The Helpdesk

A video clip created by digital artist Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, was flipped for a record $6.6 million recently. It had originally been bought for around $67,000. Beeple is like a banksy of digital art … Esquire has a good profile on him. 

CryptoKitties were one of the earliest types of NFTs in 2017 - the idea of buying a digital cat was considered weird back then. 

What kinda stuff can I buy as an NFT? 

There’s a lot of art. Some of it seems a bit trolly - a Homer Simpson Pepe digital artwork was sold recently forl $390,000 online. 

In the “real art world” Robert Alice sold his artwork Block 21- at christies auction house last year for $130,000. it was a physical painting that also comes with an NFT. The two pieces are linked: the digital component of the artwork is only visible during daylight within the time zone in which it is geographically located. As the owner of the NFT, the buyer can control the visibility of the artwork by changing where it is located. 

According to Business Insider, the most popular NFT platform – NBA Top Shot – has sold nearly $US270 ($349) million worth of unique NBA video highlights. 

These are clips you can find online - but they’ve been turned into digital playing cards thanks to blockchain. For sports fans The Bleacher report has a good feature on the marketplace. 

Who’s making money? 

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban is into NFTs has been vocal about his investment in digital tokens like NFTs.

Grimes made $US5.8 ($7) million in under 20 minutes selling her digital collection WarNymph on the NFT trading platform Nifty Gateway.

Lindsey Lohan sold an NFT for $US59,000 ($76,216) in February. 

How do I buy one? 

In order to purchase an NFT, buyers must use digital currencies like Ethereum’s Ether (ETH) orWorld Asset eXchange (WAX). While ETH is one of the most popular NFT currencies, each platform chooses its digital wallet service.

Nifty Gateway, OpenSea, Rarible, SuperRare,

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Nine picked a streaming guy to be its new CEO

• Mike Sneesby is the new boss of Nine Entertainment. He is a former telco executive and the head of streaming service Stan. 
• He will be in charge of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, but Nine also owns Stan as well as television, radio and other publishing assets. 
• The company has been searching for a new CEO since Hugh Marks abruptly resigned in November because of his relationship with a former member of his executive team. 
• Sneesby has extensive experience in leading a subscription service, but does not have a background in free-to-air television, radio or publishing. There’s some commentary around that this signals the TV side of Nine is more powerful than the old Fairfax side… But I think it’s a sign that the future is digital and driven by subscription revenues. That’s good news for newspapers. 
• Investors value Stan at more than $1 billion. Stan has 2.3 million subscribers. The achievement was met through securing large content deals with US companies such as ViacomCBS, Disney and NBC Universal. There’s also Stan Sport… 
• So now Stan is looking for a new boss… 

Teams upgrades + speaker 

Microsoft’s new Intelligent Speakers deliver its promised meeting room of the future

Microsoft to add new shared channels, encryption for calls, webinar features to Teams

• Microsoft Ignite is on, and the conference has a few great Teams updates so far 
• Teams Connect will allow users from two different organisations a way to create a shared channel to collaborate
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• Microsoft is getting into the smart speaker business, but in a very Microsoft way 
• Rather than coming after Google, Apple and Amazon in the personal speaker device, Microsoft’s new  Intelligent Speaker is an enterprise product 
• The new smart microphone can detect up to ten separate voices and dictate the notes of a meeting, so you can see exactly who did the talking 
• The mic can also translate, in case a host or guest is speaking in another language
• No pricing as yet

Meanwhile, Zoom killing it

Zoom (ZM) earnings Q4 2021

• Revenue grew 369% year over year in the quarter that ended on Jan. 31, according to a statement. 

It’s too soon to kill off cash 

• An analogue story from Woolies, which has walked away a cashless store trial at a small number of its Metro stores
• The trial started mid-way through last year, when no one was touching cash and in smaller stores that didn’t have a high amount of cash payments. 
• But Woolies will be accepted cash again at those locations  
• Woolworths Metro general manager Justin Nolan told iTnews, “While almost all Metro customers choose to pay with cards, cash remains...
  

