NEWS
iMessage store opens for iOS 10 users to buy stickers
Apple has opened the iMessage store, where you can spend money to buy stickers to use in iOS's version of iMessage. There's Mario stickers, Star Wars stickers, Disney stickers and hundreds of other sticker packs you can use to infuriate people also running iOS 10. Not just stickers live on the iMessage store either, there's also iMessage enabled apps, which let you do stuff, within iMessage, without having to launch the app itself. It's a brave new world (as soon as iOS 10 launches, on the 14th of September, which could be tomorrow, or whenever it's the 14th in the US, dunno).
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Vodafone has purchased Lebara and JB Hi-Fi purchased The Good Guys
The Australian part of Vodafone has thrown an undisclosed amount of cash at the Australian part of Lebara (a Vodafone MVNO) and now counts its 130,000 customers as its own. Apparently Vodafone asked Lebara what it has planned for the future, as part of their MVNO deal and after seeing that, it went and purchased it. For now everything is business as usual for Lebara customers. Same goes for Good Guys, who after months of speculation, JB Hi-Fi has decided to pay $870m to own. Hopefully their new massive buying power means cheaper stuff for us.
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HP buys Samsung’s printer business & patents
HP decided to give Samsung US$1.05b in return for 6,500 printer related patents (surprised HP didn't own all those patents already to be honest) and whatever exists of Samsung's printer business. HP's press release said it purchased Samsung's printer business so it can "disrupt and reinvent the $55 billion copier industry, a segment that hasn’t innovated in decades". Yep, good luck and god speed to them.
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Official range of the Chevy Bolt announced: 383km
The Chevy Bolt has had its official EPA mileage rating confirmed: 238 miles off a 60kWh battery. That's 383 kilometers. That's very good I reckon. That 300km range for $30,000 sweet spot is getting closer! If Holden have a brain aneurysm and decide to do something forward thinking for once, they could sell the Bolt here for around $50k. I dunno if it would sell much at that price, but it'd be cool to have the option. The Bolt should hit US dealers by the end of the year.
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Science lets a monkey type words on a computer with its brain
Scientists at Stanford implanted electrode arrays into a few monkeys that measured the mount of electrical activity around a specific part of the brain. The monkeys were then trained to move a cursor on a screen with their eyes alone, so that the implanted electrodes can detect the movement and control a computer. The monkeys managed to type at about 12 words per second, double the previous record. By the way, this isn't being done so monkeys can talk to us, it's so people with motor skill impairments can communicate. Human trials are under way too.
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COOL SHIT
A Chrome extension to search for keywords on websites you've visited
Falcon is a Chrome extension that allows you to search your Chrome history for words that have appeared in websites you visited, not just the URLs. Take this search for example before: "yesterday at 5pm" after: "three weeks ago" emscripten blog "anish athalye" if you pop that into the omnibar, Falcon will search all the websites you visited between three weeks ago and yesterday at 5pm for the words emscripten, blog and the phrase anish athalye. Fucken cool, yeah? The author's github page has some more info on how it works and how to use it.
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Free license for Parallels 12
Someone on Ozbargain found this sweet deal to get a license for Parallels 12 for Mac for free. Just do this stupid test on the Parallels website, fill in the form and a few days later you'll get a serial number that'll be good until the end of 2017. Dunno how long the offer will last for (probably until Parallels realises heaps of people that aren't supposed to are getting a free license, hah), so if you want it, get in quick.
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Dominos has a new app to order pizza
Dominos, those pizza ordering innovators, has launched another way to get pizza to you in the most efficient way possible. Their new app, Zero Click, lets you order pizza by doing nothing except opening the app. Yep, open the app and 10 seconds later, it'll being the pizza manufacturing, cooking and delivery process. What will those crazy Dominos marketing people think of next?
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Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!)
--Anthony
The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Today's subject line is from Zero, by The Smashing Pumpkins. Like The Sizzle? Tell your friends!