TechRadar isn’t just Australia’s #1 tech site – it’s one of the biggest in the world! And we’ve got ambitious plans to go even further. To help us get there, we need talented writers with a hankering to play with the latest gizmos and gadgets to join our Sydney-based editorial team.
So if you love all things tech, gaming and online entertainment – and love wordplay, of course – we want to hear from you (opens in new tab).
We’re looking for someone to deliver world-class coverage of all the latest tech news, write reviews and provide the best buying advice you can to help our readers make smart tech choices.
This will be a very hands-on role, working closely with our other Australian writers and audience development team, but with a fair amount of autonomy and the freedom of a hybrid work environment, allowing you to work from our CBD-based office as well as from home.
Who are we looking for?
This is a great opportunity for hungry wordsmiths looking to be challenged. You will need to have:
A keen interest in technology, ideally in key areas like smartphones, PCs, AV and audio, video games and the NBN
The ability to produce informative and engaging content
An understanding of on-page SEO and content monitoring
Excellent time management skills
Ideally, list of PR contacts within the tech industry
What you’ll get
At Future, we believe in rewarding hard work and every employee gets additional perks outside of the usual benefits. These include:
A generous leave policy
A share in our profit pool bonus
Help in developing your career through additional qualifications and exposure to various other parts of the business
Think you have the write right stuff to join the TechRadar Australia editorial team? Get in touch via the application form here. We can’t wait to hear from you.
Peter Meijier of Michigan, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump over the Capitol attack, will not return to Congress next year.
Meijer lost his primary on Tuesday to a Trump-backed election denier – while Trump supporters and election deniers won primaries across the country.
Meijer, a first-term congressman, was beaten by John Gibbs. In a statement, Meijer said: “I’m proud to have remained true to my principles, even when doing so came at a significant political cost.”
He published angry words on Monday, lambasting Democrats who spent campaign dollars in support of Gibbs, seeing him as beatable in the midterms in November.
In an online essay, Meijer said: “The Democrats are justifying this political jiu-jitsu by making the argument that politics is a tough business. I don’t disagree.
“But that toughness is bound by certain moral limits: those who participated in the attack on the Capitol, for example, clearly fall outside those limits. But over the course of the midterms, Democrats seem to have forgotten just where those limits lie.”
Republican voters, Meijer added, “will be blamed if any of these candidates are ultimately elected, but there is no doubt Democrats’ fingerprints will be on the weapon. We should never forget it.”
Gibbs has repeated Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election and claimed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chair participated in a satanic ritual involving bodily fluids.
Meijer is the second of the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment to lose his seat, after Tom Rice of South Carolina, beaten by a Trump-backed challenger in June.
Four others, including Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a prominent member of the House January 6 committee, opted to withdraw rather than face voters.
David Valadao of California has survived. On Tuesday, the Washington state representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse seemed set to join Valadao in fighting the November election. They led Trump-backed challengers but as Washington state conducts elections by mail, full results were not known.
Herrera Beutler’s challengers include Joe Kent, a former Green Beret with links to rightwing extremists who employs an aid who was a member of the Proud Boys. Newhouse’s opponents include Loren Culp, a former gubernatorial nominee who falsely claimed his 13-point loss to Jay Inslee in 2020 was the result of voter fraud.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, supporters of Trump’s lie about electoral fraud did well.
In Arizona, a swing state, the US Senate candidate Blake Masters, whose campaign was bankrolled by the tech investor Peter Thiel, won his primary after echoing Trump’s lies and playing up cultural grievances including critical race theory and supposed big tech censorship.
He will face the former astronaut Mark Kelly for a seat that could decide control of the Senate.
In the race for Arizona secretary of state, a post that oversees the conduct of elections, Mark Finchem, a state lawmaker who worked to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat in Arizona, won his primary.
In the Arizona legislature, the House speaker, Rusty Bowers, who testified at a January 6 hearing about Trump’s pressure to overturn the 2020 election, lost his primary for a state senate seat to a Trump-backed candidate, David Farnsworth.
The possible exception to Trump’s streak of wins was the gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who has been trailing Karrin Taylor Robson, a candidate endorsed by Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence. Election-day and late mail ballots are still being counted.
Meijer’s state, Michigan, also saw a Trump-backed candidate win the Republican primary for governor. Tudor Dixon, a conservative media personality, will face the Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, in November.
Dixon’s past as an actor in low-budget horror movies – with titles such as Buddy BeBop Vs the Living Dead – became a campaign issue.
