PODCAST · news
Bits: daily tech news bulletin
by Byteside
Looking for a rapid rundown of the biggest news across technology, science and digital culture each day? Byteside presents 'Bits' to deliver key headlines every day in under five minutes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
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Where we've been, where we're going
Byteside needs to consolidate its focus to give ourselves the best chance of building a sustainable media business. So Bits, unfortunately, has to go back on the shelf. We hope it will return, but whatever happens we thank you so much for your support through its first three months. The core...
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Digital capitulation
Yesterday afternoon, a major outage occurred that impacted a wide range of Australian institutions, including major banks and their mobile apps, Virgin Australia airlines, Australia Post and more. Soon after cyber attack theories had been raised, it was learned that CDN Akamai had a routing error...
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Amazon hates social media too
This week, the Western Australian government has introduced legislation to limit the use of COVID check-in app data after the WA Police Force accessed the information in two investigations of serious crimes, which is allowed under the existing rules. To ensure users feel confidence in always…
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Jet fuel from crop waste
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 of the first attack.…
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"A shameful chapter"
It's virtual E3 season, with dozens of major games announcements over the weekend. Here's just a few of that caught our eye.Bethesda's Starfield had its first game footage, though still incredibly vague apart from the obvious "you'll be on spaceships visiting far away worlds" vibes. But the big...
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The award goes to...
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 once did, so checking out these lists is a great way to find some new gems.…
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This cowboy will really be a bop
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 tender currency is the US dollar, and Bitcoin…
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An eternity on the line
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 before a massive worldwide sting broke...
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Bezos straps in for space trip
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) charge which puts excess charges for data consumption onto resellers...
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The Hot Sauce of Oblivion
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 you're not getting all that much for your money – which might be part of why it's...
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Far Cry hits Zero Latency
We now have a date for when the next generation of Microsoft Windows will be revealed, with the official invitations going out for the event on June 24, or just after midnight on the 25th here in Australia. CEO Satya Nadella and Product Chief Panos Panay will reveal all. My bet is a shift away…
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First devil babies in 3,000 years
In a response to a report on age verification for online gambling and pornography, the federal government has said it will consider whether work on a national digital identity system should be extended to include such verification processes. The Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal…
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Charged in eight minutes
The Victorian government purchased a vaccination booking system from Microsoft in January this year for $6M and it is still not in use. According to InnovationAus, the booking system is an existing Microsoft product that was purchased on a six-month contract, which at the time was said to only…
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Japan is sending a transformer to the moon
The amazing service that lets you check if accounts related to your email address have ever been compromised, Have I Been Pwned, is moving to an open source model to allow for greater collaboration with the wider cybersecurity industry. Created by Australian Troy Hunt and managed largely on his…
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HRC wants a big pause on AI
Australia's Human Rights Commission has tabled a report to the federal government with recommendations on the place of technology in today's human rights environment, with the report urging all tiers of Australian government to pause the use of facial recognition and AI technologies in any area...
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Bond meets Bezos
The Commonwealth Bank is set to trial a feature that will let its customers view the balances of all their accounts within the CommBank app – including balances of accounts at other banks. Under Australia's new Consumer Data Right, which officially became law last year, open banking rules do…
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Victoria's horrible EV law passes
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Wednesday, May 26, I'm Seamus Byrne.The Victorian government has passed an extraordinarily backward new law overnight, adding a new per kilometre charge for electric vehicle drivers in the state. Aside from the horrible choice to start charging...
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Most pirates just give up
The NSW government has announced the digital driver's license available through the Service NSW app has been adopted by over half of all eligible drivers. Launched in November 2019, Minister for Digital Victor Dominello announced that three million drivers, 53% of all licensed drivers in the…
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iView to mandate account creation
CSIRO's digital division, Data61, is in the midst of another restructure that is seeing 70 jobs lost from the research organisation. One of the victims of the changes is the loss of a world-leading team that has developed a highly secure computing microkernel, seL4. According to reports, the team...
