The Byteside Newsletter
Crop waste: the new jet fuel
Wednesday, 16 June, 2021 Power to enforce cybersecurity: The Australian Signals Directorate, our national spy agency, wants to see laws introduced to compel organisations to cooperate in the event of a hack or ransomware attack, after a recent incident saw a company refuse assistance and ultimately become reinfected within months
"A shameful chapter"
Tuesday, June 15, 2021 It’s virtual E3 season, with dozens of major games announcements over the weekend. Here’s just a few of that caught our eye. Starfield won’t PlayStation: Bethesda’s Starfield had its first game footage, though still incredibly vague apart from the obvious “you’ll
And the award goes to...
Friday, June 11, 2021 WWDC winners are digital grinners: As WWDC wraps up for Apple developers, the Apple Design Awards have been announced, a great promotion for some of the best apps across iOS and macOS. I’m quite sure most people don’t browse the App Stores like they
The cowboy will be a real bop
Bitcoin goes legit: El Salvador has voted to make Bitcoin a legal tender currency in the country, the first country to do so. It sounds wild on its surface, but the legislation says it aims to add regulation to Bitcoin’s use in the country. The country’s other legal
An eternity on the Internet
Wednesday, June 9, 2021 Quite the bit of police work that: In one of the most remarkable digital policing operations ever seen, the Australian Federal Police in conjunction with America’s FBI managed to essentially run an encrypted messaging app for criminals, collecting masses of information and evidence over years
Fastly just showed us how CDNs keep the Internet alive – until they don't
Just saw a bunch of 503 errors on your favourite websites, like Amazon, Twitch, Reddit and major news outlets? Here's what went wrong.
What's another word for 'brave'?
Tuesday, June 8, 2021 NBN has a plan to end CVC – pay it different money! The National Broadband Network has suggested the first major overhaul to how its pricing is structured for resellers, with the existing price structure an eternal point of argument due to the Connectivity Virtual Circuit (CVC)
Hot Sauce of Oblivion
Friday, June 4, 2021 Not the Blue badge you were looking for: Twitter has officially launched its subscription service today, but only for those of us here in Australia and in Canada. Twitter Blue is available through the iOS version of the app for $4.49/month, but right now
Far Cry hits Zero Latency
Plus Windows 11 reveal date, ACCC fines two NBN resellers, the new Galaxy A arrives, and NASA is heading back to Venus.
Type by imagining your handwriting
Thursday, May 13, 2021 Bouncecoin: Tesla has announced it is changing its stance on trading Bitcoin for its cars, announcing it will no longer accept payments in the cryptocurrency. Tesla CEO Elon Musk cited concerns over the environmental impact of the mining process used by the world’s most prominent
Ebay says "Us NFToo!"
Wednesday, May 12, 2021 Funding the future: The federal budget happened last night, and over the past week the government pre-announced many aspects that are important to technology and digital culture industries, including the tax offset scheme for videogames and the new AI centre at the CSIRO. Unfortunately the university
DeepMind invades the football pitch
ACCC wants a say in Epic vs Apple: In the local side of the battle between Epic Games and Apple, the ACCC has asked the court to allow it to weigh in on the matter. The Australian case was paused by Justice Perram until the US proceedings that are now
Pentanet makes history
Monday, May 10, 2021. Pentanet makes history: A big moment for Australian esports overnight, with Perth’s Pentanet.gg becoming the first local team to make it out of the group stage of an international League of Legends competition. Pentanet split its victories with main group rival Unicorns of Love,
Toss a coin to your Twitter
Friday, May 7, 2021 (got that wrong yesterday…) Please, if you’re enjoying the new newsletter format and/or the daily podcast… Tell your friends to catch the Bits daily tech news bulletin Tell them to get this newsletter Either or both will help Byteside thrive! Brain food The Smithsonian
Games finally catch a tax break
Thursday, May 6, 2021 Games industry finally catches a (tax) break: Digital Economy Minister Jane Hume has announced that the upcoming federal budget will include a tax offset for videogame development in Australia for the first time. The support will take the form of a 30% refundable offset, in line
The realest lightsaber yet?
Officeworks removes AirTags: Officeworks has removed Apple AirTags from store shelves over child safety concerns. After initially going on sale, the products have been removed from shelves and from the online store, including AirTags accessory products. The ACCC confirmed to Gizmodo Australia that it is aware of concerns over accessibility
Would you pay for Facebook?
Tuesday, May 4, 2020 CSIRO evolves Wi-Fi into satellite startup: A new partnership between the CSIRO and venture capital group Main Sequence is launching a new space industry startup, Quasar Satellite Technologies. The technology aims to enabled ground stations to communicate with hundreds of satellites at a time, with the
Doing (B)it(s) daily
The Bits daily tech news bulletin has been a fun evolution for what we’ve been doing at Byteside and I’ve realised the work of putting it together has put me into a place where taking the newsletter daily is also a more viable idea than ever before. Starting
Queer Divine Dissatisfaction
It’s on the walls of the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, and even cleverly encoded in the parachute the Perseverance rover used to land on the surface of Mars. Dare Mighty Things Again and again, NASA JPL has been crushing it by doing the maths, science and engineering to do
AI and avoiding digital phrenology
Giving AI too much credit is a big issue that needs to be considered in the mix of how we improve the ethical structures around its use. If it isn’t as good as we’re told it is, why is it allowed to play such a big role in parts of our lives?
