Apple, Microsoft and Google had a gangbuster 2nd quarter financials for 2021. Apple saw a 50% increase in iPhone sales, 40% increase in "other products" (Apple Watch & AirPods) and 700 million subscriptions "across all our offerings" to generate US$81.43b in revenue - 36% more than last year. Microsoft's revenue is up 21% compared to last year, mostly off the back of more businesses adopting Microsoft 365 products, Azure revenue growing 51% and LinkedIn revenue increasing 46%. Google/Alphabet grew its revenue an astonishing 62%, predominately from YouTube growth (84%) and Google Cloud (54%), for a total revenue of US$61.9b for the quarter. I've said it before and I'll say it again - these pricks are filthy stinking rich at a level never seen before in history.
Facebook has made a bunch of changes designed to make it "safer" for kids to use by making it harder for creeps to get in touch. New users under the age of 16/18 (depending where they live) will have Instagram accounts made private by default. For existing accounts under that age, they'll prompt them to turn their account private. It'll be harder for "potentially suspicious accounts" (i.e: accounts Facebook thinks are pedos/grooming) to find and follow underage users and advertisers will have less targeting options for minors. Advertisers will only be allowed to aim ads at under 18s by age, gender and location in Australia. Better late than never, hey?
Australia Post is overhauling its parcel tracking system. Their CIO said that online shopping's growth during the pandemic was so severe that "to cope with that we've had to invest in some cloud-native solutions which are able to scale as the business grows". They're gonna be using Google Cloud (which coincidentally, but probably unrelated, opened a datacentre in Melbourne today) to run it and it will replace a legacy system that has been in use for "a number of years". The upgrade will give them not only "much better levels of visibility, but insights and control over the journey of a parcel through our network as it's happening. We've struggled to do this in the past".
Kids were going nuts over an iOS app called Doxcy that went viral on TikTok. At first it looks like an innocent dice roll app "to help you make choices quickly", but "if you typed a certain code into its search bar the UI changed. Suddenly, users were met with a gigantic library of free TV shows and movies that they usually have to pay for". It was basically a pirate TV show and movie site hidden within an iOS app to bypass Apple's App Store scrutiny. You had to sit through ads for online casinos, but you could get rid of them using an in-app purchase. Apple has since removed it, but it lasted a few weeks before the ban hammer came down. God bless these intrepid developers.
📻 It's Gonna Be A Long Night - Ween
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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.