In Missouri, Republican voters who Trump said should vote for “Eric” made their choice between three Erics in their US Senate primary, backing the state attorney general, Eric Schmitt, over the former governor Eric Greitens, who resigned in disgrace in 2018.
Democrats nominated a beer heiress, Trudy Busch Valentine, over the populist Lucas Kunce.
An Aussie grandfather is calling out one of the nation’s biggest electricity suppliers, accusing it of making up meter numbers when it comes to bill time.
Bryn Lawson, who lives by himself, says AGL has repeatedly admitted his mistakes, but the final straw was his latest bill, which came in at over $1200.
“Fix it, AGL! Get your s— together and fix it,” he said.
An Aussie grandfather is calling out one of the nation’s biggest electricity suppliers, accusing it of making up meter numbers when it comes to bill time. Bryn Lawson, who lives by himself, says AGL has repeatedly admitted his mistakes, but the final straw was his latest bill, which came in at over $1200. (Nine)
READMORE:Charity founder hospitalized after anonymous call
Related Clips
Lawson, 55, reads his own meter, which is located inside a large fence around his acreage at Vineyard in Sydney’s north-west.
He takes a photo marked with the date and time three days before the bill is due and relays it to AGL.
READMORE:‘I thought I was going to die’: Retired AFL star opens up on mental health
“Every time the bill comes, it’s wrong,” he said.
Lawson even got rid of his fridge, fearing it was his appliances blowing the bills out.
“I have proof they are charging me for six months’ electricity each quarter and they can’t even get it right,” he said.
AGL has offered credits to Lawson for the mistakes, only for them to happen again.
“I’m just banging my head up against a brick wall with these guys,” Lawson said. He’s ready to cut the power off.
“All I’m gonna get is a bad debt, and a big bill I gotta pay off,” he said.
Lawson, 55, reads his own meter, which is located inside a large fence around his acreage at Vineyard in Sydney’s north-west. He takes a photo marked with the date and time three days before the bill is due and relays it to AGL. (Nine)
“I have no problem at all putting my swag out there, putting my solar panels, my battery and running that fridge out there and living out there.”
AGL has apologized to the grandfather.
“AGL sincerely apologizes to Mr Lawson for his experience,” a spokesperson for the company said.
“We are committed to working with Mr Lawson to resolve his concerns.
“In the past we have offered to install a free smart meter that doesn’t require manual readings, and to make an appointment with the network for an actual meter read.
“We have reached out to Mr Lawson again today.”
READMORE:Places where most Aussies face mortgage stress
There are few cars that create a buzz in the motoring world like the release of a new Ferrari. Let alone a 1-of-599 Ferrari Daytona fitted with the most powerful engine Ferrari has ever put in a road car.
After releasing plans for 15 new models between 2023 and 2026, the new Ferrari Daytona SP3, which was officially announced in 2021, is starting deliveries later this year.
Reportedly costing in the region of A$3 million, the limited-run supercar is the third, and most expensive, member of Ferrari’s Icona Series behind 2018’s Monza SP1 and SP2.
Ferrari’s Icona range of road cars is specifically designed to “celebrate Ferrari’s history by reinterpreting the timeless styling of the marque’s most iconic cars”.
Steeped in iconic heritage, the new Ferrari Daytona SP3 pays homage to the famous 330 P3/4, 330 P4 and 412 P Ferrari Daytonas that recorded the 1-2-3 win in the 24 Hours of Daytona race back in 1967.
Source: Ferrari
Under the hood, you’ll find the most powerful engine the Maranello factory has ever fitted to a road car – a 6.5 liter naturally aspirated V12. It produces 829hp, revs to a staggering 9500rpm and carries the car from zero to 100km/h in 2.85 seconds and zero to 200km/h in 7.4 seconds and will reach a top speed of 340km/h.
Behind the sweeping curves, ‘butterfly’ doors, and retractable ‘eye-lid’ headlights, the Daytona SP3 shares similarities with the hybrid LaFerrari. It sits on a comparable, yet more evolved, carbon-fibre chassis and uses the first all-carbon, mid-engine V12 since the 2013 hypercar. Despite this, the Daytona SP3 doesn’t boast any of the hybrid components that characterize the LaFerrari.
Every bit as stylish as its 1960s Daytona brethren, Ferrari’s Chief Design Officer Flavio Manzoni said the Daytona SP3 takes inspiration from the past but aligns with the company’s future vision.
You can take cues from the past but it’s vital that you don’t lose the visionary approach. You can see how it’s possible to connect the beauty of our heritage with our vision for the future. We would never do a ‘restomod’, it’s low-level. Never make something that is banal or obvious.
