Tech News: 5 Things to Know in Australia Today

Tech News: 5 Things to Know in Australia Today

Good morning, hope you’re doing OK this fine Tuesday. We’ve got some tech news to share with you if you’ve got five minutes.

 

1. Aussie TikTok ban

The Australian is reporting the federal government has issued a ban on TikTok that will apply to all government-issued devices. The move follows decisions made by the U.S., UK, Canada and New Zealand recently that prevent public servants from accessing the video app. The Chinese-owned platform has come under increasing focus over fears that user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government, undermining Western security interests.

2. NASA names the first four Artemis astronauts

Today is also a big day for space fans, with NASA’s return-to-the-Moon program well and truly underway. The space agency has named the four-person Artemis 2 crew who will fly around the Moon and back. Astronauts Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch will head to the moon. We must now wait patiently for the mission to blast off. The plan is for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to deliver the Orion spacecraft on a trajectory to the Moon sometime in late 2024. The Artemis program has been wonderful so far, and now we can finally put some faces to the name.

3. Online gambling inquiry to hear from sporting heads

The Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs will today continue its inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling harm, hearing testimony from the Australian Banking Association, government agencies, anti-gambling organisations, the likes of Tabcorp and both the heads of the NRL and AFL. The outcome of the inquiry is expected to result in restrictions to how much gambling advertisement is allowed to take place – which genuinely is a win for all Australians.

4. Elon Musk is the main character

Another day, another batch of awful Elon Musk news and today, we bring you: the Twitter algorithm heavily suppressing any topic regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine, the inability to distinguish between a legit blue check and that which has been paid for and Musk moving to dismiss the $US258 billion Dogecoin lawsuit he is facing. On the latter, the plaintiffs claim that Musk peddled a pyramid scheme in the form of Dogecoin with accusations including wire fraud and gambling. Also:

5. Service NSW data breach

The personal information of Service NSW customers has been exposed to other logged-in individuals during a privacy incident, the Canberra Times was last night reporting. An update released to the “My services” dashboard on March 20 resulted in the data breach, Service NSW chief executive officer Greg Wells said in an email to affected customers shared with AAP on Monday. We will look into the incident further and update this paragraph later this morning.

BONUS ITEM: Surely this was an April Fool’s Joke?

Have a fabulous day.


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