Surface Duo folding smartphone to go on sale Sept 10 but is US-only for now
Telstra repeats claims reselling the NBN is a chump’s game that’ll lead to higher prices for customers
Genius’ lawsuit against Google scraping their site failed because they don’t own the copyright to lyrics
The NSA’s tips on how to limit revealing your location via a smartphone
Cheap iTunes cards, 8GB Raspberry Pi 4, TerraMaster NAS, free JB Hi-Fi delivery for Victorians
Microsoft has opened up pre-orders for the Surface Duo folding smartphone with two screens - in the US only. It costs US$1399 (A$2200 once you add GST!) and will go on sale September 10th. Specs wise it's nothing fancy. If anything it's a bit mid-range compared to the latest stuff Xiaomi and Samsung are putting out. The main reason to get this phone is the cool form-factor (dual 360-degree folding screens!) and Microsoft's version of Android. It runs the Google Play Store so you can get all your favourite Android apps on it and being made by Microsoft you'd hope the OS gets regular software updates. No news on a release for Australia or anywhere else
Telstra is once again calling out reselling NBN services as basically unprofitable. They have 46% of the NBN market, with 3.2m premises, but according to CEO Andy Penn, "in Telstra's case the profitability of reselling the nbn is negligible at best – that is not sustainable" and "without some sort of long-term change leading to improvement in RSP [retail service provider] economics, the risk of retail price increases, reduced customer experience or customers moving onto other networks such as 5G will increase". Meanwhile, Aussie Broadband said it has 4,247 customers on "Home Ultrafast" (aka 1000/50) plans now, a 90% share of all gigabit NBN signups. They've also got 3,780 customers on 250/25 plans. 100 customers are rocking 1000/400. I think I know three of them!
You know the lyrics site Genius, yeah? Well they sued Google for ripping off their "work" in those answer boxes that show up at the very top of the page when you search - which Genius proved by placing the words "redhanded" in morse code into various lyrics. Genius didn't go down the copyright infringement path as they don't own the copyright to the lyrics, the record labels/artists do. Instead Genius tried to get some cash out of Google by suing them for unfair business conduct. The judge wasn't buying it however and said this is a copyright issue and because Genius doesn't own the copyright to the lyrics, they can GTFO.
I don't know who needs to read this but the NSA has released a tidy document (PDF) titled "Limited Location Data Exposure". They say that location can still be determined even if GPS and cellular radios are disabled, so if you want to make sure organisations not as advanced as the NSA (you assume the NSA wouldn't make this public if they didn't have other ways to stalk ya) can't find you, do the following: disable location services on your device, disable radios when they are not needed, give apps as little permissions as possible, disable advertising permissions "to the greatest extent possible", turn off settings to track lost/stolen devices, use a VPN, use the web browser as little as possible and minimise what you store in the cloud. Basically turn your smartphone into a brick and you're golden.
$50 iTunes cards for $41.99 at Costco
8GB Raspberry Pi 4 Model B - $120.12 from Digi-key
TerraMaster F5-221 5-bay NAS with Intel J3355 CPU - $432 off Amazon AU
Free delivery of orders over $100 from JB Hi-Fi for Victorians
🎶 Bug - Voiid
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