Happy Wednesday, I trust your week has been good so far. This is what has been happening in the world of technology, with a bit of fast food as a greasy treat.
1. Meta wants you to pay $2,500 for a VR headset.
Meta has revealed the Meta Quest Pro VR headset. Priced at $2,449.99, the Quest Pro is almost four times the price of Meta’s current headset, the Quest 2, which starts at $630. It includes face tracking, a 90Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon XR2+ processor, and it’s gold-plated (it’s not, you’d just think that’s because of the price). You can preorder it now, and shipping will start on October 25. While we’re at Zuckerberg, he also showed off his updated avatar from Horizon Worlds. Spoiler alert: it still sucks, but now it has legs.
2. We need to talk about the doll in the room.
In the US, adults have gone to great lengths to get their hands on an adult Happy Meal, with McDonald’s staff even begging customers not to order the boxed meals because of the extra stress they’re putting on in the workers. With only the highest priority investigations done by Gizmodo Australia, we wanted to see if us we were getting our hands on these elusive kid food treats. But unfortunately, not yet. Although, there is something to get a little excited about:
hello! at this stage that collab is only available in the US, we’ll definitely let the team know you’d like to see it in Aus 🙂
— McDonald’s Australia (@maccas) September 28, 2022
3. Government Clears Outstanding Robodebt Cases
Nearly 200,000 pending ‘Robodebt’ cases will be dumped and debts written off, with ABC reporting that the federal government is trying to clean up the final remnants of the highly criticized system. The news comes two months after the Prime Minister announced a Royal Commission on Centrelink’s highly flawed automated data matching programme, officially called an automated revenue compliance programme, but colloquially known as Robodebt.
4. Your next Uber ride could be in a Polestar 2 EV
Instead of the usual Toyota Camry that shows up when you book an Uber, it could soon be a Polestar EV. Yes, Australians will soon be able to book and travel in an EV Uber thanks to a partnership that the ride-sharing platform has signed with Splend, a company that offers a kind of subscription platform to “own” an EV. The companies said they are ready to launch 500 Polestar 2 EVs to NSW Uber drivers. We love the Polestar 2, so we’re not mad. It stems from Uber’s June announcement to go zero emissions by 2040.
We’re investing up to $26 million to help drive electric vehicle adoption in the AU. We will continue to offer a 50% reduced service fee for drivers using the battery #electric vehicles through June 30, 2025. Terms and conditions apply.
Read more in our press room post: https://t.co/eucZFxTwFX—Uber Australia (@Uber_Australia) June 8, 2022
5. Crypto.xls
Crypto.com, one of the most high-profile crypto platforms in the world, went on an extremely costly rampage last year after a woman living in Melbourne asked the company for a refund. Instead of just $100, she got 100,000 times that. Well, a month after news of the error broke, a court heard this week that the error occurred after a worker in Bulgaria, who processed the refund, entered the wrong numbers into an Excel spreadsheet.
BONUS ITEM: It’s Fat Bear week and there’s a contest going on to find the fattest bear in the world. But, the contest has been rocked by a scandal. Competition organizers said a ballot box had been “stuffed” in favor of a brown bear named Holly.
🚨🚨🚨 SCANDAL OF THE FAT BEAR WEEK 🚨🚨🚨
Just as bears fill their faces with fish, our urn has also been filled.
— Katmai National Park (@KatmaiNPS) October 10, 2022
However, things are working.
Get ready to fight in this Fat Bear Tuesday Heavyweight Showdown! Don’t forget to vote at https://t.co/thJwxpa4kn before 5pm AKDT (9pm EDT) today. #fatbearweek pic.twitter.com/Ifp1nHJoet
— Katmai National Park (@KatmaiNPS) October 11, 2022
Have a good.
