Mentioned in today’s edition: MrBeast, Galaxy S26, Kalshi, Nvidia, Electronic Arts, Meta, Claude, Airbnb and Mac sleep indicator lights. Plus, deals on Apple AirPods, Canon EOS cameras and ASUS ROG motherboards.

A MrBeast video editor and a political candidate are the first two people known to have received insider trading fines from a major definitely-not-gambling prediction market (Wall Street Journal, $). Kalshi disclosed that it had identified, fined and suspended the accounts of two users who had bet on markets that they had direct control over: the Republican candidate bet on himself, literally, and the YouTuber editor who wagered on MrBeast's video markets. It's usually legal to do insider betting unless it's on the stock market, but it's against Kalshi's rules. Relatedly, the company recently announced it was "expanding its surveillance and enforcement frameworks" which sounds ... interesting (CNBC). 

The Sizzle: You can probably tell from the fact that I played a role in Polymarket being blocked in Australia that I'm not a huge fan of """"prediction markets"""". It disgusts me that this form of gambling has combined with crypto and retail trading, and is now swallowing everything financial (and digital).

One of the disturbing flow on effects is that it directly threatens the integrity of pretty much everything — from important stuff like politics, to enjoyable things like your favourite YouTuber's videos. It's also just so cynical: gambling on anything turns everything into an opportunity to enrich yourself with whatever privilege you have. I don't think it's a good thing for, like, society that there is a service that we can all see is incentivising anyone with any modicum of power to profit from the knowledge that only they have. Not to mention all the gambling problems from increasing access. Shut this shit down. 

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Samsung's new phones, the Galaxy S26 series, are pretty standard upgrades except for one cool new feature (Ars Technica). Its S26, + and Ultra look more or less the same as last year's phones, have a little bit more grunt under the hood, and are a fair bit more expensive than the previous generation — no doubt due in part to the AI-fuelled price jump in parts (Pickr). But what I’m excited for is the Ultra's so-called privacy display which uses some clever pixel work to stop people from reading your screen in a totally customisable way. The Verge has a good write-up of the feature -- pretty schmick!

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Australian companies absolutely love paying off ransomware groups, new data has revealed (ITNews). You might remember that last year, Australia introduced mandatory reporting for ransomware payments for businesses with $3m+ turnover. Well, in the months since, close to 100 businesses have disclosed paying the piper. Adding in businesses under $3m and some probably non-compliance, we've learned that lofty ideas like "holding firm against bad actors" and "not feeding an ecosystem of attackers" are quickly discarded when you can just swipe the card and pretend that you were never hacked. 

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Australia:

Rest of World:

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This is a beautiful little blog about all the attention to detail paid by Apple to its Mac sleep indicator lights (Unsung). It tracks the light's evolution on new devices over the years, including how Apple even made sure that the lights on devices connected by its proprietary display connector would sync its pulsing. It was killed off in the mid-2010s but even reading about it gave me a full body soothing feeling. Bring back indicators, buttons and switches, I say. 

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Electronics

Computing

Mobile

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