Bits: daily tech news bulletin – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Yesterday afternoon, a major outage occurred that impacted a wide range of Australian institutions, including major banks and their mobile apps, Virgin Australia airlines, Australia Post and more. Soon after cyber attack theories had been raised, it was learned that CDN Akamai had a routing error that impacted around 500 of its customers. All up the incident caused disruptions for around six hours.https://www.itnews.com.au/news/akamai-routing-error-caused-widespread-outages-566103The controversial Online Safety Bill will pass parliament with the Labor party once again claiming to be "not happy" but going to support it anyway. Since before the election in 2018, Labor has held a consistent position of claiming to be upset or disappointed or unhappy with legislation related to important digital protections like privacy, encryption and censorship, but to pass the laws anyway because they never want to open the door to an actual fight over civil liberties. What's the point of an opposition again?https://www.innovationaus.com/labor-not-happy-about-supporting-online-safety-bill/In better local news, Aldi Australia has become the first retailer in the country to power all its operations with 100% renewable power. The German supermarket chain's local operation announced it has achieved the target six months ahead of schedule, using solar installed on its own premises as well as purchased power from wind farms and other renewable energy purchases. According to Renew Economy, Aldi is the 67th biggest user of electricity in Australia, with 555 stores and eight distribution centres. So this really is a great example to the nation on big business getting the right thing done.https://reneweconomy.com.au/aldi-claims-first-place-in-major-retailer-race-to-100-pct-renewables-in-australia/Up in space, China has successfully sent a first crew to its new orbital space station with a team of three astronauts to the Tiangong station where they are setting up living quarters for the next three months. China has said it is open to future collaboration with other nations on its new station which is expected to be in orbit for over ten years. The ISS is scheduled to retire in 2024 though it can potentially be extended out to 2028.https://www.sciencealert.com/first-astronauts-have-just-arrived-at-china-s-space-stationIn entertainment news, Carrie Fisher is set to receive a posthumous Walk of Fame star which raises the question of how on Earth this didn't happen during her lifetime? The easy answer is no one bought one for her to promote a film, which is how it usually happens. Other great names scheduled to be added to the walk in 2022 include Ewan McGregor, Willem Dafoe, Regina King, Francis Ford Coppola, Salma Hayek, and Bob Odenkirk.https://www.themarysue.com/carrie-fisher-is-getting-a-star-on-the-hollywood-the-walk-of-fame/In videogames, Blizzard has announced World of Warcraft's next major patch, Chains of Domination, will go live on June 30, with the next raid opening its doors on July 7. Players will also be able to unlock flying in the patch in that second week and then the next race for mythic world first will kick off on July 14.https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/23686104/shadowlands-the-chains-of-domination-content-update-goes-live-june-29For those after some esports to watch this weekend, DOTA 2 is finally feeling the excitement again with the ESL One Summer tournament taking place. We're into the thick of qualifying for The International which did not take place in 2020 so fans are ready and eager for things to get serious once again. Hearthstone also has its Masters Tour Dalaran taking place which you can catch on YouTube, and a reminder that we are just a few weeks away from Battle Arena Melbourne on the second weekend of July for the biggest FGC tournament in Australia.https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/esports/tournament/masters-tour-dalaran/https://www.esl-one.com/dota2/summer/That's your Bits bulletin ...

