### Issue 1537 - Tuesday 1st February, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Bungie now belongs to Sony, Wordle now belongs to the New York Times
- BlackBerry sells off the only valuable thing it had: patents
- AEC's dump of political donations shows top 10 tech palm greasers
- Sorry, more Tesla news
- Cheap TCL 10 Pro smartphone, AirPods Pro, Samsung soundbar

## The News

### Bungie now belongs to Sony, Wordle now belongs to the New York Times

Bungie, creators of the popular Halo series of video games that are synonymous with the Xbox, as well as the cross-platform Destiny game, has been acquired by Sony for a relatively modest (compared to the latest video game business deals) US$3.6b. They're pledging to remain cross-platform, but lets see how long that lasts. I give it 3 years, tops. In smaller game related acquisitions, the New York Times has taken ownership of Wordle for an "undisclosed price in the low-seven figures" off Josh Wardle. Not a bad little exit for something made for shits and giggles. Hope he goes on to do something cool with his fuck you money.

### BlackBerry sells off the only valuable thing it had: patents

Oh how the mighty have fallen - BlackBerry has flogged off its patent portfolio to a patent troll for US$600m. All those foundational patents for things like "muting a message thread and displaying notifications as a numeric icon badge" now belong to Catapult IP Innovations. This company has "a huge amount of debt, no products, and no cash flow", so it's safe to assume an imminent barrage of spurious legal claims regarding BlackBerry's patents. Apparently Blackberry still has a business selling its QNX real-time operating system, used mainly in car infotainment systems and other embedded systems.

### AEC's dump of political donations shows top 10 tech palm greasers

The Australian Electoral Commission has released data on who's donated what to a political party in 2020/2021. Top of the list for tech companies is Macquarie Telecom. They gave $87,650 to the ALP, $82,448 to the LNP and a cheeky $2,000 to the Liberal Democratic Party (lol). Amazon was second, handing over $40,700 to the LNP and $30,250 to the ALP. Optus third with $41,500 to the LNP and $28,500 to the ALP. The tech industry is historically allergic to political donations, but if you want to grab the ear of governments, it's unfortunately how you do it in Australia. There's a reason mining companies for example, donate millions and it isn't out of the goodness of their hearts.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Sorry, more Tesla news

- The TeslaMic is an official accessory in China. Two wireless mics compatible with the built-in karaoke feature available in Tesla vehicles. Of course you can use it whilst driving! Why would paying attention to the road be something Tesla cares about?
- New vehicles rolling out with the premium interior option will now warn you about "excessive" seat adjustments and disable the controls for 5 minutes if you do too much fiddling with your seat. Probably not a big deal day to day, but yet another slice of Tesla weirdness.
- Tesla is rolling out the ability for non-Tesla cars to charge at their Superchargers in more countries in Europe. France and Norway now join Netherlands in the pilot ahead of opening up the Supercharger network Europe wide eventually. Fingers crossed they do the same in Australia.
- Yesterday I mentioned a discrepancy in Tesla's self-reported Australian sales numbers for 2021. This morning the Electric Vehicle Council claimed "human error" by Tesla and the actual number is 3,000 fewer than reported. All those headlines about the Model 3 outselling the Camry are now incorrect.

## Bargains

- TCL 10 Pro 128GB smartphone - $199 from JB Hi-Fi
- Apple AirPods Pro - $236.93 + delivery from Mediaform (don't forget Officeworks price match)
- Samsung HW-Q870A soundbar with wireless rears - $698 from Appliance Central

## The End

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