### Issue 1950 - Wednesday 11th October, 2023

Thanks for having me guest edit again. Today's my last day before handing things over to a Sizzle debutant. Break a leg Samantha!

## In Today's Issue

- GitHub Copilot is costing Microsoft a lot of money
- Sonos looses latest patent battle with Google
- A smattering of gaming news
- What the hell are passkeys
- Everyday is Prime Day (well until tomorrow)

## The News

### GitHub Copilot is costing Microsoft a lot of money

AI ain't cheap. Doing it properly requires a crap tonne of hardware drawing an even stinkier crap tonne of power to drive it. Those costs aren't being covered by philanthropists either and now the big boys of tech-town are starting to realise just how much it's hitting their bottom line. One of the largest hit is Microsoft who partnered with OpenAI to develop their GitHub copilot product. The US$10/month feature lets devs like me continuously poll the AI cloud for the next piece of code and saves approximately 75% of any dev's real job – searching for an answer on Stack Overflow. Turns out though for every user paying 10 bucks it's costing Microsoft about $30/month to pay for all their queries. On average they're losing US$20/m for every Github Copilot subscription out there. In some extreme cases sources have claimed them to be loosing as much as US$80/m per user! Considering they've bragged about 1.5m people using Copilot that's a lot of cheddar and goes a long way to explaining why their new Office Copilot subscription is starting at US$30/m!

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### Sonos looses latest patent battle with Google

Sonos and Google have been in a years-long court battle over who owes who money for "inventing" multi-room audio and speaker streaming. Back in 2006 Sonos filed a provisional application for a patent on audio streaming, but sat on their butts and didn't file an actual patent application until 2019. Long after Google had released some of their own streaming solutions. Sonos claimed (and a jury agreed) that by linking their 2019 patent to their 2006 provisional one they should be paid by Google and anyone else they deem for infringing the patent. Problem is a judge has today thrown that US$32.5m settlement out the window and tore Sonos a new one in the process for wasting everyone's time. Judge Alsup was pissed, essentially calling Sonos out for having the balls to try and backdate their patent and then alter the documents presented to court. He warned them to not pursue similar patent issues with other companies and went as far as telling Sonos "[they have] done exactly what the Supreme Court has long said should not be done", referring to them using a time-machine-like defence. Google has jumped around the room like a gloating school boy and thrown some shade over on the company blog.

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### A smattering of gaming news

Sony has announced a new weight-watchers edition of the PS5 ahead of the holiday season. 30% smaller, it's not getting a special 'slim' title and like before there's a version with and without an optical drive. The big difference now is you can bolt on the drive later and not have it look like an afterthought if you want.
Parents beware and kids rejoice, you have a reason to get the new PS5 now because Roblox has finally launched on it. In fact you can go grab a PS4 out a bargain bin because it runs on that too. I honestly don't know if this is a good thing or not, I've never heard anything positive about Roblox.
Intel has released their latest budget GPU the Intel Arc A850 and it's blazingly fast. The US$180 card apparently "humiliates Nvidia's RTX 3050" and is another GPU in Intel's ever-impressive lineup.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### What the hell are passkeys

They're the fancy new password-less way of getting into some websites and now Google are going to be making passkeys the default for signing up, but what the hell are they? Well Google have a helpful video that kinda explains them, but I'd suggest you check out my friend's Shannon Morse's video series that digs a little deeper and explains the pros & cons of using passkeys over multi-factor-authentication (MFA), two-factor-authentication (2FA) and just plain old passwords.

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## Bargains

- XGIMI MoGo 2 Pro 1080P Portable Projector - $845 Amazon (Prime Day)
- ASUS ROG Zephyrs G15 Laptop - $2989 Amazon (Prime Day)
- ASUS Zenbook Laptop, 14" 8GB/512GB - $1439 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Sensibo Sky, Smart Home Air Conditioner System - $119 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Satechi USB C Hub Multiport Adapter Pro Slim, 7 in 1 Dongle for MacBook Pro/Air M2 - $101.99 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Reolink Doorbell WiFi Camera - Wired 5MP Outdoor Video Doorbell - $135.99 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Reolink Spotlight Battery/Solar Powered Wireless Security Camera - $139.99 Amazon (Prime Day)
- LG 32SQ780S - 32 inch 4K UHD Smart Monitor - $699 Amazon (Prime Day)
- AMD Ryzen 9 7900X CPU - $585 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Fosi Audio K5 Pro Gaming DAC - $71.97 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Furbo 360° Dog Camera - $109 Amazon (Prime Day)
- SHW Height Adjustable Mobile Laptop Stand - $59.38 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Beats Studio Pro - $449.65 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones - $517.80 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Mario Golf: Super Rush - Nintendo Switch - $44.95 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Thrustmaster T-LCM - Loadcell Pedal set for PS5 / PS4 / Xbox Series X|S / Xbox One / PC - $268.95 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Elgato HD60 X External Capture Card - $195 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Philips Hue White GU10 Spotlight Bulb - $27.17 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Ring Video Doorbell 4 - $199 Amazon (Prime Day)
- Roborock S8 Plus Vacuum Cleaner with Dock - $1599 Amazon (Prime Day)

## Image Of The Day

Foreign media photograph and film the new Apple Computer iMac Special Edition after Apple interim CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs introduced it during an event in Cupertino, California, 05 October, 1999 (JOHN G. MABANGLO/AFP via Getty Images)

## The End

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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.