Plus: Gina Rinehart cheaped out on trying to buy a web domain then lost a legal fight over it ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

April 13, 2026 | Read online
# Anti-AI violence, Signal messages exposed via iOS and Australia's Venmo sold Plus: Gina Rinehart cheaped out on trying to buy a web domain then lost a legal fight over it
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Edition 2540
"Une vue de l'écran de travail lors de la séance de travail à Douala lors de l'atelier 2 de Nos Jardins à Douala" by Frank William Batchou is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Mentioned in today’s edition: Sam Altman, Signal, Beem, Life360, Google Home, Mark Gurman, Rockstar Games, and Gina Rinehart. Plus, deals on Bose headphones, Apple MacBooks, and Samsung portable SSDs.
# The News
### Violence is just the tip of the anti-AI iceberg headed towards big tech
Overnight, someone allegedly shot at the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (SFStandard). It was the second attack this weekend. Two days earlier, someone reportedly threw a Molotov cocktail at the house before being arrested at the AI company's offices (Guardian). Earlier in the week, the house of a Democratic congressman who'd thrown his support behind a local data centre project was also shot at. The attacker left a note "NO DATA CENTRES".
The Sizzle: Over the weekend, I was planning to write today about the new challenges facing these massive AI tech companies: how the Iran war is making everything more expensive and uncertain, the increasing pressure from banks and investors that are running out of patience for far-flung projections of profitability, and the lack of a killer consumer app yet. But it's another problem that — following the weekend's news — bears highlighting: AI is pretty unpopular.
NO DATA CENTERS note left after US politician’s house shot at
Let's do a thought experiment: I have a technology that's supposedly powerful and magical, that could automate away drudgery and is being voluntarily included in every tech. That should be popular, right? Well, it's not and some AI people seem quite surprised — there's some real copium in the AI industry who are blaming it on mainstream media bias or misinformation — but I'm not really. How do you think people are going to feel when tech billionaires spend their time saying "this technology is more powerful than God, it will replace your job, it will compete with you for energy and water, and we won't even let you use it because it's too incredible"?
What is important to note is that the anti-AI view isn't just popular among the Sizzle-type reader who pays attention to this stuff. It's the mainstream view. Good quality surveys on attitudes towards AI show that most Australians are more concerned than excited about it (Pew, KPMG, Roy Morgan). In the US, AI is less popular than the Trump paramilitary force ICE (Verge). This is a real problem for these AI companies. Not just because their leaders and supporters are facing violence — needless to say, that's bad, don't do that — but because there's a simmering rage that's curdling into real mobilisation against data centres. Like, Maine looks like it's going to ban big data centres for 2 years (CNBC). Violence is just the tip of the iceberg that's headed towards AI.
well at least the AI people can be happy that it’s more popular than Iran, I guess
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Law enforcement can read some Signal messages because of iOS infrastructure
A story I missed at the end of last week is that the FBI was able to get copies of encrypted Signal messages from someone's phone using iOS's notification storage (404 Media, $). Even after deleting Signal, court records show that US law enforcement was able to access someone's incoming Signal messages because they had been saved in their iPhone's push notification database. Signal has a setting that blocks message content from showing in notifications or you can just manually turn off notifications altogether.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Australia's version of Venmo sold off
I didn't see this get much attention but Beem, the big bank-backed person-to-person payments app, has been sold to an AI fintech (AP+). Beem was launched by AP+ in 2018 to be a local version of Venmo but wasn't as successful as its US counterpart because, well, Australia has basic banking infrastructure that allows people to send money between banks without needing a third party platform. Beem's been bought by BaaS company Bolt, formerly Bano... which is a totally sensible sentence that I just wrote.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Leftovers
Australia:
Family and pet-tracker Life360 makes layoffs linked to AI (The Australian, $) Morgan Stanley slashes valuations for major ASX-listed tech stocks over AI fears (Australian Financial Review, $) Here's a read on that Australian former-spook-turned-hacking tools developer that's got new details on his work for ASD in Australia and life, pretty interesting read (Zero Day) Google's new voice assistant for Home has launched in Australia (Google Blog)
Rest of World:
The oracle of Apple Mark Gurman has some details on the style of Apple's smart glasses (Bloomberg, $) Linux corner: Linux 7.0 released but it's not a massive update; the number change is because Linus likes going to a new major version number after 20 updates (Phoronix) and Linux kernel now allows AI-written code (XDA Developers) GTA-maker Rockstar Games hacked again, says it will have no impact (The Verge) YouTube says it does not have 90-second unskippable ads despite user reports (9to5Google) It's always worth noting how tech culture is mainstream, like with news that a Mario movie sequel is the biggest film in the world right now I got early insider access to the upcoming Windows 12 (Reddit) post was deleted but I saved the image
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Oh, Also
### Gina Rinehart cheaped out on trying to buy a web domain then lost a legal fight over it
Friend of the Sizzle Sam Buckingham-Jones has a delightful story in the AFR about how Australia's richest person, Gina Rinehart, tried and failed to buy hancock.com.au. Her company, Hancock Prospecting, made an unsuccessful bid to the World Intellectual Property Organisation that claimed that the domain's current owner owned it in bad faith. It's worth a read but just to share one detail that jumped out to me: Hancock apparently only offered a "low five-figures" amount for the domain. What a cheapskate!
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Bargains
Electronics
Reolink Argus 3E 2K Battery Camera 3PK - $199 at Costco Apple AirPods Pro 2 - $245 at Optus (Down from $329) Bose QuietComfort Ultra Noise Cancelling Headphones - Black - $398 at Amazon (Down from $499) GoPro MAX 2 Accessories Bundle - $699 at JB Hi-Fi Sony 75 Inch BRAVIA 3 4K HDR Google TV K75S30 - $1399 at Costco (Down from $2899) Oshonic Aura Zenith Smart Toilet - $1699 at Oshonic (Down from $2399) would love to hear some reviews
Computing
TP-Link Deco AX1800 Wi-Fi 6 Mesh at Amazon 1-Pack for $139 2-Pack for $239 3-Pack for $269 (Down from $350) Samsung T7 1TB USB 3.2 Portable SSD - Gray - $240 at Officeworks MacBook Pro 14 Inch M5 10/10 Core CPU/GPU 32GB RAM 512GB (Refurbished) - $2669 at Apple Gaming PC: AMD R7 7800X3D, RTX 5070 Ti, 1TB Gen4 SSD, 32GB RAM, B850M Wi-Fi Mobo - $2989 at G-ONE Computer
Mobile
Apple iPhone Air 256GB on JB Hi-Fi Mobile $99/M 24M SIM Plan - $1153 from JB Hi-Fi (down from $1799) Optus Flex Plus 140GB 186-Day Prepaid SIM that comes with $120 Visa eGift Card after 90 Days Service - $180 at Finder Vivo X300 Global Version - $1149 at MyMobileAustralia eBay (Down from $1249)
# The End
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