25-February 15

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 17 - 22 FEBRUARY 2025

Hello and Welcome,

Meeting Today

2025/02/15 — 14:00-16:00 — February, Sat — Web Design

Sorry Everyone,

Unfortunately, I have to cancel our face-to-face meeting today (Saturday). I just found out there is major trackwork, including bus travel. My asthma limits my ability to get my gear on a bus.

I'm sorry, I was looking forward to getting together, but we will be on Zoom only until next month.

Zoom Details

Topic: SPCTUG Web Design Zoom Meeting

Time: Feb 15, 2025 14:00 Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88138067414

Meeting ID: 881 3806 7414

Passcode: SPCTUGWeb

Steve South

Meeting This week

2025/02/18 — 10:00-12:00 — February, Tue — Tuesday Group

Meetings Next Week

NO MEETINGS

Schedule of Current & Upcoming Meetings

First Tuesday 18:00-20:00 — Main Meeting

Third Tuesday 10:00-12:00 — Tuesday Group

Third Saturday 14:00-16:00 — Web Design

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Go to the official Sydney PC Calendar for this month's meeting details.

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ASCCA News:Tech News:

Paris AI Summit raises a half-full glass

See the Pilitico article by Pieter Haeck with Mathieu Pollet | February 10, 2025, 7:00 am CET.

The Grand Palais in Paris

SNEAK PEEK

— French President Emmanuel Macron's big Artificial Intelligence Summit kicks off in Paris. We have the latest.

— A key set of European Union AI rules is under pressure from U.S. Big Tech. The topic could pop up again and again in Paris.

— Important provisions of the EU's media freedom law kicked in on Saturday.

Good morning, and welcome to Morning Tech. Hi, this is Pieter, writing this with a view of l'Arc de Triomphe. If you're in Paris, reach out!

As always, send the hottest tech policy news and gossip to Pieter, Mathieu and Eliza.

DRIVING THE DAY

WELCOME TO PARIS, THE CITY OF LIGHT AI: Bonjour, allô. We're there. Morning Tech's Pieter is speaking to you from Paris, where the AI Action Summit kicked off. French President Emmanuel Macron wants to show that France can lead in artificial intelligence.

"The future of AI is a political issue and an issue of sovereignty and strategic dependence," Macron wrote in a LinkedIn post on Sunday ahead of the summit's start. On Instagram, he struck a completely different tone, mocking several deepfakes of him doing the rounds.

Where the fun is at: The official part of the summit takes place today and tomorrow at the Grand Palais and is attended by a series of world leaders, including the European Commission's Ursula von der Leyen, Henna Virkkunen and Stéphane Séjourné, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who co-hosts the event. There will also be industry executives like OpenAI's Sam Altman, Anthropic's Dario Amodei and Mistral's Arthur Mensch.

But equally as fun is the series of side events, fireside chats, and cocktail parties all across the city of light — a feast that already kicked off over the weekend.

Google sees opportunities over risks: On Sunday afternoon, Google gathered at its Paris AI lab for an event with Demis Hassabis, the chief executive of Google's DeepMind (and a recent Nobel Prize winner), and James Manyika, the company's senior vice president for research.

Manyika said aloud what everyone had already been discussing in private: the opportunities of AI are much more top of mind at the summit than the risk stemming from the technology — a shift compared to earlier summits, such as the U.K. one in November 2023 that focused on AI safety.

"One of the things that is exciting about this summit … it has given much greater focus on the opportunities of AI, in addition to thinking about risks, and regulation," Manyika said.

"Too often, many of these conversations have been just focused on the risk and complexities," he said.

Don't mention the AGI: When asked when he expects we will reach artificial general intelligence when AI matches human capabilities, Hassabis said: "We're close."

"Maybe we're only five years or something away from a system like that." He warned that society should prepare for this moment.

Don't mention DeepSeek: The AI world is still reeling from the rise of DeepSeek, the Chinese open-source model that rose to prominence in January for showing how chatbots can be built without massive investment. Hassabis offered a reality check to the hype.

"There's no actual new scientific advance here. It's using known techniques — actually, many of the techniques we invented at Google," he quipped. He applauded how well they were implemented and praised Chinese engineering skills.

The Brussels angle: The European Commission is in Paris and has much on the line.

Since taking office in early December, the Commission's top brass, especially tech czar Henna Virkkunen, has delivered a pro-business and pro-innovation AI pitch. The EU's executive has pivoted from focusing on AI safety and governance to innovation and investment. Read a deep dive about that here.

Virkkunen can now bring that pitch to a global stage. According to her schedule, she's expected to participate in a workshop today on the EU as "an AI continent." This has become Virkkunen's catchphrase after she first floated the idea at her hearing.

Regulation, too: Yet, the Commission's AI Office still has its hands full with regulation, too, as the AI Act gradually kicks in over the next year and a half. A key part of the AI Act, a voluntary set of rules for the most advanced models operated by OpenAI and others, is increasingly in peril.

Big Tech's criticism: Last week, Google's chief lobbyist Kent Walker and his Meta counterpart Joel Kaplan slammed the draft of the EU's code of practice for general-purpose AI. They claimed that the draft code has provisions that go beyond the EU's AI Act or put an unworkable burden on the industry.

The AI Office's response: Lucilla Sioli, boss of the EU's AI Office, responded at an event hosted by the Tony Blair Institute on the sidelines of the summit on Sunday, stressing that the EU didn't see any "trade-off" between regulation and innovation.

She called for "constructive collaboration" with tech companies and said the legislation was "very targeted," but she struck a cautious note about how many companies will sign up to the code of practice: "We will see how many companies are willing to sign."