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 Far-Right Platform Gab Has Been Hacked—Including Private Data

• Following Twitter’s ban on Trump and Qanon, Parler and Gab became the two main PUBLIC platforms for displaced social media savvy racists. 
• Parler was more talked about, because it only alluded to being a home for racists, whereas Gab proudly was 
• In the weeks following, Parler was hacked, and then it was dropped by Amazon web hosting, knocking the site offline. 
• Now Gab, which inherited some of Parler's displaced users, has been badly hacked too.
• Yesterday a group calling themselves the Distributed Denial of Secrets revealed what it calls GabLeaks, a collection of more than 70 gigabytes of Gab data representing more than 40 million posts
• DDoSecrets cofounder Emma Best says that the hacked data includes not only all of Gab's public posts and profiles—with the exception of any photos or videos uploaded to the site—but also private group and private individual account posts and messages, as well as user passwords and group passwords
• The group has not made the dump public, instead, it will be sharing the information with journalists 

Instagram 

• Instagram is launching “Live Rooms,” which allow up to four people to broadcast live together at the same time. 
• Previously, the app only allowed users to live stream with one other person. 
• The live broadcast formats to allow for things like live talk shows, expanded Q&A’s or interviews, jam sessions for musicians, live shopping experiences.
• There will also be payments ... fans can buy badges to support the hosts as well as use other interactive features like Shopping and Live Fundraisers.
• The company says it’s also now developing other tools, like moderator controls and audio features that will roll out in the months to come.
• It sounds a lot like Clubhouse, but with the video turned on. 
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Period tracking app Clue is launching a digital contraceptive 

• Clue is a period tracking app with around 13 million users
• The company is working on a digital contraceptive which will offer users a statistical prediction of ovulation as a birth control tool.
• The Berlin-based company says they’ve gained FDA clearance for the product, clearing the way for a US launch in 2021.
• Basically, the app will take data on your cycle and show high risk days for falling pregnant. 
• Period tracking apps already do that. But the company says their new method of calculating the fertile window is a more reliable model of contraception. 
• Clue’s medical officer says “[The high risk window] will start out long… Usually it’ll be 16 days within the cycle — but it’ll shorten over time. It probably won’t shorten to more than 11 days.”
• The ovulation prediction algorithm was put through a year-long independent clinical trial involving more than 700 women.
• The data shows: Clue says the product has been shown to be 92% effective at preventing unwanted pregnancy under ‘typical use’ and 97% effective under ‘perfect use’ 
• This is an insight into personalised health services that could become more common. 

ASX speeding tickets triple on social media-driven speculation 

GameStop, AMC, and...

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Safety gear for UberEats riders  

• Uber has new safety gear and technology for its Australian riders.
• From today the Uber app will be able to tell whether its riders are wearing a helmet, using object recognition is its app.
• Riders will also have to complete a checklist of their bike’s roadworthiness,
• And later this month, Uber will start distributing lights, reflective vests, bells and phone holders.  
• The changes come after the deaths of two Uber Eats riders in three days amid a spate of five deaths across the industry last year.
• As the Nine newspapers point out, “The more resources a company provides to its workers, the more likely they are to be classified as employees than independent contractors and therefore entitled to the minimum wage, workers’ compensation and unfair dismissal protections.” 
• But Uber Eats Australian general manager Matthew Denman said the legalities did not factor into its decision to deploy the new safety features. And it’s the right thing to do. 

Ensuring a minimum wage sounds like a pretty good way to improve safety… 

Social media moves beyond the feed | by Will Oremus | Feb, 2021 | OneZero

• Will Oremus argues that Clubhouse and Twitter’s Spaces offers a new way of looking at social media
• feed-based platforms are powered by scale and automation. They encourage users to friend, follow, and like liberally, building sprawling networks on the promise that aggressive ranking algorithms will filter out the chaff and surface the most compelling content
• New digital media products are focusing on low-volume, high-attention relationships rather than high-volume, low-attention feeds.

Queensland finally has its own QR code check-in app

• The Queensland government has finally rolled out a QR code check-in app that hospitality venues and other businesses can use for contact tracing purposes, iTnews reports.
• I’ve been up here for weeks putting my details into all finds of weird check-in apps… one was literally just a Google Form. 
• The Check In Qld app went live over the weekend. all other states and territories introduced similar apps last year.
• The app is voluntary for hospitality venues, which means I’ll probably still be putting my contact details into random databases...  
• (Businesses that do not take up the app will still need to continue to collect and store details electronically.) 

Google TV will soon let you turn your smart TV into a dumb screen, and that's a great thing.

• For true nerds, Google will now let your smart TV become a dumb tv. 
• The new feature, called basic tv, coming to Android powered TVs will allow users to turn off all the smarts of their tv - leaving just free to air and settings, and switch to a HDMI port on start up by default 

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Twitter announces paid Super Follows to let you charge for tweets

• Twitter announced a pair of big upcoming features on Friday: the ability for users to charge their followers for access to additional content, and the ability to create and join groups based around specific interests. 
• Super Follows will allow Twitter users to charge followers and give them access to extra content. 
• That could be bonus tweets, access to a community group, subscription to a newsletter, or a badge indicating your support. In a mockup screenshot, Twitter showed an example where a user charges $4.99 per month to receive a series of perks.
• Twitter also announced a new feature called Communities, which appear to be its take on something like Facebook Groups.
• I’ve also been added to the Spaces thing, if you want to play with that. 

