5 things to know in Australia today

Date:

Hello, I hope you had a good weekend. There’s a few tech things to catch up on this morning, so we’ll tackle those head-on.

1. Woolworths subsidiary suffers data breach

Online marketplace MyDeal, which is a subsidiary of Woolworths, revealed that 2.2 million customer records had been leaked from its CRM thanks to a “compromised user credential”. The data accessed includes customer names, email addresses, phone numbers and delivery addresses and, in some cases, dates of birth (if provided to purchase alcohol). MyDeal does not store payment details, driver’s licenses or passports, and no customer account passwords or payment details have been compromised. No other Woolworths systems were involved in the breach.

2. QLD e-scooter penalties ‘designed to hurt’

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced Friday afternoon that severe penalties will apply to anyone using an electric scooter in the state from November 1. The highest fine will be $1,078 for using your phone while driving, and the next highest fine for driving under the influence of alcohol is $431. The fines are hefty, but state Transportation Minister Mark Bailey said : “The fines are going to hurt, they are designed to do so”. Be safe out there, friends.

3. An Apple tablet-speaker-hub smart display

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports on his well-supported theory that Apple is working on a dock for the iPad that would allow the device to function as a smart display and speaker. Kind of like Amazon’s Echo Show or Google’s Nest Hub (or its recently hyped Pixel Tablet). The product is expected to launch soon, but unlike the usual product launches, this one will launch with a little less fanfare.

4. SpaceX will continue to finance Starlink Internet in Ukraine

After saying he could no longer pay for the Starlink satellite in Ukraine, Elon Musk literally said “To hell with that” on Saturday and decided his company would continue to fund it. He said the loss is around $20 million a month, which is not a small sum. It’s good to see that he’s doing something decent. He could do all of this without much fuss, but.

5. Nvidia invents a new word (and brings out the graphics card)

Nvidia is unlaunching, unlatching, uncapuling; okay, we’ll use the word the company used: “releasing” its 12GB version of the upcoming RTX 4080 graphics card. Why? Well, according to a blog post, the card is “great”, but it “doesn’t have the right name. Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing.” Not helping Nvidia’s attempts to avoid confusing its customers, the company’s brief and unrevealing announcement isn’t entirely clear on what’s really going on here.

BONUS ITEM: Over the weekend, the hearts of many ached. RIP Robbie Coltrane. There is no Hogwarts without you, Hagrid.

Have a good week, friends.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Share post:

Popular

More like this
Related