# In This Issue

- Panasonic stops selling TVs in Australia, TCL to stop making Blackberry phones

- Toll hit by ransomware and has basically shut down since Friday with no end in sight

- We now know how much money Google/Alphabet makes from YouTube ad revenue - US$15b/yr

- Amazon’s failed government handout parade started because Bezos was jealous of Elon Musk

- Cheap TP-Link smart plug, Logitech MX Anywhere 2S mouse, Ring Video Doorbell 2

# News

#### Panasonic stops selling TVs in Australia, TCL to stop making Blackberry phones

Panasonic has decided to give up selling televisions in Australia when current stock is exhausted, "in light of current local market conditions and to allow the company to focus on other established and emerging areas of the business". Koreans have captured the high-end (LG & Samsung) with the Chinese (Hisense & TCL) providing value for money - where does that leave the Japanese (Sony & Panasonic)? In other also-ran brand news, TCL announced they're not going to make Blackberry branded devices in the future. They've held the Blackberry brand since 2016 (along with others like Alcatel) but have lately been trying to get TCL to be a brand in and of itself. Someone might pick up the Blackberry branding and make phones with it, but feels unlikely.

#### Toll hit by ransomware and has basically shut down since Friday with no end in sight

Waiting for a Toll pickup or delivery but the damn bastard is late? It's probably because someone absolutely pwnd (do we still use the word pwnd?) Toll Group's computer infrastructure. All Toll has said officially is there's been an "cyber security incident" since Friday that's caused them to "shut down a number of systems across multiple sites and business units". However, according to a source that leaked to iTnews, a ransomware infection has hit over 1,000 of Toll's servers and basically fucked them right up, taking out "Active Directory, productivity and corporate VPN applications" and staff being told to "leave desktops and laptops switched off and disconnected from the corporate network". Good luck to whoever is fixing this bloody mess.

#### We now know how much money Google/Alphabet makes from YouTube ad revenue - US$15b/yr

Alphabet/Google released their financial results for the last quarter and it's kinda boring news - shares are down 5% because YouTube and Google Cloud (53% growth is nice, but slower than AWS or Azure) haven't performed as well as hoped. However, what was interesting was Google finally splitting out YouTube's revenue from the rest of Google's income. Per year YouTube rakes in US$15b via ads, lower than most people's guesses. Why would Google release numbers for YouTube when they knew it probably wasn't as good as people expected? US law forces them to so investors have a better idea of what's going on in the business, but Alphabet avoided it for years saying its CEO (Larry Page, who is no longer CEO) isn't given that detail, so investors don't get it either. Now that Sundar Pichai (who used to be CEO of Google) is CEO of Alphabet, that excuse doesn't work anymore. Pack of dodgy fucks.

# Not News

#### Amazon’s failed government handout parade started because Bezos was jealous of Elon Musk

Remember when Amazon asked governments around the USA to battle to the death for the privileged of having Amazon's 2nd HQ in their jurisdiction? It was always kinda odd to me that what is possibly the world's richest company needs a government handout to set up an office complex and be hamstrung by the red tape that comes with government money, but now we know why Amazon went through all that mess - dick measuring between CEOs. Jeff Bezos was jealous of how Elon Musk got a few states to compete for hosting the Tesla Gigafactory that ultimately ended up in Nevada. When Amazon "only" got $40m from Cincinnati and Ohio for building a $1b+ air freight hub and the staff were proud of it, Bezos got pissed off and the rest of Amazon HQ2's failed handout process is history.

# Bargains

- TP-Link Smart Plug HS100 - $19 Amazon AU if you can’t be bothered getting Bunnings to price match

- Ring Video Door Bell 2 - $195.94 from TobyDeals

- Logitech MX Anywhere 2S mouse - $58 at Officeworks, JB, HN & Amazon

🎶 Hate to Say I Told You So - The Hives

😁 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.

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.​