Bits: daily tech news bulletin

Byteside needs to consolidate its focus to give ourselves the best chance of building a sustainable media business. So Bits, unfortunately, has to go back on the shelf. We hope it will return, but whatever happens we thank you so much for your support through its first three months.The core Byteside podcast will continue with guest hosts and interviews every week.Search 'Byteside' in your podcast app or hit the relevant link below to add it to your app of choice:Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/itunes/1482077503Overcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/overcast-podcast-player/id888422857Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1482077503Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzA0NzA5ZTVkLWU0ZTQtNDk0Ny1hYmNmLTYyZDM3MmIyZTFiNgSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/43tUBmO4DknkGbd4Hw9dlbRSS: https://rss.acast.com/bytesideAnd get loads more written content at www.byteside.comGet our weekly newsletter at newsletter.byteside.comgB6CmVjBdiLNerFIgqfY

Yesterday afternoon, a major outage occurred that impacted a wide range of Australian institutions, including major banks and their mobile apps, Virgin Australia airlines, Australia Post and more. Soon after cyber attack theories had been raised, it was learned that CDN Akamai had a routing error that impacted around 500 of its customers. All up the incident caused disruptions for around six hours. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/akamai-routing-error-caused-widespread-outages-566103 The controversial Online Safety Bill will pass parliament with the Labor party once again claiming to be "not happy" but going to support it anyway. Since before the election in 2018, Labor has held a consistent position of claiming to be upset or disappointed or unhappy with legislation related to important digital protections like privacy, encryption and censorship, but to pass the laws anyway because they never want to open the door to an actual fight over civil liberties. What's the point of an opposition again? https://www.innovationaus.com/labor-not-happy-about-supporting-online-safety-bill/ In better local news, Aldi Australia has become the first retailer in the country to power all its operations with 100% renewable power. The German supermarket chain's local operation announced it has achieved the target six months ahead of schedule, using solar installed on its own premises as well as purchased power from wind farms and other renewable energy purchases. According to Renew Economy, Aldi is the 67th biggest user of electricity in Australia, with 555 stores and eight distribution centres. So this really is a great example to the nation on big business getting the right thing done. https://reneweconomy.com.au/aldi-claims-first-place-in-major-retailer-race-to-100-pct-renewables-in-australia/ Up in space, China has successfully sent a first crew to its new orbital space station with a team of three astronauts to the Tiangong station where they are setting up living quarters for the next three months. China has said it is open to future collaboration with other nations on its new station which is expected to be in orbit for over ten years. The ISS is scheduled to retire in 2024 though it can potentially be extended out to 2028. https://www.sciencealert.com/first-astronauts-have-just-arrived-at-china-s-space-station In entertainment news, Carrie Fisher is set to receive a posthumous Walk of Fame star which raises the question of how on Earth this didn't happen during her lifetime? The easy answer is no one bought one for her to promote a film, which is how it usually happens. Other great names scheduled to be added to the walk in 2022 include Ewan McGregor, Willem Dafoe, Regina King, Francis Ford Coppola, Salma Hayek, and Bob Odenkirk. https://www.themarysue.com/carrie-fisher-is-getting-a-star-on-the-hollywood-the-walk-of-fame/ In videogames, Blizzard has announced World of Warcraft's next major patch, Chains of Domination, will go live on June 30, with the next raid opening its doors on July 7. Players will also be able to unlock flying in the patch in that second week and then the next race for mythic world first will kick off on July 14. https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/23686104/shadowlands-the-chains-of-domination-content-update-goes-live-june-29 For those after some esports to watch this weekend, DOTA 2 is finally feeling the excitement again with the ESL One Summer tournament taking place. We're into the thick of qualifying for The International which did not take place in 2020 so fans are ready and eager for things to get serious once again. Hearthstone also has its Masters Tour Dalaran taking place which you can catch on YouTube, and a reminder that we are just a few weeks away from Battle Arena Melbourne on the second weekend of July for the biggest FGC tournament in Australia. https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/esports/tournament/masters-tour-dalaran/ https://www.esl-one.com/dota2/summer/ That's your Bits bulletin ...