'All the bones are there': could a new electric vehicle be built in Australia?

• An article in the Guardian suggests Australia could be building electric cars if it had the inclination and government support to do so 
• According to the article, former car manufacturing plants in South Australia and Victoria have been left largely untouched since they produced petrol cars
• These plants could be easily retooled to pump out evs for Australia
• While critics say that Australian labour costs are too high, advocates for the plan say the actual work of manufacturing electric vehicles is half what it once was. Rather than “guys bending metal” it’s more about building the robots that build the cars – and with a highly educated workforce, Australia is highly competitive.
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Former SolarWinds CEO blames intern for 'solarwinds123' password leak

• We’ve talked about the SolarWinds hack - the security breach that saw access to critical infrastructure in the US, including water, electricity, hospital systems, and the US government payroll
• The attack has been described as one of the most sophisticated attacks ever seen. Just last week we talked about the first parts of the attack starting up to 9 months before it was discovered
• Well, in front of congress to explain the attacks, the former CEO put the initial blame on the attack to an intern who shared an internal password. That password, “solarwinds123” 
• The password was discovered in 2019 on the public internet by an independent security researcher who warned the company that the leak had exposed a SolarWinds file server. The password was never changed. 
• Katie Porter, who’s one of the most tech savvy representatives in Congress, said: 
• “"I’ve got a stronger password than 'solarwinds123' to stop my kids from watching too much YouTube on their iPad. You and your company were supposed to be preventing the Russians from reading Defense Department emails!"

'Hey Google' Voice Command on Wear OS has Been Busted for Months

• This is so depressing - the very first article i ever wrote on smh was along the lines of “Apple Watch has a huge battle against Google Wear, because Google’s voice assistant is so much better..” 

• In

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YouTube’s ‘supervised experiences’ help parents choose what content their kids can see

Ring's new Video Doorbell Pro 2 will have a built-in radar

Biden Orders Broad Supply-Chain Review Amid Chip Shortages

Apple Takes Step to Prevent Further Spread of 'Silver Sparrow' Malware on Macs

Bill establishing cyber abuse takedown scheme for adults enters Parliament

Explainer: The Online Safety Bill

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During the great Facebook News ban of 2021, The ABC’s News app climbed to the number one downloaded app in Australia, ironically replacing Facebook in the number one spot. 

Each day of the ban I’d re-check the charts to see whether order had been restored. Yesterday, the ABC news app had fallen but in its place was a new social network called Poop Map.

Poop Map is a social network where users, called “poopers”, “drop poops” on their location. As with most social networks, it has the ability to like and follow other users, and to comment on their poops. “Poopers” can even upload selfies to their poops...

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Is this the end of Facebook’s news ban? 

• It looks like news is coming back to Facebook. 
• Facebook says it will reinstate news content on its platform after the government agreed to last minute amendments to the media bargaining code.
• Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, said the company would restore news in “coming days” 
• Here’s the quote: “After further discussions with the Australian government, we have come to an agreement that will allow us to support the publishers we choose to, including small and local publishers. We’re restoring news on Facebook in Australia in the coming days,” Mr Brown said.
• “Going forward, the government has clarified we will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that we won’t automatically be subject to a forced negotiation.”
• So, sounds like not everyone will be back, just the publishers who play nice with FB? 

• The amendments include inserting a two-month mediation period into the code to give the parties more time to broker agreements before they are forced to enter a binding final offer arbitration process. 
• Also: the code will take into account whether the digital platform “has made a significant contribution to the sustainability of the Australian news industry through reaching commercial agreements with new media businesses” 

Automation set to gut 1.5m jobs from Australian economy 

• Robots will take 1.5 million Australian jobs by 2020, according to new research from research firm Forrester 
• Australia’s job market will shrink by 11 per cent by 2030 due to the rise of better automation technology
• How did they come up with these numbers? By tracking the progress of automation on 391 occupations that the ABS tracks. 
• Under the most threat in the near term, according to the report, are the cubicle workers, such as bookkeepers, accountants, human resources staff and office clerks. 
• If your gig involves repetitive and structured tasks it might be time to plan an exit strategy. 
• On the other side of the digital divide are the “digital elites” like data scientists, software and app developers, network and systems administrators, mathematicians and information security specialists who will be even more in demand.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295273/spotify-hifi-announced-lossless-streaming-hd-quality?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

• Spotify had an event overnight to announce a new high quality pricing tier, although weirdly they didn’t announce what the pricing is..
• The new service, called Spotify Hifi will be rolling out in 80 markets 
• They’ve also announced advertising tools to podcasts. They’ve purchased megaphone, a podcast advertising company that currently is used around the world. 
• Disclaimer we use acast for ad insertion, but megaphone has a similar platform that inserts local ads into pods dynamically
• Australia is not listed as a market yet

Canva’s...

