I started a little stretch and exercise routine in my week of Monday 28 September to Sunday 4 October 2026, and I managed to stick to it! Please congratulate me. There was also an acceptable level of productivity, as you’ll see from the lists below.

Albanese talks up a content-free AI “framework”, Telstra gets grilled over last week’s outage, and sexbots are repurposed as robot teachers. No, really.

So much AI this week! Doctors who insist on using AI scribes, a law school that bans AI, and a news masthead’s AI pivot leads to failure. But there’s much more, so read on!

The Budget invests in tech sustainment, Kickstarter dumps adult content, robot lawnmowers get hacked and go rogue, and way too much AI news.

Social media age assurance tech trial ignored privacy warnings, French government to dump Windows for Linux, Meta to create an artificial Mark Zuckerberg, and much more.

Vibes-polling reckons the teen social media ban works, Meta closes down the Metaverse (or not), AI giants are hiring chemical warfare experts, and much more.

Back at the start of the year, my good friend Snarky Platypus and I created some bingo cards for 2024. Two sets of 25 things that might happen. Well, we’re half-way through the year, so let’s see how we went.

Four people die as Optus breaks Triple Zero calls, Australia’s looming social media age restrictions continue to raise questions, OpenAI’s ChatGPT features in a raft of AI stories, and more.

The Productivity Commission and the Treasurer side with tech bros on AI regulation, NBN goes with Amazon’s Project Kuiper, OpenAI launches GPT-5, and much more.

ART overturns eSafety takedown notice, Services Australia moves to Finance, Qantas suffers a data breach, and AI video fakes get harder to spot.

Is the age assurance tech trial going well or badly? Depends who you ask. Also, Optus cops a $1 million penalty, Amazon to invest $20 billion, and Ghost Bat reaches an important milestone.

China has a new cable-cutting submarine thing, APNIC has a new-ish boss, the people of Melbourne use OSINT to track public transport ticket inspectors, and more.

Little digital thrill in the Budget, slow progress in the age assurance tech trial, the US can’t handle its military secrets, and more.

AI doesn’t work, AI makes you dumb, AI for HR is high-risk, the US says don’t worry about AI safety, and Apple fights a UK backdoor order.

Online platforms to cop a Digital Duty of Care, but when? DeepSeek continues to break brains, concerns rise over dependence on Musk’s Starlink, and the Scams Prevention Framework is about to arrive.

Chinese AI DeepSeek breaks people’s brains, the UK reports on AI safety, Donald Trump dabbles in cryptocurrency, and much more.

A massive week for digital policy, including social media age bans for under-16s, new cybersecurity laws, a call for national AI regulation, and even — finally! — updates to the Privacy Act.

Digital platforms are the target again this week, with under-16s to be banned from social media, and an anti-scam plan that shares the blame with banks, telcos, and more.

October 18, 2024 The Weekly Cybers #40 A short edition this week with news of Australia’s first AI-generated political ad, changes to My Health Record, plus social media, telco risk, AI, and rogue robot vacuum cleaners. The Weekly Cybers #40 | 18…

October 11, 2024 The Weekly Cybers #39 Australia’s massive new cybersecurity legislation package, a move to keep NBN in public hands, the continuing push for social media age bans but with hints of a rollback strategy, and much more. The Weekly…