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2246. Nvidia cold on quantum, stop surveilling people, Aus-US tech tiff

Plus: What is Paypal's "money-saving" browser extension really doing?

Author

Cam Wilson
January 09, 2025

Issue 2246 - Thursday 9 January, 2025

Heya! We’ve been bug exterminating at Sizzle HQ but there’s still a few outstanding suckers — check out the forum post to stay across it or to let me know.

A special shout-out to Sizzler Tristan who has been spreading the good word of The Sizzle overseas, according to well placed source. (Have you run into a Sizzler in the wild? I would love to hear.)

In Today’s Issue

  • Hot Nvidia cold on quantum computing

  • Stop unnecessarily surveilling people

  • Aus-US tech tiff

  • Dodgy PayPal-run browser extension claims

The News

Hot Nvidia cold on quantum computing

Jensen Huang is so hot right now. The Nvidia CEO is credited with turning the company’s fortunes around and positioning it as arguably the most essential company in tech right now thanks to the reliance of AI, robotics and self-driving cars’ on its gear. All it takes is a few words from him to send stock prices soaring or — as a few companies just found out — diving. At CES, Huang announced some fast new chips, it’s own desktop “super”-computer running Linux (anyone else getting the vibe that 2025 could be the year of Linux on the desktop?) and an AI foundation model. He also took the opportunity to throw cold water on the imminence of quantum computing, suggesting it was probably 20 years away. I’ve seen countless companies boast that quantum computers are finally “here” over the years and I still don’t see it anywhere, so I’m not sure they have a whole lot of credibility, but a few of them got stroppy at Huang anyway.

Stop unnecessarily surveilling people

It’s never been cheaper or easier to be a freak. In this case, I’m talking about surveilling others. Want to track every single person who drives past your house? You can buy automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras for like a thousand bucks now. Put one in front of a mosque, family health clinic, etc, and then you learn a lot about people. To make this worse, surveillance can expose targets to even greater privacy violations. A US security researcher just found that more than 150 Motorola cameras were accidentally streaming live video and exposing data of car photos and their license plates to the internet for anyone to watch or nab. It’s happening at a company-level, too. One of the United States’ biggest location data brokers (who frequently sold info to the American government) has reportedly been hacked. A little cybersecurity tip: you can’t leak data that you don’t collect.

Aus-US tech tiff

I went long on this yesterday but the Australian response to Meta’s content moderation shift continues to tell us something about what global tech will be like under Trump. As mentioned earlier this week, Australian politicians are loving “hard on big tech” posturing. Presented with Zuck’s suck up, Albo gave him a whack. More interestingly, Scott Morrison’s former chief of staff flagged that Australia’s tech stance could be brought up in trade negotiations (translation: the US could bully Australia into doing what it wants to tech companies). In 2021, American diplomats and its business lobby not-so-subtly threatened Australia by saying the news media bargaining code might violate its trade agreements. I reckon Trump might be a bit more likely to squeeze Australia than Sleepy Joe. (On Trump, he’s continuing to be a “pro-AI president” by committing $20 billion to build more US data centres, perhaps paid for by the promised trade tariffs that one group says could increase laptop prices by 68%).

Oh, Also

Dodgy PayPal-run browser extension claims

I’m not a big “you need to watch this YouTube” guy who sends links to 40 minute video essays that could have just been a 600 word article, but I’ll break my rule for this one. Just before Christmas, New Zealand YouTuber Megalag published an investigation into Honey, the PayPal-owned company that runs a browser extension that promises to find coupons and discount codes for ecommerce websites when you’re at the check-out. He alleges that Honey’s extension essentially hijacks any affiliate sales by inserting its own affiliate link in lieu of the link for creator or outlet who actually directed you to a product, snagging the commission. ABC News has a good explainer on it if you’d rather read. Now, another YouTuber, an American lawyer who runs the LegalEagle channel, has filed a class action against PayPal based on the claims and is seeking compensation as well as an end to the practice. I am a tech reporter not a lawyer, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this fits into the “scungy but technically legal” bucket but it is really shitty. (FWIW PayPal says it will defend against the legal proceeding and denies the claims made.)

Bargains

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday afternoon. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

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The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.

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