### Issue 1746 - Thursday 1st December, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Elon Musk appears to have lied about Apple reducing ads on Twitter & removing it from App Store
- NBN admits the copper network is expensive to maintain and gets more expensive as time goes on
- LastPass updates security incident from August, customer data accessed but passwords are "safely encrypted"
- Nvidia Broadcast is a very cool webcam/streaming enhancement app for Nvidia GPUs
- Cheap AirPods Pro, Metal Gear Solid V for PS4, iPhone 13 mini

## The News

### Elon Musk appears to have lied about Apple reducing ads on Twitter & removing it from App Store

It appears that Elon Musk was talking shit on his anti-Apple tirade earlier this week. His claim that Apple "mostly stopped advertising on Twitter" was a lie as Pathmatics, a digital ad analytics company, revealed stats that Apple actually upped their ad spend since Musk took over. Musk also lied that Apple "threatened to withhold Twitter" from the App Store, saying today that Tim Cook took him on a tour of Apple's "beautiful HQ" and that "we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so". Oh to be a fly on the wall during that conversation.

### NBN admits the copper network is expensive to maintain and gets more expensive as time goes on

NBN has laid out in its 400-page special access undertaking an entire chapter titled "the rationale for investing in fibre", explaining how the copper network is a dumpster fire that costs it money. The chapter details how FTTN fault volumes were "approximately 27,000 in FY22, which is nearly four times higher than the average FTTP fault volumes at approximately 7200", which "led to higher truck rolls for FTTN (1.2 truck rolls for FTTN versus 0.47 truck rolls for FTTP per 100 premises)" because "it is more difficult to find a fault location on the FTTN network, and typically requires significantly more civil works and labour to rectify". NBN even acknowledges that it will get worse over time due to "copper degradation". As I've typed many times in this very newsletter in relation to the NBN - we told ya so.

### LastPass updates security incident from August, customer data accessed but passwords are "safely encrypted"

LastPass has had yet another security problem. It's an escalation of an issue from August where "an unauthorised party gained access to portions of the LastPass development environment through a single compromised developer account and took portions of source code and some proprietary LastPass technical information". Today LastPass let us know that "an unauthorised party, using information obtained in the August 2022 incident, was able to gain access to certain elements of our customers’ information". They haven't said what type of customer information was accessed, but passwords "remain safely encrypted due to LastPass's Zero Knowledge architecture". You'd fucken hope so.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Nvidia Broadcast is a very cool webcam/streaming enhancement app for Nvidia GPUs

This is perhaps not news to a few Nvidia graphics card owners, but if you do have an Nvidia GPU in your computer and participate in online video activities, do yourself a favour and install Nvidia Broadcast. It leverages the immense compute power in Nvidia's GPUs to do not only audio noise removal and room echo removal, but very slick virtual backgrounds, "auto-framing" (i.e: crops and zooms the image in real time to keep you in the middle of the frame as you move), and video noise removal, dramatically improving image quality in low light situations. Windows only and you need an RTX2060 or better - which are now surprisingly cheap 2nd hand at around $250.

## Bargains

- Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) - $359.68 from Amazon
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience (PS4) - $4.99 from the PlayStation Store
- iPhone 13 Mini 128GB Midnight Black - $1047 at Amazon & Officeworks

## Image Of The Day

First Telstra iPhone 4 buyer, Sam Dunster from Minnamurra (Telstra / Flickr)

## The End

📻 Acid Rain - Silverchair

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

💬 Checked out the paid subscriber only forum? It's a tidy little place to discuss tech with like minded Aussies.

👋 Forums not your thing? The Sizzle has a Slack group you can procrastinate in and chat with other nerds bored at work.

💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the customer portal.

📚 Browse The Sizzle Archive. A few issues are missing and it's not searchable, but it's better than nothing.

🫂 Friends of The Sizzle is a small group of businesses or organisations operated by Sizzle subscribers. Support your fellow Sizzler!

💔 Tired of my bullshit? Unsubscribe and I'll never speak to you again.

## 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.