### 1923 - Friday 1st September, 2023

Josh Withers here back on The Sizzle bbq again and apparently technology news wasn't much of a thing in the year 1923, but I do like where Raj is taking this "issue number is also a year" series, so you'll be happy to know that the computer most recently popularised by 2014's Imitation Game - The Enigma Machine - first went to market in 1923, where common chumps like you and me could buy one for 100,000 Reichsmark (tens of thousands of dollarydoos) before they were used by the Nazis for bad things.

## In Today's Issue

- Samsung's doing food now, plus, uses the number six and the letter G on stage at IFA
- Apple's dropping its social media support
- Barracuda's email security gateways, Paramount, Sydney Uni, Optus in cybersecurity news
- A weather forecast for where you're going, Mac virtualisation, and a colour presets app for Fuji cameras
- 34" Dell curved monitor, AA battery charger, 6.6kw solar deal, Airpods 2

## The News

### Samsung's doing food now, plus, uses the number six and the letter G on stage at IFA

Overnight in Berlin, the apple of Korea's eye, Samsung, held a launch event for a bunch of things not significant enough to get their own event. We're talking about []"Samsung Food"](https://news.samsung.com/au/samsung-announces-global-launch-of-samsung-food-an-ai-powered-personalised-food-and-recipe-service) which today only works with the Samsung Bespoke wall oven but thanks to Matter will talk to other things. The app uses “Food AI” to look at recipes, I'm guessing it has already downloaded your grandma's recipe book off the dark web, correlates that data with other data it has about you and your food stocks and allegedly helps you meal plan. And this is all lovely, trust me, it sounds great, but get back to me when I can yell at my kitchen and a sandwich pops out because Britt seems to think its inappropriate when I do it today at our Miele and her (this never happened, please don't cancel me). The Samsung Food app Apple App Store/Google Play Store/Galaxy Store claims to eventually talk to Samsung Health and take in health goals etc. At the same event at IFA 2023 someone who apparently works for Samsung stood in front of an LED wall that had "6G" written on it:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorusasset/file/24886505/IMG7981.jpg) and uttered the words "it has the potential to change the world", so hold onto your seats kids, we're doing six g's.

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### Apple's dropping its social media support

As if tweeting at Apple ever got you support, the fruit company is dropping its social media support channels and sending those operators to the phones. I've called Apple and I would sincerely pay a fee to be able to skip the first thirty levels of support and actually get me to a nerd that I can get mano a mano with. I'm just grateful I live within an apple's throw of a store so I can get in there and wrestle with an alleged genius.

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### Barracuda's email security gateways, Paramount, Sydney Uni, Optus in cybersecurity news

With not much technology news on the streets for the news-gathering ibis to collect for The Sizzle's large editorial staff to curate today, I asked my local internet mall cop/cybersecurity-employed friend what was news in his world this week, and boy, I had no idea that Barracuda's email security gateways worldwide have been under attack for almost a year now. Not just under attack, but compromised, patched, compromised again, now hacked beyond repair, to the point of Barracuda asking its customers to burn the physical email security gateway devices on a stake, eradicated, never to secure email again. The alleged Chinese hackers UNC4841 have been at it since October 2022 so this isn't breaking news, but this week cybersecurity firm, Mandiant - owned by Google, has identified that many infected customers haven't taken action so their email gateways are just wide open to the hackers and I'm guessing emails being sent through those gateways are cannon fodder. The only Australian customer affected so far is just the little ol' Australian Capital Territory government, so I'm sure everything will be just fine, like we're not talking about filing cabinets - it's just email. In other late-breaking cybersecurity news, Paramount - locally known as Channel Ten, Channel V, and a bunch of other properties - has experienced a data breach of personally identifiable information, plus Sydney Uni has had a data breach of international students' data. Finally, Australia's most distrusted brand, Optus has received the Deloitte report on the big ol' September 2022 hack but we're not going to get to read it. With any luck, some hackery-type will just log in and get us a copy.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### A weather forecast for where you're going, Mac virtualisation, and a colour presets app for Fuji cameras

Three interesting apps I've found joy and use for recently are your something interesting from the net today. Firstly, I bought my wife a Fuji X-S10 earlier this year and this is disappointing for two reasons, firstly they dropped an X-S20 pretty much the moment ours was not returnable, and because I actually have fallen in love with the camera and would rather it for myself but she thinks it's hers. If you're a Fuji owner as well, you might find the Fuji X Weekly app's colour presets really interesting. For the first time in years I've stopped shooting RAW on a camera because the JPEGs it's popping out are lovely. Secondly, I know virtualisation is nothing new to anyone reading The Sizzle, but this QEMU wrapper, UTM was presented really neatly and had a Mac System 9 image for me to download and run and this kept me occupied for far too long - if you know of a web browser that runs on System 9, let me know. Talking about running old operating systems, if you happen to be reading today's Sizzle on a 16-bit CPU like the Intel 8088 (the first PC I used) or the 286, then you'll be happy to know that Doom has been ported from needing a 32-bit CPU and 4MB of RAM to 16-bit computing, take that mum, I'm not wasting my time on the computer any more! Finally, if you're a constant traveller like me and the conversation about the weather in the location we're off to next is always on topic, Mercury Weather's 2.0 update which includes trip forecasts tickled my interest and does what it says on the can! I'm off to Sydney on Monday and it's nice to see cold Sydney in my city list with a forecast for the time I'm due there.

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## Bargains

- Dell 34" Curved USB-C Monitor - $548.67
- Panasonic Eneloop Basic Battery Charger + 4 AA Batteries $21
- 6.6kw Solar Energy System, Jinko 440W Panels, 5kw Sungrow Inverter $3,399
- Apple Airpods 2nd Gen - $338
- More Telecom NBN plans 40% off 12 months

## Image Of The Day

The BT Tower is a grade II listed communications tower located in Fitzrovia, London, owned by BT Group. The main structure is 581 feet (177 m) high, with a further section of aerial rigging bringing the total height to 620 feet (189 m). Upon completion in 1964, it overtook the Millbank Tower to become the tallest structure in London until 1980, when it in turn was overtaken by the NatWest Tower. It was opened in 1965 by Prime Minister Harold Wilson who viewed it as a monument of a Britain shimmering in the "white heat of technology". (Steve Lawson / Flickr)

## The End

📻 257 Weeks - Nine Days

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## Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

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.