Plus: Take part in the Internet Archive’s trillion page milestone ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

August 21, 2025 | Read online
# Google's new gear, Canva 🚀 and livestreamer dies on Aussie platform Plus: Take part in the Internet Archive’s trillion page milestone
Edition 2401
"Longing" (Flickr: bensukoralp)
# The News
### Google’s new phones, accessories, and, of course, AI features
Google held its annual “Made By Google” event. This year it featured US talk show host Jimmy Fallon, famous Call Her Daddy podcaster Alex Cooper, a guy who makes Subway TikTok videos … oh, and there were some Google execs announcing new stuff. My top line is that the things Made By Google that it wants to show most aren’t physical devices, but AI. The Verge has a good liveblog of the event, but here’s what I noticed:
Little change to phone hardware: The Pixel 10 phones are slightly improved versions of last year’s phones, although Pixel 10 Pro Fold is officially the first dust and water-resistant foldable (Engadget). Other devices like Pixel Watch (WIRED) and the Pixel Buds 2a (SoundGuys) also got iterative upgrades. The real star of the show was AI being jammed into everything (Guardian). Google’s “Magic Cue” feature brings up information from across apps like your calendar, email and messages to pre-empt requests or make suggestions while you’re doing tasks — like your phone pre-filling a text asking what time your flight arrives based on your ticket info. Google’s also putting generative AI directly into the camera as part of its digital zoom, allowing you to ““““zoom”””” all the way up 100x. Weird, but apparently it works quite well (The Verge).
Made by Google ‘25
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### Canva is going to the moooooon 🚀
Australia’s own Canva has been valued at $65 billion and is carrying out what is likely to be their last staff shares sale before they go public. (AFR, $). Staff have been able to sell up to $3 million of their shares on secondary markets. All indications are that the company will float on the US market next year. Canva says it has 240 million monthly active users, and 27 million paying subscribers.
The Sizzle: Looks like it’s full steam ahead for Canva going public. Given the fact that some of these general AI companies are starting to creep onto Canva’s territory — producing graphics, doing office stuff — I bet there’s a few nervous Canvanauts who are sweating the delay to IPO.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Livestreamer dies after abuse on an Australian platform
A French livestreamer has died in his sleep while broadcasting live on Kick, an Australian-owned platform (BBC). Raphaël Graven was known for doing “abuse-for-entertainment” content, and had been subjected to violence and sleep deprivation online before he died. French and EU authorities are looking into it.
The Sizzle: For those not familiar, Kick is owned by crypto gambling platform Stake and launched shortly after Twitch banned people from livestreaming themselves gambling. Kick has notoriously lax rules (Crikey, $). I don’t think Kick is responsible for this guy’s death, but it’s disgusting that this platform — made so streamers would have a place to advertise gambling to kids — facilitated the kind of behaviour that contributed to it.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Why are The Wiggles lobbying against a social media ban for teens? (Crikey, $) Jim Chalmers commits to another AI review, stalling push for a standalone law (The Australian, $) Commonwealth Bank Reverses Job Cuts Decision Over AI Chatbots (Bloomberg, $) University of Melbourne surveilled students involved in pro-Palestine protest camp (The Guardian) Councils battle disinformation and fears of “self-igniting” EVs as they try to go electric (The Driven) HMD Fuse is the first phone I’ve struggled to be impartial with (Pickr Australia) Apple Expands iPhone Production in India for US-Bound New Models (Bloomberg, $) Harvard dropouts to launch always-on AI smart glasses that listen and record every conversation (TechCrunch) Elon Musk’s xAI Published Hundreds Of Thousands Of Grok Chatbot Conversations (Forbes) Seemingly conscious AI is coming (Mustafa Suleyman) Unconditional RST packets from the Great Firewall of China (GFW Report) Oregon man accused of operating 'one of most powerful' attack botnets ever seen (MSN) What's next for Windows 11? Microsoft readies big feature updates for next month and beyond (Windows Central) Steam's Adult Content Ban Has Been Plotted For A Year (TheGamer) AI browsers may be the best thing that ever happened to scammers (Engadget) OnlyFans creators are losing work to AI chatbots that flirt with their subscribers (Rest of World) LibreOffice 25.8 Community Released (Phoronix) “We're live on bluesky! bibliome.club is the platform for creating, collaborating on and sharing reading lists with your Bluesky network - open source and decentralised via ATProto.” (Bluesky) Copilot broke your audit log (Pistachio) CRASH COWS (Andreas Zwinkau’s blog)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### Be part of the Internet Archive’s trillion page milestone
The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine is getting ready to celebrate a trillion web pages archived. They’re calling for people to share how the Wayback Machine helped them “remember a moment, recover a lost page, or research something important.” (Google Docs). I have used Wayback Machine a lot for work — most recently to uncover the deleted abusive Twitter account that belonged to a Foxtel exec (Crikey, $) — but I’m sure some of you have some more heartwarming examples.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electronic & electrical
digiDirect: $20 off with $200 spend, $50 off with $500 spend Arlec Electrical Products at Kmart 4-Outlet Powerboard with Master Switch for $5 5m Extension Lead for $5 Iniu USB C (66W Total) Fast Charging Car Charger Adapter - $6.17 at Iniu via Amazon AU KZ PRX in-Ear Planar Magnetic Driver Hi-Fi IEM Monitor Earbuds - $33.05 at KZ Flagship Store AliExpress Meross Smart Garage Door Opener Homekit (Homekit Compatible) - $53.50 at Shuzu-AU via Amazon AU Ultra-Thin 4U Network Data Cabinet Server Rack - $75 at Harvey Norman Hifiman Svanar Jr True Wireless ANC Earphones - $139 at Addicted to Audio AU eufy Solocam S220 with Solar Panel - $154 at Amazon AU Shokz Openrun Pro 2 (Black) - $199 at JB Hifi Commercial Apple Watch Series 10 GPS at Costco 42mm for $469 46mm for $519 Apple Watch Series 10 GPS 46mm Jet Black and Silver - $533 at Amazon AU (Down from $699)
Computing
Logitech G Gaming Peripherals - Purchase 3 Qualifying Items For 40% Discount at Amazon Zeuslap 16" 2.5k 144Hz Portable Monitor - $145 at Zeuslap Choice Store via AliExpress Ubiquiti UniFi Pro Max 16-Port PoE++ Network Switch - $670 at Amazon AU HP Gaming Products at HP eBay Victus 15.6" Gaming Laptop i5-13420h 16GB/512GB RTX3050 for $799 Omen 32 240Hz OLED Monitor for $1199 ASUS ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Quad-Band Wi-Fi 7 Router - $918 at Amazon AU Alienware AW3225QF 32" 4K 240Hz QD-OLED Gaming Monitor - $1119 at Amazon AU PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 9070 XT 16GB Graphics Card - $1169 at Scorptec
Mobile
Belong SIM Starter Kit - $15 at Coles Google Pixel 10 on JB Hi-Fi Mobile 300GB $99/month 24-Month SIM Plan 128GB for $0 256GB for $147 Vodafone’s 200GB monthly data deal- $39/month for a 12 month plan at Vodafone & Optus $300 Store Credit with Google Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL purchases at Google Store $500 off RRP for Google Pixel 10 Series on Telstra 12/24/36 Month Contract
# The End
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