Plus: If I had a nickel for every time someone had sent me a tip about this Melbourne robot... ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

January 15, 2026 | Read online
# Waymo speeding towards 2026 trial, renewables are cooking and Victorian student hack Plus: If I had a nickel for every time someone had sent me a tip about this Melbourne robot...
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Edition 2481
"LINC Computer" by A.C.Diller is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Mentioned in today’s edition: Services Australia, H200 chips, Matthew McConaughey, shrinking clothes, Digg 2.0, and police robots. Plus, deals on Samsung phones, Lenovo laptops and Reolink cameras.
# The News
Waymo looks like it's on its way to test its self-driving vehicles in Australia this year. In a Sizzle exclusive, I got my hands on federal Department of Transport documents showing that Google's autonomous driving company has been having high-level discussions about importing and seeking approval for its vehicles. The company even met with the minister's office about its "2026 plans".
The Sizzle: You might remember last year that I broke the story that Waymo was looking at coming to Australia according to Transport for NSW (Crikey, $). What surprised me is that there's some pretty strong reactions to Waymo coming down under. There's obviously some backlash to automation and tech generally, not to mention the idea that self-driving might increase a reliance on individual vehicles, but also: driving is one of the most dangerous things we do and Waymo so far has been very safe (within its limited confines of its operation). Personally, I think reducing the road toll and car accidents would be an incredibly good use of technology. Your thoughts?
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Renewable energy tech is kicking ass
Australia's 2030 and 2035 renewable targets are looking increasingly dicey (AFR, $) and progress on renewables is being held back by lagging transmission/grid infrastructure. Plus, there's the hungry, hungry data centre build-out. All of that is bad, but good news that the technology behind renewable energy is going gangbusters. In Australia, renewables just about supplied half of the NEM power in Q4 last year (PV-Magazine). Meanwhile, you see good news just about every day. Literally today, I saw that coal power generation fell in China and India for the first time in 50+ years because of their wind, solar, and hydro (Guardian). And then that wind power in Spain cut energy bills by $8 billion last year (Sur in English). Renewables are cooking, folks.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Victorian students (maybe all of them?) have been caught up in a department hack
The personal details of current and former Victorian students have been exposed after the state's education department was hacked (ABC News). On Wednesday, the department said an "external third party" had accessed all student names, year level, school name, email addresses and encrypted passwords. It's not clear the scale of the breach — the ABC says "all" students are affected — but the department says this trove of data hasn't popped up anywhere on the internet... yet.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Leftovers
Australia:
Woolworths and Google team up for AI shopping agent but the supermarket giant says it won't push brand deals inside the shopping carts (SmartCompany) Social media time does not increase teenagers’ mental health problems, study says (The Guardian) ACTU urges crackdown on Elon Musk’s Grok AI over deluge of explicit deepfakes (The Australian, $) Unions score rare win over AI rollout with Microsoft agreement (The Sydney Morning Herald, $) Services Australia to tap law enforcement data for staff security (iTnews) Big year for tech deals despite sluggish return to public markets (The Australian Financial Review, $) This TikTok star sharing Australian animal stories doesn’t exist - it's AI Blakface (The Conversation) Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them (Swinburne University of Technology) this is barely tech but I have been in the dog house before for shrinking my wife's clothes so this advice is priceless.
Rest of World:
Digg 2.0 is officially in open beta! (Digg) US approves sale of Nvidia's advanced H200 chips to China (BBC) Uganda is the latest country to shut down its internet, just two days before its election (Rest of World) Grok is still undressing people in the UK (The Verge) Tesla stops selling standalone FSD outright and will only let people subscribe (The Verge) Gemini's new Personal Intelligence will look through your emails and photos (ZDNET) Claude Cowork Exfiltrates Files (PromptArmor) Website that leaked info about ICE agents is down after cyberattack (MSN) Matthew McConaughey trademarks himself to fight AI misuse (MSN) Nuclear weapons are now ESG compliant, lmao (Financial Times, $)
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Oh, Also
### If I had a nickel for every time someone had sent me a tip about this Melbourne robot…
Out of the blue yesterday, I got a text from someone who I went to university with who said she had a weird robot experience. They were crossing the road in Melbourne when they saw a robot. It was humanoid, black, but had the fluro/blue and white checkered pattern worn by cops sometimes. When she approached it, someone came over and said they were the lead researcher on a University of Melbourne study about "how people react to robots in public", but wouldn't give any more details than that.
this would not be the last time someone contacted me to investigate these robots
Somehow, this wasn't the first time I'd heard about the robot. Another person had sent me a picture, but they thought it was related to the police (because of the design) which was a dead-end. Anyway, this time I contacted University of Melbourne to confirm if this was all true... and it is! So if you see a random robot in Melbourne, uhh, act normal?
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Bargains
Electronics
Oontz Angle Clip by Cambridge Soundworks Bluetooth Clip on Waterproof Speaker - $29.23 at Gizmoo (Down from $79.99) SOUNDPEATS C30 Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds - $37.59 at ZeYuan-AU via Amazon AU (Down from $46.99) Nothing CMF Buds 2 Plus Global Light Grey/Blue - $52 at Xiaomi CC Store AliExpress (Down from ~$99) TP-Link Tapo C216 - $54 at Amazon AU (Down from $99) UGREEN 130W Nexode Power Bank 20000mAh with Retractable Cable - $62.99 at Gadget Hive AU (Down from ~$110) Edifier M206BT Bluetooth Multimedia Speaker - $69 at Centre Com (Down from $159) Reolink Argus 3 Ultra 4K Battery/Solar-Powered Standalone WiFi Camera - $144 at Reolink AU (Down from $199.99) Apple Watch Series 11 46mm - $547 at Amazon AU (Down from ~$699) TCL 75" C7K when bundled with a TCL soundbar - $1392 at JB Hifi (Down from ~$2000)
Computing
Acer Wireless Gaming Headphones for PC PS4 - $28.45 at BINNUNE Store AliExpress (Down from ~$50) ACEMAGIC K1 Mini PC w/ AMD Ryzen 4300U 16GB 512GB SSD WIN11 - $279 at eBay AU (Down from ~$400) Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition 14" OLED 2.8K at Amazon / Officeworks Core Ultra 5 16GB RAM for $1697 Core Ultra 7 32GB RAM for $1999
Mobile
Samsung Galaxy A36 5G 6GB RAM/128GB Storage - $299 at amaysim (Down from $549) Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro+ 8GB/256GB + Bonus Redmi Pad 2 Tablet + Redmi Buds 6 Play Earphones - $799 at Xiaomi Google Pixel 10 Pro at JB Hi-Fi 128GB Model for $1297 256GB Model for $1447 512GB Model for $1647 Apple iPhone Air at Amazon AU 256GB Model for $1397 512GB Model for $1797
# The End
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