# The Sizzle

### Issue 170 - Friday, 17th June 2016 - Gourmet Cheese, Like Kraft Squares, But Not As Orange

- Samsung acquires cloud hosting platform company Joyent
- NSW TAFE dumps the system it spent $500m on to enrol students
- Google's iOS keyboard is now available in Australia
- Telstra celebrates World Wi-Fi Day by giving out 30 minutes of free internet
- Starbucks and Microsoft make an Outlook integration

- A tour of Yahoo's 53 acquisitions since Marissa Mayer took over
- Good price for a Lenovo 15” laptop with a 1080p screen
- A game based on the 1979 Iran revolution

NEWS

Samsung acquires cloud hosting platform company Joyent
Samsung purchased Joyent, the makers of a rather popular cloud hosting platform. Dunno how much Samsung spent, but Joyent competes with Azure and AWS, so I assume Samsung wants to beef up their service platform offerings to sell more phones (i.e: further those dreams of replacing Android with Tizen) or maybe enter the hosting game themselves as they reckon it's a sweet investment. Either way an interesting acquisition from Samsung. Here's the official press releases from Joyent and from Samsung.
Discuss

NSW TAFE dumps the system it spent $500m on to enrol students
Oh look, another massive government IT project shitcanned after a massive pile of money was spent! NSW TAFE spent close to $500m on a student enrolment system that was first implemented in 2009 and rolled out in 2013. It's now had enough of using junk that doesn't work and decided to make a new one in time for 2018. $500m. For a system that lasts 5 years. That's a cost of $100m just to have computers to enrol students, which it didn't even do properly most of the time. What an epic waste of money.
Discuss

Google's iOS keyboard is now available in Australia
Google has released their iOS keyboard in Australia. Check it out now on the App Store. You can search for emoji, search for images and search for anything really, directly from the keyboard and then insert that result into the text field. There's also "Glide Typing" that lets you slide your finger around the screen to type words. Pretty cool if you're comfortable with Google knowing your iPhone's keystrokes *tinfoil hat mode, engage*
Discuss

Telstra celebrates World Wi-Fi Day by giving out 30 minutes of free internet
Telstra is celebrating World Wi-Fi Day (who knew that was even a thing?) by giving away access to its Air network of wi-fi hotspots. Go forth and leech my friends, for the data, it is free! From Friday 17th of June to Monday 20th of June, you can hit the Telstra pipe hard as you want across Australia. Oh wait, there's a 30 minute session limit. Fuck that, what's the point?
Discuss

Starbucks and Microsoft make an Outlook integration
Two of Seattle's finest have partnered up, with Microsoft integrating Starbucks searching into Outlook. If you install the add-in, it'll allow you to search for Starbucks locations directly in Outlook and pop a map straight into the meeting request. Doesn't work in the Mac version though and of course, there's like, hardly any Starbucks in Australia because Australians don't really like Starbucks. They should make a McDonalds version of this so I can meet people at Maccas (and then be told something's come up and they can't meet me anymore).
Discuss

COOL SHIT

A tour of Yahoo's 53 acquisitions since Marissa Mayer took over
Gizmodo goes through 53 of the startups that Yahoo spent a total of $2.3b on ($1b of that was Tubmlr alone, hah) since Marissa Mayer took over and what they've done since acquisition. I'll spare you the reading: most of them were acquihires (buy the company to get the staff at that startup) that have mainly left as soon as their stock options are available.
Discuss

Good price for a Lenovo 15” laptop with a 1080p screen
If you're in the market for a new laptop, there's a special coupon up on Ozbargain for a Lenovo E560. Probably what I'd get if I wanted a new Windows laptop as it's excellent value for money. For $868 shipped, you get a 15.6" 1080p screen, 16GB RAM, a discrete AMD graphics card a 6th gen i7 CPU. The 1TB HDD included can be swapped out for a 2.5" SSD of your choice from MSY or whatever for a very nice laptop that is great if you don't have to move the laptop around too much (would suck as a daily to-from work laptop on the train I reckon).
Discuss

A game based on the 1979 Iran revolution
An ex-Rockstar developer that worked on Grand Theft Auto has gone solo and made a game based on what it was like to live in Iran in 1979 (aka, the time Iran went from nice place to shit place). The game was banned in Iran too, unfortunately. Too much truth for them, I guess. 1979 Revolution has been out on PC for a few months, but now it's on iOS for you to enjoy.
Discuss

Here endeth the sizzle (until Monday!)
--Anthony

The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Like The Sizzle? Tell your friends!