Good morning, and a happy TGIF to you. Let’s get stuck into the news.
1. Six banks hit by outages
Yesterday evening six Australian banks were hit with outages, including Ubank, Bank Australia, Defence Bank, Beyond Bank, People’s Choice, and P&N Bank. The widespread outages stem from an issue at Data Action, which provides services that underpin banking services across Australia. Users were left without the ability to access their accounts or transfer cash. A quick check shows Ubank, Beyond Bank, People’s Choice and P&N Bank acknowledging the outage on their sites. Services appear to be back online at the time of writing.
2. OpenAI’s new video tool seems scarily realistic
OpenAI’s new text-to-video model seems scarily realistic. Named ‘Sora’, the AI is capable of generating some of the most realistic AI-produced videos we’ve ever seen. The ChatGPT-maker uploaded a thread of example videos on Twitter (now X). I’m sure this will be used for good things, and won’t put jobs at risk or pose a threat during a U.S. election year. The tool is currently available to OpenAI’s ‘Red Team’ experts.
Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model.
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 15, 2024
Sora can create videos of up to 60 seconds featuring highly detailed scenes, complex camera motion, and multiple characters with vibrant emotions. https://t.co/7j2JN27M3W
Prompt: “Beautiful, snowy… pic.twitter.com/ruTEWn87vf
3. Meta’s spat with Apple continues
Meta is encouraging advertisers to not buy ads through Apple’s iOS platform and is instead encouraging them to buy through a browser where Meta isn’t required to pay Apple a fee. As reported by Bloomberg, Meta is doing this in retaliation to Apple’s new policy that requires social media platforms to use Apple’s In-App Purchases framework when transactions are made on the iOS platform – particularly for post boosts.
4. Speaking of Apple
Via The Verge, Apple is dropping support for web apps in the European Union, in response to sweeping changes under the Digital Markets Act. Web apps, which are apps functioning through a phone browser, typically made available on your home screen with an app icon, have been broken in the EU since the iOS 17.4 beta rolled out, and Apple has now confirmed that this is intentional. Apple claims that web apps, under the new laws, would require an “entirely new integration architecture”, that’s impractical to introduce on top of other changes it is making.
5. Xbox envisions its future
Xbox has announced that it will start to port its games to Nintendo and PlayStation platforms, kicking off with four games slated for non-Xbox platforms. The four games have not been named at the time of writing, though The Verge reports that they include Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment and Sea of Thieves. Xbox boss Phil Spencer also said that Starfield and the upcoming Indiana Jones game will not be among them. On top of all of this, Xbox teased an upcoming console that will be much more powerful than the Series X, and said that it was working with the Windows team to improve the handheld PC gaming experience.
BONUS ITEM: I’ve had enough of AI stories this week, so just enjoy this cat.
Pawttery pic.twitter.com/x9hkVaRUut
— Animal memes online (@catshouldnt) February 15, 2024
Have a lovely day and an even better weekend.
Image: iStock