In This Issue


News

Android 10 is a thing & Pixel owners can get it now

Android 10 (what was previously known as Android Q whilst in beta) is now public - for those with a Google Pixel smartphone, even the very first Pixel device. Google's marketing page has a rundown of all the new stuff in this version, like live captioning, smart replies, gesture navigation, more refined privacy controls, a dark theme and dozens of smaller features that you might find useful and that Apple will copy sooner or later. As to when the latest version of Android will come to non-Pixel smartphones, unless you've got a Nokia phone, you could be waiting a while.

Android 0-days worth more than iOS 0-days for the first time

Zerodium, a company that buys 0-day exploits off hackers and sells them to governments and law enforcement agencies, "will now pay $2.5 million apiece for full chain (Zero-Click) with persistence" Android zero-days compared with $2 million for iOS zero-days that meet the same criteria" - the first time iOS exploits aren't as coveted as Android ones. Apparently there's loads of Safari and iMessage exploits out there, so much so that they've had to reject some. But Android 8 and 9's security has improved so much that "zero click exploits not requiring any user interaction" are quite hard to develop.

Data sharing law discussion paper floats the idea of removing consent

A discussion paper regarding "Data Sharing and Release Legislative Reforms" (zzzz) has been made public and contains a big change to how these laws are to be used. Instead of the owner of data (i.e: you and I) being able to opt-in to share data a government department owns about us with other departments, this discussion paper wants the default setting to just share whatever, with whoever in government, as long as there's a "legitimate objective" and it is done "respectfully". According to the government, if people have to be contacted to share their data, it will lead to data being skewed as only the handful of people that give a shit will do it. I kinda assume this stuff happens anyway, but it's just disprectful not to ask for consent.


Not News

Australian comparison of Model 3, Ioniq & LEAF electric cars

Now that the Tesla Model 3 is on the road in Australia ($66,000, deliveries started Monday), Cars Guide has compared it to the other two cheapest EVs in Australia - the new Nissan LEAF ($49,990, started deliveries last week) and the Hyundai Ioniq ($49,990 came out last year, I have one). It's no surprise that the Tesla at $17,000 more is overall better, but the article has a lot of great basic info for anyone wanting to buy an EV in Australia and does a good job comparing the real world range, driving style and practicalities of each one. I recently spent a week with the Nissan LEAF and had the same criticisms of it as Cars Guide did.


Bargains


🎶 Black Bugs - Regurgitator

😁 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.​