Good morning. Let’s get into the tech news.
1. Nevermind!
Kicking things off with Superloop, which yesterday afternoon turned down Aussie Broadband’s non-binding proposal to acquire all shares from the company. ” The Board of Superloop has, together with its retained financial and legal advisers, considered the offer and believes that the Indicative Proposal is opportunistic and fundamentally undervalues Superloop,” Superloop said in an ASX statement. “Consequently, the Board does not intend to engage with ABB on the Indicative Proposal. Superloop shareholders do not need to take any action in relation to the Proposal.”
2. Amazon spends big on Australia
The Australian is reporting that Amazon is investing $13 billion in Australian cloud infrastructure over the next three years for the east coast, and claims that it is tackling power and water use at its data centres. Data centres use up a lot of water for cooling, and by extension a lot of power, but Amazon is claiming that it will return more water to communities than it consumes by 2030. How? By partnering with non-profit organisations.
3. Shell outed for ‘climate tech’ startup that advertised oil and gas jobs
The Guardian is reporting that a new venture, Onward, is a startup owned by Shell, and although it promises to ‘advance the energy transition’ and fight climate challenges, it reportedly has quite a heavy focus on improving oil and gas extraction. “It’s a Trojan horse of legitimacy,” Rutgers University Professor of journalism and media Melissa Aronczyk said. “You’re under cover of the idea that the climate movement is an all-hands-on-deck situation, but what you’re really doing is bringing in players who have very different ideas of what it means to ‘solve’ the climate crisis.”
4. Google’s much criticised AI face feature to return soon
Bloomberg reports that Google’s Gemini AI face generator will soon be back up and running after the company received a wealth of criticism for how it generates AI images. “We hope to have that back online in a very short order,” the head of the research division at Google DeepMind Demis Hassabis said at MWC 2024. It’s expected to be back within the next couple of weeks, according to Hassabis.
5. Microsoft announces AI principles
Reuters reports that Microsoft has announced the guiding principles for its AI innovation and competition that recognises the company as a market leader. “As we enter a new era based on artificial intelligence, we believe this is the best time to articulate principles that will govern how we will operate our AI data centre infrastructure and other important AI assets around the world,” Microsoft president Brad Smith said at MWC 2024. The principles include improving access and support for developers, making tools broadly available around the world to developers, making APIs publically accessible.
BONUS ITEM: Now that’s a combo I didn’t expect to see.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. pic.twitter.com/JJEaHxTz8x
— kate bush’s husband (@airbagged) February 26, 2024
Have a lovely day.
Image: iStock