No Sizzle tomorrow because ANZAC day public holiday. I'll be back on Wednesday the 26th of April.
ACMA is getting $10m of funding to operate and maintain an Australian SMS sender ID Registry. This means that only Australia Post will be able to send SMS messages where the sender ID is "AusPost", ditto banks, toll road operators and other businesses that register their SMS Sender ID with ACMA. It should go some of the way to reducing the rampant amount of scam SMS messages sent daily that appears to suck many people as the fake messages are lumped in with legitimate previous messages. I assume more info on the specifics of the register will be available soon.
We got our first glimpse at what Humane, the secretive startup founded by two ex-Apple employees, has planned thanks to a demo given at a TED Talk last week. From what I can gather, it's a little clip-on device about the size of a cigarette lighter that is completely standalone - doesn't pair with a smartphone - but probably is internet connected. It appears to work like an Amazon Echo or Google Nest Mini with voice commands, but can also project short sentences onto a close surface like a hand. Looks to me like one of those Silicon Valley gadgets for Busy People who live in minimalist houses and spend all day in meetings. Not for me, but good luck with it Imran and Bethany.
Justine Hsu sued Tesla in Los Angeles, claiming that "her Tesla Model S swerved into a curb while on Autopilot" and that the airbag was deployed so violently that it fractured her jaw, knocked out teeth and caused facial nerve damage. Tesla said that's all bullshit and it's actually her fault for using Autopilot on city streets it isnt' designed for. In what I think is the first time a case involving Autopilot went to a trial in the US, the jury agreed and found Tesla not guilty. Tesla is right that Autopilot shouldn't be used on city streets - but does Tesla do anything to stop you using it on city streets? Nope.
The Inmarsat I-4 F1 satellite shit the bed for 12 hours last week which lead to "a flurry of concerned calls from Australian farmers" because machinery from brands like Ag Leader, Case, John Deere and Trimble couldn't perform accurate automatic steering, which requires the use of Inmarsat's SBAS augmentation of GPS. This allows for centimeter level accuracy to assist in getting those crop rows nice and perfectly spaced. Some farmers with internet connectivity out in the field could get that extra accuracy data, but those without it had to stop or operate manually. Inmarsat's outage also impacted the SouthPAN SBAS. Insert something about telecommunications infrastructure resiliency.
Racunari Magazine 1992 09 (Sketch the Cow / Internet Archive)
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