### Issue 1739 - Tuesday 22nd November, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Alexa and the devices it lives on aren't making money for Amazon
- Apple spy on every single thing you do on the App Store and you can't opt out
- Electric utes are now a thing in Australia
- LAN party nostalgia is now in coffee table book form
- Once again there are too many bargains to list here

## The News

### Alexa and the devices it lives on aren't making money for Amazon

According to a report from Business Insider, Amazon's Alexa is up shit creek without a paddle. The Worldwide Digital unit ("which includes everything from the Echo smart speakers and Alexa voice technology to the Prime Video streaming service") took an operating loss of US$3b just in the first quarter of 2022, making it by far the worst performing part of Amazon's vast business despite 10 years of effort on the voice assistant technology. Most of the article is "insiders say" and "employees report", but with the current economic climate and Bezos no longer around to protect his pet project, it makes sense that Amazon is debating how long it can take this type of financial hit for what appears to be little pay off.

### Apple spy on every single thing you do on the App Store and you can't opt out

App developers/infosec researchers Mysk have highlighted that Apple, the company that brazenly promotes itself as the privacy loving alternative to Google, does indeed collect data on you even if you turn off device analytics. Apparently various Apple services (i.e: App Store, Apple News and the Stocks app) send a "Directory Services Identifier", aka DSID back to Apple, which contains your iCloud username along with every time you "open or close the App Store, what content you search for, the content you view and download, and your interactions with App Store push notifications as well as messages from the App Store within apps". There's no way to opt out from this tracking - it's totally separate to Apple's device analytics. Mysk uploaded a YouTube video detailing Apple's data collection with the App Store.

### Electric utes are now a thing in Australia

The first electric drive-train ute is now available to order in Australia. LDV's eT60 is basically the same as the combustion engined LDV T60 ute, but with an 88.55kWh battery pack that's good for 330km of range on the WLTP testing cycle. Efficiency is horrible at 26.9kWh/100km - twice the power consumption of a Tesla Model 3 at 13.2kWh/100km. 2.2t of ute does that. It costs $93,000 drive away (double the ICE version) and doesn't come with cruise control (???) or 360-degree parking like the non-electric models, so I doubt it will be a big seller. Seems like the kinda vehicle a company wanting to do some greenwashing would spend money on and drive it around to promotional events while the rest of their fleet burns fossil fuels.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### LAN party nostalgia is now in coffee table book form

Merritt K is crowd funding an fun little coffee table book, simply titled LAN Party. It's filled with photos of people in front of large CRT monitors, surrounded by empty cans of sugar water and a plethora of cables. Dorks and nerds coming of age in the late 90s and early 2000s will have fond memories of LAN parties as that's when networking technologies were affordable enough to set up and before the internet was fast enough to render having the computers in the same room redundant. After looking at these photos I have a severe and sudden urge to play Quake 3.

## Bargains

- Xbox Series S Console - $399 from EB Games and Amazon
- Creality Ender-3 V2 3D Printer - $305.83 from Amazon
- JBL Charge 4 Portable Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker - $119 from Amazon
- LG OLED65CSPSA 65" 4K OLED TV - $2469.05 from Powerland's eBay store
- Razer Kishi Controller for Android - $69 from Amazon
- 50% off any Xero (financial software) package for 4 months
- Google Pixel Watch LTE - $499 from Telstra
- VIOFO A119 dash cam - $149.99 from Amazon
- 2TB Seagate external portable HDD - $57.96 from Bing Lee's eBay store
- Google Pixel 6a 128GB (Outright) - $499 from Telstra
- Google Pixel 7 128GB (Outright) - $749 from Telstra
- Lenovo Preferred Pro II USB Keyboard - $16.99 from Kogan
- Ring Video Doorbell Gen 2 - $99 from JB Hi-Fi
- Heaps of Pioneer, Sony and Kenwood car head units with CarPlay/Android Auto from Bankstown Sound & Marine
- Blue Yeti USB Microphone - $129 from Amazon
- 10% off Nintendo eShop, Officeworks and EB Games gift cards at Woolworths
- Deathloop for PC or PS5 - $19 at JB Hi-Fi
- AKG K612 Pro Over-Ear Open Back Headphone - $220.10 from Amazon
- Google Chromecast with Google TV 4K - $77 from Optus
- Anker Premium 60W 5-Port Desktop Charger - $41.99 from Amazon
- Cricut Joy - $169 at Harvey Norman
- Apple iPad (10th Gen) Wi-Fi 64GB - $649 from David Jones (can get Officeworks to price match)
- TP-Link Litewave 5-Port Gigabit Switch (LS1005G) - $16 from Amazon
- QNAP TS-464-4G 4-Bay NAS - $698.10 from Futu Online's eBay store
- Alienware 34" AW3423DW QD-OLED or 38" AW3821DW IPS monitor - $1724/$1874 from Amazon
- Nintendo Switch Console Lite - $248 from Amazon

## Image Of The Day

This metal medal and ribbon are in a cloth-lined leatherette case. The medal was awarded to Jan Lilja for work on assuring that computer programs developed in the 1900s would work in the year 2000 and later. (National Museum of American History)

## The End

📻 Your Life Continued - Horror My Friend

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