US DoJ taking aim at Google for breaking antitrust law
Soon you’ll be able to receive inbound calls at Telstra payphones
Queensland state govt funds more rapid EV chargers
Apple might discontinue iTunes at WWDC tomorrow morning
Twitter “accidentally” deleted anti-communist Chinese users days before anniversary of Tiananmen Square massacre
Sponsored Job Ad: Software Developer – Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)
Napster launched 20 years ago
Code Like a Girl has paid internships for women looking to get a start in the IT industry
Cheap 1Password, Vodafona 100GB plan, TP-Link smart plugs, Playstation Plus, Nintendo LABO, Zero Latency VR
The US Department of Justice is apparently gearing up to open a case against Google for breaking antitrust law. "One source said the potential investigation, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, focused on accusations that Google gave preference to its own businesses in searches" - basically the DoJ is looking into if Google prefers linking to YouTube for video results instead of say, Vimeo. Or linking to Google Flights instead of Expedia. Google got pinged for this hard in the EU, let's see what happens in the US of A.
Telstra still has over 15,500 payphones active across Australia and has decided to allow people to making incoming calls to each one of them. It'll be free to call the payphone too. Not sure how it'll work exactly (look online for the payphone's number and call it?), but it's gonna be a thing soon. Telstra has also made it cheaper to use a payphone - 50c flat to any landline in Australia and 50c for 10 min to any mobile in Australia. Nice to see payphones getting some love.
Queensland's Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) has announced an $2.5m to build 13 additional electric car rapid charging stations. This'll bring the number of rapid chargers in the state government's Queensland Electric Super Highway to 31. Most of the sites have already been identified and TMR is working with Yurika to have work started on most of them by the end of the year. These new sites will "be located on or just inland from the coast" according to the roads minister. QLD is so far ahead of the other states when it comes to EV infrastructure.
On the eve of WWDC (3AM Tuesday morning AEST), Bloomberg is spreading rumors that Apple is taking iTunes out back and smothering it with a pillow after 18 years of faithful service. Instead of one monolithic app to do it all, the functions of iTunes will be split into individual apps like on iOS. Music in a Music app, e-books in Books, media purchases in iTunes and so on. Hopefully this will make Apple Music less of a user interface nightmare than it is now.
Twitter has been accused by Marco Rubio (a US Senator who's a bit of a dickhead) of being a Chinese government censor after it suspended "a number of accounts" that were anti-communist on the eve of the Tiananmen Square massacre's anniversary. Twitter says the Chinese government didn't ask them to delete anyone's account, it was simply an automation mishap and these accounts just happened to get caught up as "false positives". Mmmhmmm, that's exactly what someone who was told by the CCP to delete the accounts of "problematic" citizens would say.
Interested in using your tech skills to fight for workers' rights? The ACTU is looking for a Software Developer to join their data team based in Melbourne. You would be working across a wide range of technologies and projects, with plenty of opportunities to build tools to help the union movement campaign and grow.
Sizzle subscribers paying for job ads is still a thing! If you’d like to let ~700 tech savvy Aussies know about your job vacancy, drop me a line.
20 years ago, on June 1st 1999, Napster made illegally downloading music stupidly easy. The story of Napster and the impact it had on the music industry has been told many times, so I won’t repeat that here. Some of the fondest memories I have of my teenage years are coming home from school and lining up albums to download overnight with my slow as hell 56k modem. I'd take them to school the next day on a 64MB USB flash drive where the other social outcasts and I would swap tracks and build our collections. As a teen in the western suburbs of Melbourne it opened me up to so much new sounds I'd never have heard otherwise. Cheers Napster!
Code Like a Girl is currently taking applicants for paid internships at tech companies sympathetic to their cause of getting more women working in IT. The internships are in areas like AI/machine learning, front-end/back-end development, data science/visualisation, DevOps and software development. Pretty much anyone that's a woman, has at least "a base level knowledge of coding acquired through self-learning or attending short courses" and is keen for some hands on experience in the IT field can apply.
Get a 12 month sub to 1Password for free thanks to Canva trying to redeem themselves after last week's security breach (new customers only).
Vodafone is offering 100GB of data for $50/m on a 12m plan. Includes $5/day international roaming.
Bunnings is selling a 2-pack of the TP-Link HS100 smart wi-fi plugs (works with Google & Alexa) for $47.90.
Target will have 12 month Playstation Plus subscriptions for $55.95 on the 7th of June.
Nintendo LABO Vehicle Kit is $48.96 at Amazon AU.
40% off Zero Latency sessions (that cool full-room augmented reality zombie game thing) in Melbourne.
📡 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.
😁 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 is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures, and to elders both past and present.