Morning, folks. Things are feeling very Friday today, don’t ask me how, they just are. Anyway, we’ve got some tech news for you.
1. ASIC cancels AFS licence of FTX Australia
Starting locally and ASIC has cancelled the Australian financial services (AFS) licence held by FTX Australia Pty Ltd, effective from 14 July 2023. The terms of the cancellation include provisions that, until the end of 12 July 2024, FTX Australia may provide limited financial services that relate to the termination of existing derivatives with clients; and the cancellation has no effect on requirements for FTX Australia to continue as a member of Australian Financial Complaints Authority, and to have arrangements for compensating retail clients. Why? Here’s why.
2. WhatsApp goes down
Meta has confirmed that yes, its WhatsApp messaging platform was down this morning. In a tweet at 6:44 am, it said it was working quickly to resolve connectivity issues with WhatsApp, and by 7:06 am everything was apparently gravy.
Wait, not that one – that was from a few days ago. This one:
3. ChatGPT goes postal
Australia Post is reportedly six weeks into a trial using ChatGPT as a frontline customer support tool. Per a report from iTnews, the postal service, instead of focusing on delivering actual packages to your door while you WFH instead of merely a calling card EVEN THOUGH YOU WERE HOME ALL DAY (sorry), is looking into the glorified AI chatbot to evaluate how it can use AI to address customer queries. Ugh.
4. Tech Council chair among the Tesla folk having to pay back millions
Remember last week when Robyn Denholm, chair of the Tech Council of Australia and also Tesla Board Chair, said there was an opportunity in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales to become the nation’s newest tech corridor? Well, she’s not exactly wrong on that but that’s not why she’s back in the news today. The Tesla chair is among those having to pay back millions. The board agreed to return more than $US735 million after one of its investors (the Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit) argued the massive compensation packages went overboard, and had been abused over three years from 2017. Per the AFR, Denholm is among them.
5. Tesla starts training self-driving supercomputer
Staying on Tesla and The Verge is reporting that Tesla has started production of its Dojo supercomputer to train its fleet of autonomous vehicles. The info was revealed in the company’s second-quarter earnings report for 2023, where the company outlined “four main technology pillars” needed to “solve vehicle autonomy at scale: extremely large real-world dataset, neural net training, vehicle hardware and vehicle software.” Musk loves doin’ stuff.
BONUS ITEM: You know what? This is just cute.
See you tomorrow.