Good morning, it’s a new week. Let’s get stuck into the tech news.
1. JB Hi-Fi facing lawsuit over extended warranties
The ABC is reporting that tech retailer JB Hi-Fi could be facing a class-action lawsuit over its extended product warranties. JB Hi-Fi offers extended warranties on many of its tech products, with a larger warranty timeframe offered than that required by Australian consumer law. A class-action lawsuit alleges that JB Hi-Fi has been selling extended warranties that “essentially offer Australian consumers the same thing as what they already get for free under the Australian Consumer Law,” according to principal lawyer for Maurice Blackburn Miranda Nagy. The case has been lodged with the Victorian Supreme Court, and seeks to take on JB Hi-Fi’s “extended care”, “customer care” or “extra care” plans.
2. EU agrees to world-first AI regulation
As reported by The Guardian, the European Union has agreed to a historic world-first deal on AI regulation, setting clear rules for the use of AI. “We had one objective to deliver legislation that would ensure that the ecosystem of AI in Europe will develop with a human-centric approach respecting fundamental rights, human values, building trust, building consciousness of how we can get the best out of this AI revolution that is happening before our eyes,” Member of the European Parliament Brando Benefei said.
3. Google doesn’t want to be broken up
Staying on European Union news, and Google has said that an order for it to break up its ads business would be disproportionate. As reported by itNews, a potential order from EU antitrust regulators could see Google split up its adtech business. “We are opposed to divestment. We don’t think that’s the right outcome for this case. We think this is a tremendously efficient part of our business,” Google’s director Oliver Bethell said. An official ruling could come next year.
4. Apple to clean up the iPad lineup
As reported by Bloomberg, Apple is rumoured to be working on making its iPad lineup clearer and more consistent in 2024. With five iPads now making up the product family, along with a range of accessories that work with some devices but not others, Apple is supposedly moving to make the tablet range easier to understand, particularly between the iPad Pro and iPad Air, which both offer substantial upgrades over the base model, but in different ways.
5. Apple comments on Beeple saga
Apple has commented on its crackdown of Beeple, an app that allowed Android users to communicate over iMessage to iPhone users, subverting the blue-versus-green bubble issue. As reported by The Verge, Apple said it “took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage,” and the app was subsequently left unable to function. To get Beeple to work, the developers had to convince Apple’s servers that messages were being sent and received on a genuine Apple device, which obviously wasn’t the case, so Apple’s actions here aren’t too surprising.
BONUS ITEM: And I thought Halloween was long gone.
real ghost caught on camera 🥺 pic.twitter.com/SWZFztURYY
— place where cat shouldn’t be (@catshouldnt) December 10, 2023
Have a lovely day.