Jony Ive is leaving Apple to start his own design company, LoveFrom
Twitter adding disclaimers to rule breaking tweets it’s too cowardly to delete
Axon joins the facial recognition is too crap for law enforcement use movement
Man wastes talent developing machine learning algorithm to generate nudes
Optus pinged again by the ACCC for misleading customers about NBN disconnections
Laptops have OLED screens now and they’re awesome
Use Comntr to comment on websites without comments
Cheap Pixel stand, Logitech universal remote, Amazon Echo Dot, PS4 controller, ex-demo arcade cabinets
Jony Ive has left Apple and starting his own design consultancy called LoveFrom that will have Apple as a client. Jony's been at Apple for almost 30 years and worked on stuff like the iPad, the iPhone, the iMac and more, but recently spent most of his time designing the new Apple campus. I think it's fair to let him go do other things now. Over at Daring Fireball, Gruber let loose, blaming Jony for the last few years of lax software design and wonky hardware, including the MacBook's shitty keyboards. Bit of a dog act to not bring this up until the Ive leaves, but I don't disagree.
Politicians are a protected species on Twitter, free to spew whatever hateful garbage they want because Twitter are spineless cowards afraid of the slightest bit of political reprisal - but Twitter is about to do something, probably the bare minimum, about crap tweets from politicians. They're gonna put a message under the tweet (that you need to click to see), saying that this politician's tweet is against Twitter's rules, but they're letting it remain because the tweet is of "public interest". Even the fact the message isn't pinned to the Tweet in the timeline is a cop out. Classic Twitter.
Axon (better known for making Tasers) has decided not to implement facial recognition into its popular line of bodycams worn by law enforcement around the world. In a blog post, Axon's AI and Policing Technology Ethics Board said that "face recognition technology is not currently reliable enough to ethically justify its use on body-worn cameras" and that any jurisdiction planning to implement facial recognition tech should do so with "open, transparent, democratic processes". Axon still reckons it's just a matter of time until the tech is good enough, so don't worry, the dystopia will increase soon.
There's a dude calling himself "Alberto" who developed a machine learning algorithm called DeepNude - "an app that takes an image of a clothed woman, and with one click and a few seconds, turns that image into a nude by algorithmically superimposing realistic-looking breasts and vulva onto her body". Obviously the women that are having their photos altered to make them look naked, are not happy about it and how easy it is to do so. After the backlash Vice's article created, Alberto has ceased offering the DeepNude service, saying that "the world is not yet ready for DeepNude". Crawl back under your rock mate.
Two days after Optus was fined $1.5m in 2018 by the ACCC for lying to its HFC customers, saying that they'd be disconnected prior to the date in their contracts unless they purchase an Optus NBN service, Optus repeated the lie and the ACCC is suing them for it a year later. This second round involves Optus emailing ~140,000 mobile customers, telling them they they need to sign up to Optus NBN or they'll lose broadband access. Optus doesn't know if those customers are on the NBN or not, but scared them all anyways in an attempt to get them be NBN subscribers. Keep it classy Optus.
You've been able to get huge OLEDs to watch TV on and tiny OLEDs in smartphones, but it's only in the past few weeks have you been able to get an OLED screen in a laptop. The HP Spectre x360 and Dell XPS 15 are now shipping 4K OLED screens. There's no reviews of the XPS 15 and its OLED yet, but The Verge has taken a look at the Spectre x360's and said that "the Spectre x360 15's display is tremendous, and I see no reason why someone would pick an LCD over this OLED, given the option. It’s absolutely worth the higher cost". Shame about the rest of the laptop, but yeah, bring on an OLED MacBook!
Ever had the burning desire to leave a comment on a website that doesn't have comments? Comntr is a Firefox and Chrome extension that lets you leave a comment for other visitors to a website, totally independent of that website having comments or not. Install the extension and just click the icon in your browser to leave a comment. If you visit a website with comments, the icon will turn green to let you know there's someone else's rant to view. I have no idea how they plan to keep this from rapidly decending into a shitfest without moderators or way to delete anything.
Google Pixel Stand - $88 delivered from Personal Digital
Logitech Harmony Ultimate One universal remote - $158.35 from Amazon
3rd gen Amazon Echo Dot - $35 delivered from Kogan
PlayStation DualShock 4 controller - $49 delivered from Kogan
Highway Entertainment has some ex-demo arcade machines cheap
🎶 Tick Tick Boom - The Hives
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The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.