Good morning, it’s day 46 of 2023, let’s celebrate with a news briefing of what went down in the last 24 hours in tech land.
1. Bad day at Twitter HQ (again)
The first thing that went down was Twitter (yes, this whole thing was a set-up for a ‘bit’, I’m sorry). But users of the blue bird site were reporting issues from around 6:21 am AEDT. It seems to be working fine for us, but some users are still experiencing instability. Speaking of instability, our worst suspicions over why Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s tweets flooded user feeds on Monday have been confirmed. Twitter engineers intentionally created a special system to increase their boss’ view counts and the reason is just as petty as you can imagine: jealousy over U.S. President Joe Biden getting more attention than Mr Musk (who, side note, will resign…just not yet).
User reports indicate Twitter is having problems since 2:21 PM EST. https://t.co/qqqwagygy9 RT if you’re also having problems None
— Downdetector (@downdetector) February 15, 2023
2. Bing’s AI chooses violence
Microsoft recently opened up early access to Bing’s new AI feature. The search site now has an integrated artificial intelligence, built on the back of popular AI ChatGPT, that can answer your queries. Since launch, though, the AI feature has been a source for pure entertainment. It also has a pretty funny grudge against Google, which is also releasing a search engine AI named ‘Bard’. It’ll be interesting to see if Google, arguably the dominant search engine when talking about the two, holds the same grudge against Bing. Read more over here.
3. A new plan for privacy
Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus this morning released a report into the country’s 34-year-old Privacy Act. Among other things contained within the 320-page report was the overall sentiment that Australians would gain greater control of their personal information, which would include being able to opt out of targeted ads and the right to erasure. Regulators and courts would receive stronger powers, allowing Aussies to also sue for serious breaches of their privacy.
Australians rightly expect greater protections, transparency and control over their private information. It’s clear our privacy laws are woefully out of date.
Today, we’ve released a report with ideas on how to fix it, so Australians can have confidence their data is safe.
— Mark Dreyfus (@MarkDreyfusKCMP) February 15, 2023
4. A new flip phone enters the market
Over in gadget land, Oppo today unveiled its latest flagship foldable smartphone, the Find N2 Flip. The phone promises a sturdy flipping hinge and supports multi-angle ‘FlexForm’ mode, allowing the screen to be set at any angle between 45-110 degrees. Its camera system includes a 50MP Wide and 120MP Ultra-Wide camera, as well as a 32MP selfie cam. Without flipping the phone open, the cover screen can be used to respond to messages, browse apps, or answer calls. Oppo also reckons its new phone offers the largest battery capacity and fastest charging “of any vertically foldable device on the market”, promising 20 hours of video streaming. Aussie pricing and availability is not yet known, however.
Flex. Fold. Fun.
This is the #OPPOFindN2Flip 🤩#SeeMoreInASnap pic.twitter.com/YBYn4t0Wme
— OPPO (@oppo) February 15, 2023
5. NBN Co down $444M and Telstra up $934M
The company charged with rolling out the National Broadband Network yesterday posted its first-half results, reporting a net loss after tax of $444 million, which is an improvement on the $857 million it bled the year prior, on revenue of $2.6 billion. Telstra today also posted its financial results for the six months to December 31, 2022, reporting $934 million in profit on revenue of $11.3 billion.
BONUS ITEM: An on-demand (excellent), non-hormonal (how good) male contraceptive pill may be a real possibility (hallelujah).
Have a wonderful day.