Microsoft recalls Recall

From the Windows blog: "Recall will now shift from a preview experience broadly available for Copilot+ PCs on June 18, 2024, to a preview available first in the Windows Insider Program (WIP) in the coming weeks". The rest of the blog post goes on about how Microsoft is committed to security and privacy, blah, blah, blah, the usual marketing wank. A very limited test is how Recall should have been rolled out in the first place. It's one thing to be a small startup experimenting with a new app that users have to find and deliberately install, versus shoving it in the face of potentially billions of users with varying levels of technical understanding, forcing them to make an uninformed decision on feature that has a high risk of abuse.

Banning kids under 16 from social media gets bipartisan suppor

Peter Dutton held a press conference yesterday to say they want to ban kids under 16 from social media and that "there's a lot that we can do, and the technology is trending in our favour to make sure that we can deal with the scale of the problem". That's not true of course, he gave no details on what they'll actually do, despite journalists asking directly, multiple times. The Prime Minister was asked later the same day about Dutton's plans and said "we're doing it", further saying "a ban, if it can be effective, is a good way to go on, I've said this repeatedly, repeatedly, and I continue to say it". So there you go, bipartisan support for age verification for all Australians to use social media. eSafety's age assurance trial will look at the options and government will pick the shiniest turd they recommend, just in time for the mid-2025 federal election.

Elon gets his massive pay day

Earlier this year a Delaware court found a 2018 deal to give Elon Musk US$45b of Tesla stock options if he hit various KPIs was invalid as shareholders were not properly informed of its ramifications. Because of that judgement, Tesla decided to have another shareholder vote to prove to the court that shareholders are properly informed now. That voting period closed today with the shareholders overwhelmingly agreeing to give Elon the stock options, making him the best paid CEO in the world, by far. To be fair, he did hit all the KPIs and made Tesla shareholders incredibly rich (US$21/share in 2018 to a peak of over US$400 in 2021 to about US$175 now), so he probably does "deserve" the stock as much as anyone deserves US$45b. It's really just a matter of how long he can keep the hype going with Tesla to justify it's valuation (US$582b) that's currently bigger than Toyota, VW, GM and Ford combined (US$433b).

Japanese kids can experience the wonder and joy of working on a PC assembly line

KidZania, an "interactive city made for children" in Tokyo, is opening a new section called "PC Factory Worker" where kids can "learn about the computer's structure and functions, enjoy the process of manufacturing, and deepen your understanding of computers". The kiddies will "process a PC customer order sheet, pick the correct parts, and begin PC assembly", fitting "a real CPU, memory, graphics card, etc" and check that it boots. Not sure what happens with the computer once it's assembled via child labour in a potemkin village Foxconn factory, but it opens later this month and would absolutely be something I would ask my parents to do if I was 8 years old.