### Issue 1755 - Wednesday 14th December, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Apple is doing stuff to comply with EU's Digital Markets Act
- US politicians want to ban TikTok outright, calling it "digital fentanyl"
- More info on that fusion ignition thing from earlier in the week
- Raspberry Pi stock constraints easing but prices to increase
- Cheap Boost Mobile, Sony earbuds, SanDisk SSD, Bose headphones, Instax film printer, Amazon Fire TV Cube, site-wide JB Hi-Fi sale

## The News

### Apple is doing stuff to comply with EU's Digital Markets Act

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is gonna allow sideloading of apps on iOS devices in order to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act (aka DMA). As usual for Apple rumours, the article is vague and all over the place, but essentially Apple is thinking about "mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store" - which is pretty much what they do now with Mac app "notarization" and the GateKeeper feature. Apple also needs to open up NFC functionality for 3rd party wallets, allow 3rd parties to inter-operate with iMessage, let web browsers use rendering engines other than WebKit and much more. It's a huge change to many aspects of Apple's modus operandi. They've got until March 2024 to get their European shit together and don't, fines are levied at up to 20% of global revenue - which for Apple would be a penalty of around US$80b/year.

### US politicians want to ban TikTok outright, calling it "digital fentanyl

The "Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act)" popped up in US Congress overnight and its aim is to ban TikTok from the USA. The press release gives a clear indication of what these politicians think of the popular social network - "TikTok is digital fentanyl that's addicting Americans, collecting troves of their data, and censoring their news. It's also an increasingly powerful media company that's owned by ByteDance, which ultimately reports to the Chinese Communist Party – America's foremost adversary". There is a real, genuine issue with how all social media platforms collect data on us an abuse it (not just Chinese ones), but when you're throwing around hyperbole like "digital fentanyl" and claiming China is "America's foremost adversary" it's hard for anyone to engage in good faith.

### More info on that fusion ignition thing from earlier in the week

Nature has an easy to read story explaining the announcement of nuclear fusion ignition I mentioned earlier in the week. It was achieved by the US National Ignition Facility, who used "set of 192 lasers to deliver 2.05 MJ of energy onto a pea-sized gold cylinder containing a frozen pellet of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium" that caused a reaction releasing approximately 3.15 MJ of energy. Sounds great, but the lasers consumed 322 MJ of energy to create that initial 2.05 MJ of energy to start the reaction. Amazing, important science? Yes. A new age of abundant clean electricity like in SimCity? No. Scientists now reckon this could lead to the US devoting more research into commercial fusion power as it's been proven it's theoretically possible.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Raspberry Pi stock constraints easing but prices to increase

Good news for people wanting a Raspberry Pi - "in the run-up to the holiday season this year, we've been able to set aside a little over a hundred thousand units, split across Zero W, 3A+ and the 2GB and 4GB variants of Raspberry Pi 4, for single-unit sales". It should be easier for plebs like us to get a Pi or two going forward as they're going to "gradually increase the fraction of our output which we dedicate to single-unit sales next year until we're back in our pre-pandemic situation". Unfortunately prices are going up significantly across most of their products (i.e: RPi Zero going from US$5 to US$10 and the Zero W from US$10 to US$15) due to "an increase in the cost of pretty much every component that goes into a Raspberry Pi, from PCBs to connectors to silicon". Anyone into alternatives to the Raspberry Pi? I started a thread on The Sizzle forum to discuss it if you've got any ideas.

## Bargains

- Boost Mobile 12m SIM with 140GB data, unlimited phone calls & SMS, Telstra 5G - $130 via Cashrewards
- Sony WF-1000XM4 wireless earbuds - $269.10 from JB Hi-Fi
- SanDisk E30 1TB Portable SSD Drive - $89.10 from JB Hi-Fi
- Bose QuietComfort 45 Wireless NC Headphones - $305.10 from JB Hi-Fi
- Fujifilm Instax SHARE SP-3 Instant Printer - $129 from Amazon
- Amazon Fire TV Cube - $143.10 at JB Hi-Fi
- Extra 10% off Other Departments, Extra 5% off Computers & Phones at JB Hi-Fi tonight only

## Image Of The Day

IMEC. Diagram of Neural Net: Foveated, Retina-like Sensor. 1989 (MoMA)

## The End

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