Welcome to Tech Beat, your daily read on the technology stories that matter.
Australia's competition regulator, the ACCC, has ordered thousands of households to discard their SamKnows routers — and experts aren't happy about it. The agency failed to mention that flashing open-source firmware like OpenWRT was a viable alternative, and unwiped devices left in the trash could expose users' network credentials to whoever picks them up next.
Meanwhile, a story out of the New York Times reads more like a screenplay than a news report. A criminal gang allegedly pulled off a multimillion-dollar physical heist targeting a data center, a reminder that for all our focus on sophisticated cyberattacks, sometimes the threat walks in through a loading dock.
And OpenAI's Sam Altman took an unusual turn after releasing GPT five point six, publicly asking users to show him what they actually built with it rather than debating benchmark scores. The responses ranged from a wardrobe styling assistant to, remarkably, a Pokémon Go-style game designed for cats — which may say more about the current moment in AI than any chart ever could.
That's your Tech Beat for today. Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
