Hello, welcome to Thursday. We’ve spent the last few days at SXSW Sydney and among the panels and performances from some pretty cool people, all I could do yesterday was fixate on this tank the Australian Army has converted to electric. That’s what’s new with us, here’s what’s new with tech. I have to start with Elon again, don’t I?
1. The world’s richest man needs $1 from you
X, formerly called Twitter, launched its “Not a Bot” beta Tuesday, which charges new accounts a $US1 annual fee to tweet and retweet. The initial test applies to new accounts created in New Zealand and the Philippines to allegedly “combat bots and scammers on X”. The Not a Bot test will not apply to existing accounts, but those who are creating an account will receive a subscription prompt after signing up asking them to pay the fee but will also allow them to opt-out. If a user does not agree to pay for the subscription, they will only be able to access “Read Only” content which allows them to read posts, watch videos, and follow accounts. If they agree to pay for the subscription, new users will be able to post content, like and reply to posts, bookmark posts, and repost and quote posts from other accounts. Cooked.
2. Amazon testing drones for meds delivery
Amazon will soon make prescription drugs fall from the sky in the U.S., going Wing-like and testing drone deliveries for medications. Per the Associated Press, Amazon customers in College Station, Texas, can now get prescriptions delivered by a drone within an hour of placing their order. The report said the drone is programmed to fly from a delivery centre with a secure pharmacy and that it will travel to the customer’s address, descend to a height of about four meters, and drop a padded package. What could go wrong? Oh, Amazon is also testing humanoid robots in a factory so that’s fine.
3. High Court rules Victoria’s EV tax unlawful
Back home and Reuters is reporting that the High Court yesterday made its judgement on the controversial electric vehicle tax introduced in 2021, deciding that it’s unconstitutional to impose a levy of between $0.02 and $0.025 per kilometre travelled. The decision sets a precedent for other states that were planning to introduce EV road use taxes, such as New South Wales and Western Australia.
4. Fortnite ‘creators’ get kickbacks if you spend real money
Over to the gaming realm and per The Verge, we learned that Fortnite maker Epic Games is going to reward creators if players spend V-bucks before or after visiting that creator’s custom-made Fortnite experience. For those unaware, Epic Games first introduced engagement-based payouts (which it calls “Creator Economy 2.0”) in March. Under the program, Epic pays creators who build experiences for Fortnite from a pool of 40 per cent of Fortnite’s net revenues each month. “Effective November 1, we are introducing a new metric to the engagement payout formula that rewards creators when individual players spend V-Bucks in Fortnite before or after engaging with their island,” the blog on the announcement reads.
5. Another spam fine handed out by the ACMA
The ACMA has this morning dished out a $515,040 infringement notice to Ticketek for sending around 98,000 texts and emails across 2022 that the watchdog said were in breach of Australian spam laws. Ticketek submitted a three-year court-enforceable undertaking to the ACMA to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
BONUS ITEM: The bonus item today comes from an article TechCrunch posted about an AI playing Pokémon Red.
Have a good day!