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In the UK, Uber drivers are self employed  

• First to London where the UK’s Supreme Court has ruled Uber drivers are indeed workers not self-employed.  
• The decision means drivers could be entitled to employment benefits such as a minimum wage and holiday pay. 
• The case dates back to a complaint made in 2016 by two Uber drivers. 
• Uber maintained it was just a booking app, that requires independent contractors to provide the actual transport. 
• The ruling could leave the ride-hailing app facing a hefty compensation bill, and have wider consequences for the gig economy.
• The AFR has a local follow up, an interview with the Australian barrister Sheryn Omeri, who successfully argued the UK case. 
• It’s a good read if you’d like to get into the details on the difference between an “employee” a worker and an independent contractor. 

Buzzfeed has a long read on how decisions get made, and unmade at Facebook 

Facebook’s rules to combat misinformation and hate speech are subject to the whims and political considerations of its CEO and his policy team leader.

• They report, CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened when the platform was preparing to ban Infowars founder Alex Jones for spreading misinformation and hate. 
• "Mark personally didn’t like the punishment, so he changed the rules,” a former policy employee told BuzzFeed News,
• Facebook determined that Jones - who claims 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was a “giant hoax” - should be kicked off the social media site 
• But Zuckerberg stepped in and overruled his own internal experts and opened a gaping loophole: Facebook would permanently ban Jones and his company — but would not touch posts of praise and support for them from other Facebook users.
• That meant Jones’ followers could continue to share his lies across the world’s largest social network.
• The decision delayed the company’s efforts to remove right wing militant organizations such as the Oath Keepers, which were involved the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The security concerns around clubhouse aren’t going away 

• Bloomberg reports, that an unidentified user was able to stream Clubhouse audio feeds this weekend from “multiple rooms” into their own third-party website this weekend. 
• the company says it’s “permanently banned” that particular user and installed new “safeguards” to prevent a repeat, researchers contend the platform may not be in a position to make such promises.
• Users of the invitation-only iOS app should assume all conversations are being recorded, the Stanford Internet Observatory,
• Alex Stamos is the director of the SIO and Facebook Inc.’s former security chief. and his team were also able to confirm that Clubhouse relies on a Shanghai-based startup called Agora Inc. to handle much of its back-end operations. 
• Raises extensive privacy concerns, especially for Chinese citizens and dissidents under the impression their conversations are beyond the reach of state surveillance

And that’s all for today. We will be back to usual programming on...

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Facebook ban follow up 

• Following up on the big story last week, and unsurprisingly news consumption dropped after Facebook banned news from its platform. 
• Data compiled by measurement company Nielsen found that the ban had an immediate impact on publishers.   
• Nielsen used its Digital Content Ratings methodology – which provides data each month on traffic volumes for tagged websites and apps regardless of the source being on or off-platform – to track total sessions and total time spent for the Current Events & Global News category yesterday. 
• Total Sessions fell by 16% last Thursday, when compared with an average Thursday.
• According to Nielsen about 22% of news audiences consumed their content exclusively via the Facebook app. 
• But, media execs are saying people are coming directly to their sites. And the ABC news app was the most downloaded free App in the App Store on Friday. Above Insta, Messenger, FB and Whatsapp 
• They may have had strong traffic on Thursday because it was a strong news day. It will be hard to sustain that without huge breaking news. If publishers can hang on and adapt it could be a net positive. 

Facebook news ban: Thuggery shows why we must move fast to fix it

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/facebook-s-devastating-display-of-defiance-is-vintage-zuckerberg-20210219-p5741b.html

Facebook loses friends as protest over new media code backfires

COVID vaccinations in Victoria to be tracked by new tech platform

Australia’s vaccination program starts today! 

Victoria will be using a system from Microsoft to keep track of the vaccinations. the Vaccination Registration and Administration Solution (VRAS) is a management platform to co-ordinate the logistics and scheduled delivery of the vaccines at clinics.

According to Microsoft, the VRAS technology would also let the Department of Health monitor “cold chain” requirements to ensure vaccines are safe and effective. 

Hopefully this isn’t a covid safe app situation… 

When it comes to record keeping, the Australian government will use its existing systems, in particular the Australian Immunisation Register. 

All Covid vaccination info will be required to be uploaded to the register to help track and trace who is and isn’t protected from the virus.

Previously it wasn’t mandatory to report vaccines, but a law change earlier this month means that the gov will have a complete picture of vaccinations.

Vaccination records are viewable through Medicare Online, myGov, the Express Plus Medicare mobile app or My Health Record.

Ahead of the vaccine rollout, federal government services minister Stuart Robert on Friday called on Australians to link their...

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