ABC's iView is great in that you can just get the app and watch stuff. No need for an account and no ads. Perfect! Unfortunately the ABC is gonna ruin that and make an account mandatory for using iView. It also means that unless you opt-out, data the ABC collects whilst you use iView will be shared with Google and Facebook. Lawyers from Salinger Privacy have explained that under Australian Privacy Law, the ABC "is required to offer genuine anonymous use of its services and must not collect personal information unless reasonably necessary or directly related to the service" and that an opt-out isn't consent to sharing user data with those companies.
Tough shit if you were looking to buy anything with a semiconductor in it that's currently out of stock or overpriced - things aren't getting better for a while according to Acer and Intel. Acer has said that "we have a severe shortage, and it's not simply just to make sure every family has a device to use, every person has to have a device for working or education" and will have a "severe impact on its production capabilities until at least the first or second quarter of next year". Meanwhile, Intel's new CEO said at Computex that "it could still take a couple of years for the ecosystem to address shortages of foundry capacity, substrates and components".
Intel & AMD have given their Computex keynotes in the past 24 hours. Intel announced a refresh of Tiger Lake-U laptop CPUs that were originally launched in Q3 2020. The changes are so subtle I don't even know what is new here, two new CPUs with slight frequency bumps that sit alongside the 2020 chips??? There was also a "Beast Canyon NUC" aimed at people who want tiny gaming PCs. AMD has slightly more interesting announcements - Zen 3 based APUs with built-in Radeon GPUs and the Radeon RX 6000M mobile GPUs, based on the RDNA2 architecture used in the latest RX 6000 desktop GPUs. AMD claims they're faster than any Nvidia mobile GPUs whilst using less power.
Crikey has laid out all the various technology related laws currently moving through Australia's parliament. There's the Online Safety Bill (gives the eSaftey commissioner power to get basically ban whatever internet content they feel like), the Data Availability and Transparency Bill (allow government departments to share data with each other without appropriate checks and balances), a review of the Privacy Act (basically updating 30-year old privacy laws for the digital age), the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill (giving cops powers to take over people's online accounts with weak warrants) and a few others. There's never been a better time to pay attention to all the ways our government is fucking up the internet!
📻 Doin' The Cockroach - Modest Mouse
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The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.