Random COVID-19 stuff
The Mavic Air 2 is DJI’s latest drone
Disney tried to claim all tweets using the hashtag #MayThe4th belong to them
Another hot take about COVIDSafe that convinced me to install it on my Android phone
Cheap Bose Sound Bar 500, Polk Audio T50 floorstanding speakers, Samsung T5 SSD, Nintendo Switch Lite, GTX2070 Super GPU
Thanks to COVID-19, Westpac dragged its sorry arse across the floor a little faster than planned, to launch Apple Pay for its long suffering customers.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has been given $5.2m to do a 12 week rollout of various tech updates to enable remote/digital hearings.
COVIDSafe hit 2 million downloads in 24 hours. Still a long way off the 40% required to make it properly useful.
The UK's NHS doesn't plan to use the Google and Apple contact tracing method for its app, arguing it "needs" a centralised model to be effective.
Germany is doing the opposite - ditching its planned contact tracing protocol and implementing Apple & Google's model of keeping data only on user's devices.
Torrent traffic has spiked big-time across the world due to COVID-19, according to UK piracy tracking company MUSO. Italy had a 66% spike in illegal movie downloads from Feb to March.
DJI has a new drone - the Mavic Air 2. It costs $1499, has a 48MP 1/2" camera (not as good as a DSLR but better than a smartphone) that'll do 4K video at 60fps and 1080p video at 240fps for sick slow-motion footage. It can fly for around 34 minutes and weighs 570g. The Mavic Air 2 includes three tracking features - ActiveTrack 3.0 (autofly while following an object), Spotlight 2.0 (locks on to a moving object but you fly it) and POI 3.0 (locks on a stationary object), plus updated video transmission protocols, ADS-B support and more. I'd love to see how it compares to the Skydio 2 drone, which is supposed to be the boss when it comes to autonomous tracking.
If you know anything about copyright history, it's that Disney is the primary reason why copyright law is so fucked up. They're so desperate to keep leeching cash off Mickey Mouse that they fight tooth and nail to extend the length of copyright terms. Without Disney's lobbying, stuff 20 or 30 years old (i.e: all media made before the year 2000!) would be public domain and free to download, share or remix. Anyways, that's a long intro to set the scene for Disney's latest copyright weirdness - declaring on Twitter that by using the hashtag #MayThe4th (it's a Star Wars thing) you're giving them permission to use that tweet pretty much however they like. They then clarified only replies to the original tweet using the hashtag belong to Disney, but still, the Mouse never gives up control. Ever.
Sizzle subscriber Andrew Bednarz has a solid blog post about the ins and outs of COVIDSafe that's aimed at a semi-tech savvy audience, but not the tin-foil-hat privacy types that love to go off the deep end on hypothetical scenarios. I didn't know that it is up to the user to mark themselves as infected, which then triggers uploading data of who you've been around. Unless you mark yourself as infected no data leaves your phone. Andrew also notes that there's no third party tracking (i.e: Google, Facebook, etc) that many apps use to monitor user activity within the app. His summary is that COVIDSafe is fine with the only major issue being that it can't operate in the background on an iOS device, which make up about half of the Australian smartphone market, reducing the app's effectiveness. If you want more info about COVIDSafe, Troy Hunt and some other info sec nerds are giving a webinar Wednesday night.
Galax GeForce RTX 2070 Super 8GB - $819 from Shopping Express
Nintendo Switch Lite - $289.81 from Amazon AU
Samsung T5 portable SSDs in various sizes at Harvey Norman (500GB is $128)
Polk Audio T50 floorstanding speakers - $416.40 (for a pair) on Amazon AU
Bose Sound Bar 500 - $562.99 from Amazon AU
🎶 Dripping - Blonde Redhead
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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.