Bits - Tuesday, 16 March 2021The Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee in Federal Parliament has recommended Australia's controversial new Online Safety Bill be passed. The committee held a single public hearing and handed down its recommendation after two weeks. 370 public submissions were made regarding the draft legislation, only 135 of which have been made public to date. Opponents, including Google, Twitter and Electronic Frontiers Australia, feel the legislation gives broad discretionary powers to the eSafety Commissioner to demand material be removed from access within Australia.Google has announced an update to the end of its unlimited photo storage offering for Pixel phone owners. An impending change after June 1st this year will see all Google Photos users need to pay for storage beyond a base 15GB limit, with past photos stored within the previous unlimited deals not counting within that limit. An update from the Google Photos team has announced that users still on Pixel 2 through 5 model handsets will continue to be granted unlimited storage. And a reminder to think about your photo and video storage plans if you're not on one of those phones and you use Google Photos.Global chip shortages caused by pandemic delays in global supply chains have reached the auto industry, with General Motors announcing the company will release some of its pick-up trucks without fuel management modules. The decision means less fuel efficiency and more carbon emissions from these 5.3-litre V8 powered vehicles. The company had earlier reduced production of some large vehicle models due to chip availability restraints but is now opting for the unenvironmental approach.As the world ramps up vaccine rollouts, an internal study at Facebook has revealed the company has seen that anti-vaccination posts on the social network that do not break any existing roles may be causing "substantial" harm. The Washington Post reports that a small number of groups is responsible for spreading misinformation that could be increasing vaccine hesitancy. The Post also says that the research found connections to the deeply debunked QAnon conspiracy. Facebook is now linking all posts related to COVID-19 to authoritative information sources.Audio social platform Clubhouse has said it will no longer require access to a user's phone contacts in order to join the network. To date, if a user has wants to invite friends to the service they must share their entire contact list with the service. The change will allow people to directly invite specific friends by inputting their phone number. Clubhouse will also soon add a feature to let a user delete their contacts from Clubhouse's records.In space news, Reuters reports the Japanese space agency JAXA is currently holding a set of micro-satellites built in cooperation with Myanmar on board the International Space Station. The $15M 50-kilogram camera-satellites were jointly designed by Japan's Hokkaido University and Myanmar Aerospace Engineering University to monitor agriculture and fisheries, but Japan is now delaying deployment while it considers concerns over potential appropriation by military forces since the coup in Myanmar at the beginning of February. Should the launch go ahead, an official from Hokkaido University told Reuters the university would control all data collected with no independent access for Myanmar authorities.A team from the University of Arizona has proposed a Lunar Ark to protect the genetic material of all 6.7 million known plants, animals and fungi. The plan would send cryogenically preserved materials to be stored in a special gene bank on the moon and stored in the lava-formed tunnel structures that already exist there. The proposal includes plans for how the gene bank would be built and the requirement of over 250 rocket launches to transport everything required, with a timeline to achieve such a feat placed at around 30 years....

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