TGIF. It’s been a big week, with Samsung dropping its highly anticipated 2023 Galaxy S Series phones and the tracking down of that death Tic Tac. But alas, we’ve reached the end and we’ve got a few more pieces of tech news to share with you before the weekend begins.
1. SA council has to reassure citizens brain chips aren’t happening
In bizarre news, The Guardian is reporting that a South Australian council has been forced to reassure its residents that Elon Musk is not attaching mind-control microchips to their brains, and that it is not installing killer 5G towers. That intro was lifted completely from their report, because it is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read. Per The Guardian, Salisbury city council has been “targeted by people spreading a range of false claims about its smart infrastructure program, which uses a range of technologies to, for example, let council workers know when bins are full or tell residents if there is parking available.” Wild.
2. Fixing the troubled MyHealthRecord
Staying with reporting from The Guardian and the super issue-plagued MyHealthRecord will be front and centre of the government’s plan for modernising primary healthcare. The report notes that the plan is to develop better digital systems for the sector, improving and expanding the use of MyHealthRecord. The Australian Medical Association is expected to today also call for stronger safeguards to protect patient data.
3. Sony pushing PS5 upgrades
As many of you know, it hasn’t been an easy task getting your hands on a PS5, but it seems Sony is going HAM with convincing folks to upgrade. Having finally gotten its PS5 production and supply issues under control, Sony is moving to stage two: Convince PS4 owners to make the jump to the newer console.
4. ChatGPT may be the fastest-growing app in history
It’s no secret that ChatGPT, the large language model-powered artificial intelligence from OpenAI, has taken the internet by storm. Everyone is talking about it, everywhere online — Gizmodo Australia included. The AI chatbot can almost instantly generate paragraphs of human-like, fluid text in answer to basically any prompt you can come up with (just don’t rely on it to do your maths homework correctly, or provide an accurate substitute for researched writing). And the scope of ChatGPT’s ascent is probably even more astounding than you think. The chatbot has become the fastest-growing consumer-facing application in history.
5. 1st-gen iPhone could sell for $70,000
A first-generation iPhone in its original box is going up for auction and an estimate says that the tech could go for as much as $US50,000 ($69,410). The owner said she never opened the iPhone because she had just gotten a new phone at the time and thought the iPhone would never go out of date. An appraiser said the phone could be worth $US5,000 ($6,941) — when it originally cost $US599 ($832) in 2007. But the phone is potentially worth $US50,000 and is now being auctioned off by LCG Auctions. Back in October, LCG Auctions let a 2007 iPhone go for a cool $US32,783 – around $53,000 in Aussie terms.
BONUS ITEM: ICYMI — this brilliant decision from the Reserve Bank.
In a sensational decision, the Reserve Bank will dump King Charles III from the bill, saying it was time for a “new design that honours the culture and history of First Australians.” https://t.co/FnmDXT8HIm pic.twitter.com/Nug1JoOcUL
— The Australian (@australian) February 1, 2023
Have a great weekend.