Apple has released AirPods Max, a Bluetooth over-ear noise cancelling headphone similar to the Bose NC700 and Sony XM4. They come in multiple colours, has some fancy design to evenly distribute ear cup pressure, uses memory foam in the ear cups, employs the same Digital Crown as in the Apple Watch to control volume and other stuff, has a H1 chip in it but not a U1 ultra wideband chip for spatial awareness. Charges via a Lightning cable and doesn't have wireless charging, not even in the weird "smart case" that when placed inside, puts the headphones to sleep. All this can be yours for AU$899. Add an extra A$55 if you want the Lightning to 3.5mm cable to plug it in to something.
FireEye are one of the biggest infosec companies in the world. Whenever I read that something bad has happened to a computer, FireEye's name is often the one detailing how bad the computer thing went. In what is a delicious slice of irony and testament to the reliable mantra that computers are hard, FireEye got owned by "a well-endowed nation-state that made off with potent 'red-team' attack tools used to pierce network defenses". FireEye is obviously trying to play down the incident, saying there's no evidence of these tools being used maliciously in the wild and they've got "300 countermeasures that customers can use to protect themselves in the event that the tools are used", but a company who makes a living making sure you don't get hacked, getting profoundly hacked, sounds pretty fucken bad to me.
I couldn't decide which of these five articles to include in today's issue, so here's a quick summary of each one:
Do you want to listen to a 46 minute podcast where myself, Marc Edwards and Peter Wells talk about monitors? You're in luck because there's a podcast exactly about that ready for you to download. Of all the questions I get from Sizzle subscribers, by far the most common one is what monitor to buy. You should listen to the podcast if you're keen to learn why I recommend the monitors I do, but if you just want a blanket recommendation knowing nothing about what you need - the Xiaomi 34" (3440x1440, cheap, looks good, 144Hz refresh) or the Dell U2721DE (2560x1440, a single USB-C cable for charging a laptop, USB hub & ethernet port) are solid choices. You're gonna have to listen to the pod to hear why I don't like 4K monitors or dual monitor setups.
📻 WAXIT - Dennis Cometti
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