The insanely popular Fortnite game is coming to Android soon (must be the only platform it isn't available on yet?!) and whilst that's news within itself, Epic has said they're gonna distribute the app outside of the Google Play Store so they don't have to cough up 30% to Google. Epic's CEO said that "the 30% store tax is a high cost in a world where game developers' 70% must cover all the cost of developing, operating, and supporting their games". I don't know how this'll work exactly, but I assume it means you have to go to Epic's website, download an APK, enable non-Play Store apps and off you go playing your game. Imagine the amount of phishing that'll happen to lure in not so savvy kids who just wanna play Fortnite on their Android devices, but instead install a keylogger or something. Not that I blame Epic for trying here - the 30% cut Apple and Google take is way too big. Should be 15% max I reckon.
There's been a series of huge protests over the weekend in Bangladesh, with students fighting for increased road safety (wow, that's something I'd never have thought about protesting for in Australia, how fucken lucky am I?). The government, as is usual for governments, sick of uppity students causing a fuss about not wanting to die on the street, so they forced the telcos there to turn off 3G and 4G internet. For 24 hours you could only get internet access at 128kbit/sec and many people simply couldn't get internet access at all. Apparently the government thought this would be an excellent way to prevent people spreading images of police brutality.
According to a study in the Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization and funded by the European Research Council, those who have broadband at home lose about 25 minutes of sleep every night compared to those without it. Basically those with fast internet use it more and prefer to use the internet to play games or chat, rather than sleep. The data used to form this conclusion is based on the relative lack of broadband in East Germany compared to West Germany and compared to the amount of sleep each side gets. But combine it with the other impacts technology has on our sleep (interruptions from text messages, internet addiction, blue/white light at night), it's an interesting thought that the mere fact the internet exists in an always-on mode in our homes could also impact our sleep.
Here's a kinda sad fact - since 2011, there hasn't been a USA astronaut launched into space on a USA made rocket, from US soil. That's about to change soon, with NASA announcing the crew that will do the first test and operational flights on SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's Starliner manned spacecraft. SpaceX is aiming to complete its first test with a human inside by April 2019 and Boeing not much later in mid-2019. The short term plan is to get Boeing and SpaceX's crafts to the point where they can reliably and repeatedly dock with the International Space Station. Basically taking over what the Space Shuttle (RIP you magnificent beast) did until it was retired in 2011. After that, Boeing and SpaceX want to use the Dragon and Starliner crafts for space tourism. Chuck em a couple hundred grand and you get a joyflight orbit of the earth.
The AFR has leaked info about Foxtel's overhaul of the streaming services it offers. There will be a new sports streaming service (known internally as Project Martian) that will launch in November and cost between $20 to $25/m. Foxtel will also piss off Foxtel Now and "announce a new entertainment SVOD service, known internally as Project Jupiter, as part of sweeping changes to its streaming strategy". The most exciting part of this announcement however is 4K streaming. 4 fucken K! I've wanted 4K sport for ages and finally I might actually get it. It may only be cricket at first, but I pray that it'll come to AFL in 2019. If Foxtel can sell me all its sport in a single package, at high quality 1080p and some 4K stuff every now and then, I'd happily give em $25 or even $30 a month.
The poor bastards out in Wamboin, just 25km outside of Sydney, are stuck on NBN's crappy Sky Muster satellite. They had ADSL before, but that's gonna be taken away soon and NBN has no interest in upgrading them to FTTN or FTTC, let alone FTTP. Sick of living in an internet wasteland, the nerds of Wamboin are getting together and trying to convince a private company to build a fibre network for its 4,000 residents. "They have the backing of about 60 per cent of the community, but they need 80 per cent to get on board in order to finance the plan, which would give people unlimited data for $80 a month". God speed Wamboin!
Add one more thing that'll be ruined by global warming - the internet. That's right, when sea levels rise due to polar ice melting, there will be over 4,000 miles of currently land based fibre optic cables underwater in the US alone, along with many datacenters near coasts that house the routers and whatnot that make the internet possible. The chances of this happening aren't even that far away, with the University of Wisconsin and University of Oregon researching saying this will happen in 15 years if sea levels rise at their current rate. Thank god all our politicians have fighting global warming as their highest priority in office.
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.
This email was sent to *|EMAIL|*
why did I get this? | unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences