Google launched its Find My Device feature, albeit only in the US & Canada for now. It's the same thing as Apple's Find My but for Android 9 or later. There's a whole ecosystem of "Works With Android Find My Device" trackers as well as devices with a tracker embedded like headphones. This is cool and all, but how fucking annoying is it that Apple and Google have their own practically identical tracker systems that aren't compatible? In a sane world this would be an industry standard where as long as the device adheres to that standard, it can be added/tracked regardless of platform you're using. This is something the EU should stick their beak into.
I tried writing about US tech companies pissed off with our ATO yesterday but the words I generated sucked. This from The Crux, Justin Warren's weekly tech newsletter, is much better: "The Australian Tax Office is trying to change its tax rules for software, which is putting noses out of joint at SaaS vendors and the US Treasury. The ATO appears to think paying to use SaaS might be a 'payment for the use of intellectual property' which is a royalty and therefore subject to royalty withholding tax. Royalty withholding tax is only 5% but on the kinds of transaction volumes concerned, it adds up to a lot of money. I can't see a colonial outpost prevailing over the imperial core. Not for long, anyway".
Tesla settled a US lawsuit regarding Autopilot's culpability in a fatal crash hours before the trial was due to start. The family of Wei Lun Huang sued Tesla alleging that in 2018 Wei Lun died due to defects in Autopilot and spent years getting Tesla to take responsibility despite the NTSB's investigation saying "Autopilot had failed to keep the vehicle in its lane and that its collision-avoidance software had failed to detect a highway barrier" despite the fact "Mr. Huang had probably been distracted". Due to the settlement, none of Tesla's documentation will be made public and their decision making will not be examined by the court.
Last fortnight's aimless chat with Raj went alright, so I tried it again with Jackie (aka Wolfjay) who some of you may have seen on the Sizzle forums. Please enjoy this hour long AAC audio file of two people sitting in a park, thinking out loud about how to let people know you exist on an internet that's hostile to the hyperlink, how piracy is essential for developing a taste in art and a bunch of other random bits I can't remember now. Still not sure if this will be an ongoing thing. Let's see how I feel in two weeks time.
Etched Gallium Arsenide. 400x magnification. Ulrich Büttner, AEG-Aktiengesellschaft-Research Institute. (1988 Nikon Photomicrography Competition)
📻 A Certain Shade of Green - Incubus
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