As I mentioned last week, this issue's a little light and might not have the day's breaking news in it, because I'm busy at Spark The Change conference. They're paying me to record video of the event and I need the money, so didn't back out (plus that'd be a bit of a dick move as they asked me to do it before I started The Sizzle). Tomorrow it's business as usual!
In today's issue:
NEWS
Intel really wants Apple to use its LTE chips
Intel are the undisputed king of computer CPUs. Pretty much every laptop sold has an Intel CPU in it and AMD's desktop CPUs have been weak compared to Intel's for a few years now. But Intel is practically nowhere when it comes to mobile CPUs. All those smartphones and tablets have CPUs made by someone other than Intel and this is worrying for them. As more and more people buy smartphones and tablets instead of laptops and desktops, Intel sells less and less chips. So it's no surprise that Intel is pulling out all the stops to be a supplier of LTE radio chips for Apple. Apparently over 1,000 people at Intel are dedicated in convincing Apple to use an Intel radio chipset instead of Qualcomm's. If Intel can pull it off, it would be a huge coup and no doubt give them leverage to maybe pitch to other OEMs and even try become a fab for Apple's own A-range of CPUs.
Redhat buys Ansible for US$150m
You've probably not heard of Ansible. Maybe you've never even heard of Red Hat. But this story is in here because for me, as someone who is a shitty part-time Linux sys admin, Ansible is great and I like Red Hat and to see the two get financially married is cool (and unexpected). Ansible is a really easy to use configuration and automation system for managing computers. If you've got say, 50 computers that all need to be in a specific state (i.e: make a few config files the same), then Ansible is by far the easiest way to do that. Red Hat is a bit more well known as the makers of a pretty popular Linux distribution, but they're also becoming a sort of Linux patron - buying up these great open source tools and letting them grow while integrating them into Red Hat's enterprise products. I even like how Red Hat states in pretty plain language why they decided to buy Ansible.
Online advertisers admit they went too far
The Interactive Advertising Bureau is a group who sort of regulates online ads. They set up guidelines and best practices and all that stuff in the hope advertisers will listen and the industry progresses collaboratively. Due to all the commotion around adblockers coming to iOS, one of the IAB goons has pecked away at his keyboard to blog about how badly their industry has handled the Internet. Of course there's a pathetic preamble that the Internet is awesome because of ads (hahahahahah), but at least there's some sort of remorse over their invasive tracking, bandwidth wasting, content obscuring and totally context oblivious advertisements. To fix it, IAB is pushing LEAN Ads - Light, Encrypted, Ad-choice supported, Non-invasive ads. Basically IAB wants advertisers to stop making shit ads. But will anyone click or care about these LEAN ads? And if nobody cares about the ads, then what?
IceTV was just sleeping
IceTV is back! Those pesky staff members that knew how to make things work at IceTV, but didn't want to return to IceTV, returned. IceTV is ditching everything they do and focussing on a simple $7.99/month subscription for access to their EPG and remote recording facilities. Great news for this little Aussie battler of a company. I don't know if people still use PVRs as much as they used to, but I hope IceTV can get enough subscribers together to be profitable. At $7.99/month, assuming there's maybe a dozen staff to pay at approx $50k/yr, they need $600,000 which means almost 76,000 subscribers, just to break even on wages, let alone servers and marketing. I don't know if 76,000 people in Australia want IceTV? Prove me wrong Australia, prove me wrong.
COOL SHIT
Philips BDM4065UC 40" 4K monitor review
December last year, I wrote a long article on Reckoner about 4K monitors. At the time I was trying to find one that suited me and couldn't find anything on the market I liked. But at the time, Philips has a monitor coming out that looked like it would fit the bill. That was the BDM4065UC, 40" of UHD 4K goodness. It's been out for a few months now, but Toms Hardware recently did a detailed review of the Philips BDM4065UC and liked it. It uses a better quality panel than I would have expected for a monitor at this size and price point, which is great. I just wish I had the $1000 required to buy it. I have dreams about three of these on my desk, surrounding myself with 24,883,200 pixels. Mmm. One day baby, one day.
Edward Snowden likes Mr. Robot
Patriot, freedom fighter and hero, Ed Snowden watches and likes Mr. Robot! I thought he would, he's such a brave awesome guy with excellent taste. It's a kickarse TV show if you're into computers and conspiracy theories and hacking and shit. Sign up for a free trial of Presto (it's actually quite good now that it's all in HD and it has a free one month trial) and binge watch it. Even if you don't like the computer stuff (why the shit are you signed up to get a daily tech email newsletter), apparently people find Rami Malek attractive, so if you're into dudes, maybe just lower yourself to watching it for that reason alone.
A lawyer who is also a programmer decided to read the El Capitan EULA
A lawyer who also develops software decided to upgrade his Mac to El Capitan and actually read the licence agreement terms before agreeing to them. He even took the time to translate it into English for us mortals. My favourite bit is that it can't be sent to Sudan. Can it be used in Sudan, just not sent there from another country? Other weird bits: you're not allowed to remix the talking clock voices and you're not allowed to sell access to your Mac via screen sharing. So many rules, man.
Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!)
--Anthony
The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Like The Sizzle? Convert your free trial into a paid subscription now and never miss an issue! Already a subscriber? Thanks for being awesome.