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We now have a date for when the next generation of Microsoft Windows will be revealed, with the official invitations going out for the event on June 24, or just after midnight on the 25th here in Australia. CEO Satya Nadella and Product Chief Panos Panay will reveal all. My bet is a shift away from selling boxed Windows software and onto a free new upgrade to a single unified version for all users. We'll find out if I'm right in three weeks time.https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/eventTwo Australian broadband providers owned by the same parent company have been fined by the Australian Federal Court for making misleading claims on NBN evening speeds. The action, brought by the ACCC against Vocus-owned Dodo and iPrimus, found the brands chose the best speeds it had observed on its network to promote its services between March 2018 and April 2019. Justice Murphy said in the decision that the companies chose not to use industry best practice methodologies which it admitted did not give due ground for "Typical Evening Speed" statements. Dodo will have to pay $1.5M and Primus $1M in fines. As noted by ZDNet, the latest ACCC broadband speed report places Dodo and Primus last among all resellers for average download speeds.https://www.zdnet.com/article/dodo-and-iprimus-penalised-au2-5m-for-misleading-nbn-evening-speed-claims/Samsung is starting a new campaign to promote its Galaxy A Series smartphones as 'A for Awesome' with a target toward Gen Z teens and young adults. Normally I wouldn't consider this particularly newsworthy, but the campaign is including some nice profiles of young Australians achieving greatness in their fields, from 16-year-old skateboarder Ethan Copeland, pop duo Cat & Calmell, and social entrepreneur Daniel Flynn. It's also a positive to see a big campaign for more affordable devices. The campaign also includes some Snap AR lens action to get even more of that Gen Z attention.In science, NASA is tired of only having a bunch of cool robots exploring the surface of Mars and is turning its attention back to Venus with not one but two missions planned for later this decade. Announced overnight, the VERITAS mission will orbit the planet to deliver the most detailed map yet of the Venusian surface and search for volcanic activity, while the DAVINCI+ probe will enter the planet's atmosphere to investigate the chemistry of the atmosphere. The missions will launch between 2028 and 2030.https://www.businessinsider.com.au/nasa-discovery-program-new-missions-to-explore-venus-2021-6In entertainment, excitement for pulp adventure fans with word that the fourth Indiana Jones film begins filming next week. Harrison Ford returns with new castmates Mads Mikkelsen and Phoebe Waller Bridge, with shooting to begin at Bamburgh Castle in Britain. Yes, I said fourth film. Let's stick to that story.https://www.avclub.com/hold-onto-your-fedoras-indiana-jones-5-is-in-productio-1847016657Over in Fortnite, the place where the multiverse is slowly but steadily taking shape, as the end of Cahpter 2, Season 6 approaches it seems players are being abducted by aliens at the moment. Given lots of recent excitement over military UFO sightings why not go and get a taste of being hoovered up for experimentation through Epic's Battle Royale?https://www.gamesradar.com/fortnite-aliens-ufos-alien-abduction/Zero Latency, the Australian multiplayer virtual reality arcade experience, has now officially launched its Far Cry VR experience. It's the first partnership with a major franchise and sends players to a tropical island for their VR gaming session. You can book your experience via the Zero Latency website at its centres in Brisbane, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Perth and Sydney, or at one of its dozens of overseas locations if you're elsewhere on the planet.https://zerolatencyvr.comAnd, finally, retro gaming fans will be checking their wallets now that the Atari VCS launch has been announced. The new conso...

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In a response to a report on age verification for online gambling and pornography, the federal government has said it will consider whether work on a national digital identity system should be extended to include such verification processes. The Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs recommended that the Digital Transformation Agency explore extending any identity system to include third-party verification tools for online services and the recommendations have been met with "in principle" support.https://www.zdnet.com/article/canberra-considers-its-digital-id-for-use-in-verifying-age-before-accessing-porn/A global meatpacking company, JBS Foods, with operations in Australia, has had its plants shut down in Australia and North America this week after what is now known to be a ransomware attack. This follows the recent attack in on a fuel pipeline in the US which found that even after paying the ransom it was faster to restore from backups than using the decryption process supplied by the attackers. As targets increasingly seem to include critical services like fuel, food and health, governments are being called on to do more to fight back – including taking action against cryptocurrency avenues that are used for ransom demands.https://www.itnews.com.au/news/cyber-attack-on-meatpacker-jbs-foods-is-ransomware-565357In a great example for one possible future of the ridesharing industry, a cooperative of 2,500 New York drivers has created a new company that will give everyone better rates of pay and claims rides will be cheaper for users. It launched this past weekend, with drivers being paid 10% above minimum wages for the industry as well as profit share via dividends to the collective ownership group. Sounds like what ridesharing should actually sound like.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/technology/nyc-uber-lyft-the-drivers-cooperative.htmlMore Computex news, with Nvidia revealing its latest top of the line GPUs with the RTX 3080 Ti cards claiming another 50% increase in performance over the previous flagship 2080 Ti cards that were also a huge leap over the previous era. Nvidia pointed to a lot of new games adding ray-tracing support with Doom Eternal looking particularly shiny. Nvidia also revealed some big advances in how its processing power will be used in enterprise data centres and in AI processing.https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/05/31/computex-keynote/In AMD's Computex news, the company was bullish about its own new RDNA2 GPUs, which it announced will be heading into Samsung smartphones through a new collaboration on Exynos processors, which will enable ray-tracing and variable rate shading on mobile phones. Its new processors will also be heading into new Tesla Model S and X infotainment systems which will deliver processing power not far behind a PS5, enabling people to play the latest AAA games inside the car... which they probably really shouldn't be doing?https://www.amd.com/en/press-releases/2021-05-31-amd-showcases-industry-leading-innovation-across-the-high-performanceIn other tech news, the gaming division of Kingston Technology, HyperX, has been acquired by HP. HyperX has built a big business in PC gaming peripherals like headsets, keyboards and mice. HP has its own gaming brand, Omen, so it will be interesting to see whether the brands remain separate or unify in coming years.https://press.hp.com/us/en/press-releases/2021/hp-inc-completes-acquisition-of-hyperx.htmlIn science, wonderful news for Australian fauna with word that Tasmanian devil babies have been born in the wild on mainland Australia for the first time in 3,000 years. The cute carnivores have been breeding in captivity in a special rewilding project for the past decade and in 2020 the first group was released from captivity into a sanctuary where the first group of joeys have been born.https://www.livescience.com/tasmanian-devils-born-in-australia.htmlFinally, in videogames, the World of Warcraft...

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The Victorian government purchased a vaccination booking system from Microsoft in January this year for $6M and it is still not in use. According to InnovationAus, the booking system is an existing Microsoft product that was purchased on a six-month contract, which at the time was said to only need fine tuning before launch. Four months later, Victorians are still using a 1800 phone line to make bookings, a system that has not kept up with demand during the 1b expansion phase of vaccination rollout. The issues did not receive much attention until the latest outbreak brought renewed attention to making the vaccination rollout as efficient as possible.https://www.innovationaus.com/victorias-6m-microsoft-vaccine-platform-delays/After the recent changes at CSIRO that saw Data61 drop the trustworthy systems group, UNSW has stepped in to ensure funding for the group continues through the next six months to give it time to build new partnerships and funding – making it even clearer that the team was being dropped with zero notice or support. The team's work on the secure embedded L4 microkernel has been seen as a major breakthrough technology development – a first of its kind, with iTnews reporting the team has had interest in being acquired by companies in China and Singapore. Data61 dropped the team after deciding it did not fit with a new mission of pursuing artificial intelligence technologies as a seemingly myopic new focus.https://www.itnews.com.au/news/unsw-gives-dumped-data61-sel4-research-group-funding-lifeline-565274It's Computex week, which means we miss visiting Taipei but we're still getting news from the likes of Acer, Asus, Gigabyte, Nvidia and Intel. Today we see the latest 11th Gen Core updates from Intel with new U-series mobile processors for its thinnest, lightest designs. Recently we got the new chips for gaming laptops so this is the latest we'll find in many new Intel Evo branded laptops that deliver great performance in ultrathin bodies with 'all day' battery life.https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/better-processor-thin-light-laptops.html#gs.28en9vChinese hardware manufacturer Xiaomi has unveiled a new HyperCharger technology that can charge a large 4000mAh battery in its Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra smartphone in just eight minutes, and even charge in just 15 minutes over a wireless charge pad. If you've ever forgotten to put your phone on charge before going to bed, this kind of tech can make a big difference when you've just got 10 minutes before you have to run out the door.https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/30/22461435/xiaomi-fast-charging-world-record-200w-wired-120w-wirelessAmazon is quietly launching a new feature to allow Amazon devices to share their internet connections with other nearby Amazon devices that are not part of your own network, and it has some worried about everything from privacy to bandwidth. The feature, called SideWalk, is quietly opt-out, so users need to know to go and switch it off in their system settings to avoid being included in the plan. SideWalk seems to only be launching in the USA at this time. Amazon does seem to have clear security protocols in place around this technology and at some point in the future we do have to embrace mesh networks for the full power of 5G and internet of things technologies to take root, so I'm not against seeing this happen as long as the right processes and protections are in place?https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/amazon-devices-will-soon-automatically-share-your-internet-with-neighbors/TCL has launched its new TV range this week, with its latest refresh bringing integrated Google TV across the new range, as well as mini LED and quantum dot tech in the backlighting systems. Dolby Vision is also supported, including a Dolby Vision IQ tech that reads the lighting in the room and adjust the HDR picture output to suit the conditions. Here at Byteside we'll continue to tell people to ignore 8K TVs for the forese...

