Happy hump day everyone. Here are five things to get you up to speed on today’s tech news.
1. Telstra’s Digicel Pacific purchase re-emerges
At the G20 Summit, the United States International Development Finance Corporation and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation announced that they will each provide $US50 million (about $73 million in Australian dollars) in credit guarantees for Telstra’s acquisition of Digicel Pacific. Back in July, Telstra completed its purchase of Digicel Pacific, the largest telecommunications company in the pacific. The purchase was completed for $2.4 billion, with the Australian government contributing $1.78 billion and Telstra contributing $360 million.
Oh, INTERESTING. It will get crowded out by the Xi-Albanese meeting etc. But Japan and the US have just announced at the G20 that they’re throwing $100 million USD (in credit guarantees) into finance for Telstra’s purchase of Digicel Pacific… pic.twitter.com/DYQjWHvcl6
— Stephen Dziedzic (@stephendziedzic) November 15, 2022
2. These are the most popular passwords of 2022
VPN provider NordVPN every year releases a report on the 200 most common passwords. This year, despite growing cybersecurity awareness, old habits are clearly dying hard. The number one most common password, used by 4.9 million people (there’s more, this is just from the data NordVPN had access to), is ‘password’. Unsurprisingly, given the global stats, ‘password’ is also the most used password in Australia. Other top passwords include ‘123456’, ‘1234’, ‘samanthas’ and ‘qwerty’.
3. Boston Dynamics sues Ghost Robotics over quadruped design
As reported by The Robot Report, U.S. robotics company Boston Dynamics (the creators of Spot the robotic dog) are suing Ghost Robotics for patent infringement. The claim is that Ghost Robotics infringed on seven patents related to Spot.
4. Free speech warrior Elon fires his critics
Twitter owner Elon Musk can add another title to his already long list: Big Brother. On Tuesday, the social media boss showed his employees that he was always watching what they were saying on Twitter’s internal channels, especially if they were talking smack about him. The Platformer newsletter first reported that various Twitter staffers who criticised their new boss on the company’s internal Slack channels were fired overnight. While the exact number is unknown, it appeared to be around 20 people, according to Platformer. Some employees received emails telling them that they were fired in the middle of the night.
5. Artemis 1 (hopefully) launches today
The Artemis 1 rocket, along with an uncrewed Orion capsule placed atop, is scheduled to launch on November 16 at 5:04 pm AEST, after being delayed four times due to compromising weather and system conditions. When it finally happens, the inaugural launch will send the Orion on a 42-day journey to the Moon and back, in a mission that will require the capsule to travel a total distance of 2.1 million kilometres. It’s a test mission for manned missions to the Moon and, one day, Mars.
LIVE NOW: NASA leaders are providing an update on the results of the #Artemis I mission management discussion. @NASAArtemis I is scheduled to embark on its mission to the Moon on Nov. 16. https://t.co/PUm8zwaf4D
— NASA (@NASA) November 14, 2022
BONUS ITEM: In one of the weirder games we’ve seen in a while, this new game puts you in the sandals of Jesus Christ.
Have a lovely day.