# In This Issue

- More epidemiology related content

- Tech gear to be made more upgradeable, repairable and recycleable under European Green Deal

- Wanna see how TikTok moderates content? Visit their Transparency Center in LA

- Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip is fragile, impractical, expensive and suffers from poor performance

- Cheap Pioneer amp, Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, Bose NC700 headphones, Cities: Skyline for PC

# News

#### More epidemiology related content

- Uber is thinking about suspending the accounts of riders and drivers who have the virus or have come in contact with someone with the virus. Not sure how they’d get that info (health department feeds it to them???), but it’s a good idea.

- Google has been more proactive than usual in deleting coronavirus related junk off its search results than usual. Typically search results are sacrosanct for Google, as they leave it entirely up to PageRank & advertising to decide what to show you. I guess they realised even billionaires can get sick from this.

- The biggest audio/visual gear trade show, NAB, has been cancelled. They’ll also probably do a live stream - if anyone has the capability to do such a thing, it’ them!

- MacRumors has a guide for installing Folding@Home on a Mac to crunch away at COVID-19 research.

- Blizzard has cancelled a bunch of Overwatch League events across the USA and Europe.

#### Tech gear to be made more upgradeable, repairable and recycleable under European Green Deal

According to The Verge, the EU wants tech products like phones, tablets and laptops to be "more durable, reusable, upgradeable, and constructed out of more recycled materials" and make a "new scheme to let consumers more easily sell or return old phones, tablets, and chargers". The EU already has similar stuff in place for other appliances like TVs and washing machines, but wants the rules applied to electronics as less than 40% are recycled as part of its Circular Economy Action Plan and European Green Deal. This stuff all still very early days, but it's nice to see a large government body tackle this issue - I can't be the only one feeling guilty about the huge amounts of resources used to create these products we churn through so rapidly?

#### Wanna see how TikTok moderates content? Visit their Transparency Center in LA

TikTok is opening a “Transparency Center” in Los Angeles where they can show people how they tackle controversial content on their platform. According to TikTok experts will be able to see “how moderators apply TikTok’s content guidelines to review the content its technology automatically flagged for review, as well as other content the technology may have missed. In addition, the experts will be shown how users and creators are able to bring concerns to TikTok and how those concerns are handled. TikTok will also explain how the content on the platform aligns with its guidelines”. At a later stage, TikTok will also show off their “source code and efforts around data privacy and security” at this transparency center. Very nice optics play from ByteDance here, kudos to the marketing person that thought of this Potemkin village.

####

# Not News

#### Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip is fragile, impractical, expensive and suffers from poor performance

Brian Chen has submitted his review of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip for the New York Times - long story short, he hates it. The screen is extremely fragile, scratching easily and not being able to absorb any force so it has to be flipped open or shut very gently. Once the phone is open, you then need to authenticate yourself either with a fingerprint (awkward due to the shape of the device and shit quality) or a face scan (Samsung's face scan tech barely works). Then there's the whole visible crease in the middle where it folds. The performance, camera and battery are also below par considering the Z Flip's price. Unless you're totally enamored by the concept of a flip phone, the Z Flip is worse at everything at smartphone needs to do than a Galaxy S20, Pixel 4 or iPhone 11 Pro.

# Bargains

- Cities: Skylines for PC is $7 from Wingamestore and heaps of the DLC is on sale too for $5

- Pioneer VSX-832 5.1 receiver - $399 + delivery from Kogan

- AMD AM4 Ryzen 5 3600 CPU - $259.25 delivered from Computer Alliance’s eBay store using the code PZAP15

- Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 - $438 from Amazon AU for Prime members

🎶 Little Fury Things - Dinosaur Jr.

😁 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.

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.​