Apple kicked off its week of Mac announcements with an M4 iMac. Still 24", but an M4 SoC, a minimum of 16GB of RAM at last, Thunderbolt 4, the choice of a nano-texture matte display and some new colours. The press release specifically mentions that the M4 iMac "enables a smoother gameplay experience in titles like the upcoming Civilization VII". Apple also spat out software updates to everything, including iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1. Apple Intelligence is now a thing you can use (MacRumors has a nice rundown of what it's capable of at the moment) and you can use the hearing test and hearing aid features on your AirPods Pro 2 once you've upgraded them to the latest firmware. Totally unrelated, but Nvidia overtook Apple for a minute as the world's most valuable company with the two megacorps worth between A$5.2t and A$5.4t each, depending which way the wind blows.
If you're a Victorian doing a deal on Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree, there's now 35 police stations across the state designed to be "Safer Exchange Sites". The locations have "clear signage", "CCTV coverage" and "lighting". It's a good alternative to meeting people at your house, or in a car park and a good filter for anyone dodgy. If they're uncomfortable meeting a police station you know they've got something to hide. I've done loads of deals on Facebook/Gumtree with no problems over the years, but there was a dude once who refused to get out of his car to look at an iPhone I was selling. I didn't let him hold the phone and he got very pissed off and drove away. Thanks to the half a dozen people who sent this to me! Didn't know so many of you follow the cops on social media.
Another day, another incident of an AI system making shit up where it shouldn't be. This time it's OpenAI's Whisper API, used in a product called Nabla for medical transcription. Doctors use transcription tools regularly to save them time when writing up patient notes and they're often checked by other medical staff for errors, but with Nabla around 1% of transcriptions made "up entire sentences with sometimes violent sentiments or nonsensical phrases during silences in recordings", as well as "invented medical conditions or phrases you might expect from a YouTube video, such as thank you for watching". OpenAI said "our usage policies prohibit use in certain high-stakes decision-making contexts", yet Nabla was able to use it anyways. What's the point of a usage policy if it's not enforced before the damage is done?
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang joined the king of Denmark to launch the country’s largest sovereign AI supercomputer, aimed at breakthroughs in quantum computing, clean energy, biotechnology and other areas serving Danish society and the world. (NVIDIA)
😎 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.