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The amazing service that lets you check if accounts related to your email address have ever been compromised, Have I Been Pwned, is moving to an open source model to allow for greater collaboration with the wider cybersecurity industry. Created by Australian Troy Hunt and managed largely on his own since inception, the changes are allowing organisations like America's FBI to add its discoveries to the database to allow for greater transparency of who and what has been compromised. If you don't already have the website bookmarked, you really should. It's a handy way to show people just how many times their personal details have already leaked to the darker parts of the internet.https://www.zdnet.com/article/have-i-been-pwned-goes-open-source/The NSW Police Force has announced it is Australia's first enterprise customer of the SpaceX Starlink satellite broadband service. Starlink launched in Australia very recently and offers speeds between 50 and 150Mbps, faster than NBN Skymuster satellite services. The initial rollout in Australia covers Victoria and the southern regions of NSW. iTnews reports that the NSW police deal may include mobile use in a new concept police vehicle design.https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nsw-police-signs-up-to-starlink-satellite-internet-service-565225In a court case in the USA, documents have revealed just how overtly Google has tried to make privacy settings difficult for users to access. The Arizona attorney general sued Google last year over illegal location data collection, and internal documents discovered during the case show the company viewed the use of privacy settings as a "problem", and that led to moving settings deeper into the system settings to make them harder to find. The documents also suggest Google also pressured Android partners to keep these privacy settings as concealed from users as possible. In one quote a Google staffer says: "So there is no way to give a third party app your location and not Google? This doesn't sound like something we would want on the front page of the New York Times."https://www.businessinsider.com.au/unredacted-google-lawsuit-docs-detail-efforts-to-collect-user-location-2021-5If you're not entirely put off by that Google story, there's good news for Chrome browser users. The latest update, version 91, is now up to 23% faster thanks to some changes in the way it executes Javascript – it actually spends less time 'optimising' the code, after finding that the optimisation step was taking longer than just getting the code executed. A better balance gives a faster result. Just remember that if you have 50 jillion tabs open sometimes you do need to restart your browser to make sure it gets the updates it needs to keep running faster and, very importantly, get any security bugs ironed out. Also don't forget you can get all the best bits of Chrome without the privacy invasive Google parts through the Brave browser.https://blog.chromium.org/2021/05/chrome-is-faster-in-m91.htmlIn science, Japan has announced it plans to send a robot to the moon and in true Japanese style it is sending a transformer. The cute robot was designed by the Japanese space agency JAXA along with input from Sony and toy-maker Tomy, with a ball-shaped robot for easy transport that will then pop open to allow a camera system to take pictures of the lunar surface for soil analysis. Here's hoping the toy version won't be too far behind the official mission.https://www.engadget.com/japan-transformer-moon-robot-171933181.htmlOn the red planet, NASA's Curiosity rover has captured images of a rare cloud cover event on Mars, making for some weirdly familiar photos. Analysis suggests the clouds were very high up in the Martian atmosphere and were likely made of carbon dioxide ice crystals – think dry ice floating in the sky.https://www.engadget.com/nasa-curiosity-rover-cloud-photos-202447024.htmlFinally, in esports, the Valorant Masters tournament wrapped up overnight, the f...

