Three MIT researchers have trawled through 125,000 stories, tweeted more than 4.5 million times, to see if fake news gets spread more than true news. You probably guessed correctly that the fake news was far wider spread than the truth. According to the study, fake news spreads 6 times faster than legitimate news. The study speculates that the fake news spreads so fast because it "fulfills our desire for novelty", whereas true news is "hamstrung by the requirement that it has to have actually happened", so it's less interesting. Surprisingly, the research showed that bots have little impact on how fast the news spreads. Take bots out of the equation and the results are still the same.
As part of the Batman federal by-election in Melbourne, the Greens and ALP are both making noises about. the video game industry. The Greens have a $100m "Games Investment and Enterprise Fund" with no details on how the $100m will be spent if the Greens somehow manage to convince a larger party to agree with them, but $5m will go towards co-working spaces and that there will be extra tax offsets. Meanwhile, the ALP is working on a policy that might include stuff like "a revamped investment fund, tax breaks and skilled migration programs".
Over in the USA, Donald Trump had his video game violence round table discussion and it got pretty weird. Unfortunately it was a closed session, but according to the Washington Post, it started off with Donald showing the group of game industry execs this collection of clips from violent games (that was later posted on the White House's official YouTube page) of in-game death sequences. It then degenerated into the execs telling Trump that there's no evidence between video games and violence, then asking Trump if he is going to do anything (unlikely), that movies and TV shows should get the same treatment as video games.
Nintendo announced Loads of new Switch games, including Super Smash Bros and the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy. Ubisoft announced Tom Clancy's The Division 2, with more details to be released at E3 in June. EA said they're going to allow other publishers to use the Origin platform to sell games, competing with Steam. Activision said that the next title in the crazy popular Call of Duty franchise will be CoD: Black Ops 4. That's it. A title and a logo. (thanks Raj @ Reckoner for doing the hard work for me on this news). Oh and the Oculus Rift expired cert thing is fixed and they're giving users $15 of credit to apologise.
Microsoft's next big update to Windows 10 will probably be called the Spring Creators Update. Some changes include tabs in Explorer, lots of Fluent Design updates, HDR user interface with a compatible monitor (i.e: a higher colour depth UI) and loads more. A full list of the tweaks so far can be found on Windows Central. Those into the Linux side of things on Windows (that's still a weird sentence to write) will be pleased to know what Kali and Debian distros will soon be available as part of the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Microsoft's adding OpenSSH client & server, tar and curl to the native Windows CLI too. The update should be released in April.
One thing I regret from my trip to Hong Kong a few years ago (besides not visiting again sooner), is not heading to Shenzhen - the electronics nerd's wet dream. I didn't quite know how to get there from HK and what the deal was with getting a Chinese visa so I just didn't bother. But thanks to AusBT, I'm fully prepared for a trip to Shenzhen if I find myself in Honkers again. They've put up some quality blog posts on how to catch the train from Hong Kong to Shenzhen and how to get a single-entry visa at the Shenzhen/HK border.
The Geneva Motorshow is in full swing and there's a bit of EV/robocar news. Honda said it'll make a production model of its Urban EV concept (that I reckon looks fantastic) in 2019. Porsche's Mission E Cross Turismo is weird looking EV SUV thing that's not a prototype, but there's no production date set. The Hyundai Kona Electric (I've already mentioned in The Sizzle) has been pawed over by car journos who have made a few videos of it on the showroom floor. A close to production prototype Audi e-tron small SUV (of which there are apparently 250) was on display, with Audi saying it'll go on sale late-2018. Audi also teamed up with Airbus to make a robotaxi helicopter car contraption pipe dream. Renault's EZ-GO robotaxi is also far fetched, but still way more realistic than Audi's. Jaguar announced that the i-Pace SUV will go on sale in Australia in October for around $120,000.
Use code PICK20 for this stuff from The Good Guys:
That's it, see ya Tuesday (Monday is Labor day in VIC and I'm not a scab)!
--Anthony
The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.
The Sizzle acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures, and to elders both past and present.
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