Hello to all 5,000 of you! I sent today's issue out to the entire list as a little reminder to those who haven't become paid subscribers. Look at all the content you're missing out on! Wouldn't you like to get this every day? Visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme and for the low price of $50/yr or $5/m you can keep up to date with the latest tech news and bargains.
Go look at this picture of SMACS 0723, a cluster of galaxies that "covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length by someone on the ground", that due to the insane distance is what these galaxies looked like 4.6 billion years ago - the deepest humanity has peered into space. It is the first colour photo taken by the James Webb Space Telescope and is a "composite made from images at different wavelengths" with the telescope's near-infrared camera. A dump of the first batch of images and data taken by JWST will be released tomorrow. How can you not be in awe of this stuff? Have a look at this side by side comparison of same photo taken by Hubble and JwST.
Two small, but useful new features are coming to apps many of us use daily. First up, YouTube will finally get picture in picture support on iOS - but only for those in the USA! Outside the USA you'll need to be a YouTube Premium subscriber. I don't know how anyone tolerates YouTube without Premium, but still, very annoying such a basic feature is hidden behind payment. Meanwhile, Twitter is allowing you to check out of threads you're involved in. Thank fuck for that. I hate tweeting something and then a shitshow of a conversation takes place that I have to watch or turn off notifications for everything entirely. Now I can tell Twitter to drop me from the thread and go on living my life while a group of idiots argue on the internet.
ACMA has added new rules to the register of telecommunications industry codes and standards with the aim of bringing the same practices in preventing spam phone calls to prevent spam SMS messages. Under the rules, "telcos must also publish information to assist their customers to proactively manage and report SMS scams, share information about scam messages with other telcos and report identified scams to authorities". Telcos will be hit with penalties of up to $250,000 for not complying with this code. Based on how unsuccessful the phone call spam code is (I get at least 1 spam call a day, often 2-3 a day), I have little hope this will do much to stop spam SMS either. The code is published here if you're interested.
Apple's car project is a mythical beast that's lurked in the background for the entire time I've published The Sizzle and I will write about it any time a tranche of news floats to the surface, despite its utter irrelevance to any of our day to day lives. The Information (paywalled, but here's summaries from The Verge and MacRumors) has dug up more dirt on the Apple car and its fair to say things aren't going well. Craig Federighi is "particularly skeptical" of the project. The current design "has four seats that face inward so passengers can talk to one another". They're trying to get government approval to built it "without a traditional steering wheel or brake pedal". Jony Ive is still involved in the project as a consultant. It is "mocked in other parts of Apple" and outside of demos on predetermined routes, tries to run over pedestrians.
Amazon's having their big Prime Day sale, so all the stuff below is from Amazon (take note of 14% cashback on Amazon between 4pm & 6pm tonight via Cashrewards)
Non-Amazon bargains:
📻 Low - Foo Fighters
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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.