### Issue 2003 - Wednesday 10th January, 2024

I posted a quick overview of The Sizzle's 2023 financials over on the forum. $81,889 revenue and $66,546 profit - aka, my wages! If you wanna know what I spent the $15,343 on to make The Sizzle happen, well you're gonna have to read the damn post aren't you?

## In Today's Issue

- Rabbit R1 is yet another AI powered device that wants to replace smartphones
- NASA delays Artemis missions, no Americans on the Moon until 2026
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquires Juniper for US$14b
- Some stuff from CES 2024
- Cheap Acer Swift Go laptop, 2.5GbE switch with 10gig SFP port, Google Pixel 7 5G 128GB smartphone

## The News

### Rabbit R1 is yet another AI powered device that wants to replace smartphones

The Rabbit R1 is a "custom-built consumer AI device running on a revolutionary natural-language operating system" that "can infer and model human actions on computer interfaces by learning users' intention and behavior when they use specific apps, and then mimic and perform them both reliably and quickly". Going by the 25-min demo video, you use it like you'd use Alexa/Siri/Google Assistant, but with a screen. You configure it on the web, pre-authenticate it with your favourite apps (Spotify, Uber, Google Maps, etc) and talk to it to get it to do stuff. Does anyone actually want to use a computer this way? The examples are ridiculous - would you really trust an AI to plan and book a holiday? Fuck no. I don't even trust a voice assistant to order a pizza like they did in the demo. That said, the Rabbit seems way more useful than the Humane AI-pin and it isn't chained to an ongoing subscription (for now at least) so whatever, it's better these freaks are employed doing this than whatever cryptocurrency ponzi scheme they were into before.

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### NASA delays Artemis missions, no Americans on the Moon until 2026

NASA's Artemis mission to return Americans to the Moon has been delayed by a year. They were aiming for the first crewed flight in the Orion spacecraft by November 2024, but it'll be September 2025 instead for a crewed flight around the Moon (Artemis II), then September 2026 for two astronauts to go on the lunar surface (Artemis III). Artemis II's delay is primary around pieces of Orion's heat-shield that were unexpectedly "liberated" and Artemis III's delay is NASA's concern around SpaceX's inability to demonstrate that Spaceship is safe. At this rate China will probably have humans on the Moon before the USA does and you know what? Good. The USA feeling embarrassed by the Russians with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin is how we got space race 1.0, maybe we will get space race 2.0 if the Chinese achieve lunar dominance.

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### Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquires Juniper for US$14b

Juniper now belongs to Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. They spent US$14b to buy up all the shares and assimilate one of the great pioneering networking companies into the meandering bubble of HPE. As Sizzle guest writer Joel said on Mastodon, "this is, what, the 4th major networking line that HP(E) now has? There was the ProCurve stuff they did themselves (which mostly sucked), the 3Com stuff they bought (which sucked), the Aruba acquisition (which was great stuff and killed off ProCurve and H3C), and now Juniper so they can have a high-end routing product line because they didn't get one of those with Aruba?". Even reading the press release you get the feeling HPE got Juniper because they just wanted to pad out their networking range and this is easier than using existing assets to do something in-house, and Juniper simply got an offer too good to refuse so fuck it, time to cash out.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Some stuff from CES 2024

- Ubiquiti has wi-fi 7 (802.11be) based access points now. The U7 Pro has a 2x2 radio setup, a 2.5GbE port and uses a max of 21W over PoE. US$189, so not that stupidly expensive either.
- Sabrent's got a stupidly fast SSD coming soon - the Rocket 5. It's a PCIe 5.0 drive that uses a Phison PS5026-E26 controller, which is nothing new, but has paired that with new 2400 MT/sec NAND to really fill that PCIe 5.0 bus. It can do 14,000MB/s sequential file transfers!
- Wish your iPhone had a physical keyboard like an old Blackberry? Clicks can make that dream a reality. It's a case for your phone that has a keyboard on it. I don't want or need this (typing on a screen and on these little keyboards both suck!!), but I appreciate why someone might and bless them.
- I used to be a huge fan of Mophie's iPhone battery cases back in the day (hello Derek!) and it pleases me to see that they're back in the game with a new Juice Pack for the iPhone 15 range. They fell out of style when external battery packs became common, but the battery case is the superior solution for a hard day's smartphoning.
- Asus has a folding OLED 17.3" monitor that makes it very portable and a laptop with a fold out display so you can have dual monitors on the road - both are quite expensive. I would have gone wild for this when I was a student living in a 1 bedroom apartment.
- DisplayPort 2.1a is now a thing. It'll allow 54Gbps of uncompressed video signal to go over a 2m cable, allowing higher resolutions and/or higher refresh rates. 8K 120Hz is 48 Gbps, so all we need now are panels and graphics cards that can do it. Hurry up please.
- Volkswagen is gonna add ChatGPT to its IDA voice assistant which is used in VW's latest in-car infotainment systems. On one hand, the voice assistant will probably work better, but on the other, I don't want a voice assistant in my car.

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## Bargains

- Acer Swift Go (Ryzen 7840U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 14" 2880x1800 OLED) - $1.197 from Officeworks
- KeepLink 5-port 2.5GbE switch with 1-port 10gig SFP port - $40 from Aliexpress
- Google Pixel 7 5G 128GB - $499 from JB Hi-Fi

## Image Of The Day

Patent No. 7693663. 2010. Earthquake detector. Invented in 1956 as a storage device, the disk drive might one day save millions of lives, thanks to its unusual sensitivity to movement. That capability sparked a patent for microvibration sensors in drives that calculate earth tremors. Now geologists can measure—and soon possibly even predict—the most unpredictable phenomena in nature. (IBM Research / Flickr)

## The End

📻 Myxomatosis - Radiohead

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## 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.