Hello, welcome to Monday. It’s sunny outside and it’s starting to smell like spring. This weekend we saw more talk about former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s secret appointments, and the excitement over the Footy final has begun. But here’s what you need to know in the tech news this morning.
1. Creating Artificial Embryos from Human DNA
An Israeli biotech firm created an artificial mouse embryo from stem cells, and now they want to do the same with human cells. As Insider reports, scientists at Weisman’s Department of Molecular Genetics grew a “synthetic mouse embryo” in a jar without the use of sperm, eggs, or wombats. The replica embryos could not develop into fully formed mice and were therefore not “real”, but they did have a beating heart, circulatory system, the beginning of a brain, a neural tube and an intestinal tract. Renewal Bio now wants to use technology to “make humanity younger and healthier”.
2. Tesla Will Increase Self-Driving Software
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced a price hike for the car’s full self-driving software. The new price (a jump of $3,000) will take effect from September 5 in North America (where it’s currently beta testing advanced autonomous driving capabilities), but won’t affect Australian Tesla owners and wannabe owners. That technology is not yet available in Australia. It also isn’t the first time in recent memory that Tesla has raised prices.
3. Australian Government Spent $2 Billion On $1 Billion IBM Deal
Back in July 2018, IBM struck a $1 billion deal with the federal government to be its ‘technology partner’ (this was even after that 2016 census). The aim was to make government IT procurement easier, more efficient and cost-effective and to help the government with its ‘innovations’ not so antiquated. It was also the largest ever contract awarded by the Commonwealth. As revealed by iTnews, the deal is now worth $2 billion in 2022 and the Digital Transformation Agency has now filed “to inform future negotiations with IBM, to the fullest extent of the IBM commercial landscape within the Commonwealth.” going to do.
4. Horizon World is going to suck less, Zuck says
Last week, Mark Zuckerberg posted a screenshot of his digital avatar standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, as a way of announcing that Horizon Worlds was launching in France and Spain. As expected, the Internet responded. This thing is ugly. But the meta chief responded over the weekend, saying “major updates to Horizon and Avatar graphics are coming soon”. We sure hope so, Zuk.
5. NFTs won’t work in gaming
Speaking of Web3… NFT Gaming recently re-entered the news cycle, with a Kickstarter for a game that took advantage of crypto technology and failed (developers ran out of money and stopped development) . This prompted us to take a long, hard look at the concept of NFTs and Web3 as a whole and whether or not it has a foothold in the gaming space. Here’s our analysis/opinion on why NFTs won’t work in gaming.
Bonus Item: Your bonus item today is not a meme, nor a commentary on Australian politics, but an explanation as to why a colleague or two may be missing at 11am. Today is House of the Dragon Day, but will the Game of Thrones prequel live up to the expectations?