The CEO of Theranos, disgraced startup poster-child Elizabeth Holmes and the company's crook President, Ramesh Balwani have been charged by the SEC for "raising more than $700 million from investors through an elaborate, years-long fraud in which they exaggerated or made false statements about the company's technology, business, and financial performance" - i.e: Theranos was a load of horse shit and the startup community ate it up like a starving child. Holmes settled with the SEC ($500k fine, can't be a CEO for 10 years, handed back all her shares in Theranos and if Theranos is ever sold, any money she gets has to be paid back to defrauded investors), but Balwani and the SEC are going to court over the fraud charge. I love it when startup bullshit artists get the book thrown at em. Smug pricks. If you want to know more about the scam Theranos was pulling, read this article from Vanity Fair.
On the topic of crooks, Google has followed Facebook and Reddit's lead in banning ads for cryptocurrency. Starting in June 2018, ads for "cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice)" will no longer be served by Google, the world's largest advertising platform. Why are they doing this? Google says they've "seen enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm that it's an area that we want to approach with extreme caution" (aka, someone will sue us or the government will regulate us, so lets throw them a bone)
Facebook has removed Britain First (a shit stain bunch of poms with 2m followers & hate brown people) from their platform and deleted the accounts of the two leaders of the group at the same time. Facebook claim that posts made by Britain First "comparing Muslim immigrants to animals", declaring themselves "Islamophobic and proud" and "videos created to incite hateful comments against Muslims" do not meet their community standards, so out they go. On one hand, free speech and whatnot. On the other, Facebook can do what it wants on its platform, go spout your hateful garbage elsewhere.
A report by ACMA on NBN user experiences has found that "one in three households that try to switch their internet or phone services over to the NBN are left without connectivity during the process, with some waiting weeks for activation". 40% of the third that experience trouble end up waiting over a fortnight without internet access while NBN gets its sloppy act together. FTTN strikes again. The full "research snapshot" is on the ACMA website. I found it interesting that almost half of people signing up for the NBN had no idea what speed to get, half found it difficult to compare plans and 68% experienced "slow data speeds in the evening" often, or very often.
There's a brand new flavour of Raspberry Pi, the 3 Model B+. It's got an even faster CPU (1.4GHz vs. 1.2GHz), 802.11ac dual-band wi-fi, gigabit ethernet (still on USB 2.0, but it's heaps faster now), PoE support (if you buy the little hat that also adds a fan), improved PXE network booting and better thermal management. It sells for the same price as the old Model B (around A$50) and is on sale now at the usual outlets. Pretty nifty piece of kit I reckon. The addition of PoE and making it easier to network boot is super useful for anyone doing mass roll outs of the little computers (dashboards/information displays spring to mind).
Totally wireless security cameras with solar panels and LTE radios in them are becoming a consumer level thing on sale in Australia now. A few days ago Reolink announced the Go, a camera 1080p security camera that can operate off a solar panel and lets you check what's happening over an LTE radio so you don't need to set up wi-fi. You can literally place this anywhere and keep an eye on things. Today, Telstra is pimping a similar thing from Netgear. I kinda wish these were a thing when I was building my house, so I could see every time I was being lied to about how work was being done, but really wasn't.
Sizzle reader @zachsimone has released a nifty looking Apple Watch app to monitor your heart rate. HeartMonitor is designed, according to Zach, for "monitoring your heart rate in nervous situations, such as while giving a conference talk or presentation, in the dying moments of a football game, or while watching a horror movie". Open it up and it'll track your heart rate for the period you leave it running in the background. Really simple to use and well designed. I love no bullshit apps like this. If you own an Apple Watch, check it out on the App Store now.
That's it, see ya tomorrow!
--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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