AirPods Pro are newer, fancier AirPods with noise cancellation
ACCC taking Google to court over misleading statements regarding Android location tracking
NSW digital driver’s licences are now open for everyone (if you can load the app)
Free stuff for software developers
Cheap Logitech X-50 BT speaker, Nokia 9 Pureview, Boost 12m 240GB pre-paid, Lenovo Smart Clock, Huawei Watch GT Active
Apple has released new AirPods, just in time for Christmas. The AirPods Pro (pro has lost all meaning with the word professional now) are slightly chunkier than the regular AirPods, but they now include noise cancellation. They're in-ear headphones with different sized tips and Apple has included a feature called "Ear Tip Fit Test" that uses the built-in mic to measure the fit of the tip in your ear, so you pick the right one. These new ones are "sweat and water resistant", unlike the non-Pro AirPods. The AirPods Pro support multi-tap controls (e.g: once to play/pause, twice for forward, three times for back), that I think the non-Pro also don't support. AirPods Pro are on sale now for $399 and start shipping tomorrow.
The ACCC is suing Google, alleging they mislead consumers about the effects of disabling or enabling Location History and Web & App Activity on Android smartphones. The ACCC reckons that "if consumers later accessed their Google Account settings on their Android device, Google did not inform them that by leaving 'Web & App Activity' switched on, Google would continue to collect location data" even if Location History was disabled. The ACCC also reckons Google lied to consumers by saying that the only way to stop Google tracking them was to stop using Google services, when in reality all they had to do was disable Location History and Web & App Activity. The ACCC's media release has clear examples of how Google poorly communicated to users the depth of their tracking.
New South Welshspeople, you now have the ability to obtain a digital driver's licence - kinda. The state government has opened up registration for the entire state, but it's been so popular (or they totally under provisioned, who knows) that the signup process keeps crashing and saying to try again later. Even licences generated last night when it went live are needing to be regenerated today. I'm still on the fence about digital driver's licences. There's nothing wrong with the little plastic card I've got in my wallet and giving this info directly to the evil metal and glass rectangle in my pocket that's fucked me in the past on almost every aspect of privacy seems like a bad move.
Are you a developer? Are you a cheapskate? Then you'll like Free For Developers! It's a list of freebies available for development purposes, usually as a taste to get you hooked so you'll use it in bigger projects later. It lists all the cloud providers free tiers (Google, AWS, Azure, etc), loads of paid APIs with free limits, team collaboration tools, CI/CD suites, log management, monitoring, email and heaps more. If you're savvy you could maybe even use multiple free services of the same type and rotate your load between them and avoid paying. Lots of effort to save a few bucks, but cheapness knows no bounds.
Logitech X-50 Bluetooth speaker - $15 at Officeworks
Nokia 9 Pureview 128GB smartphone - $639 from The Good Guys
Boost 12m pre-paid SIM with 240GB data & unlimited calls - $240 ($20/m for 20GB of Telstra 4G)
Lenovo Smart Clock with Google Assistant - $78 from Officeworks
Huawei Watch GT Active - $220 from Allphone's eBay store
🎶 Ambulance - Battles
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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.