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Australia's Human Rights Commission has tabled a report to the federal government with recommendations on the place of technology in today's human rights environment, with the report urging all tiers of Australian government to pause the use of facial recognition and AI technologies in any area that has decision making power about individual members of society. Human Rights Commissioner Ed Santow told parliament that protections and transparency measures should be put in place before such tools are used in areas of such personal impact. The three year investigation made 38 recommendations in all, including the recommendation that an AI Safety Commissioner role should be created to oversee such tools in Australia.https://www.innovationaus.com/hrc-calls-for-an-ai-safety-commissioner/A survey of global CIOs conducted in March this year has found that three in four still feel less than fully prepared to tackle the digital transformation journey that was thrust upon most organisations during the pandemic. Most critically, the Genpact research found that only 30% of CIOs said that technology was involved with managing employee safety and wellbeing, ranking HR last in a priority stack even in the midst of such a transformation in how and where staff is now operating in the corporate environment.https://www.genpact.com/lp/digital-transformation-cio-research-ngFor Twitter fans, the company has announced that users can now join Twitter Spaces from the desktop version of the app as well as from web browsers, making it easier to listen in on these new audio room chat sessions. They cannot yet create a new Spaces session from these platforms. Also at Twitter, the pricing of subscription service Twitter Blue has been revealed – we took a look in the iOS App Store and now see a local price of $4.49 listed as an in-app purchase. Still no word on exactly when there'll be a button to activate this purchase, and what features they're going to offer to make it worth the price.In battery tech, there's another metal taking aim at industry leader Lithium to improve both the cost and storage density of the rechargeable market. Researchers have found that Zinc holds the promise to be both cheaper and safer than Lithium-ion tech, but it's been a tough road to scale them up from their primary use in tiny single-use cells used to power things like hearing aids. A story in Science points to the rapid research advancement to overcome the obstacles and put this far more readily available metal to smarter work.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/batteries-used-hearing-aids-could-be-key-future-renewable-energyTaiwanese tech giant Acer announced its latest hardware line up overnight. Lots of new devices running the latest Intel 11th-gen Core processors as well as models with the AMD 5000 series chips. The ConceptD laptop range for designers looks particularly impressive, with clever convertible designs targeted toward creating art directly on the screen with up to 4K Pantone-validated displays in my favourite screen ratio 16:10. Also the new Acer Aspire Vero incorporates recycled plastics through its manufacturing process and uses more recycled paper in its packaging. Plus gaming fans have lots of new Predator hardware to drool over too.https://www.acer.com/ac/en/AU/content/nextatacer-2021Home fitness technology company Zwift is partnering with the IOC to run an official Olympic Virtual Series Virtual Cycling event running throughout June. Cycling's world governing body is also involved, with Zwift users able to participate in mass virtual rides through the platform along with special podcast rides with some of the world's greatest cyclists, including Australia's own Anna Meares. Zwift is a different take on home exercise programs, more like a massively multiplayer online game where you ride or run in shared virtual environments – the company recently launched a new island inspired by the Japanese countryside called Yumezi. If you're ...

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The Commonwealth Bank is set to trial a feature that will let its customers view the balances of all their accounts within the CommBank app – including balances of accounts at other banks. Under Australia's new Consumer Data Right, which officially became law last year, open banking rules do allow customers to share data with additional financial services at their choosing. CDR was focused on finance at launch but energy and telco industries will soon also have to offer visibility into other apps on behalf of customers.https://www.zdnet.com/article/commonwealth-bank-customers-to-see-balances-from-other-banks-in-app/The studio with a James Bond movie sitting on the shelf after holding it back due to the pandemic is now set to become part of the Amazon empire, with news the internet giant will buy MGM Studios for US$8.45 billion. Amazon has invested heavily in original productions, so the MGM move seems aimed at bolstering its catalogue of content that it won't have to license to use. MGM also plays host to a lot of classic movies, which you can often find in greater supply on Amazon's streaming service than others. The buyout may not be smooth sailing, however, with some in the US government saying they want to look at what it means for industry competition.https://www.vox.com/recode/22451787/amazon-mgm-james-bond-streaming-netflix-analysisUSB has unveiled its next major update, with USB-C 2.1 aiming to support larger powered devices over the same simple port. The update makes no changes to data speeds or other features, just the move to increase power supply from 100W maximum to 240W. The option will be known as Extended Power Range, or EPR. This tier of power throughput will allow for devices like 4K monitors to be directly powered over USB-C as well as to let higher powered gaming laptops to move onto the USB-C standard for power supply.https://www.cnet.com/news/usb-c-power-upgrade-delivers-a-whopping-240w-for-gaming-laptops-and-other-devices/Facebook has announced it will limit the distribution of all posts