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Android's new look, still no RCS and cities looking at facial recognition CCTV

Plus: How cow herders are ruining Meta and Netflix’s green plans

Author

Cam Wilson
May 14, 2025

Issue 2331 - Wednesday 14 May 2025

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The News

Android’s new look, anti-scam AI scan and shoving Gemini everywhere

Ahead of Google’s big developer conference next month, the tech company did a pre-show focusing on Android. Here are the highlights:

  • Android 16 will have a lot of bright colours, fonts, and new motion effects under Google’s “Material 3 Expressive” design philosophy (TechRadar). It’s very Apple, tbh.

  • It’s going to start using on-device AI to detect scam texts (WIRED, $) — thank GOD, I’ve been begging for this — and will even block users from sideloading apps and discourage users from screen sharing with their bank apps open (The Verge).

  • Google is shoving Gemini everywhere: TVs, cars, headsets and smartwatches (The Verge).

  • And not officially announced but spotted: Google is working on a desktop-mode for when an Android device connects to an external display (AndroidAuthority).

Look familiar?

In Australia, Android and iOS users still can’t be in a group chat

Technically also part of Google’s Android show but worth breaking out: the company says that more than a billion messages are sent using RCS every day in the US (TechCrunch). Rich Communication Services is the successor to the SMS protocol that Apple had to be begged to support so that Android users could be in group chats or encrypted messages with iOS users. Apple turned on this feature in iOS18 released last September and nearly a year later … it doesn’t work in Australia. Why? Australian telcos haven’t enabled RCS. Last we heard was that the telcos were working on it to launch this year (SMH, $). I’ll check in with them this week and see if we can get an update.

Australian cities looking at facial recognition, AI surveillance

The City of Melbourne is investigating adding facial recognition, licence plate tracking, and even shopping trolley detection to its network of 280 CCTV cameras (Information Age). Last week, the council voted to prepare a report looking at how the cameras could be used to detect everything from crime to “acts of public nuisance” and property damage, and will consider the “privacy and human rights dimensions.” Similarly, companies are proposing that police use “AI-powered surveillance” for the Brisbane 2032 Olympics (Security Brief). It’s getting harder and harder to be in public without someone using tech to track who you are and what you do.

Leftovers

  • NSW to allow electric scooters, with limits, to help displace car trips (The Driven) 

  • Multiple Vulnerabilities In Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (Australian Signals Directorate) 

  • Industry department given new ‘sovereign capability’ orders (InnovationAus, $) 

  • Tech group Life360 shares soar amid popularity of tracking family members (The Australian, $) 

  • DJI is skipping the US [Ed’s note: but not Australia!]  with its most advanced drone yet (The Verge)

  • GM says 400-mile range EVs are on the way after a battery breakthrough (Sherwood)

  • Apple introduces new accessibility features (ITNews) 

  • Apple to Support Brain-Implant Control of Its Devices (WSJ, $) 

  • PayPal launches iPhone NFC payments in Germany after EU forced Apple to open up (The Verge) 

  • Our Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge hands-on review: it's thin and light AF (The Shortcut)

  • Airbnb expands into services and experiences, plans more social and AI features (TechCrunch) 

  • Airbnb Is in Midlife Crisis Mode (WIRED, $) 

  • President Biden's rule restricting US AI chip exports has been rescinded (Engadget) 

  • GOP sneaks decade-long AI regulation ban into spending bill (Ars Technica) 

  • Reddit turns 20: Its incredible journey from scrappy startup to 'the heart of the internet' (ZDNet) 

  • As US vuln-tracking falters, EU enters with its own security bug database (The Register)

  • Microsoft is laying off more than 6,000 employees (The Verge)

  • Why Apple can’t just quit China (Rest Of World)

Oh, Also

How cow herders are ruining Meta and Netflix’s green plans

Many of the world’s biggest tech companies buy carbon credits to be “green”. This system lets corporates outsource the hard work of reducing (or even reversing) greenhouse gas emissions. Meta and Netflix buy from the world’s biggest soil-carbon plan, the Northern Kenya Rangelands Carbon Project, which is supposed to work by preserving millions of acres of grassland by getting local herders to rotate their livestock grazing which leads to more carbon being absorbed by the soil.

Except, now, this scheme has been put on hold after a legal fight between the conservationists who run the project and the Maasai herders who say they didn’t have a say over the plan, which is forcing them to rotate grazing, is starving their animals (WSJ). It’s another example about the weird-ass system that is supposed to make companies environmentally friendly but is plagued with problems (The Guardian).

The guys taking on Mark Zuckerberg (indirectly)

Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

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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