### Issue 1777 - Thursday 2nd February, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Samsung's new S23, S23+ and S23 Ultra smartphones look alright
- US government report finds Apple & Google's app stores suck, recommends regulations
- After months of obfuscation Eufy admits its cameras were not secure
- Elon Musk has no idea what he is doing, part 129
- Cheap Corsair mech keeb, refurb HP laptop, TIME magazine sub, Nokia burner phone, WD & Crucial SSDs, Google Pixel 7, Amaysim 365-day SIM, iPhone 14 & 14 Plus, Samsung 49" monitor

## The News

### Samsung's new S23, S23+ and S23 Ultra smartphones look alright

There's a new Samsung Galaxy smartphone. The S23, S23+ and S23 Ultra use the "Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform for Galaxy" SoC that's custom designed for Samsung and these devices that's good, but still a far cry away from Apple's SoCs in terms of performance. As usual these phones are faster, better, more productive, etc - the big feature however is the monster of a camera packed into the S23 Ultra. It features a 200-megapixel ISOCELL HP2 image sensor that can do various types of pixel binning to vastly improve low light image quality. They've teamed up with Adobe to include Lightroom as the "exclusive" editor for RAW photos taken on the phone. Also interesting is omission of the cool off-grid satellite communication feature like the iPhone 14. Qualcomm was hyping it up not too long ago as a feature of the SoC in the S23, what happened that Samsung, who love to cram their phones with every feature possible, useful or not, didn't bother to include it?

### US government report finds Apple & Google's app stores suck, recommends regulations

It's nice to hear that the Biden administration is on the record saying "Apple and Google create hurdles for developers to compete for consumers by imposing technical limits, such as restricting how apps can function or requiring developers to go through slow and opaque review processes" and "created unnecessary barriers and costs for app developers, ranging from fees for access to functional restrictions that favor some apps over others". One of the recommendations is legislation requiring Apple and Google to provide "a readily accessible means for users to download and install third-party apps or mobile app stores, including through means other than the Google Play Store and Apple's mobile app store, while allowing for reasonable privacy, security and safety precautions". I can hear the dump trucks loading up with piles of cash in Cupertino and taking it to every lobbyist in Washington DC.

### After months of obfuscation Eufy admits its cameras were not secure

Maker of popular, privacy focused internet connected security cameras, Eufy (a brand of Anker), has according to The Verge, "finally admitted its Eufy security cameras are not natively end-to-end encrypted - they can and did produce unencrypted video streams for Eufy's web portal". As Gizmodo explains, this issue was raised months ago by a security researcher who showed "Eufy cameras were streaming recorded video to a cloud server on the site's web portal, even though cloud storage wasn't enabled. That data sent to the cloud remained unencrypted, and users could use web browser devtools to play back those clips on many simple desktop media players like VLC". Eufy denied it, then tried to downplay it, but now Eufy say they're fixing it up now for existing products, will hire more security experts and will do better in the future, but who's gonna trust em?

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Elon Musk has no idea what he is doing, part 129

I'm tired of Twitter and Elon Musk and ignore his bullshit, but the latest antics are too funny not to write about. There's a problem, or at least something perceived as a problem by a certain set of users, that tweets made by a locked/private account are getting more views or engagement than on an unlocked/public account. The usual suspects whinged enough to Elon that instead of simply "looking into it", he has "made my account private until tomorrow morning to test whether you see my private tweets more than my public ones" - my dude, you own Twitter, why the fuck are you doing this? Is nobody left at Twitter to test this stuff??? The dumpster fire burns so strong.

## Bargains

- Corsair K63 TKL Backlit Red LED Cherry MX Red Mechanical Keyboard - $74 from The Good Guys
- Refurb HP Elitebook 830 G5 (i5-8350U, 8GB RAM, 256GB NVMe SSD) - $439 from Amazon
- TIME Magazine 12m digital subscription (includes access to entire TIME archive) - $26 from TIME
- Nokia C01 Plus 4G + Vodafone $30 prepaid starter pack - $29 at Woolworths
- WD Blue SN570 1TB PCIe 3.0 SSD & bonus $20 prepaid Mastercard - $95 at Scorptec
- Google Pixel 7 5G 128GB/256GB - $799/$929 at JB Hi-Fi
- Amaysim 365-day pre-paid SIM with 60GB data & unlimited calls/SMS + bonus 2,000 Everyday Rewards Points - $99 at Woolworths
- Crucial MX500 4TB 2.5" SATA SSD - $379 at Scorptec & Centrecom
- iPhone 14 128GB or iPhone 14 Plus 128GB - $1297/$1477 at Officeworks & JB Hi-Fi
- Samsung LC49G95TSSEXXY 49" 5120x1440 curved 240Hz monitor - $1599 at PLE

## Image Of The Day

Doom is a 1993 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by id Software for MS-DOS. Players assume the role of a space marine, popularly known as Doomguy, fighting their way through hordes of invading demons from hell. (Reddit)

## The End

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