The week that was (TWTW) takes a look back at the week’s most prominent tech stories from around the world.
Members of our Patreon campaign get their recap hand delivered on Sunday at 5pm, for everyone else don’t worry you wont be left out, you’ll just have to wait until Monday for your fix.
Video versions of TWTW appear on our website as well as our YouTube channel and Facebook page.
For those that prefer an audio only version, you can subscribe to the TWTW podcast feed on iTunes or by add this feed (https://feedpress.me/reckonerau-twtw) to your favourite podcast app.
Lastly you can find a full transcript of this week’s episode below.
In the week that was August 12th to August 18th, 2018:
- The Aussie government wants a back door
- Twitter wants to reinvent itself
- Foxtel is launching a 4K channel
- Google records your location despite you saying no
- Melbourne teen hacks Apple
Intro
Hello everyone, my name’s Raj Deut and it’s time to take a look back at the tech news in a heavily Aussie dominated week that was:
August 12th to August 18th, 2018.
Stories
The Australian government kicks things off this week, unveiling the long awaited draft legislation for accessing encrypted communications.
Using every word for wanting a backdoor without actually saying it the government is squarely putting the onus on companies providing the end-to-end encrypted communications, such as Facebook or those making the devices that run them, such as Apple, to essentially come up with a way to target an individual’s or a group of individual’s communications only or suffer their wrath of hefty fines.
It’s all a draft and no one really knows how they intend on actually doing what they want so expect long, hefty and likely moronic debate to ensue for many months in parliament.
Twitter decided to grow some balls and ban conspiracy theorist Alex Jones but then they quickly shrivelled up as the ban only lasts 7 days before being lifted.
Naturally this drew incessant rage from any rationally minded Twitter user and its CEO Jack Dorsey was out in the media spruiking ideas and visions on how to “reinvent Twitter’s core”.
Many, fed up with Dorsey’s continuing lack of direction, have decided enough is enough closing their Twitter accounts in protest on August 17th, which is being called #DeactiDay. The protest asks that Twitter take a true stand in the next 30 days or result in the protestors not reactivating their account whence they will be automatically deleted by the system.
Australian pay tv provider Foxtel announced that it will be bringing the first 4K broadcast channels to Australian TVs this coming October.
The single channel will exclusively broadcast the upcoming summer of cricket which the broadcaster won the rights to over Channel 9 this year and will fill the gaps between games with 4K documentaries and movies.
The new 4K service will require subscribers to upgrade to the new Foxtel IQ4 box to receive the satellite only signal and will set you back a minimum of A$68/month.
Google has found itself in hot water with the Associated Press reporting on findings that even when you disable Google’s Location History function the company is still recording timestamped location data from your phone in certain situations.
Doing a Google search or the weather updating on your Android phone both send location data to Google servers, which Google have said can be disabled but are required to do so on an individual basis and are not a part of the overall Location History set.
And finally in good old Melbourne, a 16 year old boy has been arrested in a join operation between the AFP and the FBI for hacking into Apple’s corporate network.
Details of the hack are scarce but a raid was carried out on the boy’s family home where hardware was seized along with details of the 90GB worth of data he’d been able to secure whilst probing Apple’s network.
Apple have commented that none of the data retrieved was customer related.
Outro
And that’s it for another week!
Be sure to like, love, and subscribe to the show wherever and however you’re viewing it. And if you feel like jumping over to iTunes or YouTube and leaving us a review, that certainly wouldn’t hurt either.
This week over on the website we have a write up looking at the upcoming Melbourne Esports Open event off the back of a recent interview with the event organiser Nick Vanzetti.
Of course we also have our Patreon campaign running where you can watch video reviews of new products, listen to the Patreon exclusive podcast “I don’t quite know”, automatically entered into our giveaways and more. You’ll find all the details about that over at reckoner.com.au/patreon
Have a great week and bye for now.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS