NEWS
Alphabet (aka Google) grows its market cap beyond Apple's
When Apple's market cap grew larger than Dell's back in 2006, Steve Jobs sent a company wide memo to reflect on the moment. Now I wonder if Sergey and Larry will send a similar memo to their staff as Alphabet's (the new name for Google and its associated companies) market cap exceeds Apples to become the largest company in the world based on market capitalisation. Ultimately it doesn't mean much, but it's an interesting stat about the size of Alphabet, even though Apple makes way more profit than them.
Microsoft's Edge browser has a pissweak private browsing mode
When ya chuck your browser into private browsing mode you expect that at a minimum, the browser won't log which websites you visited. Not the case with Microsoft's new Edge broswer in Windows 10! Despite being in "InPrivate" mode, it still logs which websites you visited, it just doesn't display them in your history. The websites visited are recorded in a cache file and given a special flag to denote that it was visited in private mode. What a goddamn mess from Microsoft.
Samsung to unveil some new Galaxy smartphones on Feb 21st
Get ready for another wacky Samsung stage production at Mobile World Congress on the 21st of Feb! Extremely loose metaphors acted out in front of a bewildered tech press will obviously help Samsung sell its message that the new Galaxy smartphones are not at all like the iPhone, but better and cooler. Which celebrity will they wheel out this time? Which journos will refuse to criticise it because Samsung paid for them to go to Barcelona? Oh I can't wait!
IKEA's Qi wireless charging furniture released in Australia
IKEA released some of the furniture with built in wireless charging pads a few years ago now, but didn't bother selling them in Australia. Until now. If you've got a phone or a case with the Qi standard and need a new bedside table or lamp, head over to IKEA. They also sell the pads seperately, so if you're handy with a saw, you can integrate them into your existing furniture, or just leave them loose.
YouTubers upset about the FineBros getting a trademark on "React" videos
You've seen those stupid "KIDS REACT" videos where some poor child actor is roped in to yell and squeal and act as if whatever they're looking at is totally foreign or weird to them. These are a whole genre of "reaction" videos, where the reaction of someone doing or watching something is important. Two dudes called the FineBros managed to trademark this and a bunch of people on YouTube are extremely salty that they didn't think of it first.
COOL SHIT
A Kickstarter to reveal 11 million pages of CIA info
The CIA has a whole bunch of declassified documents that nobody can read unless you go to the National Archive Building just outside Washington DC, sit at one of four computers and look at em. To get this stuff on the Internet, Michael Best wants to print all those records out, get a high speed scanner and scan the documents which were on a computer in the first place and publish them on the Internet Archive for the entire world to scour.
Microsoft putting computers in the ocean for fun and profit
Microsoft plonked a data centre inside what looks like a mini submarine, threw it into the Pacific Ocean and called it Project Natick. It sat there for 3 months, and worked fine apparently. Microsoft did this because they surmise that putting a datacentre in the ocean is faster than building one on land and allows the DC to be closer to the customer. The deep sea environment is also much more controlled than on land (less natural disasters or terrorists I guess), better cooling and access to renewable energy. Maybe we'll start using "the ocean!" instead of "the cloud!" one day and still sound stupid.
Air France says goodbye to its 747 and other 747 goodies
Air France isnt' the first airline, nor will it be the last airline to stop flying the venerable Queen of the Skies, but they've put up a bunch of YouTube videos that I liked watching. They're celebrating the 747 and role its played in transporting peopel around the world for over 40 years. Let's just forget AF447 and the way they treated the Concorde and enjoy the vids. If you feel like going down a 747 rabbit hole this afternoon, watch this video on YouTube about building the 747-8 or this older documentary about the development of the 747. This 30 min vid of the first 747 flight in 1969, 15 min promo video also from 1969 and a weird movie/doco by Boeing called Assignment 747 are very much of its time.
Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!)
--Anthony
The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Like The Sizzle? Tell your friends!