Sent today's issue to the entire Sizzle list so the ~2500 people that are yet to sign up but haven't unsubscribed are given a reminder of what they're missing out on. Please upgrade to a paid subscription, it's only $5 a month! Visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme and pop in your credit card details to get this sparkling technology related content every weekday.
Amazon's MGM Studios is making a TV show called Ring Nation that will "feature viral videos shared by people from their video doorbells and smart home cameras". Stuff like "neighbors saving neighbors, marriage proposals, military reunions and silly animals". America's Funniest Home Videos, but recorded via Amazon's network of omnipresent recording devices. I know it's 2022 and capitalism is driving us insane and I should no longer be shocked by its actions, but this is this is some absolute madman corporate synergy (Amazon owns both MGM and Ring), normalising the surveillance state one fake laugh track at a time.
In the latest round of negotiations on wholesale pricing between NBN and ISPs, NBN has re-introduced a path for ditching the much reviled connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) bandwidth charges. In the discussion paper, NBN proposes they move to flat-rate pricing "no later than July 1st 2026" for all speed tiers and 100mbit and above speeds by 1st July 2023. This means ISPs will only pay NBN a fixed monthly fee for the speed tier their customer is signed up for (NBN calls it AVC), rather than the additional fee on the actual bandwidth (CVC) used. The downside are yearly price rises pegged at inflation, which I thought the ACCC already said is a no-go zone. You can check out the full Special Access Undertaking (SAU) Discussion Paper here. Reviews.org (???) has a good explainer of the NBN's CVC concept.
CNET has a long article about Mighty Kingdom, Australia's largest game developer. They're ASX listed, are based in Adelaide and employ 150 people. The story centres on two dud game projects - Kitty Keeper and Conan Chop Chop - both of which bombed and resulted in lengthy legal issues for Mighty Kingdom. Kitty Keeper in particular has some messy issues around a grant from the South Australian government that might have been obtained via lies. Mighty Kingdom is also running out of money and the share price has tanked heavily, leading to them getting investment from some dude who loves NFTs. Nothing good happens when NFTs are involved.
It was a quiet week on the forum, so here's a list of the 5 most viewed threads of all time. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to use the forum (it's for paid subscribers only!), visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.
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