# Issue 717

##### Wednesday, 5th September 2018

## In This Issue

- Amazon was temporarily valued at one trillion US dollars last night
- Audi, BMW & Mercedes Benz talk up their electric car plans
- Elon Musk back on his "Vernon Unsworth is a pedo" bullshit
- Some tech & startup stuff in South Australia's 2018-2019 budget
- Tech news assortment
- Power your Raspberry Pi from the sun with this neat expansion hat
- Next time you're installing a TV antenna, check out Antenna Mate
- Cheap Sony OLED TV, Bioshock collection, 20% off iTunes, Kogan Mobile data, Samsung S8

## News

### Amazon was temporarily valued at one trillion US dollars last night

Amazon was temporarily valued at US$1 trillion last night, the second company after Apple to do so. "Analysts cite the company's ever-diversifying portfolio as a value driver. Last year, Amazon launched into the grocery industry with its purchase of Whole Foods Markets. It is rounding out its hardware and logistics segments with last-mile deliveries, and it's pushing forward in advertising to challenge Facebook and Google". To put into perspective how big Apple and Amazon are, their combined market caps are higher than the entire ASX, which has a market cap of ~AU$2t. Investors love Apple and Amazon so much, that they value those two businesses higher than literally every company listed on ASX combined.

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### Audi, BMW & Mercedes Benz talk up their electric car plans

German car makers have been busy spewing out electric car announcements the past two days. BMW teased the Vision iNext concept EV that won't be put into production until 2021. They also started accepting orders in Norway for the iX3 electric SUV that won't go on sale until 2020. Audi made sure we all know that their e-tron quattro electric SUV went into production yesterday in Brussels. The "big" news is that Mercedes-Benz finally announced a proper electric car, the EQC 400 4MATIC. It's a large-ish SUV with only 320km of range despite a big 80kWh battery. It'll go on sale in 2020 at an unknown price. Autogefühl has a great video preview of the Mercedes EQC.

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### Elon Musk back on his "Vernon Unsworth is a pedo" bullshit

Elon Musk is doubling down on his claims that Vernon Unsworth (a diver that assisted in rescuing those kids from a cave in Thailand) is a pedo, despite earlier apologising for doing so. Elon let loose with a rant in an email to a Buzzfeed journalist, saying that Unsworth has a 12 year old bride (?!?) and is a child rapist. Elon, of course, offers no proof of this. The Buzzfeed journo went digging and couldn't find evidence supporting Elon's claims. I hope Elon is sued, loses and is made to pay back all the costs Unsworth incurs in defending himself from this clear bullying by a rich dude who knows he can spend way more on lawyers than Unsworth can.

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### Some tech & startup stuff in South Australia's 2018-2019 budget

The South Australian state budget is out and there's a bunch of tech/startup related stuff inside. $4.8m in rental subsidies for 650 startups that are using the state's Innovation and Commercialisation Precinct, which will receive a $43.9m refurbishment. $400,000 will go towards testing a "new visa category for startup entrepreneurs seeking to base their operations in SA". $5.2m for a new emergency warning smartphone app, $4.2m for a 000 system upgrade. $1m for lobbying the federal government to place the federal Space Agency HQ in SA. No payroll tax for businesses with a payroll under $1.5m. $27.9m to get SA businesses collaborating with universities and researchers. $100m of funding for the Economic and Business Growth fund and chief entrepreneur position that'll hype up SA as a cool place to be a cool startup.

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### Tech news assortment

- NSW cops still don't have their fancy "Salesforce-based firearms licensing and lifecycle management system" because they can't find "the right programmers".
- The EU is a bee's dick away from mandating online streaming services (i.e: Netflix & Amazon Prime) have at least 30% local content.
- Skype has call recording built-in now. Everyone on the call will get a notification saying the call is being recorded.
- Evernote has cut its pricing whilst many senior executives (CTO, CFO, CPO and head of HR) depart the company. According to an insider, Evernote is on a "death spiral".
- There's gonna be a series of cyber war games going down in Canberra next week (Operation Shell Breaker), with DHS, ATO and Home Affairs taking part, along with businesses like Atlassian, Vodafone, Woolworths, AGL and more.

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## Not News, But Still Cool

### Power your Raspberry Pi from the sun with this neat expansion hat

The LiFePO4wered/Pi+ does what it says on the tin - lets you add an 18650 or 14500 sized LiFePO4 battery to your Raspberry Pi and charge it directly from a solar panel using MPPT charging. Literally just hook the panel up directly to the LiFePO4wered/Pi+ and it does the rest. It'll even work like a UPS (so if the mains USB power dies, this will take over) and shut down cleanly if the battery goes flat. Depending on what you're doing with your Pi, a solar panels and a single 18650 LiFePO4 battery isn't enough to go fully off grid, but it is possible if you've got a light workload and a lotta sun. The LiFePO4wered/Pi+ is still in crowdfunding mode, but I don't see why it wouldn't get released.

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### Next time you're installing a TV antenna, check out Antenna Mate

Mounting TV anntenas often? Check out Antenna Mate. It's a classic example of an app that does one task really well and nothing else. Open it up on your iPhone or iPad and it pops up with a big arrow pointing towards your nearest TV transmitter. Angle your antenna in the same direction as the arrow and bam, your antenna is perfectly aligned - no more guess work. Perfect for people who install TV antennas for a living, or caravanners who are in a new place often and don't know which way to point the TV antennas on top of their caravan. What a classy idea, I love it even though I have absolutely no need for it as I'm too scared of heights to ever go up on a roof to fuck with a TV antenna.

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### Cheap Sony OLED TV, Bioshock collection, 20% off iTunes, Kogan Mobile data, Samsung S8

- If you're a Costco member, they're selling Sony 65" OLED TVs for $3000, dunno if there's much stock left though.
- Bioshock: The Collection is only $18 on the Playstation Store.
- Officeworks has joined Coles in selling iTunes credit at 20% off.
- Kogan have 32GB of data for 98c if you're a new customer (i.e: activate a SIM, recharge with the voucher code and you'll get 32GB).
- Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone for $670 (AU stock with 2 year warranty & receipt) with code PIXEL.

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That's it, see ya tomorrow!
--Anthony

Smashing Pumpkins - Doomsday Clock

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

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