Ferrari Chief Design Officer Flavio Manzoni
All of the 599 iterations are already accounted for. As part of the Icona series, the Ferrari Daytona SP3 is only sold to clients and collectors on first-name terms with the Maranello factory and those considered to be brand ambassadors.
With the first road testing completed, Ferrari expects Dayonta SP3 deliveries to start at the end of 2022 with production continuing through 2023 and 2024.
Police got a call Monday morning from a driver about a 12-year-old girl walking alone along County Road 34 in Dadeville, Tallapoosa County Sheriff Jimmy Abbett said Tuesday at a news conference.
The girl had been restrained to bed posts for about a week, according to a criminal complaint. She had chewed off her restraints — breaking her braces — and her wrists show marks consistent with restraint, it states.
The 12-year-old had been given alcohol to stay “in a drugged state” and was assaulted in the “head area,” the complaint states. She had not been reported missing, the sheriff said.
Jose Paulino Pascual-Reyes, 37, was arrested Monday about 25 miles away in Auburn on suspicion of first-degree kidnapping by US Marshals and police, the sheriff said, adding other agencies are also on the case.
While searching Pascual-Reyes’ home, detectives found two decomposed bodies, the sheriff said. A forensics team is working to identify the corpses, he said, and how and when they died wasn’t immediately known. The sheriff further stated that “other people” were living in the residence. The sheriff did not say whether these people were being charged or held in connection with the alleged crimes at the residence.
Pascual-Reyes also faces three counts of capital murder and two counts of abuse of corpse, Abbett said in a news release.
“We’re looking at multiple counts of capital murder, along with kidnapping in the first degree,” Tallapoosa County District Attorney Jeremy Duerr said during the news conference. “And of course, once we continue and finish our investigation, I feel certain that several more charges will follow.”
Pascual-Reyes awaits a bond hearing at the Tallapoosa County Jail, Abbett said. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had a lawyer.
“This is horrendous to have a crime scene of this nature and also a 12-year-old juvenile to deal with this horrendous situation,” Abbett said, calling the girl “a hero.”
While the Sheriff did not give any details about when the girl might have been kidnapped or any possible relationship with Pascual-Reyes, he did say she had received medical care and was doing well.
“She’s safe now and… we want to keep her that way,” Abbett said.
A trade body has hit out at Australia’s “outdated” spirits tax regime as distillers face the biggest increase in nearly 50 years.
Australia has the third-highest spirits tax in the world
Tax has risen to AU$94.41 per liter of pure alcohol, based on consumer price inflation (CPI) figures, which means Australian distillers will have to pay an extra AU$1 of tax on an average 700ml bottle of spirit at 40% ABV.
“This is effectively a double whammy on spirits,” said Greg Holland, chief executive of trade group Spirits and Cocktails. “It’s the biggest increase in almost 50 years, since our tax figures were updated in 1978, and in that time spirits manufacturers have been slugged with the GST [goods and services tax] and the RTDs (ready-to-drink) tax as well. “
Australia has the third-highest spirits tax in the world, as well as a complex alcohol duty regime, trade body Spirits and Cocktails noted.
“We know all Australians are feeling the pain of inflation but this outdated tax regime means the spirits industry is effectively punished twice,” Holland added.
He noted distillers are paying ‘skyrocketing prices’ for barley, glass and cans, and freight charges that have more than doubled in certain regions.
Spirits and Cocktails cited several cost increases over the past 12 months for distillers, including a 55% increase on freight, a 20%-30% rise on glass, a 50% hike on cereals, and a 16% surge on oak barrels.
Holland noted: “On top of all the other cost of living pressures they’re facing, those millions of Australian consumers will now likely be slugged even more as a result of this excise increase.”
The trade group said the country’s ‘outmoded’ alcohol tax system indexes spirits excise to inflation, and results in increases every six months.
As such, up to 60% of the retail price of an average 700ml bottle of spirit in Australia is now taxed, the group highlighted.
Automatic increases in line with CPI means the government’s average tax take from the distilling sector, which includes pre-mixed spirit production, rises by between AU$100 million to AU$120m every year.
Holland said: “This tax is cannibalizing our industry. It has an insatiable appetite; no matter how hard our distillers and manufacturers work to grow, it keeps taking more.
“We look forward to working with the new federal government to build a more sustainable future for the Australian spirits industry.”
For an in-depth look at the Australian market, check out the August 2022 issue of The Spirits Business.
