### Issue 2129 - Friday 12th July, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- EFA upset that Digital ID data can be stored outside Australia
- Apple hasn't sold many Vision Pro headsets in the USA so far
- iPhones in the EU will soon allow third party mobile wallets with NFC access
- Fabrice Bellard must have sold his soul to the devil to be this good with the computer
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Optus & CatchConnect mobile plans, FarCry 6 for PC, Ultimate gift cards, Ultimate Ears Boom 3, GoPro Hero11 Black, Samsung microSD, PlayStation controller, Nintendo eShop gift cards

## The News

### EFA upset that Digital ID data can be stored outside Australia

Electronic Frontiers Australia has put out a statement that it is "deeply troubled" by the government's decision to abandon "the requirement to keep all personal information generated by the Digital ID scheme within Australia". They say that if the data is stored in Australia, it would be more secure, boost the economy, "assert national sovereignty" and improve performance. I'm sure all those are true in some form and I generally trust the EFA, but some more detail would be nice on the practical dangers of allowing data on Australians to be stored in the US. Is the big risk here the fact US privacy laws are virtually non-existent and by storing the data in the US, the data could be used there in a way that would be illegal here?

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### Apple hasn't sold many Vision Pro headsets in the USA so far

Apple Vision Pro goes on pre-order today in Australia, but news out of the US is that sales of the $6000+ VR/AR headset have basically evaporated. Market analysis firm IDC reckons Apple is yet to sell 100,000 units a quarter of these things and overall sales are down 75% this quarter compared to last quarter. It's unlikely they'll hit 500,000 AVP sales in a full year. Maybe international sales will see a small bump, but it's not going to be the next iPhone or even the Mac any time soon. If spatial computing is going to be a thing it's gonna be a slow burn. I've booked in a demo AVP at the Highpoint Apple store for Monday afternoon, so expect a little write-up in Tuesday Sizzle. I'm excited to finally try one out with the proper prescription lenses for my fucked up eyes!

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### iPhones in the EU will soon allow third party mobile wallets with NFC access

The EU announced it ceased investigating Apple Pay and Apple's refusal to provide access to NFC capability on iPhones to other payment platforms, because Apple has given "third-party mobile wallets" access to NFC via "Host Card Emulation mode" and competing wallets will be able to use Face ID, Touch ID, passcodes and users can get access to the wallets by double-clicking the side button of the iPhone. While there still seems to be a distinction between third party wallets and Apple Pay (something about a "secure element" Apple gets but others don't), it's a huge improvement over the status quo. So when can we do this in Australia? If it's good enough for Europe, it's good enough for us. Would be incredibly useful for gift cards and pre-paid Visa/MasterCard, etc because they wouldn't need to give Apple a cut of every transaction made.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Fabrice Bellard must have sold his soul to the devil to be this good with the computer

Do you know who Fabrice Bellard is? He's the original developer of FFMPEG, an impressive piece of software for video/audio encoding (and more) that's used in fuckton of places thanks to being open source. That alone would put you in the deadset legend status of computing, but no, Fabrice is such a genius that they also decided to fuck around and spit out QEMU. If you've ever used a virtual machine that isn't VMware, chances are it was some sort of QEMU variant. Fabrice's website is banger after banger of projects that even if you did just one, you'd be absolutely stoked with and would dine out on it for years. I haven't read it yet, but the ACM did a profile on Fabrice in 2009 and put him in the same league as Alan Turing, Donald Knuth and Edsger Dijkstra.

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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.

- wings posted pics of their massive homelab setup
- Mikey let us know about Gizmodo AU & Kotaku AU getting shitcanned
- jurgen is after a sub-$200 action camera that doesn't suck
- Gio wonders what'll happen to the many 3G-only reception areas around Australia when the 3G networks are shut down in a few weeks
- coopzr outlines how their mother got done by a phone scam involving Vodafone

## Bargains

- Optus data only plan with 5G, 20GB/m of data - $12/m for the first 12 months, then $20/m from Optus
- Catch Connect 365-day SIM with 120GB/200GB data, unlimited calls & SMS - $109/$150 via Finder
- Far Cry 6 for PC - $7.19 from the Ubisoft Store
- 8% off Ultimate gift cards (JB, GG, Officeworks, etc) on Amazon
- Ultimate Ears Boom 3 Bluetooth speaker - $94 from LogitechShop's eBay store
- GoPro HERO11 Black - $378.26 from Amazon USA
- Samsung Pro Ultimate 512GB microSD - $80.15 from Amazon UK
- PlayStation DualShock 4 V2 Controller - $69 from Big W or Amazon
- 10% off Nintendo eShop gift cards at JB Hi-Fi

## Image Of The Day

Kosovar refugees, safe haven, Singleton Army Base, New South Wales, September 1999, John Immig (National Library of Australia)

## The End

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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.