# The Sizzle

### Issue 158 - Tuesday, 31st May 2016 - Who’s Your Favourite Sailor?

There's currently zero people signed up for the free trial of The Sizzle. That means there's zero chance of getting more paid subscribers (169 people currently are paid subscribers, a grand total of $845/m before expenses). I've got a few iniatives in mind, but if you can be fucked, forward your favourite issue of the Sizzle to some friends and tell them to sign up if they like it - that would be a massive help!

- Victoria has loads of Bitcoin to sell and it's a bull market right now
- Iran and Thailand hate the internet
- Intel has some new CPUs you might not really care about
- Apple and Broadcom didn't give Caltech a cut for using their wi-fi patents
- Australia needs more cyber security, immediately

- Book your exact room in a Hilton hotel off a Google map
- Android AOSP getting ported to the Raspberry Pi 3
- Min the minimal web browser

NEWS

Victoria has loads of Bitcoin to sell and it's a bull market right now
The price of Bitcoin has jumped 21% in the last 4 days and as usual with Bitcoin, nobody really knows why. It's probably the Chinese freaking out about something and throwing their cash into Bitcoin as an investment, but could also be related to some upcoming changes in the Bitcoin protocol that'll allow transactions to occur in minutes (i.e: the Lightning Network). It's good then, that Ernst and Young is selling $16m worth of seized Bitcoins on behalf of the Victorian government. The auction should fund a few schools I reckon.
Discuss

Iran and Thailand hate the internet
Iran's Supreme Council of Cyberspace (fucking sick name imho) has decreed that all messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp and Hangouts need to operate servers in Iran within the next 12 months, or they will be banned. Why? So Iran can keep an eye on what people are talking about, of course! Also in shit things governments do, Thailand's government is making law that'll require all ISPs give them full access to all encrypted communications. It's like Snowden's leaks were a how-to guide for shit countries, not a warning.
Discuss

Intel has some new CPUs you might not really care about
Intel has shown off some new gear at Computex today. A new range of Xeon CPUs (E5-1500 V5) that support real time HEVC (aka H265) encoding using QuickSync. There's also some new i7 chips, this time for the desktop. The 10-core i7-6950X, the 8-core i7-6900K, the 6-core i7-6850K and the 6-core i7-6800K comprise Intel's top of the line "consumer" CPUs. They're faster than the old ones and expensive. Anandtech has all the benchmarks you care about.
Discuss

Apple and Broadcom didn't give Caltech a cut for using their wi-fi patents
Apple and Broadcom are getting sued by Caltech for infringing on their patents relating to 802.11n and 802.11ac wi-fi. The lawsuit is mainly targeted on Broadcom who make the chips Apple use for wi-fi, but Apple is Broadcom's largest customer for these chips, so they're lumped in by Caltech for good measure. Unlike most patent trolls, Caltech (a totally legit and relatively prestigious university) isn't just doing this for shits and giggles to turn a buck. Will be interesting to see how much Broadcom and Apple cough up to make this go away.
Discuss

Australia needs more cyber security, immediately
Australia, apparently, isn't giving cyber security the attention it deserves. UNSW cyber security experts have published a paper saying that whilst countries such as the USA and UK are treating it as a priority, Australia still has its head in the sand as to the consequences of ignoring cyber attacks. Australia should set up an APAC centre of cyber excellence and create a cyber defence league (lol cyber).
Discuss

COOL SHIT

Book your exact room in a Hilton hotel off a Google map
The Hitlon hotel chain has added the ability to choose your room off a Google map directly in the Hilton app. How cool is that? About half of Hilton's hotels are available to book this way, with the rest coming on by the end of the year. I'm sure it costs a fortune to book via that instead of the usual discount websites, but still, cool.
Discuss

Android AOSP getting ported to the Raspberry Pi 3
Looks like Google is planning to officially support the Raspberry Pi 3 as an Android device via AOSP. A repo on AOSP popped up for the Raspberry Pi 3, but it is currently empty. No doubt, the Google engineers will give it some love soon. You'd be able to use Android on the Pi instead of say, Raspbian for a GUI - maybe Android will be more power efficient than Raspbian, or something. I look forward to seeing what people do with it.
Discuss

Min the minimal web browser
Min is a weird web browser. It's like a bare bones browser that takes the omnibar approach of Chrome to a new level - very little window chrome either. Just a big rectangle of web browser. It's for Mac OS X 10.10 only - worth a look if you think Safari or Chrome is too heavy for ya.
Discuss

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

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