NEWS
Naughty hackers hack into NSW's train reservation system
NSW Trainlink's online booking site was hacked and customer's personal and financial info was nabbed. Transport for NSW has shutdown the site for now and is looking in to how it happened, enlisting the help of the NSW police and AusCERT. Not much more info around than that really, just another data breach to add to the pile and more confirmation that your data and personal info is never safe.
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Google to lean harder on shitty OEMs that don't release Android updates
I missed this one earlier on in the week, but it re-surfaced via opinion pieces that I won't link to because they're garbage. Anyway, Bloomberg is reporting that Google is gonna lean on Android device OEMs to release updates to Android to their devices, sooner and for longer. All this cool new stuff Google is making, like Now on Tap and all those chat bots and shit need the latest OS to work and people aren't too keen on buying a new smartphone every year. How will Google pressure the OEMs? One idea is that it'll make public an internally used list of who is good and who is bad when it comes to updates, so customers will choose devices from the OEMs that are good at providing updates and the OEMs that suck, might improve so customers buy their devices.
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2016 Rio Olympics to be broadcast in 8K and 4K, but not in Australia
NBC is gonna air some of the Rio Olympics in 4K, with HDR and Dolby Atomos sound! Fucken yes! Downside - it'll be 24 hours delayed, not live. The Olympic Broadcasting Service is actually capturing some events in 8K in partnership with Japan's NHK 8K (yeah babey, 8K!) and NBC will nab that, downconvert it to 4K and broadcast it across America. Here's some cool info on how the 8K capture will work. We won't get any of that in Australia though, we'll have to restort to downloading massive files off usenet to see that 4K or 8K quality. Seven will broadcast some Olympics stuff on 7two and 7mate, ughhhh.
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HP make a backpack computer designed for VR
HP has made a backpack computer designed for VR. Thanks to the continuing miniaturization of chip fabrication processes, you can get a pretty powerful CPU and GPU into a small package. It's basically one of those giant 17" gaming laptops that you don't really use on your lap or move anywhere, but without a monitor. Strap this bad boy on your back, slide in a battery and you can move around wearing an Oculus Rift of HTC Vive without being tethered to a desktop or laptop. We'll see more about the Omen X at E3 or Computex.
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ASUS’s ZenBook 3 is faster and lighter and thinner than the MacBook
ASUS just announced its ZenBook 3 ultra-light laptop at Computex. It's lighter and thinner than Apple's MacBook, but with a 12.5" screen, i7 CPU and up to 16GB of RAM instead of the relatively weak Core m7 CPU and max of 8GB in the MacBook. The ZenBook even has a fingerprint reader that works with Windows Hello. ASUS also showed off its new Transformer range of 2-in-1's that look pretty much like a Microsoft Surface but with better specs.
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COOL SHIT
The most "violent" video game of my youth returns
Who remembers the 1997 video game Postal? It featured the delightful and heartwarming antics of a gun wielding psychopath who got his rocks off brutally murdering innocent people. My favourite bit was the execution style deaths you could do at close range. The flamethrower on the marching band was fun too. At the time it was seen as the maximum in depraved entertainment. Now it looks like a bad cartoon. A modernised version is now for sale on Steam.
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More info on Tesla's Model 3
Motor Trend has dumped a bunch of info on Tesla's Model 3, including some pics of it I've never seen before. The site is riddled with ads, but it's still a great overview of what we currently know about the Model 3. Also Tesla related, its huge battery manufacturing plant, the Gigafactory, is officially opening on July 29th. I want a Tesla.
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Mike Quigley is giving a free public lecture about the NBN
Mike Quigley is the "father" of the NBN. He was the initial CEO and set the government owned company up, navigating it through the many hurdles it faced in implementing a predominately fiber NBN. Just as about all his hard work was coming in to fruition, it was undone by the Liberal's MTM NBN. Not only that, but he was disparaged as ruining the NBN and doing a shit job (which by all accounts, it appears the opposite is true). Mike will be conducting a free public lecture on the history of the NBN and hoe he sees it can be improved into the future. It takes place on the 22nd of June at Melbourne University. I reckon I might go, it should be interesting to hear what he has to say.
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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!