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Everyone Is Awesome
After two years of teasing us with a stunning new display concept, LG has announced that you will soon be able to place an order for its amazing rollable OLED TV. It's an amazing piece of technology, with the screen disappearing into a cabinet that is also a large speaker cabinet for the...
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Internet Explorer: 1995-2022
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Thursday, May 20, I'm Seamus Byrne.Microsoft has announced a year long process for taking Internet Explorer off life support. In August, Microsoft 365 will stop supporting Internet Explorer, and on June 15, 2022, most versions of Windows 10 will...
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A shiny new You at Google I/O
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Wednesday, May 19, I'm Seamus Byrne.Google I/O kicked off overnight, the company's festival of new toys, and this year we see a very new look for Android ahead of the launch fo the version 12 update. They're calling it a "Material You" design…
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Aussie stars #sendit to Cloud9
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Tuesday, May 18, I'm Seamus Byrne.Leading today's bulletin is esports, with an amazing result in the wee hours this morning as Perth's Pentanet defeated one of the world's biggest brands in esports, Cloud9. Cloud9 was the North American champion...
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The Disinformation Dozen
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Monday, May 17, I'm Seamus Byrne.The Australian Signals Directorate, in response to Senate Estimates questions, has told parliament that it knows who was behind an attack on parliamentary email servers in March, but it is not saying who that was...
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Should parliament ban smartphones?
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Friday, May 14, I'm Seamus Byrne.The federal parliament has been asked by a parliamentary committee to trial a ban on smartphones during question time to improve the perception of how business is conducted in the House and the attentiveness of...
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Type by imagining your handwriting
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Thursday, May 13, I'm Seamus Byrne.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…
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Ebay wants in on NFTs
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Wednesday, May 12, I'm Seamus Byrne.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...
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DeepMind hits the football field
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Tuesday, May 11, I'm Seamus Byrne.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…
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Pentanet makes history
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Monday, May 10, I'm Seamus Byrne.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...
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Lunar crater telescope moves to phase two
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Friday, May 7, I'm Seamus Byrne.IBM has today revealed the first 2nm microchips have been produced as part of the ongoing race to shrink chips ever smaller. Using the Extreme Ultra Violet production technique has enabled the continued scaling…
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Aussie games finally catch a tax break
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Thursday, May 6, I'm Seamus Byrne.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%...
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The realest lightsaber yet
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Wednesday, May 5, I'm Seamus Byrne.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...
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Would you pay for Facebook?
Welcome to Bits, your daily tech news bulletin, for Tuesday, May the 4th be with you, I'm Seamus Byrne.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…
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Ingenuity gets new mission on Mars
Get the new daily Byteside newsletter with all this and more at newsletter.byteside.com. The ACCC has given authorisation for Country Press Australia to collectively negotiate with Facebook and Google to receive payments for their news content appearing on their digital platforms. The…
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Jeff Goldblum joins D&D podcast Dark Dice
The NSW government is proposing personal injury insurance options for gig economy delivery services as part of a consultation by the State Insurance Regulatory Authority. After a number of injuries and deaths to food delivery riders in recent months, options are being suggested to ensure the...
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Loose QR codes + Netflix is ready to 'Play Something'
An Adelaide man has been arrested for replacing QR codes on official COVID-19 check-in signs with alternate codes and, in a unique bail condition has been required to not carry "loose QR codes" anywhere. A QR code scanned by a phone camera can resolve to any online destination, and the man...
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Craig Kelly talks at length about Facebook killing his freedom of speech
Australian MP and walking brown-note Craig Kelly wants to introduce laws to stop Facebook banning his effort to consistently lie to Australians and troll the planet via its social media platform. Kelly invoked the concept of freedom of speech, which we have no right to in Australia, and claimed...
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One year of "digital sunscreen"
It has been one year since the launch of Australia's COVIDSafe app and after being launched as "digital sunscreen" by Prime Minister Morrison the app has identified 17 cases and 81 close contacts in New South Wales at a cost of just under $7 million. The app has been downloaded 7 million times,...
