The Sizzle

• Some of the more interesting IFA announcements
• Perth starts a trial of driveless bus fleet
• 68m Dropbox accounts leak, but not that big of a deal

• A look at how Champion Data assembles all their AFL stats

NEWS

Some of the more interesting IFA announcements
Here's a few IFA/around IFA gadget announcements. Samsung's Gear S3 smartwatch has all the specs you want (even LTE!) and works with the iPhone. Lenovo hooked up with fancy pants camera maker Hassleblad to make the Hasselblad True Zoom Moto Mod for the Moto Z. Lenovo also made a double touch screen laptop (one a screen, one a digitised writing surface and keyboard), that looks rather cool. Acer unloaded three new laptops - two using Kaby Lake (one of which is under 1cm thick) and one gigantic beast of a thing with a curved screen for gamers. Acer also announced some pet cameras and internet operated toys called Pawbo. Asus has a smartwatch and a very thin laptop.
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Perth starts a trial of driveless bus fleet
Perth is getting driverless electric mini-busses! A trial by the RACWA, the WA government and WA-based bus manufacturer, Navya, will have "the RAC Intellibus carry passengers along South Perth Esplanade between the Old Mill, near the Narrows Bridge, and Sir James Mitchell Park. It can carry up to 11 passengers and will operate at an average speed of 25km per hour." Pretty exciting I reckon. Where I live in Bacchus Marsh, a small fleet of these to take people from the train station to their homes would be so much better than the poorly patronised and limited scheduled busses in use now.
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68m Dropbox accounts leak, but not that big of a deal
Usernames and passwords of 68 million Dropbox users are floating around the internet. Troy Hunt has confirmed them as legit. There's not too much to be concerned about, as the passwords are properly hashed and the data is from 2012, so if you've changed your password since then, there's an even lower risk. Still, it just goes to show, even a high-tech company, with people you would assume are on the ball when it comes to infosec, still have data breaches due to employees reusing passwords across multiple services.
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COOL SHIT

A look at how Champion Data assembles all their AFL stats
Champion Data combine two of my favourite things: footy and nerds. This video from Vice (which is "brought to you by Draftstars", ugh) takes a look at how Champion Data is so vital to the AFL. I've always wondered how they got all these stats so fast and accurately - there's a huge team of people, at the ground and in a bunker in Melbourne where they track everything happening in the game. I'd love a video that has like, 9 cameras or something in a 4K image that follows each stats guy during a quarter of footy, so I can see what their app does. Wouldn't it be awesome if Champion Data let you pay to use the same apps as the clubs? $50/yr and you can get alllllll the stats.
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Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!)
--Anthony