The federal Productivity Commission has submitted a draft report into right to repair laws for Australia. It found that three main sectors are getting screwed over by the lack of easy and affordable repairs - mobile phones and tablets, motor vehicles, and agricultural machinery. They came up with seven recommendations: a minimum expected durability for certain household products, states to set up alternative dispute resolution methods for consumers to make complaints, banning warranty seals, specific wording in warranties that don't void a warranty if a non-authorised repairer is used, changing copyright laws to allow the legal sharing of documentation and tools and "super complaints", allowing consumer groups like Choice, getting extra attention from the ACCC. You can view the draft report and make submissions or brief comments to the comission on their website.
EA got hacked and nefarious individuals now have "the source code for FIFA 21, as well as code for its matchmaking server. The hackers also said they have obtained source code and tools for the Frostbite engine, which powers a number of EA games including Battlefield. Other stolen information includes proprietary EA frameworks and software development kits (SDKs), bundles of code that can make game development more streamlined. In all, the hackers say they have 780gb of data, and are advertising it for sale in various underground hacking forum posts". Unlike most hacks of late, this wasn't a cryptolocker. Apparently this kinda thing is valuable for making cheats for games that people buy for real money.
Just before E3 is set to kick off, Microsoft's confirmed that they're gonna make an app for smart TVs that'll hook into Xbox cloud gaming, so Game Pass subscribers can play without needing a console at all. Just hook up your smart TV to the internet, get a compatible controller and off you go. They also confirmed an "Xbox streaming stick", but not much beyond that like a date, price or what it'll do beyond stream Game Pass Games. A web verson of Xbox cloud gaming is coming "in the next few weeks" for our northern friends, with an Australian release "later this year". I'm skeptical that playing a game via a web browser will be any good, but I'll give this a crack because if anyone can make it not suck, it's Microsoft.
Wanna feel old? An 18 year old developer has made a recreation of iOS 4 that runs as an app on modern iOS devices. iOS 4 was first shown off 11 years ago, when Zane was a mere 7 years old. Goddamnit, I was at the WWDC when they announced iOS 4, I remember it clearly! Now people are making recreations of and calling it "OldOS" and my life is flashing before my eyes. To Zane's credit, he did an awesome job. All of the built-in apps work (except iMessage and YouTube) so theoretically you can use the old version of those apps alongside the data on your current version of iOS. To get it going you need to grab the Xcode project off GitHub, compile it yourself and run it on your phone that way. Unfortunately Apple won't allow an app like this on the App Store, despite being a nice homage to what made the iPhone great in the first place.
15% off shitloads of stuff on eBay when you pay using Afterpay. Some highlights include:
📻 Sin Bin - Cosmic Psychos
😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.
💬 Did you know that The Sizzle has a Slack group? Join in and chat with other subscribers like you.
💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info? Visit the customer portal.
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.