Issue 2021 - Tuesday 6th February, 2024

In Today's Issue

The News

TVs sold in Australia will need to come preloaded with iView, SBS On Demand, 7plus, 9Now and 10 Play

We got a draft legislation for a framework that'll make "manufacturers of connected television devices will have to meet minimum prominence requirements for new devices supplied to the Australian market". Translated into normal person talk, that means new TVs sold in Australia will have to come with the free to air streaming apps (iView, SBS On Demand, 7plus, 9Now and 10 Play) pre or auto installed and "present separate tiles, tabs or links to provide easy access to each free-to-air video-on-demand television service". Unlike what the FTA networks wanted, TV makers won't have to put a physical "Free TV" button or whatever on the remote next to a Netflix or Amazon button.

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Gmail's strict email server policies are in effect now

After months of warnings and updates and heads ups, the day has finally come where Google is mandating a bunch of email security requirements that if you don't do them, your emails won't get into Gmail inboxes. They're all extremely common sense things that you should be doing anyways, like SPF and DKIM authentication, PTR records for server IP addresses, sending emails in the Internet Message Format standard (RFC 5322) and keeping spam rates below 0.10% in Google's Postmaster Tools. If you aren't doing this stuff I don't know how you've been able to get email working the last few years. I do everything by the book and still have issues with the gronks at Microsoft! Those sending 5,000 or more a day have even more requirements.

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Apple Vision Pro hot takes and random info from around the internet

The Apple Vision Pro has been in the hands of cashed up USA nerds (who else is buying them???) for a full weekend, resulting in some content I found interesting as a cashed up Australian nerd that cannot buy one of his own:

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Something I Saw On The Internet

Indulge me in this rant about lack of free access to Australian Standards

I got a new dryer yesterday and saw on the energy label that it was tested against AS/NZS 2442.2 to come up with the 115kWh/year figure on the sticker. I wanted more details, so searched for AS/NZS 2442.2 on the internet and like every standard for the past 20 years, it's not free to read and also isn't in Standards Australia's new Reader Room. I don't have an urgent need to know what's in AS/NZS 2442.2 and if I did for my job, my employer should pay for it or it's a business expense. If I'm a student, my university probably has access to AS/NZS 2442.2 if I'm studying something relevant. I got some info via the Energy Rating Registration Database but I'd still like to read the standard to learn more about this for no reason in particular because that's the kind of nerd I am. Hiding standards behind a paywall kills any curiosity about how the world works and why we do the things we do. It's a shame the documents written by volunteers most of the time, are monetised by an organisation that's supposed to be a not for profit!

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Bargains

Image Of The Day

Arduino is an Italian open-source hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardware products are licensed under a CC BY-SA license, while the software is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) or the GNU General Public License (GPL), permitting the manufacture of Arduino boards and software distribution by anyone. (Sahand Babali/Unsplash)

The End

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