# In This Issue

- Semiconductor companies Analog Devices & Maxim merge for US$21b

- People think Wayfair is using its online furniture store to sell children

- Random pieces of interesting tech news

- 20,000 free Code Camp places for Victorian kids available now

- Cheap Crucial MX500 SATA SSDs, Q Acoustics bookshelf speakers, Catch Connect 365 day SIM

# News

#### Semiconductor companies Analog Devices & Maxim merge for US$21b

Analog Devices has purchased one of its main competitors, Maxim Integrated for US$21b, the biggest US merger this year. These companies make analog semiconductors, with Analog Devices strong in amplifiers, ADCs and DACs and Maxim popular for power management ICs as well as sensors. You might not know these brands, but there's probably dozens of their products in your house right now doing stuff like making sure lithium batteries don't explode and various radios can understand the signals they're receiving.

#### People think Wayfair is using its online furniture store to sell children

There's a not insignificant amount of people that think online furniture store Wayfair, is facilitating child trafficking via listings for cabinets on their website. Apparently "conspiracy theorists have seized on coincidental overlaps of product names with the names of children reported missing around the country". God help us. The worst bit is, Twitter won't take this nonsense down because "they don't appear likely to cause real-world harm". Does nobody remember Pizzagate? These people are fucking nuts!

#### Random pieces of interesting tech news

- TPG and Vodafone Australia’s merger is complete. They're now the one company called TPG Telecom and have the ASX ticker TPG.

- Google has started selling the 2nd-generation Pixel Buds, its answer to Apple's AirPods. $279 from their online store.

- The fancy new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator with cloud based global map & weather data will be released August 18th.

- Tesla is no longer bother with a "low-cost" variant of the Model Y. Elon reckons the range would have been too low to be worth it.

- An original, sealed, absolutely mint condition US version of Super Mario Bros. for the NES sold for US$114,000 recently.

# Not News

#### 20,000 free Code Camp places for Victorian kids available now

Got kiddies learning remotely due to the ‘rona? Westpac has coughed up some cash to Code Camp who have opened up 20,000 places on their platform for free. Eligible students (Victorian, age 7-12) "will be given a free, hour-long session on the platform led by an instructor during the extended school holiday period". The kids then spend around 2-4 days making a game or website that teaches them stuff like algorithms, animation and variables along the way. Get around it on the Code Camp website.

# Bargains

- Crucial MX500 SATA SSDs in various capacities from Shopping Express

- Q Acoustics 3020i bookshelf speakers - $499 delivered from CHT Solutions

- Catch Connect 365 day plan with 60GB of data just $70 for students via UNiDAYS using Zip Pay

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