More to come? The thorny topic of the code of practice could pop up again today.

Virkkunen will join a panel about "voluntary engagements" moderated by Sioli at 10 am Yoshua Bengio, the Canadian computer scientist who helped draft the code of practice, will also attend.

The real political action: Today is only the appetizer. The plenary with all the heads of state and government leaders takes place on Tuesday morning.

AI and defence: This afternoon's side conference is dedicated to military AI. Even if France cannot master all the tech needed to develop artificial intelligence systems, it must create its algorithms, AMIAD director Bertrand Rondepierre told Laura Kayali and Émile Marzolf in an interview. The capability to design algorithms is "non-negotiable," he added. Read more here.

Google Maps and Apple Maps renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and I am so confused

See the TechRadar article by Lance Ulanoff | Last Feb 12, 2025.

There's a gulf of disagreement

The Gulf of America

I like to imagine someone swimming in the Gulf of Mexico when Google unceremoniously renamed it the Gulf of America. There they are, backstroking across the pristine green and blue waters as the giant words float down from the sky and land on top of them. They're distressed and confused, so they quickly kick out from under the enormous letters, pull out their iPhones, and open Bing Maps to switch it back to the Gulf of Mexico.

That's right, there's now technical disagreement on the name of a significant body of water across map systems: Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Bing Maps.

Here's how it started:

Donald Trump took the oath of Office as US President on January 21, 2025, and immediately announced his intention to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, rename Mount Denali back to Mount McKinley, and pursue other geographic ambitions like annexing Canada, taking over Greenland, and reclaiming the Panama Canal.

While some of these ideas seemed far-fetched or ridiculous, Google soon announced it would be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico in Google Maps. As of February 10, 2025, the change is live on all versions of Google Maps that, at least, Americans can see.

While Apple's Maps initially showed no signs of changing its Maps labels and there were no public comments from Apple on its Gulf stance, there are already signs that it's getting in line. I've since confirmed with Apple that the change is on the way. An Apple spokesperson told me, "We're implementing these changes globally, starting in the U.S. today [February 11, 2025]."

If you open Apple Maps in iOS 18, you may still see "Gulf of Mexico," but if you click on the label, the pop-up card lists the body of water as the "Gulf of America."

When I asked Google for comment, it pointed me to its original blog post announcing the change. What I wanted to know, though, was how Google made the decision and what technical hurdles exist when trying to region-set map labels for the world.

Someone is opening Google Maps somewhere in Mexico and still seeing "Gulf of Mexico." If they slide into the water and swim toward their American friend paddling near Texas, at what point does their Google Maps view change? They may consider switching to Apple Maps for a singular view of this 617,800 square mile, watery expanse.

Enter confusion

Google's choice is not without consequences. By so quickly acquiescing, does that mean that our US Google Maps experience becomes a moveable feast? Should we expect Mount Denali to switch to McKinley (Denali is still on Google Maps)? Will Google preemptively put an asterisk next to Canada or Granada? (*Label under interest of current US administration).

From a technical standpoint, I wonder if those travelling from the UK to the US for a holiday in the Gulf would find their Google Maps switching when they arrive in the States.

Since maps are now so changeable, Google (and Apple, too) can introduce some customization tools so we can all set our labelling preferences. I want to continue calling that water zone "The Gulf of Mexico." Can I put that somewhere? Right now, no, but the hard truths of cartography have gone wobbly, so anything is on the table.

What a mess.

Google Play to Limit Permissions on Rogue Apps

See the InfoPackets article by John Lister on February 7, 2025, at 02:02 pm EST.

Google Play

Google is taking stronger action against potentially harmful apps. It may revoke permissions where the app is already on a user's device.

One of the most notable aspects of Google's management of Android apps is its particular balance of security and privacy. Although it will remove apps suspected or confirmed to be malicious from the Play Store, it doesn't usually do much, if anything, about devices that already have the app installed.

The optional Google Play Protect can deactivate suspicious apps. Still, users are usually left to hear about the issue (for example, in a media report) and manually uninstall it. The main effect of the removal from the store for existing users is that the app will stop automatically updating.

Play Protect can also actively warn users about a suspicious app, though it's unclear how often (and in what proportion of cases) Google uses this functionality.

Permission Withdrawn

However, Google is now taking an active step that's something of a middle ground between not doing anything about existing installations and completely uninstalling apps. Play Protect will now automatically revoke permissions for an app identified as potentially harmful.

Permissions are how Android lets an app access some hardware or software features (for example, using the camera) while blocking others (for example, reading SMS messages).

Play Protect will revoke permissions that involve accessing sensitive data, such as photos or hardware components that could threaten privacy, such as the camera. Users will get a notification about the changes and can manually restore permissions. However, there will be a security step to reduce the risk of the app itself trying to bypass the restrictions. (Source: googleblog.com)

Tech Support Scams Tackled

Turning off the Play Protect feature itself will also be limited. Users will no longer be able to switch it off while making a phone or video call, including through third-party apps.

The idea is to reduce the risk of scammers trying to get remote access to a phone, for example, during a bogus "tech support" call. (Source: theverge.com)

Fun Facts:

APC issue 542 (February) is on sale now!

See the TechRadar article by APC magazine | Last updated Feb 09 2025.

Windows in 2025

APC Magazine Feb 2025

With the new year bringing the curtain down on the most used version of Windows, APC explores where consumers and businesses should head next.

Should you continue to cling to Windows 10 hardware, grudgingly paying Microsoft for extended support? Or upgrade to Windows 11 and, if so, which version: x86 or Arm, Home or Pro? Or wait for Windows 12, or even eschew the notion of running your own Windows installations and head for the clouds of Windows 365 instead.