The European Commission has found that "Google may hold a dominant position on both ends of the adtech supply chain. On the buy-side with Google Ads and DV 360. On the sell-side with DoubleClick For Publishers" and are "concerned about two potentially anti-competitive conducts by Google, which are both about favouring AdX", Google's ad exchange. The EC is still investigating, but it's at the point now where "it might require Google to divest part of its services. For instance, Google could divest its sell-side tools, DFP and AdX". These are Google's crown jewels, the goose the lays the golden egg, the money printing machine. I hope the Europeans succeed in breaking Google up, if only to force Google to innovate in other areas besides advertising.
Twitter's had an interesting couple of days. They've stopped paying their Google Cloud bill, which is not only a bad idea because Twitter needs those services to actually operate, but Google is Twitter's second largest advertiser. Twitter also decided to stop paying rent at its offices in Colorado (I didn't even know they still had offices anywhere except San Francisco), so the landlord evicted them. Today a group of music publishers sued Twitter for $250m in damages, alleging "Twitter knows full well that music is leaked, launched, and streamed by billions of people every day on its platform. No longer can it hide behind the DMCA and refuse to pay songwriters and music publishers". Oh and Elon said Twitter will remove the ability to block users. The sooner the banks take over Twitter and kick out Elon, the better.
A 2022 report by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence was declassified this week and details how "commercially available information, or CAI, has grown in such scale that it has begun to replicate the results of intrusive surveillance techniques once used on a more targeted and limited basis". All the data spewing out of our internet connected devices is getting purchased wholesale by US intelligence agencies via data brokers on the open market. It's so good the intelligence agencies are using it to get around the Fourth Amendment (i.e: surveil people without a warrant) and the US government itself is confirming this activity! Really gotta wonder what has to happen for any sort of meaningful change to occur when it comes to data privacy.
Asus's ROG Ally handheld gaming console went on sale this week. It's basically a clone of Valve's Steam Deck, but with better specs. This little beast contains a Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC, a 1080p 120Hz display, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Going by a few videos on YouTube it appears capable of playing modern games at 1080p 30fps, helped by being a native Windows device so the Proton compatibility layer isn't needed. It costs $1299, which is a decent chunk of cash, but it can be used as a desktop PC when plugged into a monitor, keyboard and mouse. It's literally a laptop with a tiny screen and no keyboard. I'd love to try one of these out on my RSI riddled wrists. There's so many games I want to catch up on, but don't want to sit at my desk to play them.
The interior view of the cryostat that cools the IBM Quantum Eagle, a utility-scale quantum processor at 127 qubits. Utility scale is a point at which quantum computers could serve as a scientific tool to explore a new scale of problems that classical methods may not be able to solve. (IBM Research/Flickr)
📻 Keep Their Heads Ringin' - Dr. Dre
😎 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, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the customer portal.
🎁 Make someone's day and buy them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle.
📚 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!
💔 Tired of my bullshit? Unsubscribe and I'll never speak to you again.
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.