Apple's WWDC main keynote took place early this morning. No new hardware or headline products this year, just updates to their entire operating system line-up and various APIs and frameworks. MacStories has an overview of macOS Monterey, Anandtech looks at iOS 15 for both the iPhone and iPad, Arstechnica has info on watchOS 8. All the software is already available for developers and should go public in a few months. I reckon the biggest updates are with iCloud (custom domain names for email!), FaceTime (it's turning into Zoom and non-Apple devices can join in via the web) and Siri (all processing now done on device so it's fast and 3rd parties can add it to their products)
The AFP has made it public that 200 mafiosos and bikies were busted via a fake messaging app called AN0M. A 3-year collaboration between the FBI and AFP tricked these crims into communicating with each other via an app promoted as secure but was actually designed by police, with the FBI leading development. Drugs, cash and assets were seized, murder plots were interrupted and a mass shooting in "suburban Australia" using a "machine gun at a cafe" was foiled. 11,000 people around the world were using AN0M, 1,650 in Australia and half of them in NSW (the criminal state). How fucking wild is this! I wonder how they convinced criminals to use AN0M instead of Signal? The reason AN0M shutdown could be due to the fact an info sec researcher studied it and said it's a piece of shit (but didn't realise it was an FBI sting app)
NBN has finally floated the concept of flat rate pricing for ISPs as an alternative to the much hated CVC pricing model - with a catch. The NBN reckons that moving to a flat rate price would result in price hikes between $5 and $20 a month and an index increase above the inflation rate every year thereafter. So what I'm reading is, either way we are fucked? Stick with CVC and the cost of high speed plans remains high, but go to a flat-rate model and the cost of all plans goes up every damn year? It's almost like a group of incompetent dickheads run the NBN.
Check out the results of Intel's researchers applying machine learning to Grand Theft Auto 5. The graphics look ultra realistic. Like, too realistic. As The Verge explain, the result is "a visual look that has unmistakable similarities to the kinds of photos you might casually take through the smudged front window of your car" makes it look like a real street from a real car dashboard". Be sure to watch the video on YouTube. I can imagine this sort of research leading to games being set in real world environments, with 3D models of things merged into real life backgrounds for increased realism.
📻 I Might Be Wrong - Radiohead
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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.