The Byteside Newsletter
The realest lightsaber yet?
Officeworks removes AirTags: Officeworks has removed Apple AirTags from store shelves over child safety concerns. After initially going on sale, the products have been removed from shelves and from the online store, including AirTags accessory products. The ACCC confirmed to Gizmodo Australia that it is aware of concerns over accessibility
Would you pay for Facebook?
Tuesday, May 4, 2020 CSIRO evolves Wi-Fi into satellite startup: A new partnership between the CSIRO and venture capital group Main Sequence is launching a new space industry startup, Quasar Satellite Technologies. The technology aims to enabled ground stations to communicate with hundreds of satellites at a time, with the
The little helicopter that could
The ACCC lets rural presses work together against the tech giants, AFP tackles local scammers, the Martian helicopter rules, and loads more.
Doing (B)it(s) daily
The Bits daily tech news bulletin has been a fun evolution for what we’ve been doing at Byteside and I’ve realised the work of putting it together has put me into a place where taking the newsletter daily is also a more viable idea than ever before. Starting
Queer Divine Dissatisfaction
It’s on the walls of the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, and even cleverly encoded in the parachute the Perseverance rover used to land on the surface of Mars. Dare Mighty Things Again and again, NASA JPL has been crushing it by doing the maths, science and engineering to do
AI and avoiding digital phrenology
Giving AI too much credit is a big issue that needs to be considered in the mix of how we improve the ethical structures around its use. If it isn’t as good as we’re told it is, why is it allowed to play such a big role in parts of our lives?
Bits (podcast) and pieces
My new Bits podcast is now four weeks old. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do! I’m feeling more in touch with the daily tech news world just by making it. I hope listeners feel the same. Eight headlines every morning of the week in under
So polished it's lifeless
The past few weeks watching PM Morrison flounder has been a textbook lesson in how media training has gone so terribly wrong in corporations and politics. The effort to be so good at only ever saying the thing you’re prepared to say – to “never accept the premise of the
Taking the fun out of fungible
Let’s cut to the chase: a lot of people who think they’ve recently bought digitally verified unique artworks will soon discover these artworks are not as permanent or as verified as they’d hoped. The whole non-fungible token craze is a mess. The technical concept? Very sound. Entirely
Ruslan Kogan on the 15th anniversary of his online retail empire
From failing to launch one of the first Android phones to battles with Gerry Harvey, we talk to Kogan himself about all things Kogan.
There and back again
We skipped last week in order to move back to the Revue newsletter platform. I hope it’s a lesson in not being afraid to explore opportunities and to feel comfortable saying ‘Nope!’ and resetting things if it just doesn’t feel right. I think it’s also a lesson
Bad bargain, wrong code
This media bargaining code battle has been running for about three years now, and the closer it gets to the finish line, the more everyone involved look like assholes.
Too many people think they know what went wrong with Cyberpunk 2077
Instead of pretending we know what really happened behind the scenes, it's more valuable to consider the complexities of making games.
Sales vs success vs Cyberpunk
I’m reminded of the Aesop’s Fable “The Dog & His Reflection”. CDPR chased the bigger bone, the desire to release simultaneously across PC, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
Addicted to addiction rhetoric
Communication is unfailingly the solution to keeping someone on the right path to building great relationships with games. To know how to stay focused on all the benefits and values they can get from loving games, and where the pitfalls lie and how to avoid them.
The right time for a new era
When is the right time to do ‘the new thing’? Whatever that may be? I’m a big fan of using the New Year as a launching pad for new ideas, new goals, new efforts. It’s arbitrary, but our brains still really like latching onto milestones as starting or
Fighting the Unlightenment
By every measure, the future demands creativity. It demands a return to the raw pursuit of ideas. And supporting nerds in their pursuit of amazing innovations is fundamental to the problems we face.
Faith in numbers
Criticism, skepticism, negativity. When the numbers start talking it's OK to start to get excited about what's really happening.
Free as in anti-competitive
There's big questions in what it means for Google to offer free cloud photo storage and then take it away when the free service spoiled the market for paid competitors for so long.
The last Xbox
The demand for higher resolutions and faster refresh rates and more data throughput is cresting, creating the chance for smaller and smarter hardware in future, or even the potential for future mobile devices to bear the load instead of needing big boxes under our TVs.
