Huawei's biggest problem is that everyone reckons its spying on them and getting used as a puppet by Chinese intelligence agencies. It's no surprise then, Huawei has made a big deal about sacking a dude called Wang Weijing over in Poland (the location of Huawei's Central and Eastern Europe and the Nordic region HQ), who was rumoured to be helping China spy on western governments. Dunno what he did exactly as Huawei's only saying Wang brought "disrepute" onto the company, but even the faintest whiff of espionage was enough for Huawei to give him the flick. Or he blew his cover and the MSS are pretending he doesn't exist.
Elon Musk just showed off on Twitter his big shiny stainless steel rocket. Starship is the new name for what SpaceX was calling the BFR (Big Fucking Rocket) and will be the platform to take ~100 humans at once on a joyride to the Moon. This unit in particular is only for testing take off and landing, the "production" model will have windows for people to gaze out of and more engines. If you're wondering why it looks like its made out of aluminum foil, it's because this is a test unit that has a thinner skin. Starship will begin testing mid-2019 and Musk reckons if all goes according to plan, "Starship and Super Heavy could begin flying Mars missions as early as the mid-2020s", which seems pretty damn soon, but god speed you bastard.
It is now mandatory that all 128 local councils in NSW webcast their council proceedings. The state government is hoping this turns what is usually an opaque process for most people (who can be fucked rocking up to a council meeting that starts at 6PM on a weekday?) into something hopefully, more transparent and engaging. Local Government NSW reckons this might be an issue in some localities, as they don't have decent enough internet access because the NBN tech they've been given is satellite or dodgy fixed wireless. I would love this to happen in Victoria.
Good news for Apple wankers (like me) hanging out for a $200 mat to charge their $2000 of electronics on - the AirPower mat has reportedly entered production and will be on sale soon. This info comes from "credible sources" at Pegatron and Luxshare Precision who reckon mass production will start Jan 21st and that the "AirPower has three layers of coils in an 8-7-7 configuration from bottom to top", so you can live the dream of just chucking your gear on the mat and it'll just charge. No more worrying if you lined everything up properly. You'd also assume its release would mean a new AirPod headphone charging case that supports wireless charging.
Chromecast Audio dongles are no longer a thing in the USA. You can't buy the little guy anymore there, but they're still on the Australian site, so if you're deep in the Google eco system and have some dumb speakers you wanna turn smart, better stock up now. Just pray Google keeps software support going for a little while longer so your favourite apps still support audio only Chromecasting! I don't know why Google would bother discontinuing this product - surely the burden of supporting it wasn't immense? I wish Apple would release something similar for AirPlay 2.
Are you ready for some hardcore nostalgia, because this video of a "Windows 98 20th Anniversary All New PC Build" delivers it in bucket loads. Somehow "AkBKukU" got brand new parts, yes, parts from the late 90s unopened and brand new and built himself a killer Windows 98 PC. It's got a 1GHz Pentium 3, a 3dfx Voodoo 5 graphics card, a Memorex 8x DVD burner, a Soundblaster Live soundcard, all packed in to a gloriously beige full-tower ATX case. Some of the capacitors on the Voodoo 5 leaked, but he managed to fix it. I'm amazed someone could get all the pieces you need to build a 90s PC unopened still - where the hell have they been kept for 20 years?! Even the copy of Windows 98 was sealed!
Jalopnik has a very detailed overview of Volkswagen's plans to release their first dedicated electric car platform - the MEB. VW plans to sell over 15 million cars using this platform, so it's a massive investment for the company that wants us to forget all about Diesel-gate. Of particular interest to me was seeing how the VW battery pack is assembled, and that all the battery cells are covered in a thermal goo that helps move the heat away from the battery and into the coolant instead. Heaps of pics of the MEB platform in various states of disassembly and explanations as to how it varies from VW's very successful MQB platform. Cool stuff!
That's it, see ya tomorrow!
--Anthony
Aussie Broadband is the best ISP I've used since Internode's glory days. Their CEO gives talks at AUSNOG about their network and they even have network utilisation charts for every NBN POI. Their pricing isn't the cheapest, but if you want an ISP that's fast & reliable, give them a shot. Use my affiliate link or my referral code (1001031) and we both get $50 credit on our next bill.
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