NEWS
Nvidia drops new Pascal based GTX1080 & GTX1070 graphics cards
Nvidia's latest graphics card was announced over the weekend. The GTX1080 is based on the new Pascal architecture we saw in the Tesla P100 HPC unit a few weeks ago. The new GPU is dubbed GP104, is based on a 16nm FinFET process and apparently brings with it twice the efficiency of the previous Maxwell GPU. It's got some fancy thing called simultaneous multi-projection that apparently makes it great for VR use. The GTX1080 will be out on the 27th of May and sell for US$599. The GTX1070, which is slower than the GTX1080, but still faster than the current Nvidia Titan X, will be out on the 10th of June and cost US$379.
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New study shows no increase in brain cancer over 29 years of mobile phone use
A new Australian study has found that there's been no statistical increase in brain cancer over the 29 years we've had mobile phones. The author of the paper has written on the Conversation about the study. Of course, the quacks selling anti-mobile phone radiation devices and holistic bullshit remedies think it's simply because the cancers will take longer to appear then 29 years and that a raft of brain tumours will flourish any day now.
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No more crowdfunding buyer protection with PayPal
PayPal has realised that crowdfunding projects are risky as fuck and decided that it won't offer its typical buyer protections for any funds sent to support a crowdfunded stuff. PayPal already had this in place for Kickstarter projects, but now is applying it to all forms of crowdfunding. No doubt it's because many crowdfunded projects fail to meet deadlines for rewards, people get impatient and just want their money back - leaving PayPal on the hook.
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Apple's secret meeting with podcasters
Apple has reportedly held a secret meeting with "seven leading podcast professionals" to see what they'd like Apple to do in order to make podcasting better. No surprise, that the thing they want most is more data on their listeners, so they can sell more ads. Marco Arment and Federico Viticci have strong feelpinions on this topic - both want Apple to be less hands off and not implement more tracking/warehousing/closed platforms for podcasts.
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New leak reveals going back to a fibre NBN will cost heaps
Another day, another NBN leak. The Australian has been the recipient of leaks from NBN insiders that to go from the current MTM mess to the previous FTTP rollout would cost an extra $8.5 billion. Also in these leaks is information from the Department of Finance that the NBN would risk its rate of return dropping below 2.5% if it returns to an FTTP model. Both don't sound like good prospects for a return to sweet fibre around the nation. Let's see what the ALP trot out in order to win votes closer to voting day.
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COOL SHIT
Six months of free Presto again
Grab 6 months of Presto for free. Again. I've never had to pay for this thing, haha, suckers. If you've already got a Presto account, just make a 2nd one with your shitposting email addy.
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Etcher - easy way to make bootable USB drives from ISOs & image files
Ever wanted to make a bootable USB drive from an IMG or ISO file but disliked unetbootin and can't be fucked using dd at the command line? Check out Etcher. It's a nice way to turn those Linux ISOs (not a euphemism) and disk images into bootable SD cards or USB drives. It's on Mac, Windows and Linux. If you're using Windows, I like Rufus as well, handy app that.
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Cool pics of Tesla's Gigafactory
Bloomberg did a thing about Telsa's Gigafactory - the fucking huge factory in the Nevada desert that will make so many batteries it'll turn Tesla into a profitable company. For those following the progress of the Gigafactory, there's nothing new, but there are some nice pictures that show the vast scale of this joint. It'll be the world's largest building in physical area when complete and the second largest by usable space (Boeing's Everett factory is bigger).
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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!