from personal accounts that regularly spread disinformation. It's important to remember I am sharing that headline in the year 2021 and not back in 2015 and it is definitely a thing Facebook announced this week. Better late than never, but also it doesn't include politicians because they live outside its rules yet share the dirtiest lies of all. Another reminder that Facebook is a blight on civilised discourse.https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/26/22455076/facebook-misinformation-individual-users-hiding-postshttps://about.fb.com/news/2021/05/taking-action-against-people-who-repeatedly-share-misinformation/In hardware launches, the latest Nokia Android phone hits the market on June 3. The Nokia X20, made by HMD Global, is touting two-day battery life alongside its quad camera system and 5G. The phone also comes with three-months of screen replacement warranty and because it runs nice, clean stock Android OS it gets three years of updates guaranteed and it doesn't have as much cruft as some other brands throw into their handsets. The X20 can be pre-ordered now at JB Hi-Fi and will be sold there as well as Officeworks, Big W and Harvey Norman and it'll cost $599.https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_au/nokia-x-20In videogames, Minecraft Dungeons has just launched its latest downloadable expansion, Hidden Depths, sending your heroes under the ocean to deal with the forces of corruption. We gave Dungeons a great review – think of it as family friendly Diablo and you're in the right place. The game is also celebrating an anniversary event starting today, which includes special trials and rewards over the next two weeks.https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/minecraft-dungeons-turns-onehttps://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/hidden-depths-dlc-out-nowFor PC gamers, there's been a lot of new keyboards announced in recent days – especially in sizes that won't eat up your entire desk. HyperX has released its Al...

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Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Wednesday, May 26, I'm Seamus Byrne.The Victorian government has passed an extraordinarily backward new law overnight, adding a new per kilometre charge for electric vehicle drivers in the state. Aside from the horrible choice to start charging taxes on a class of vehicle that Australia desperately needs to better promote to improve environmental outcomes on our roads, the 2.5c per km fee has to be manually tracked and reported via a website, adding a level of nuisance and friction to those who are leading the way with EV adoption. Penalties will apply for anyone who fails to adhere to the new reporting system. We try to avoid editorialising here in the daily bulletin, but this is a terrible decision at a time when every measure to ease a transition toward reduced carbon emissions is required to save the planet.https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/bills/zero-and-low-emission-vehicle-distance-based-charge-bill-2021https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/consumer/2021/05/17/victoria-ev-tax-cash-grab-lobby/Microsoft's Build 2021 conference is happening this week, but the biggest news of all may be being held back for a little later on. During his keynote address, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella teased that a very big new update for Windows is coming soon. Quote: "Soon we will share one of the most significant updates to Windows of the past decade... I'm incredibly excited about the next generation of Windows." With a "very soon" also used, perhaps we'll learn more around the time the next major update to Windows 10 drops in June, which includes much discussed updates to system icons, system default fonts and other UI features.https://www.windowscentral.com/satya-nadella-teases-big-updates-coming-soon-windows-build-2021In other operating systems, Google has officially put its third operating system Fuchsia into the real world, with news the Google Home Hub has been updated to be based on the Fuchsia OS. There's been no fanfare around the shift and for years the Fuchsia team has been working to put the system into different aspects of the Google ecosystem, so this quiet push to the original Nest Hub (and not the second gen version either) is an interesting move.https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/google-launches-its-third-major-operating-system-fuchsia/Imaging giant Epson has announced a partnership with National Geographic to promote the need to protect the world's permafrost regions, collaborating with its explorers and researchers to encourage us all to find ways big and small to fight climate change. The announcement arrives alongside Epson's launch of its latest Heat-Free Technology for its ink-jet printers, which sees a big reduction in energy consumption, especially compared with laser printers. The new range of EcoTank printers includes new six-colour photo printer models at up to A3 size that skip the old ink cartridges to deliver thousands of prints with a lot less fuss.https://www.epson.com.au/heat-free-technology/https://www.epson.com.au/v2/ecotank/In video games, news from late last week we missed saw a major announcement for fans of competitive modes of Overwatch, with news that Overwatch 2 will be shifting the game from 6v6 to 5v5. The game is dropping a second tank class from the standard team composition and while it might not seem like much on the surface it will see a huge shift in the style of play typically seen in the game where tanks and shields have slowed the regularity of kills in the game's modes. Overall this single announcement gives Overwatch 2 the biggest boost in appeal as it will significantly change the flavour of PvP in the game.In local esports, the ANZ Premier League of World of Tanks wrapped up over the weekend, with North Sydney Sentinels taking out the title against the Brisbane Bulldogs at a final event at Fortress Melbourne. Overseas, the Valorant Masters is underway this week in Iceland, the first major international...