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Vale Dan Kaminksy
Sad news in the infosec world, with news security researcher Dan Kaminsky died over the weekend at age 42. In 2005 he uncovered the Sony BMG Rootkit debacle, and in 2008 he found and disclosed design flaws in the fundamental infrastructure of the entire internet. He is widely remarked upon as a...
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Percy makes oxygen on Mars while Signal hacks the hackers
Russia has confirmed it plans to leave the International Space Station after 20 years of co-operation in space. The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, confirmed the Russian space agency intends to exit the ISS in 2025 and is working on developing its own orbital station with a target launch of...
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Microsoft Outlook can now mandate breaks between meetings
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has joined forces with its UK and German equivalents in an agreement to prevent tech giants from using mergers and acquisitions to maintain market dominance. In a join statement, the three groups state that stronger control over mergers is…
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Colourful iMacs vs Kmart robots
It seems Australian Kmart shoppers can expect to see roving robots while you walk the aisles, with news the retailer will roll out a fleet of robots named TORY in every store by the end of the year. The robots roam the store scanning RFID tags to track stock levels of items to make it easier to...
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You can now move your Facebook posts to Wordpress
Australian federal and state ministers have agreed to look at a national system for sharing data and digital identity. The system would allow for unified access to digital services across the country and includes related discussions on the creation of a Commonwealth COVID-19 vaccination…
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Google battles galore and RIP Chuck Geschke, Adobe co-founder
The ACCC won a major court battle over Google and its location data tracking in the federal court on Friday, with Google found to have "partially" misled Australian consumers. The case by the ACCC argued Google was in breach of Australian consumer law when it continued tracking location data…
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Logitech brings an end to the Harmony era
Proposed European regulations on artificial intelligence seek to ban the use of algorithms and AI in a range of context's the directly impact on social and individual use cases. The proposal seeks to outlaw what it calls high-risk AI use, including AI used in algorithms being used in recruitment…
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Australia's Azimuth Security revealed as FBI iPhone hack assistants
Australian hacking company Azimuth Security has been revealed as the company that gave the FBI the tool it needed to hack the iPhone of the San Bernadino shooter in 2016. The battle between the FBI and Apple went to court as Apple refused to build a backdoor into iPhone security systems, and the...
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NSW wants quantum powered transport while Brave blocks Google's FLoC
The NSW government has announced plans to work with Sydney quantum computing company Q-CTRL to look at innovation opportunities around the state's public transport networks. In particular, the idea is to look at ways quantum computing could assist in real-time updates during congested periods…
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Menulog will employ gig workers; Microsoft buys Nuance; ANU fights space junk
Food delivery business Menulog is set to roll out an employee model for delivery drivers in Australia in a big move to change the poor labour practices of the gig economy. Contractor models have been found to pay less than minimum wages and created poor working conditions and job security. The...
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Methane-eating bacteria found in paperbark trees
Vodafone Australia was hit by a nationwide outage on Friday that lasted from around 11am to after 9pm Eastern time. Vodafone acknowledged both calls and data were being affected on its 4G network, though no specific description of what went wrong has been offered yet. Google has accidentally...
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Hunt, Birmingham and other senior government officials hit in phishing attacks
Senior members of the Australian government have been targeted in phishing attacks this week, with news Health Minister Greg Hunt and Finance Minister Simon Birmingham have been attacked, as well as Australian ambassadors overseas. The attackers impersonate the officials on WhatsApp and Telegram...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Looking for a rapid rundown of the biggest news across technology, science and digital culture each day? Byteside presents 'Bits' to deliver key headlines every day in under five minutes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
HOSTED BY
Byteside
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How many episodes does Bits: daily tech news bulletin have?
Bits: daily tech news bulletin currently has 69 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Bits: daily tech news bulletin about?
Looking for a rapid rundown of the biggest news across technology, science and digital culture each day? Byteside presents 'Bits' to deliver key headlines every day in under five minutes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How often does Bits: daily tech news bulletin release new episodes?
Bits: daily tech news bulletin has 69 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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Bits: daily tech news bulletin is created and hosted by Byteside.
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