No more Get This related email titles (awww). After 170 issues of The Sizzle, I ran out of zingers. Today's is from race five at the Northam greyhounds. I don't know if I'll continue to do this and might think of something better than looking the Sportsbet website every day. Ideas welcome!
NEWS
Unsurprisingly, Australian internet speeds are falling according to Cisco
Cisco's renown study into global internet speeds, the Visual Networking Index, has shown that Australian broadband speeds are slipping. Something everyone on ADSL in Australia is 100% of aware of. Cisco envisage that by 2020, the average connection speed in Australia will be 44.3Mbps, which compared to the progress other countries will have made by 2020, puts us towards the bottom of the pack. Cisco also, obviously, predict a huge increase in the amount of bandwidth Australians will consume - with a peak of 32 terabytes per second for Australian internet traffic.
Discuss
Beijing patent office reckons Apple copied the design of the Baili 100C smartphone
According to the Beijing Intellectual Property Office, Apple infringed on the design patents of the Baili 100C smartphone with the release of the iPhone 6. As a result, the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and the iPhone SE are supposed to be taken off shelves in Beijing, but are still for sale there and across China. That said, according to some experts quoted in that article, it's not unusual for these smaller courts to have their decisions overturned by the larger courts. For reference, here's a pic of the 100C next to an iPhone 6. Hmm.
Discuss
The Decentralized Autonomous Organisation built on top of Etherum lost $60m
You may have not heard of Ethereum, but it's a big deal in the blockchain/cryptocurrency scene and the shiny new thing for startups to build around. Last week, something called The DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization - an investment vehicle built on top of Ethereum) has been "hacked" and 3 million Ether has leaked out of the DAO's fund - approx US$60m. I put hacked in quotation marks, because the person who now owns that 3 million Ether has said it wasn't a hack, but a legitimate use of Ether and abides by the contract terms of using the DAO. His 3.6m Ether is simply a reward for achieving the DAO's aim. I didn't know what the DAO was until now either, so yeah.
Discuss
Blue Origin's re-usable rocket didn't crash again
Blue Origin has landed the same New Shepard re-useable rocket for a fourth time this morning. It was only an 11 minute flight and it didn't have a payload. Today's aim was to see what happens to the crew capsule if a parachute fails to deploy. With only two parachutes instead of three, it landed safely. Blue Origin reckon non-astronauts will be able to go on a joyride to the edge of space for 4 minutes, in around 2018.
Discuss
SA Health really doesn't want ditch DOS software from the 90s
The developer of CHIRON, an ancient piece of DOS software used by country hospitals in South Australia, is suing the SA heath dept for using its software without a licence. The weird thing is, the SA health department are happy to pay for a new one, but the owners of CHIRON no longer make or support it and are refusing to sell the health department a new licence unless they upgrade to a newer, supported version. I guess SA Health took the adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" to heart.
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COOL SHIT
VLC 3.0 will get Chromecast support
VLC 3.0 has hit nightly testing and they've included Chromecast support! How cool is that? Straight from VLC you'll be able to stream whatever's playing inside to a Chromecast on your network. It's still very much in testing, but it'll be stable eventually. It'll also be cool the Chromecast feature made it to the iOS version of VLC.
Discuss
Australia sending its first female to the International Olympiad in Informatics
I had no idea the International Olympiad in Informatics was a thing, but Australia is sending its first female to compete. Belinda Shi, a 17 year old MLC student from Melbourne will be going to Russia to duke it out in a code battle to solve mathematical problems. Good luck to her and I hope she thrashes everyone.
Discuss
Microsoft to provide an easy way to remove OEM installed bloatware
Microsoft have finally acknowledged that the shittiest part about buying a new computer is nuking the installed version of Windows and having to re-install it from scratch, often from a freshly downloaded ISO, because of bloatware installed by the OEM. To alleviate this problem, Microsoft have included a "Clean Install Tool" as part of the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview, that re-installs Windows for you, but without the shit your computer manufacturer put on there to make an extra $5.
Discuss
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!
