### Issue 1449 - Friday 10th September, 2021

## In Today's Issue

- Facebook fails to read the room (again), will sell sunglasses with cameras in them
- Texas joins Florida in passing "I hate the mods of this stupid site, don't censor me!!!" law
- Apple car project lives, Bose's new Atmos soundbar, Australia launches a rocket, OpenWRT 21.02, Epic knocked back by Apple in South Korea
- Radiohead and Epic make a game to celebrate 20th anniversary of Kid A & Amnesiac
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Anker 60W USB 6-port charger, Overcooked & Overcooked 2 for Xbox, Anker wireless ergonomic vertical mouse, Bose TV speaker, LIFX Tile set

## The News

### Facebook fails to read the room (again), will sell sunglasses with cameras in them

Facebook's partnered with Ray-Ban to make sunnies with cameras in them. The "Ray-Ban Stories" have dual 5MP cameras that'll take photos or 30 second videos on demand (either touch or voice activated) and post them direct to Facebook. A white LED glows when the camera is active to let others know. There's speakers (not bone conducting unfortunately) and noise cancelling microphones built in for phone calls. They look pretty much like normal glasses except for the cameras in each corner of the frame. They'll cost $449, will ship on the 18th of November and can be purchased from Ray-Ban's Australian website. If you've got a prescription, that price jumps to $959. The Verge & Buzzfeed have hands-on reviews.

### Texas joins Florida in passing "I hate the mods of this stupid site, don't censor me!!!" law

Texas has a fresh law that "prevents social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users banning users simply based on their political viewpoints", pitched as protecting citizens from "wrongful censorship on social media platforms". The state also wants social media services to produce transparency reports explaining how they promote and moderate content. This law is very similar to the one passed recently by Florida, which a federal court called unconstitutional and temporarily blocked. Both these laws stem from the view that conservatives are being silenced unfairly, which the state has to be involved in because social media is some "modern-day public square" nonsense.

### Apple car project lives, Bose's new Atmos soundbar, Australia launches a rocket, OpenWRT 21.02, Epic knocked back by Apple in South Korea

- Rumour is the dude in charge of the Apple Watch has been moved over to Apple's secret car project because the guy who was doing it got head hunted by Ford. How long has Apple been trying with this car thing???
- Bose has a new flagship soundbar, the Smart Soundbar 900. It's got all the good stuff you expect, like AirPlay 2, HDMI eARC and Dolby Atmos and unlike the Sonos Arc, Bluetooth support. Your move Sonos.
- Australia's "first major commercial rocket" launch is taking place in Whalers Way, 680km from Adelaide some time today. It'll be a test for the Taiwanese Hapith I rocket and will be the biggest rocket launched here in over 40 years.
- OpenWRT got bumped to 21.02. It has WPA3 support enabled by default and can have HTTPS enabled by default. You'll probably want to run it on a device with at least 128MB of RAM and 16MB of flash though.
- Epic asked Apple to let them back on the App Store in South Korea due to a new law forcing 3rd party payment platforms - the very thing Apple cracked the shits about. Apple said not until Epic "play by the same rules as everyone else".

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Radiohead and Epic make a game to celebrate 20th anniversary of Kid A & Amnesiac

Sony put on a virtual event to show off some games it's got coming for the PS5 (Gran Turismo 7, sick) and the one that captured my interest the most is Kid A Mnesia: Exhibition. That's right Radiohead fans, there's gonna be an "interactive experience" the band calls an "upside-down digital / analogue universe created from original artwork and recordings" that will accompany the 20th anniversary of Radiohead's seminal Kid A & Amnesiac records. I have no fucking idea what is going on in this trailer, but you bet I will will be trying this out. It's not only on PS5, but on PC & Mac too, coming November 2021.

## Friday Forum Update

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 started.

- Old mate Josh (remember him from earlier this week?) is selling some very nice digital cameras if you're keen.
- Crunks kicked off an interesting discussion about buying kids their first gaming console.
- If you're got opinions on webcams or video conferencing solutions for meeting rooms, ewhizz would love your input.
- Those of you with Amber Electric might like this handy Raspberry Pi based "traffic light" MattK created.
- Devraj hated the Hydrawise smart sprinkler system's app, so he built his own and wants you to try it out.

## Bargains

- Anker 60W 6-port USB charger - $29.99 from Amazon
- Overcooked! + Overcooked! 2 for Xbox - $13.11 from Microsoft
- Anker wireless vertical ergonomic mouse - $29.99 from Amazon
- Bose TV Speaker - $279 from Amazon
- LIFX Tile 5 set kit - $199 from LIFX

## The End

📻 Knives Out - Radiohead

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

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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.​