overall capital in 2024 went to teams with at least one woman founder. This was down from 18% in 2023 and 20% in 2020.” (SmartCompany) “More than half (55%) of the venture funds responding for the 4th annual report said they had a portfolio company fail last year. That’s a 25% increase on 2023’s 42%.” (Startup Daily)
TLDR: Things are going OK in Australia’s startup scene even if there’s an uptick in busts — we shouldn’t expect every or even most startups to survive — but there are a few troubling trends like funding concentration and diversity issues.
### Government to pass anti-scam law but stops short of loss refund requirement
Australian romantic scam victims lost close to $12,000 on average, according to a report released by Norton. I think it’s easy to giggle a little bit at people being swindled by a fake Brad Pitt (BBC) asking for money but, like many scams, it’s really sad to think that this is the price of loneliness and technological illiteracy. Parliament is sitting over the next few weeks, perhaps for the last time before the election, and one of the bills on the slate is a law putting the onus on companies like banks to take steps to stop scams (law at APH, a good run-down by law firm Ashurst). There was a push to adopt the UK requirement that banks quickly refund losses except for when there’s gross negligence but a Labor-led committee reviewing the bill ended up waving it through without it (Yahoo). Honestly, I feel like we don’t consider the psychic damage that we’re all getting from constant scam emails, texts, phone calls, etc, and always having to question: is this real? Or am I being fucked.
### Schools banning phones doesn’t help kids
Well! It turns out banning phones at school — The Common Sense Thing To Do Of Course We Should Do This Why Wouldn’t We Do This — doesn’t actually help kids’ wellbeing or grades (The Guardian). Researchers compared UK kids from schools which banned phones with those which didn’t and found no difference (Lancet). What they found was that spending more time on smartphones for kids was linked to “lower grades, poor sleep, disruptive behaviour and a lack of exercise”. This finding contradicts SA Premier Peter Malinauskas, also a key promoter of the social media ban, who last year said the “evidence was in” on his state’s ban (ABC News).
I’m sick of puritanical approaches to technology that assume that BANNING and RESTRICTING will fix all the problems. They just don’t work! We should be teaching children to use technology in helpful and healthy ways so they can learn good habits for their adult life. I find it extremely annoying because we’re wasting time on this bullshit rather than actually addressing problems that are making life hard for kids.
# Oh, Also
### What kind of bug is that?
Do you ever look at a bug and think, What the hell is that? Well, Iowa State University has launched this charming website — yes, not even an app — called InsectID that can identify bugs from images you upload. Apparently it is 96% accurate at predicting 2,500 different kinds of creepy-crawlies and was trained on 12 million images, mostly collected by citizen scientists (Phys).
Give it a whirl and tell me how it goes! I did try it on a picture of a Sydney funnel web spider (very venomous) which it identified as a California Bee Assassin (not that venomous) but, in fairness, it did say it had a “very low certainty” for the image so I can’t blame it.
# Bargains
Electrical & Electronics
Arlec 6-Outlet Powerboard - $5.50 at Kmart Samsung 55" S95D OLED 4K Smart TV (2024) - $2556 at JB Hi-Fi Samsung 77" S95D OLED 4K Smart TV (2024) - $5196 at JB Hi-Fi
Computing
SanDisk Extreme PRO microSDXC 256GB with Adapter - $39 at Centre Com GL.iNet GL-B3000 (Marble) Wi-Fi 6 Router - $69.95 at Amazon Transcend 2TB USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 External SSD - $239 at Umart SanDisk 2TB Extreme PRO Portable SSD - USB-C, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 - $304.78 at Amazon US Samsung T7 Shield Portable 4TB SSD - $337 at Catch Gaming PC: AMD 7500F, RTX4060, 1TB NVMe, 32GB DDR5, Wi-Fi 6E - $1234 at Evatech
Mobile Phones
Liquid Silicone Soft Case & Glass Screen Protector for iPhone 16 15 14 13 12 11 XS - $9.99 at eBay
# The End
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