In the second half of 2022, Melbourne will be joining Sydney as an additional Australian region for Amazon Web Services. You can shave a few extra milliseconds off accessing AWS services and have dual region redundancy whilst keeping all your crap in Australia. According to iTnews, the Melbourne regional "is expected to offer the same suite of 92 Information Security Registered Assessor Program (IRAP) certified AWS services currently offered in the Sydney region". In a blog post, Amazon said the Melbourne datacentre will be "powered" by 100% renewable energy, by investing in 165MW of renewable energy projects that should cover the datacentre's yearly usage.
Wallet hating New South Welshians will be delighted to know that their public transport ticketing system, Opal, is getting a digital card trial. Unlike the bums in Public Transport Victoria, Transport for New South Wales is doing whatever Apple wants in order for Opal to work on iOS devices. The trial is limited to 10,000 people so if you're super keen, hit up the TfNSW website and tell them you want to be part of the 12-month trial program. Android users take note: Samsung devices with NFC running Android 8+ only.
Uber has given up on robocars and given its Advanced Technologies Group to another robocar company, Aurora in some sort of equity swap which ends up in Uber investing US$400m in Aurora. Uber spent over US$1b on the ATG and killed a person trying to develop a self-driving car platform. Aurora has deals with Hyundai, Fiat Chrysler and Toyota to create the software a robocar needs. I always assumed robocars were pivotal to Uber being profitable one day, removing meatbags in the drivers seat as their main expense. I guess not.
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