In December last year, the UK and Australia agreed to a trade deal that will remove tariffs on spirits such as Scotch whiskey and gin.
The PlayStation 5’s Accolades feature has allowed users to offer awards to fellow players in multiplayer games, the idea being that it’d help foster kindness and camaraderie in the gaming community. But Sony formally retired it from PS5 this week for one reason: No one used it. Most people (hi) didn’t even seem to know it existed.
This spurred a thought exercise: What other gaming consoles still have useless features? Take the Switch, for instance. Sure, Nintendo’s hybrid handheld has plenty of quietly helpful little tricks, like its universal zoom function. But it also has some that could probably get purged without anyone caring—or even noticing.
The “Find Controllers” Function
Of the slew of options in the Switch’s “Controllers” menu, the “find controllers” function far and away collects the most dust. Open it, and you’ll see a menu containing a list of Joy-Cons paired to your console. Hold down the “A” button over the Joy-Con you’re looking for and it’ll rumble. Quietly. At, like, animal-hearing frequency. It’s intended to help you locate any detached Joy-Cons that may be misplaced, but isn’t really effective enough to do its one job — Never mind that you actually need at least one Joy-Con on hand to use it in the first place .
Sadly, there’s no console function that addresses the scourge of Joy-Con drift.
The “News” App
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku
Most of the seven permanent icons on the Switch’s home screen are genuinely useful shortcuts to submenus. One, however, is used only by the people who accidentally click on it: the “News” app. Open it up and you’ll see a reverse chronological feed of digitized press releases from the annals of Nintendo’s marketing machine. (You can also see the three most recent “stories” on the left bar of the screen when you boot up the console.) But if you’re looking for gaming news, you’re not going to read it on a gaming console — which you’ve presumably booted up to, y’know, play games. You’re especially not going to read it on that console if the text is so very tiny. You’re far more likely to get your news from a favorite gaming site.
voicechat
Despite what you may have heard, yep, the Switch has voice chat! Kinda. It’s a convoluted mess. On PlayStation and Xbox, if you want to get voice chat going, you…plug in a headset and get voice chat going. On Switch, however, you have to go through a multi-step process and boot up a companion smartphone app. Nintendo could scrap its voice chat without anyone caring. Really, if you’re using a smartphone app to talk to your party members, Discord is right there.
Keyboard Support
Everyone hates punching in a password (twice!) to buy something on Nintendo’s eShop, what with the console’s small touchscreen keyboard. This workaround doesn’t function in handheld mode, but you can plug a USB keyboard into the dock and use that to type instead. But also: the time it takes to pull out a keyboard and plug it into the Switch’s dock probably takes longer than whatever task you were initially trying to circumvent. (If you must get into the eShop faster, just deactivate the password requirement.) Nintendo could likely lose keyboard support without much uproar.
Screen Lock (or, well, that’s an option)
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku
Yes, the Switch’s screen lock feature is indeed enormously helpful, dare I say essential. Turn it on, and you’ll give your console a purgatory of sorts between its waking and sleeping states. You’ll then need to tap the same button three times to use your console, which can prevent it from inadvertently turning on when, say, it’s rustling around in your bag. Honestly, it shouldn’t even be an option: It should be the standard. Get rid of the choice, I say, and let screen lock be the standard.
DarkMode
I’m kidding! I’m kidding. But hey, on this note, wouldn’t it be nice if the Switch had more color themes for its backdrop? Hello? Hey, where’d you go?
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.), two progressive lawmakers who are members of the “Squad,” fended off primary challengers on Tuesday, making them favorites to win their third and second terms, respectively.
Bush earned 69.5 percent of the vote in her primary, easily beating out Missouri state Sen. Steve Roberts, who garnered 26.6 percent of the vote.
Roberts had run a more moderate campaign, saying Bush put “publicity” ahead of her constituents in the district, which includes St. Louis and nearby suburbs, and noting her votes against legislation like the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
“For anyone who wondered if you can go to Congress as a single mom, nurse, pastor, politivist, & survivor, be your full self, vote your conscience, deliver for your community and get re-elected—St. Louis and I have our answer,” Bush tweeted on Tuesday evening shortly after The Associated Press called the race in her favor.
In Michigan, Tlaib also easily won her primary against three major challengers, garnering 66.5 percent of the vote. The AP called the race early Wednesday morning.
She beat out Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, who earned 18.4 percent of the vote; Lathrup Village Mayor Kelly Garrett, who earned 10.2 percent; and former state Rep. Shanelle Jackson, who earned 4.9 percent.