This week, the Western Australian government has introduced legislation to limit the use of COVID check-in app data after the WA Police Force accessed the information in two investigations of serious crimes, which is allowed under the existing rules. To ensure users feel confidence in always using the check-in system, the new rules definitively limit the use of this data to the explicit purpose of contact tracing. WA Premier Mark McGowan told parliament that the new law was only being introduced after the Police Commissioner refused to adhere to a request to no longer access the register. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/wa-moves-to-plug-legislative-gaps-after-cops-access-check-in-app-data-566021 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/wa-police-refused-request-to-stop-accessing-covid-check-in-app-data-566033 In other COVID news, Victoria has now launched its online vaccination booking platform. Until now a hotline phone service was the only way to book appointments, with the online system delayed since the start of the year. Users can now go online via coronavirus.vic.gov.au to check their eligibility and book their appointments. https://www.innovationaus.com/victoria-launches-online-vaccine-booking-platform/ Ahead of exciting new Windows 11 news next week, Microsoft has named CEO Satya Nadella as the new Chair of the Board of Directors. The current chairman, John Thompson, has been in the role since Bill Gates stepped down from the position in 2014 at the same time Nadella became CEO. Thompson will remain a member of the board. Meanwhile, leaks seem to indicate the launch of Windows 11 might not be too far behind the big announcements set to be made next week, with fully functional versions of the next generation OS appearing online as part of the leak. https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/16/22537683/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-chairman-bill-gates-john-thompson Spotify has launched its new live audio chatroom service, Spotify Greenroom, a rebranding of a tool created by Betty Labs called Locker Room. You can log into the service using your Spotify login and find chatrooms related to topics of interest or launch your own chatrooms. The tool will also allow users to record rooms they create to turn them into podcasts. It's yet another reason why Clubhouse is facing greater and greater competition while the overall shine on these audio chatrooms is starting to fade and, as I've said since early on, it really seems more like a feature than a platform. I expect at some point Greenroom will integrate directly into the core Spotify app rather than live out on a limb the way it currently does. https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-06-16/get-to-know-some-of-the-features-in-our-live-interactive-audio-offering-greenroom/ Internet advertising machine Facebook is ready to turn the serenity and solitude of virtual reality into a new space to thrust floating advertising units into your enraptured eyeballs, with news it is starting to test advertising inside Oculus headsets. Naturally, the company says it is a "small" test and is all about unlocking new business models for the platform and for the game developers who produce VR experiences. I'm sure the advertising units won't be too awful... at the start... Facebook also says it won't use information from within your VR experience to target ads toward you. Again... that's a "during this test" statement, not a "never" statement. https://www.oculus.com/blog/testing-in-headset-vr-ads/ Amidst media investigations into businesses gaming the Amazon user review system to earn high ranking in search results, Amazon has stated in a blogpost that the greatest blame should lie with social media platforms. It might sound like a cop out, and no doubt there's more Amazon could be doing on its own end, but the company's post said it reported more than 300 groups to social media companies in Q1 2020 that were using the platforms to organise campaigns to cheat the review system, yet it took a median time of 45 d...

It's virtual E3 season, with dozens of major games announcements over the weekend. Here's just a few of that caught our eye. Bethesda's Starfield had its first game footage, though still incredibly vague apart from the obvious "you'll be on spaceships visiting far away worlds" vibes. But the big news was the confirmation this game is the first Bethesda title to be announced as a full Xbox exclusive, scheduled for release on November 11, 2022. It was notable that the combined Xbox and Bethesda event was opened not by Microsoft's Phil Spencer but by Bethesda's Todd Howard, a big statement on the unification of the massive developer with the platform giant. In another crucial development during the Xbox event was the consistent foregrounding of how most every game was announced as day one on Xbox Game Pass, pushing the subscription service as the primary mode of access to Xbox first-party games, but also that Xbox Cloud Gaming is no longer being mentioned as a side project but as one of the 'platforms' games are being launched on. At every end screen where platforms were mentioned, Xbox Cloud Gaming sat clearly alongside Xbox Series consoles and Windows 10 PCs. That pre-announcement of the increased cloud delivery format made it easy to just slide this in everywhere, but it is perhaps the most important development for the future of Microsoft's gaming business – as a service you join, not a box you buy. Elsewhere in E3 news, dozens of games have had announcements and dates across the various conferences, including Left 4 Dead spiritual successor Back 4 Blood coming on October 12, Halo Infinite still coming 'this year' but getting an entirely free multiplayer mode, a Jack Sparrow crossover in Seat of Thieves, Ubisoft announced a new Mario + Rabbids game coming next year, Diablo II Resurrected is coming September 23, Rainbow Six Extraction is coming September 16, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands – a Borderlands fantasy D&D inspired spin-off – is coming early 2022, Forza Horizon 5 is taking this show to Mexico, and perhaps my personal favourite of the show so far is a vampire shooter called Redfall from the team behind Dishonored. The Federal Court has approved the $112M settlement in the robo-debt court battles, with presiding judge Bernard Murphy has delivered an unequivocal rebuke to the federal government, calling it an unlawful program. "The proceeding has exposed a shameful chapter in the administration of the Commonwealth social security system and a massive failure of public administration... It should have been obvious to the senior public servants charged with overseeing the robo-debt system and to the responsible minister at different points that many social security recipients do not earn a stable or constant income..." The settlement means the federal government does not have to admit any liability regarding the scheme. https://www.zdnet.com/article/federal-court-approves-au112m-compensation-in-settlement-for-robo-debt-failure/ NBN Co is considering whether to pursue a request to have its monopoly broadband provider status revoked in markets where it is facing competition from 5G services. The National Broadband Network is held to a special access undertaking agreement until the year 2040, which must have any changes or updates cleared by the ACCC. The NBN points out that one in three homes are not using the NBN, calling this a reflection of the dynamic nature of the market and not that the NBN is delivering a poorer quality of service than alternatives in many locations. NBN has a long term target of of 73-75% uptake, which has been pushed outward over the years from an original target of 2021 out to today's target of 2024. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-says-5g-competition-is-challenging-its-monopoly-status-565686 Google has just opened up Google Workspace for everyone that has a Google account, allowing people to go beyond just collaborating on documents and folders toward a much more unified space for p...

As WWDC wraps up for Apple developers, the Apple Design Awards have been announced, a great promotion for some of the best apps across iOS and macOS. I'm quite sure most people don't browse the App Stores like they once did, so checking out these lists is a great way to find some new gems. There's lots of games, plus powerful and helpful concepts like 'Be My Eyes' that helps identify objects in the camera view, a sleepscape app called Loóna, and other winners for categories like Inclusiveness and Social Impact. Shout outs to Aussie Sp!ng from SMG Studio for being a finalist. https://developer.apple.com/design/awards/ Microsoft held another pre-E3 video event overnight, with Head of Xbox Phil Spencer and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella walking us through the future of Xbox gaming – which very much includes the end of needing to own an Xbox to play. Xbox has foregrounded new options like Xbox Cloud Gaming a lot recently, and it will officially launch locally later this year. They also announced efforts to get Xbox streaming built into smart TVs so that all you'll need is a controller and an Xbox Game Pass subscription to play, with Microsoft's global data centres playing a big role in delivering this new cloud focus for Xbox. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/06/10/whats-next-for-gaming-highlights/ We don't often do shout outs about hot tech deals, but the HyperX end of financial year prices look really good if you're after some new gaming peripherals. Prices include a 55% discount on HyperX Alloy Origins keyboards, down to $104, and 50% off the HyperX Cloud Flight wireless headset making it $145. They deals are all at JB Hi-Fi. On a related note, Kingston, the former owner of HyperX, has launched the new name for its gaming focused memory chips for PC hardware – look for the Fury brand if you liked HyperX components in your PC builds. https://www.jbhifi.com.au/collections/hyperx https://www.kingston.com/en/solutions/gaming In other product updates, Wacom Intuos drawing tablets now have 'Works with Chromebook' certification, which is a super helpful option for people who are in Chromebook land in school environments or just like the price-performance ratio you get on those devices. Wacom has always been the leader in creative input tablets so this is a nice step for the Chromebook platform to get these in the mix. https://estore.wacom.com/en-AU/chromebook In software, the latest updates to Norton's security software sees the Norton Game Optimiser claim some big upgrades. For years Norton has silenced notifications and other nuisance activity when it detects gameplay is happening, and now Norton claims Game Optimiser will isolate resource-hungry apps running in the background, including pushing them ti a single CPU core to ensure games get everything else for themselves. These days Norton can also do things like monitor the dark web for signs of your usernames, email addresses and even gamertags, so there's lots going on here. There's even a new Crypto mining mode coming if that's your passion. https://au.norton.com/products/norton-360-for-gamers Australia's League of Legends Circuit Oceania had a great first season to kick off the year, and now the competition has partnered with Doordash as the naming rights sponsor for the second half of the 2021 championship. The sponsor will also be attached to replay and other segments during broadcasts, but overall a positive for the upstart competition that has kept the scene alive and thriving in 2021. https://lco.gg/2021/06/11/the-doordash-lco/ If you're looking for something to participate in this long weekend, there's an ongoing Tony Hawk Pro Skater Ultimate Jam competition taking place, run by Order esports in partnership with Activision and 7+, for anyone who thinks they've got skills to show off in the classic skating game. You can enter speed runs, combo runs and straight up 'score the most points' runs, with top performers qualifying for finals next month. Entries cl...

El Salvador has voted to make Bitcoin a legal tender currency in the country, the first country to do so. It sounds wild on its surface, but the legislation says it aims to add regulation to Bitcoin's use in the country. The country's other legal tender currency is the US dollar, and Bitcoin would make sending money to family back home from overseas potentially cheaper than many traditional banking transactions. Still, the wild fluctuations in crypto make this a risky choice, so we'll see how this progresses in the months and years ahead. https://www.axios.com/el-salvadore-first-country-adopt-bitcoin-legal-tender-vote-2bdd819b-620b-4385-af6b-261676883628.html Nvidia and Perth ISP Pentanet have teamed up for the Australian launch of the GeForce Now game streaming platform. The service has been available overseas for a short while, allowing users to access the games they own through various online game platforms and play them via cloud streaming. This also includes getting maxed out experiences like RTX features even if your computer doesn't have the power to run games at that level. The full service aims to launch in October but there are special beta access 'quests' happening starting today. You can get all the details at cloud.gg. https://cloud.gg/ Fans of secure email that isn't used as part of an elaborate personal data tracking scheme have been well aware of paid email platform Protonmail since its launch seven years ago, but yesterday the service announced a major upgrade to the experience of using ProtonMail over the web. The service serves 50 million users and allows fully encrypted emails as well as encrypting all messages, contacts and other data at rest. If you've never checked it out, this freshened up experience is a good time to take a look. https://protonmail.com/blog/new-protonmail-announcement/ Ratchet & Clank is getting rave reviews as one of the first truly 'Next-gen' games to hit the Playstation 5, so if you've managed to get one you probably need to own this game. But the big news of the day is that a number of developers who worked on the game have said they never had to 'crunch' to get the game finished. Crunch, or enforced and often extended overtime periods that can sometimes run for months on big game development projects, is a huge issue in the games industry, so hearing that a new big budget title has managed to respect the talent and humanity of its team sounds like even more reason to celebrate the game. https://www.vg247.com/2021/06/09/ratchet-and-clank-rift-apart-crunch-free-insomniac/ The pre-pre-announcements ahead of virtual E3 have begun in earnest, with EA dropping a big reveal for Battlefield 2042 overnight. The big news everyone is talking about is that the game will have no campaign, and it's weird to mention it but also no Battle Royale. Just all out 128-player Battlefield action set in the near future, complete with dynamic weather, including sandstorms and tornadoes, with a bunch of game modes both returning and new. It will launch on October 22 for all the consoles new and previous gen, but not the Switch. https://news.ea.com/press-releases/press-releases-details/2021/Battlefield-2042-Marks-the-Return-of-All-Out-Warfare-in-New-Unmatched-Epic-Scale-Experience/default.aspx We're five years deep into the Overwatch journey this month and while fans are very much excited about Overwatch 2 and desperately wishing for a launch date over there, Blizzard has announced that cross-play will be coming to the game as a beta release to let people play against each other across PC, PlayStation, Switch and Xbox. This also includes a new global Battle.net update that brings friend lists across all territories into a single list, where previously people were separated into different global regions. https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/news/23684155/ And, finally, wonderful news for fans of the classic anime Cowboy Bebop, with word that the original composer of that show's absolutely iconic so...

In one of the most remarkable digital policing operations ever seen, the Australian Federal Police in conjunction with America's FBI managed to essentially run an encrypted messaging app for criminals, collecting masses of information and evidence over years before a massive worldwide sting broke up mafia and gang operations. Operation Ironside was a dazzlingly bold concept – literally running the app the criminals used to communicate in real time. It has led to thousands of arrests across the world in everything from drugs to human trafficking. Expect the movie in 2022. https://therecord.media/fbi-and-australian-police-ran-an-encrypted-chat-platform-to-catch-criminal-gangs/ Things weren't running quite so smoothly last night for many major websites, unfortunately, with Content Distribution Network Fastly having a major outage. CDNs help big websites run close to wherever their users are around the world, but in this case when something goes wrong it means no one can access the services that the CDN supports. Everything from Amazon to Reddit, BBC to Buzzfeed, disappeared behind a 503 error for two hours. An eternity in Internet time. https://www.byteside.com/2021/06/fastly-just-showed-us-how-cdns-keep-the-internet-alive-until-they-dont/ Moving to another network with a poor reputation for uptime, the NBN is working to clarify the way 'fair use' rules are managed on the network. Users are already subject to potential removal from the network for abusing 'unlimited' download limits, but the rules have always been managed under vague terms like "inappropriate and excessive" use. According to iTnews, the new move aims to build clearer rules that focus on activities like unauthorised stress testing or volume testing, and NBN is set to call for the industry to build a consensus on the rules for how to both identify and remedy such problems. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-looks-to-enforce-fair-use-for-fixed-line-users-565550 Apple's developer conference continues through this week, with more new features being spotted amongst the many updates on show for its app developer community. One we missed yesterday is an API to make it easier for app makers to perform object capture for augmented reality, with tools to quickly and effectively turn a series of photographs of a real world object into a 3D model. In audio technology, Apple is also aiming to make it easier for apps to include audio recognition technology, and not just on Apple's own platforms. You might already know the Shazam app that can identify songs by listening to something playing near you. Apple has owned Shazam since 2018, and is opening up the Shazam backend technology for third-parties, including those creating apps for Android. https://sixcolors.com/post/2021/06/wwdc-2021-shazamkit-lets-apple-and-android-developers-add-audio-recognition/ An exciting update was announced overnight to the intriguing handheld game console Playdate. The retro-style monochrome handheld with a crank on the side has been in the works for years, and is set to be up for pre-orders in July for US$179. But the big news was a free no-code tool for making games for the platform called Pulp. Via a web browser anyone can put together graphics, sound, animations and scripts to create real games for the Playdate. A great way to ensure game making is accessible and creative for this weird little platform. https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/382905/Panic_unveils_Pulp_a_free_nocode_tool_for_creating_Playdate_games.php In bigger games news, the first part of Minecraft's massive Cliffs and Caves update has gone live in the game, adding new underground environments for fans to explore. New creatures, new blocks, new light sources, new things to make fans run the latest update and make their world feel fresh all over again. Meanwhile in Fortnite, Season 7 begins today and I feel like Season 6 just started last week so if you want to get in on the alien invasion action happening over the...

The National Broadband Network has suggested the first major overhaul to how its pricing is structured for resellers, with the existing price structure an eternal point of argument due to the Connectivity Virtual Circuit (CVC) charge which puts excess charges for data consumption onto resellers with no real association to the cost of providing the service. So NBN has tabled a new proposed pricing scheme that removes CVC while increasing base charges, with indexed increases in charges at rates above annual inflation. That's a big catch, and major telcos are cautiously considering the proposal, with the clear concern that a new method of enforcing the same or greater pricing is still far from ideal. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-offers-to-axe-cvc-in-exchange-for-yearly-price-hikes-565579 Turning to the pandemic, the system for giving Australians a verification of their COVID-19 vaccinations is now at the ready, with word the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) will be updated as part of every Australian's myGov account and linked with Medicare, with a COVID vaccination certificate available from next week once people have received their second shot. All healthcare providers will be required to upload vaccination data into the system from July onward within 10 days of vaccination taking place. https://www.zdnet.com/article/covid-19-vaccine-digital-certificate-coming-this-week-for-australians/ In global tax news with big implications for the tech industry's use of clever accounting to dodge paying taxes, the G7 nations have agreed to a minimum corporate tax rate of 15% to build consistency and, with consistency, reduce the incentives to apply complex practices to offshore revenues based on spurious loopholes over where the IP of a company resides. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-06/g7-agrees-to-tax-multinationals-more/100193646 Apple has kicked off its second virtual WWDC early this morning with a keynote video event featuring all the big new software updates users and developers should expect when iOS 15, watchOS 8 and macOS Monterey launch later this year. Last year was a major overhaul of the basics, and this year sees a lot of new features big and small spread out across iPhones, iPads and Macs. FaceTime is getting one of the smoothest systems we've seen for syncing music or videos remotely, and you will also now be able to schedule a FaceTime call and share it with Android and Windows friends. AirPods will be able to read notifications, Spatial Audio is coming to AirPods while watching your Apple TV, Siri will be arriving in third-party devices, iCloud is getting VPN and Hide My Email features for free and support for your custom domains for the first time. And in privacy updates Mail will now block tracking pixels and Safari will hide IP addresses to make it even harder for you to be tracked without your consent. Loads more we'll unpack on this week's Byteside podcast (yes, it's back this week). In a dazzling display of optimism, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has announced he intends to be aboard the first ever crewed flight to space for his space company Blue Origin. The sub-orbital New Shepard flight is set to take off on July 20, and as mentioned in the previous line this is the first EVER crewed flight for the spacecraft, making it an incredibly dangerous endeavour. SpaceX has been sending crews to the ISS multiple times now and even Elon Musk still hasn't decided to take a joyride. And he's crazy. https://www.cnet.com/news/jeff-bezos-will-fly-on-blue-origins-first-crewed-rocket-to-space/ In gaming, Dungeons & Dragons has revealed the first details of the next campaign adventure setting, The Wild Beyond The WitchLight, which brings players into the Feywild for the first time in the current 5th Edition of the game. We don't know much yet, but the cover suggests a circus setting that probably has some dark hidden secrets behind the scenes. They have said it will feature a story suitable for ...