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The NSW government has announced the digital driver's license available through the Service NSW app has been adopted by over half of all eligible drivers. Launched in November 2019, Minister for Digital Victor Dominello announced that three million drivers, 53% of all licensed drivers in the state, have now added a digital license to their app. The digital license is now accepted by police in every Australian state and territory and other states are now launching similar options. NSW still recommends drivers carry their physical license when travelling beyond NSW borders.https://www.zdnet.com/article/more-than-half-of-nsw-drivers-have-adopted-a-digital-licence/A report into how Australian copyright infringement routines have changed has been published by the federal government with some interesting findings. The report, published last month, surveyed over 2,400 internet users aged 12 and over, and found that the majority of those who had encountered ISP blocked piracy websites simply gave up on the content – including not accessing it via legal means either. 59% took this approach, while 21% said they found a legal route to access what they were looking for.https://torrentfreak.com/when-aussies-face-a-blocked-pirate-site-59-simply-give-up-dont-try-legal-options-210520/https://www.communications.gov.au/documents/2020-consumer-copyright-infringement-surveyRegulators are finally getting involved in the cryptocurrency arena and it looks set to test the limits of investors and speculators in the blockchain world. Last week the US Treasury announced all crypto transactions worth over $10,000 must be reported to the country's tax service, the IRS. China has also begun to hone in on a crackdown, with some of the world's biggest Bitcoin mining operations based within its borders. Ars Technica reports the Chinese government is close to issuing an outright ban on mining. Prices of the top currencies have been highly volatile over the past two weeks, most a long way down from all-time peaks in mid April but still fluctuating wildly from day to day.https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/china-advances-its-war-on-bitcoin-cracks-down-on-mining/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/crypto-payments-above-10000-would-be-reported-to-irs-under-treasury-plan/Over on YouTube, the classic viral video "Charlie Bit My Finger" will now be deleted from the site after the owner of the video sold an NFT of the clip and earned US$761,000. Its owner said they were already considering removal after the video was flagged as 'made for kids' by YouTube, so the NFT sale apparently puts an end to the video's journey from amusing clip to 884 million view juggernaut. Of course, I'm sure no one will ever see it on YouTube ever again because no other account would ever repost such a clip. That never happens on YouTube.https://www.tubefilter.com/2021/05/24/charlie-bit-my-finger-nft-sale-removed-from-youtube/https://youtu.be/_OBlgSz8sSMElsewhere in the battle for digital dominion, demands for social media platforms to be accountable for misinformation have been growing in recent years, but now some legislators are pushing back against platform efforts to remove or label content as misleading. Florida has just pushed a new law that aims to ban platforms from suspending politicians, like Trump, and allows them to sue platforms for doing so. Meanwhile in India, Twitter has seen its offices raided by police as the government demands answers on why a government spokesperson's tweet was labelled as "manipulated media". A knife edge time for balancing freedom of speech with outright lies from politicians.https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/delhi-police-raids-twitter-india-offices/articleshow/82912102.cmshttps://www.businessinsider.com.au/florida-republicans-want-fine-social-media-companies-banning-politicans-2021-4Microsoft has updated its Xbox Cloud Gaming app for Android to add support for dual-screen devices, turning half the scr...

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