### Issue 1971 - Friday 10th November, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Humane's much hyped Ai Pin officially announced
- Omegle closes down after multiple lawsuits from abused minors
- Optus offers pissweak compo for outage, NBN to upgrade even more FTTN to FTTP, Tumblr not hitting targets, Steam Deck gets a hardware update, Woz suffers a minor stroke
- Sony's a9 III is the first full fame camera with a global shutter
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Samsung SSD, iPhone 15 Pro Max, 11% off storewide at digiDirect, SVS subwoofers, Dell & Lenovo monitors, MUBI streaming, refurb 14" MBP, Focal speakers, Nokia smartphone, Thales passport scanner

## The News

### Humane's much hyped Ai Pin officially announced

Humane has fully unveiled their Ai Pin gadget. This 10 minute intro video featuring the co-founders gives an overview of what it is capable of. My impression is that the Ai Pin re-imagines the smartphone - take photos, listen to music, look up info, text/call people, etc - but they took the screen off, so the main way to use it is via Siri or Google Assistant along with a few gestures and a blurry laser projection of text onto your hand. I agree that GPT is way better than Apple and Google's voice assistant, but it's not that amazing to avoid the 99% problem where it might be fine for 99% of stuff you want it to do, but that last 1% is a bag of dog shit rendering the device nothing more than a tech demo. It's not a good sign that in the intro video it's spitting out incorrect answers as if it was a fact. Humane's Ai Pin is US-only for now, with pre-orders for the US$699 + US$24/m subscription device kicking off next week and shipments starting in early 2024. I look forward to some independent reviews next year.

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### Omegle closes down after multiple lawsuits from abused minors

Omegle, that controversial video chat with a random person site, has been sued out of existence after 14 years on the internet. 404 Media is reporting that two lawsuits hit Omegele claiming the site is responsible for hooking up minors with adults who groomed them to do sex stuff - this BBC article has info on the abuse that took place. Normally good ol' Section 230 would protect Omegle, but a judge decided that's not the case here, so the founder of Omegle, Leif K-Brooks, shut the site down. In a letter posted to Omegle's website, K-Brooks doesn't mention these cases explicitly as to why they ceased operations, but explain how the internet has changed lately and that Omegle tried its best to protect users and co-operate with law enforcement, but the only way to "please these people is to stop offering the service". K-Brooks gives an analogy of "shutting down Central Park because crime occurs there" and that a "healthy, free society cannot endure when we are collectively afraid of each other to this extent".

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### Optus offers pissweak compo for outage, NBN to upgrade even more FTTN to FTTP, Tumblr not hitting targets, Steam Deck gets a hardware update, Woz suffers a minor stroke

- Optus is offering "customers on eligible plans at least 200GB of extra data" and "customers on eligible Prepaid mobile plans unlimited data on the weekend for the rest of the year". That's it. Oh and we don't have any info whatsoever as to an official cause of the outage. I don't expect an explanation as to why the issue that caused the outage took place, but some information on what the actual problem was that took out a national telecommunications network for almost 9 hours would be nice.

- NBN is gonna upgrade 53,000 premises to FTTP for free because their existing FTTN connection is so bad that it can't even reach 25mbit. Unlike the existing scheme where the FTTN to FTTP upgrade happens on demand if you order a 100mbit+ service and stick with it for a few years, this "Fibre Connect" program will kick off an ugprade regardless of the speed tier ordered. Dunno the areas yet, that'll be known early 2024.
- Automattic's purchase of Tumblr isn't going too well. In a memo to staff, Automattic's CEO said that despite "600+ person years" of effort into Tumblr, it is yet to "have revenue and usage above its previous peaks". As a result, they're gonna start "working on how we can run Tumblr in the most smooth and efficient manner" - aka, layoffs and cost cutting. I hope they find a way to keep Tumblr sustainable, it would suck to see it die.
- The Valve Steam Deck still isn't on sale in Australia (wtf man) but they've announced a new mild upgrade of the very popular handheld gaming device. It has an OLED screen now, with a 90Hz refresh rate, longer battery, superior thermals, wi-fi 6E, easier to customise and repair and a range of other little quality of life upgrades. It goes on sale in the US next week with prices starting at US$549. I would like one but I know I'll never play it enough to justify the cost and the risk of grey importing.
- King of the nerds, Steve Wozniak, has suffered a "minor by real stroke". The 73 year old said he was "at his computer in the morning when he felt vertigo and dizziness" and was taken to hospital in Mexico, where he was due to speak at a conference. He's now back home in the USA. If a plane crash couldn't kill him, he'll handle a little stroke just fine. God speed Woz, get well soon!

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Sony's a9 III is the first full fame camera with a global shutter

Big news in photography circles this week as Sony announced the a9 III digital mirrorless camera. It is the world's first full-frame camera with a global shutter. Why is this important? According to DPReview, global shutter allows for "the elimination of the rolling shutter distortion effect often seen on video and with slow electronic (progressive) shutters", "eliminates the banding that can occur with progressive shutters under flickering lights" and that "a global shutter can sync with flash at almost any shutter speed. With global shutter it's the duration of the flash burst that becomes the limitation, rather than the length of time it takes to close the shutter". I just assumed all that stuff was sorted with digital cameras by now.

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## Friday Forum Update

Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.

- thedeviousdev is after a nice little Plex server to run at home
- mkeating is in the market for a robot vac but like most people, is overwhelmed by all the options
- jez has a very valid whinge about the performance of big company websites with the resources to do better
- daft009 has some employees they manage about to get married soon and wants to get them a nice gift
- taybenlor is selling their Razer Blade laptop with an RTX3070 GPU in it at a pretty good price

## Bargains

- Samsung 980 PRO 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD - $178.55 from Amazon USA
- Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max 512GB - $2,421.54 from Mobileciti's eBay store
- 11% off storewide at digiDirect (excludes Apple) as well as an extra 5% cashback via Cashrewards
- SVS SB-1000 Pro subwoofer - $929 from WestCoast Hi-Fi
- SVS SB-3000 Pro subwoofer - $1799 from WestCoast Hi-Fi
- Dell S2722QC 27" 4K USB-C monitor - $359.52 from Dell
- Dell G3223Q 32" 4K 144Hz gaming monitor - $599.50 from Dell
- Lenovo R45w-30 44.5" 5120x1440 165Hz, VA-panel, curved monitor - $1297 at Officeworks
- MUBI online movie streaming service (personally one of my favourites) - $50 for a year
- Refurb 14" MacBook Pro (M2 Pro SoC, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $2,719 from Apple
- Focal Chora 816 floorstanding speakers (pair) - $1,440 from Addicted to Audio
- Thales AT9000 MK2 Passport Scanner - $1980 from IDV Pacific
- Nokia G60 5G Android smartphone (NFC, eSIM, Snapdragon 695 SoC, 6GB RAM/128GB storage, 3.5mm headphone) - $248 from JB Hi-Fi or Amazon

## Image Of The Day

Bell Laboratories Transistor Water Tower – Holmdel, New Jersey. The transistor breakthrough happened at another Bell Labs facility further north (Murray Hill in Berkeley Heights), but the 60-ft tall tower tribute was erected here in 1961, when they broke ground for the Eero Saarinen-designed building. It was the Bell System's Bell Labs at the time, then AT&T's Bell Laboratories, then became simply Bell Labs in 1996 with the spin-off of Lucent. (Mike Carroll / Flickr - text from Roadside America)

## The End

📻 Jesus Did - Kills Birds

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