Apple's been slapped with a $9m fine by the Federal Court over the Error 53 issues back in 2015 & 2016. The ACCC alleged that Apple's policy of telling customers to get lost if their iPhone or iPad had this error due to 3rd party repairs was against Australian consumer law. According to the ACCC, "the court declared the mere fact that an iPhone or iPad had been repaired by someone other than Apple did not, and could not, result in the consumer guarantees ceasing to apply, or the consumer's right to a remedy being extinguished". Apple will now offer ~5,000 customers compensation if their devices were impacted by Error 53 and, will also change its policy to give customers a new device instead of a refurbished device if it needs to be replaced.
Amazon Prime has launched in Australia. Cheaper than Amazon Prime in the USA, our Amazon Prime will cost $59/yr or $6.99/m. For your money you get free 2-day delivery on items shipped by Amazon AU, discounted next-day delivery and free international delivery on items shipped by Amazon USA but purchased on Amazon AU. There's also Twitch Prime (free games and in-game loot), Prime Reading (heaps of e-books you can slap on your Kindle or Kindle app for free) and Prime Video (Netflix but with Amazon's content). I'm not a big Amazon shopper, so don't think I'll use $59/yr worth of shipping to bother paying, but if you think you'll be buying a lot of stuff off Amazon AU, go for it.
The Optus World Cup streaming debacle took a fascinating turn yesterday with the Prime Minister, yes, the Prime fucken Minister wasting his precious time to call the Optus CEO and check up on how this private company is going with its technical issues. Not long after that, SBS announced they will broadcast every World Cup game on free-to-air TV over the next 48 hours whilst Optus gets their shit together. Meanwhile, Optus is giving out Fetch Mini set-top boxes to disgruntled customers, but seem to have run out and many stores can't figure out how to give them away on their internal systems.
The World Health Organisation has added "gaming disorder" as a mental health condition in the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases. There's three characteristics that must last for more than 12 months that can lead to a gaming disorder diagnosis - 1. gaming behaviour takes precedence over other activities, 2. even when negative consequences occur, the behaviour continues and 3. "significant distress and impairment in personal, family, social, educational or occupational functioning". The linked article also mentions that there is some research saying that gaming addiction is a symptom of other issues like anxiety or depression. When those issues are dealt with, the amount of time dedicated to gaming goes down.
Elon Musk sent an email to all Tesla employees to tell them about a pissed off Tesla employee who failed who receive a promotion had made "direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and exported large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties". Elon seems to think that there's more to it than a disgruntled employee though, and believes the "long list of organizations that want Tesla to die", like "Wall Street short-sellers", "oil & gas companies" and "big gas/diesel car company competitors" got the Tesla employee to deliberately sabotage Tesla's manufacturing operations. Musky sounds like he's wearing a very thick tinfoil hat, but with the money at stake on the success of the Model 3, I honestly don't think he's exaggerating.
Apple put out a press release to announce that with iOS 12, when you call 911 within the USA, the person on the other end will automatically receive your location co-ordinates. Apple is using a system called RapidSOS in conjunction with its own HELO (Hybridized Emergency Location) system, as RapidSOS integrates with emergency call centre dispatch software. This feature will be built in to every iPhone running iOS 12, no extra app necessary. The press release also says that 80% of 911 calls originate from mobiles, so it makes so much sense to use the GPS chip inside all those phones to send precise location info automatically.
Battlefield V is the latest instalment of the Battlefield franchise from EA, where if you're unfamiliar, you go around shooting people and pretending to be a brave soldier. In this new version, EA decided to add a woman as a playable character. Not that big of a deal right? Wrong - it's apparently an absolutely massive deal to the manbabies on /r/battlefield who whinged so hard about the game "no longer being historically accurate" that the mods had to declare a blanket ban on the topic and put out an ultimatum saying they'll ban whoever brings it up. Gaming culture can be so pathetic.
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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