### Issue 1897 - Thursday 27th July, 2023

Hello everyone, Raj here. You might know me better as the ghost of tech websites past, Reckoner the most likely candidate. I've been busy playing the role of corporate shill & CTO for the past few years, but I've carved out some time (by quitting my last gig) to help out Ant for a couple of days. That said, anyone need a corporate shill? Hit me up! Now on to the news stuff...

## In Today's Issue

- Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event was all about hinges
- Aussie government fines Meta A$20m over their dodgy VPN app
- Arc is the new browser on the block
- An Indian news outlet has started using AI-generated news anchors
- Bargains

## The News

### Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event was all about hinges

Held in South Korea for the first time, Unpacked was heavily focused around Samsung's continued foray into foldable phones & how good their hinges are. The new Galaxy Z Flip 5 looks the same as the Flip 4, but increases it's external display to 3.4" and adds the newer Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. Meanwhile the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is almost a carbon copy of last years' excluding the new hinge. Same cameras, same form-factor, same screen size. It was all a little underwhelming considering the price tag on these things. Hell, even MKBHD throws Samsung some shade (in the most fence-sitting, don't piss off the PR peeps kinda way). The Z Fold 5 starts at A$2,599 with 256GB storage and the Z Flip 5 at A$1,649. You can watch a shortened recap of the event over on The Verge, which also includes the new S9 tablets & Galaxy Watch 6.

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### Aussie government fines Meta A$20m over their dodgy VPN app

Apparently more than 279,000 Australian's had Meta's Onavo Protect app installed back in 2019. At the time Facebook were heavily promoting the app as a way to "protect personal information" & "keep your data safe". Surprise, surprise, that wasn't the case. Facebook Israel (formerly Onavo Mobile) were instead using the app to collect an extensive variety of data about users' mobile device usage. Keep in mind this is after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in 2018 too. Facepalm. Finally, to rub salt in the wound. If you were one of the people that had the app installed you wont be seeing any of that cash. That's going straight into the pockets of the Commonwealth of Australia.

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### Arc is the new browser on the block

Want to try a new web browser? Probably not, there seems to be a new one every few months that tries to answer the age-old adage of "how many ways are there to polish a Chromium turd?". Well, Arc is the latest to give it a shot and have finally dropped their invite-only approach, releasing version 1.0 into the wild (for macOS/iOS - Windoze is coming). It uses Chromium at its core, but adds an entirely new user experience that has honestly made browsing a hundred times better for me over the past 6 months. Among its many features Arc allows you to create profiles that you can quickly switch between that have self-contained environments for tabs, cookies, sessions & more. Now I can jump between work & home profiles with a quick tap. For a more comprehensive look at what Arc offers check out their welcome video and give it a go!

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### An Indian news outlet has started using AI-generated news anchors

Look out retired sports stars and D-grade celebs, the bots are a coming to take your cushy free-to-air teleprompter reading gigs! Indian news outlet OTV News has started to use not one, but two fully AI-generated multi-lingual news anchors to read headlines before throwing to a meat-bag to take over. The two female anchors have a relatively monotone delivery and limited mobility, but we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. They plan to further develop the models to host debates with human panelists and probably to laugh uncontrollably at their inane co-hosts so they can slot into any morning TV show.

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## Bargains

- 4TB PCIe M.2 SSD (PS5 compatible) - $359.04 from Amazon
- Sony A80K OLED 55"/66" - $1499/$3899 from Sony @ eBay
- Raspberry Pi 4 Model B - $127.90 from Core Electronics
- Today's newly announced Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 tablets are already 20% off RRP from Samsung

## Image Of The Day

Illustration from the cover of the 1979 published Atari 400/800 Personal Computer , Operators Manual (lotig / Internet Archive)

## The End

📻 Pop The Balloon - Nothing But Thieves

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## Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

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.