Happy Friday. There’s a lot to catch up on this morning in the tech world, so let’s dive in.
1. U.S. bans chipmakers from sending AI training chips to China and Russia
U.S. officials are on a tear with their belated bid for chipmaking dominance. After passing a $US52 billion (around $72 billion in Aussie cash) Bill that aims to jumpstart American semiconductor manufacturing, officials are now restricting companies from exporting powerful GPUs to rivals like China and Russia. It was revealed by chip giant Nvidia that it was told it had to stop exporting its A100 series and upcoming H100 series GPUs to China and Russia.
2. ASD releases special 50-cent coin with a code to crack
The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) wants you to crack a secret code hidden in plain sight on a 50-cent coin. It’s the intelligence agency’s way of sussing out the code-breaking skills of a bunch of Aussies, and a fun way to commemorate its 75th anniversary.
To commemorate our #75YearsOfASDHistory, today we are excited to unveil a limited edition 50c commemorative coin. The coin, designed in collaboration with @RoyalAustMint will be a keepsake for years to come. Learn more about our anniversary coin at https://t.co/zdWpcQP8IG pic.twitter.com/DiHIaOi5c1
— Australian Signals Directorate (@ASDGovAu) September 1, 2022
3. Neopets hackers were inside its IT systems for 18 months
Neopets, the company that sells virtual pets to tweenagers (and also a weird amount of adults), suffered a pretty devastating data breach earlier this year, with data on its members – believed to be about 69 million people – potentially accessed. A recent update seems to show it was far worse than we previously thought – the company revealed, among other things, that the cybercriminals were able to linger inside its corporate IT systems for about 18 months.
4. A Twitter ‘edit button’ is coming, for some
Twitter on Thursday dropped a virtual bomb when it announced it was testing an edit button feature (known as Edit Tweet) internally. After asking for an edit button for 15 years and receiving roundabout answers from Twitter, users were sceptical. Let’s not forget that Twitter said it was working on an edit button on April Fool’s Day this year as a joke. Twitter said it will roll the feature out to subscribers of Twitter Blue, its paid service, in a few weeks.
if you see an edited Tweet it’s because we’re testing the edit button
this is happening and you’ll be okay
— Twitter (@Twitter) September 1, 2022
5. NASA will re-attempt a launch of the Artemis 1 mission tomorrow
NASA’s mission management team has made the decision to re-attempt a launch of the Artemis 1 Mission’s Space Launch System (SLS) on Saturday morning, saying a faulty sensor was to blame for the scrub this past Monday. The space agency’s 98.15 m-tall SLS is currently standing proud on Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, but hopefully for not much longer. 2:48 am tomorrow is when you can catch round two.
BONUS ITEM: While the red-soaked pics made us do a double take, the world’s largest food fight is back.
#tomatina2022
Spain’s tomato food fight fiesta returns after pandemic.
📸 Jose Jordan #AFP pic.twitter.com/fDOJBmZh4t— AFP Photo (@AFPphoto) September 1, 2022
Have a great weekend.