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Bunnings still wants to scan faces, Uber's transformation and ugh crypto

Plus: the rare fake AI hallucination

Author

Cam Wilson
July 16, 2025

Edition 2375

If you can see this, welcome to the free edition of the Sizzle! I hope you enjoy and I encourage you to subscribe to get it every week day for as little as about a dollar a week. I mean… I’m an idiot to give it away for that little.

Good afternoon Sizzlers! A little tidbit that’s come up in my reporting over at Crikey into the teen social media ban: you might remember last week I reported on leaked results from the tech trial. When I asked the people running the trial, they said they “didn’t recognise” the numbers I put to them. Well, turns out it jogged their memories because I’m told the trial’s organisers have emailed all the experts to complain about the leak (which was subsequently leaked to me, of course). I guess they must have recognised those numbers after all…

Have a great day!

The News

Bunnings says scanning your face is good for the economy

Bunnings says legalising its facial recognition tech use would help boost Australia’s productivity (AFR, $). Still appealing a finding that the retailer broke Australia’s privacy law when scanning the faces of people visiting their stores, Bunnings’ managing director made a submission to the Productivity Commission that it wants more “clear guidance and direction” on privacy laws (PC). Letting the company use facial recognition tech would improve productivity by protecting staff and reducing theft, the company claims.

The Sizzle: Everyone seems to be unhappy with Australia’s privacy laws, which are general and have a lot of grey and untested areas. The problem is that this space — particularly when it involves technology — moves so fast that making more prescriptive rules is a recipe for onerous, useless requirements.

Also, I really need to remind you: when Bunnings released a “highlights reel” of alleged crime footage from its stores to defend its use of facial recognition (SMH, $), it literally included a video of someone wearing a mask. What, pray tell, is facial recognition software going to do to fix this??????????????????????

I’ve just run this through Clearview AI and it’s telling me no matches, so I reckon let the fella shop

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

How Uber grew out of being a money-losing techbro startup

Uber will start offering rides from Chinese company Baidu’s self-driving cars after the two companies signed a deal (Engadget). Users will be able to book Baidu’s Apollo Go vehicles in China and some “global markets outside of the US”, joining a number of other autonomous car services — most notably Waymo — offered on the Uber app. Meanwhile, Uber banked a whopping $150 million in Australian ad revenue last year (AFR, $)

The Sizzle: Cast your minds a few years back. Uber’s original dickhead founder Travis Kalanick was pursuing grand plans to build Uber robotaxis. Then, when he was booted for being a freak, the new regime made the decision to get out of moonshot ventures like self-driving cars and just focus on being a ticket clipping enterprise. Now, Uber is profitable, has become the de facto platform for getting rides, and has outsourced all the very expensive, complicated and competitive work of autonomous driving to others. Pretty good business move! (Not mentioned, of course, all the worker issues).

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Crypto creeps more into the mainstream, but why…?

Yet again, Bitcoin’s price has hit a new high of AU$180,000-ish and Australians will soon be able to get bitcoin-backed mortgages (Capital Brief, $). Even LibreOffice is adding bitcoin support (Phoronix). But Australia’s promised new crypto regulation framework is nowhere to be seen (SMH, $) and Trump’s new crypto regulation-shredding bills appear to be doomed (CNBC). Meanwhile, some of the 30,000 Aussies who lost money in FTX’s collapse say they’re struggling to get paid back by administrators (The Australian, $).

The Sizzle: I’m sorry if this offends but I am still yet to be convinced of any crypto use case for the average person that isn’t a) crime, b) wild speculation, c) all of the above.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

  • AI chatbot ‘MechaHitler’ could be making content considered violent extremism, expert witness tells X v eSafety case (The Guardian Australia)

  • Aussie gamers spent more on subscriptions than physical games (Gadget Guy) 

  • Sleep Apnea notifications come to Aussie Apple Watch owners from today (EFTM) 

  • ‘Burdensome sticks’: Australia’s data centre rules a regional outlier (InnovationAus, $) 

  • Apple and Ireland tax saga finally ends with $15 billion escrow withdrawal (Apple Insider)

  • NVIDIA says it can resume selling key AI chips to China (Engadget) 

  • DOGE Denizen Marko Elez Leaked API Key for xAI (Krebs on Security) 

  • Hugging Face Is Hosting 5,000 Nonconsensual AI Models of Real People (404 Media, $) 

  • BYD has caught up with Tesla in the global EV race. Here’s how. (Ars Technica) 

  • Google Discover adds AI summaries, threatening publishers with further traffic declines (TechCrunch)

  • Xbox tests letting you stream your own games on PC (The Verge) 

  • Microsoft has a new trick to improve laptop battery life on Windows (The Verge) 

  • Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold specs leak with bigger screen and battery (The Shortcut) 

  • Faster Qi2.2 wireless power banks are on the way (The Verge) 

  • The Pangu Illusion: How Huawei’s Star AI Model Was Built on Burnout, Betrayal, and Open-Source Theft (The Open Source Ward) 

  • DDoS attacks continue to grow in size and frequency (Cloudflare)

  • A software-defined radio can derail a US train by slamming the brakes on remotely (The Register)

  • The internet still runs on 1980s protocols – that should worry you (TechRadar)

  • Latest Intel Engineering Layoffs Lead To An Intel Linux Driver Being Orphaned (Phoronix) 

  • The Firefox team is doing an Ask Me Anything (Mozilla)

  • Would you complain about this NBN installation? (Reddit)

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

A rare fake AI hallucination

Cameron, you say, you’re always hating on AI for making up bullshit! You’re right, I do. So in the interest of balance, it’s important that I present a potential positive use case for AI lies. What if you could blame the machine for making up something that you don’t want to be held responsible for?

I’m happy to share a Supreme Court case where a woman was successfully sued for breaching her director duties by selling a Thai restaurant business to a company that she owned for $2, well below market value (Jade). When asked about whether she prepared the documents for sale, the defendant, Ratcharin Sopharak, claimed that they had actually been written by ChatGPT and therefore it wasn’t her fault. It was a brilliant plan… except for the fact that the documents were created before ChatGPT was released: “Her evidence on this aspect was entirely unsatisfactory,” Justice Mark Richmond wrote. So close!

worth a shot

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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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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