The two races were recent bright spots for progressives, who had a mixed track record in 2022.
But in other elections held on Tuesday, progressives largely fell short.
In a member-on-member primary in Michigan’s 11th District, moderate Rep. Haley Stevens defeated Rep. Andy Levin, who was backed by progressives including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
And in Missouri’s Democratic Senate primary, Lucas Kunce, who was also backed by Sanders, lost the race to philanthropist Trudy Busch Valentine.
Nine years after parent company Lion shifted production to South Australia, kegs of the popular lager known colloquially as Swanny D are being brewed at Little Creatures in Fremantle to avoid pandemic-related supply chain disruptions.
Swan Draft was brewed in WA from 1857 until 2013 when production shifted to the West End Brewery in Adelaide.
Brewing then shifted to Tooheys in Sydney when West End rolled out its last kegs in June last year.
While some Swan Draft pouring at Perth pubs is still brewed in NSW, Lion has embarked on a recruitment drive with the aim of bringing all WA keg production to Little Creatures.
Lion WA sales director Jamie Ryan said the local brewing team had undertaken a rigorous emulation process to ensure consistency of taste across the national output.
“Swan Draft kegs are now proudly being brewed locally here in WA for the first time since 2013,” he said.
Mr Ryan added that the homecoming was “a big win in terms of freshness for our loyal WA Swan Draft customers and drinkers”.
Karl Bullers, owner of the National Hotel in Fremantle, said Swan Draft was very popular among drinkers at the busy pub.
“It’s a clear sales leader, head and shoulders above any other tap beer that we do,” he said.
“It’s popular with all different segments from your hardened drinkers that swear by Swan and have been drinking it all their lives, from back in the day where there was very little choice in what they could drink, to students and hipsters.”
The publican, who also owns the Old Courthouse in Fremantle, said pouring locally brewed Swan Draft felt good.
“There was quite an outcry back when they shifted the production — I remember it well,” Mr Bullers said.
“It’s a local product, so it’s great that it’s being brewed back here again.
“It ticks all the boxes for keeping it local and reducing its carbon footprint as well.
“It’s great to be pouring it from just up the road (at Little Creatures) — they could run a pipe from the brewery.”
National Hotel owner Karl Bullers joked that the pub’s Swan Draft kegs could be “the freshest in the world” now that the beer is being brewed locally at Little Creatures in Fremantle. Credit: Jackson Flindell/The West Australian
Mr Bullers joked that the National Hotel’s kegs could be “the freshest in the world”.
Before leaving WA, Swan Draft was brewed at Swan’s facility in Canning Vale.
In 1990, New Zealand brewing company Lion Nathan, as it was then known, bought a 50 per cent stake in Swan owner Bond Brewing, before completing the takeover two years later.
Now a subsidiary of Japanese giant Kirin, Lion has no current plans to move production of packaged Swan Draft, nor other WA-born, Lion-owned beers Emu Export and Bitter, back west.
A study on the neurons titled “Nanosecond protonic programmable resistors for analog deep learning“has been published in the journal Science.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created new artificial “neurons“and”synapse“that exist within a new field of artificial intelligence called analog deep learning. Instead of using transistors like in digital processors, analog deep learning uses programmable resistors to “create a network of analog artificial ‘neurons’ and ‘synapses’“that can exceed the performance of a digital neural network, while using a fraction of the energy.
The MIT team’s artificial neurons and synapses are built using a new inorganic material in their fabrication process, increasing the performance of devices using them to one million times faster than previous iterations and one million times faster than the synapses found in the human brain. The new material can also be used with existing silicon fabrication techniques, meaning it can be used to create nanometer-scale devices and potentially integrate the technology with existing computing hardware to facilitate deep-learning applications.
“Once you have an analog processor, you will no longer be training networks everyone else is working on. You will be training networks with unprecedented complexities that no one else can afford to, and therefore vastly outperform them all. In other words, this is not a faster car, this is a spacecraft,” said lead author and MIT postdoc Murat Onen.
“The speed certainly was surprising. Normally, we would not apply such extreme fields across devices, in order to not turn them into ash. But instead, protons ended up shuttling at immense speeds across the device stack, specifically a million times faster compared to what we had before. And this movement doesn’t damage anything, thanks to the small size and low mass of protons. It is almost like teleporting. The nanosecond timescale means we are close to the ballistic or even quantum tunneling regime for the proton, under such an extreme field.,” said senior author Ju Li, the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and professor of materials science and engineering.
You can read more from the study hereand from MIT’s breakdown here.
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku
