An FoI request from former independent senator Rex Patrick managed to get an Expression of Interest document out of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources. This document was used to pretend the Department was assessing all its investment options, when really, it and the Queensland government had already decided to give almost $1b to PsiQuantum, an American quantum computing company. The EoI has zero mention of PsiQuantum, or the fact the government had already spent a year discussing and negotiating with PsiQuantum, but pretends that all those who respond to the EoI had a fair shot at getting the massive pile of cash on offer. Instead, respondents to the EoI were helping the Department negotiate with PsiQuantum, one of their competitors. If we had a functioning federal anti-corruption watchdog the PsiQuantum investment would be near the top of their list.
Electricity retailer Amber received $3.2m in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to test EV smart charging and vehicle to grid bi-directional charging. The cash will mainly go towards installing "100 smart chargers and 50 V2G chargers into participants' homes" and enlisting about 1,000 people to participate in the trial over the next 2 years. If you're unaware, Amber specialises in dynamic electricity pricing. Every hour the price changes based on grid demand and sometimes it's super cheap and sometimes super expensive, so they're trying really hard to find an easy and consumer friendly way to leverage the massive battery in your car and take advantage of dynamic electricity pricing.
Blatantly copied from the excellent Garbage Day newsletter: "Elon Musk wants to add a payment app inside of X because he's desperate to turn it into an Everything App like WeChat and you can't do that unless people are using it for transactions. But in order to get regulatory approval to add a payment feature, X had to disclose a bunch of financial information. Which is how we now know that revenue for X was 40% lower in the first half of 2023 than what it was during the same period in 2022. Masterful gambit, sir". The Bloomberg article also reveals that Musk owns 75% of X and no single investor owns more than 10%, so there's fuck all chance of him getting sacked by investors any time soon, as he would likely just buy them out instead of going away.
Heads up for those in the ACT or willing to visit the ACT - the Canberra Vintage Computer Exhibition 2024 is taking place on June 29th at Radford College. It's free to attend but give em a $5 or $10 donation at the door yeah? If you're into restoring old computers, stick around to listen to Jeremy Barr Hyde talk about how he does an awesome job cleaning up and fixing these old beasts to look good as new. I really wanted to go (any excuse to visit my favourite city in Australia!) and even booked somewhere to stay, but had to cancel due to higher priority life stuff getting in the way. So if you do attend, please take lots of photos and post them on the forums and/or Mastodon (tag me - @decryption@aus.social) so I can see.
Technopolis Volume 1 - August 1982 (RevengeOfTheHubz / Internet Archive)
📻 Waterloo - ABBA
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