Just a reminder that if you've missed out on any issues of The Sizzle this week (thanks Microsoft), visit the Sizzle archive to catch up. I've uploaded this week's issues a few months early.
The federal government is floating the idea of a "Startup Year" for uni students. Students would be able to rack up an additional $11,300 of HELP debt on top of their degrees that gives them an extra year at uni in some sort of startup incubator/mentorship/guidance program. That money goes to the university to operate the program, not to students as seed capital or living expenses. The plan is to fund 2,000 places in these programs for the start of the 2023 academic year. Here's the consultation paper if you wanna know more. I like the concept in theory, but don't like the idea of additional debt for students.
Meta has taken inspiration from AI image generators Stable Diffusion and DALL-E and made one of their own to produce videos. They call their research "Make-A-Video" and it literally works the same way as the AI image generators. Give it a sentence like "a fluffy baby sloth with a knitted hat trying to figure out a laptop, close up, highly detailed, studio lighting, screen reflecting in its eyes" and a short video clip is shit out. Here's a gallery of videos Meta's research team generated. They're surprisingly effective as little art videos. Nobody's gonna be fooled these are real, but damn, the progress being made just in the last 6 months alone kinda feels like realistic AI-generated media is coming sooner rather than later.
Not that relevant to Australians as it was never made available here, but Stadia is headed for the Google Graveyard. The cloud gaming service "hasn't gained the traction with users that we expected", so Google will be refunding all Stadia purchases (including hardware) and will officially turn Stadia off on Jan 18th 2023. How the fuck did Google not make this succeed? They own a huge cloud computing network, have more money than God to entice developers and subsidise losses, launched it during a unique period in history where people were locked inside for almost 2 years and when gaming is more popular than ever. The mind boggles.
Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.
📻 Christian Brothers - Elliot Smith
😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.
💬 Checked out the paid subscriber only forum? It's a tidy little place to discuss tech with like minded Aussies.
👋 Forums not your thing? The Sizzle has a Slack group you can procrastinate in and chat with other nerds bored at work.
💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info or change email address? Visit the customer portal.
📚 Browse The Sizzle Archive. A few issues are missing and it's not searchable, but it's better than nothing.
🫂 Friends of The Sizzle is a small group of businesses or organisations operated by Sizzle subscribers. Support your fellow Sizzler!
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.