# The Sizzle

### Issue 291 - Wednesday, 7th December 2016 - I'll Cut Off The Part Of Your Brain That Does The Bitchin'

- Supreme Court rules on how much money Samsung owes Apple for stealing its ideas
- Tim Cook refutes IDC's report that Apple Watch sales are crap
- Melbourne's bike share program stopped working because Telstra turned off the 2G network
- Big tech companies will create a database of terrorism stuff so they can all block it together
- More money was spent on vinyl records than music downloads in the UK

- David Eggers, The Circle, has been turned into a Hollywood movie
- Stream direct to your Sonos speaker from Spotify
- Wickr makes a more secure version of Slack

NEWS

Supreme Court rules on how much money Samsung owes Apple for stealing its ideas
Back in 2011, Apple sued Samsung for copying the iPhone. Apple won the initial case and ever since there's been constant legal battles centred around how much Samsung should pay Apple. Yesterday, the US Supreme Court upheld a decision from a lower court that Samsung shouldn't have to pay the entire value of all the iPhones sold, but rather just a portion, as Samsung didn't rip off the entire design of the iPhone, just parts of it. Now it'll go back to the lower courts again to determine how much money that is exactly. By the time this is all done it'd would have been 6 years of legal bullshit, that really, achieved nothing for Apple.
Discuss

Tim Cook refutes IDC's report that Apple Watch sales are crap
In yesterday's Sizzle I mentioned an IDC report saying that the Apple Watch is going shithouse. Well Tim Cook saw that and told Reuters that no, in fact, the Apple Watch is awesome, not shithouse and IDC are talking out their arse. According to Tim, Apple is on track for the best quarter ever for Apple Watch and expects to sell loads over the holidays. To be fair, if Apple actually released sales figures for the Apple Watch, maybe people like IDG wouldn't have to throw out guesses and upset Wall Street (which is the only reason Tim Cook bothered to talk about this).
Discuss

Melbourne's bike share program stopped working because Telstra turned off the 2G network
We all knew that Telstra was gonna shut down its 2G network on the 1st of December. Telstra sent everyone constant reminders, even going as far as to call up my Dad (who until around mid-Nov was still using a 2G phone) and telling him what he needs to do. Someone forgot to tell the people running the bike share program in Melbourne, as the equipment has been offline since the 2G network shut down because it uses Telstra 2G to operate. I reckon the physical hardware only supports 2G and they didn't know until the network was turned off, haha
Discuss

Big tech companies will create a database of terrorism stuff so they can all block it together
It's going to get harder to get terrorism related propaganda on your computer, because Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube have agreed to work together and create hashes of all the files those naughty terrorists are creating. Those hashes will then be stored in a database and used to identify the terrorist files and delete them. Kinda like what Microsoft does with PhotoDNA to detect kiddie porn, but with terrorism related data. It'll be interesting to find out what sort of things are considered bad enough, terrorism wise, to be shitcanned automatically. There's a lot of grey here that if taken too far could impede free speech.
Discuss

More money was spent on vinyl records than music downloads in the UK
In the surest sign yet that the arse has totally fallen out of the digital music download market, more money was spent buying vinyl records in the UK last week than was spent on digital downloads. The streaming subscription service model of music is clearly king. I guess people feel weird paying money for something that's not tangible and would rather just rent it indefinitely. At least with a vinyl record, you own a piece of plastic you can hold and show off?
Discuss

COOL SHIT

David Eggers, The Circle, has been turned into a Hollywood movie
A book called The Circle, by David Eggers, which centres on the activities of a Silicon Valley company that's hoarding everyone's personal data has been turned into a movie. It's got Emma Watson as the main character (who I assume is a conflicted nice person) and Finn from the new Star Wars as the concerned smart person who wants to go all Snowden on this thing but also likes having a job. Tom Hanks is in it too, as the Zuckerberg/Jobs/Musk/Brin/Page mashup that everyone looks up to, but is really fucking evil. Comes out in the US in April next year. I'll totally watch this.
Discuss

Stream direct to your Sonos speaker from Spotify
I know there's a lot of Sonos fans out there who are probably also Spotify fans too. Good news for you lot, as Spotify now has built in support for playback on Sonos devices. It was in beta a few weeks ago, but now it's free for all Spotify Premium customers to use on their fancy speakers.
Discuss

Wickr makes a more secure version of Slack
If ya like Slack but don't like how everything is stored on Slack's server and is transmitted relatively unsecured, Wickr's got ya back. They're launching what looks like a Slack clone, but with end to end encryption. It won't be free though, or cheap. From the article: "a typical installation will cost about $50,000 a year for a company with a hundred users, more than three times the cost of Slack’s premium version" How much is privacy worth to your company? I'm pretty sure you could set up your own IRC server that's pretty damn secure and it'd cost a fuckload less. Like the 90s shit the kids are into now, IRC will come back too yeah?
Discuss

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

The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Today's subject line is from Make Some Noise, by Beastie Boys. Like The Sizzle? Like it on Facebook!