### Issue 1702 - Thursday 29th September, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Amazon's got new Fire TVs, Kindles, Echo speaker and Ring cameras
- Government releases EV strategy discussion paper & LDV announces EV ute for Australia
- Turnstile is Cloudflare's new CAPTCHA implementation
- Self sabotage your Zoom calls with Zoom Escaper
- Cheap Google Nest Hub, ThinkPad X1 Nano, 4th-gen Echo Dot, Ryzen CPUs, Jabra Elite 4 earbuds, refurb Pixel smartphones, AirTags, Samsung soundbar

## The News

### Amazon's got new Fire TVs, Kindles, Echo speaker and Ring cameras

Amazon unloaded a heap of new gadgets overnight:

- Fire TV Cube - 4K, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision & HDR, Wi-Fi 6E, HDMI input port (to control "compatible cable boxes, Blu-ray players, and more"), can yell "Alexa find my remote" and the remote will chirp.
- Kindle Scribe - a 10.2" 300ppi Paperwhite e-ink screen Kindle you can write and draw on with a "Basic" or "Premium" stylus that "never needs charging". Like the reMarkable, but by Amazon.
- 5th-gen Echo Dot - has the same orb styling, but better speakers, an "AZ2 Neural Edge processor" and can act as a wi-fi extender for an Eero mesh wi-fi network. Looks hideous to me.
- Echo Studio - the fancy sounding Echo speaker now has "custom-built spatial audio processing technology is designed to enhance stereo sound". RIP HomePod and Google Home Max.
- Ring Spotlight Cam Pro - Ring's flagship line security camera designed for outdoor use. Has "3D Motion Detection, Audio+, and full HDR video". Four different versions depending how you want to power it.

Some products announced Amazon isn't planning to sell in Australia, like the Fire TVs (a TV with a Fire TV built-in), the Halo Rise (a creepy looking lamp that watches and tracks your sleep) and the Echo Auto (a little Alexa device for your car).

### Government releases EV strategy discussion paper & LDV announces EV ute for Australia

Today is World EV Day, so it's appropriate that the federal government released a National Electric Vehicle Strategy consultation paper. The aim is to get feedback from the wider community and industry on how to make EVs cheaper, increase charging infrastructure, reduce transport emissions, implement fuel efficiency standards and to make as much of this stuff as possible in Australia. LDV also took the opportunity to announce that the first pure electric ute will go on sale in Australia in November. The eT60 4x2 dual cab ute will probably sell for around $75,000 and has a 330km WLTP range. They already sell it in NZ.

### Turnstile is Cloudflare's new CAPTCHA implementation

Cloudflare's launched an alternative to those fucking annoying CAPTCHAs (click the stairs! click the boats! click the trains! click the traffic lights! fuck off!). They call it Turnstile. According to their blog post, "it automatically chooses from a rotating suite of non-intrusive browser challenges based on telemetry and client behavior exhibited during a session" and reduced CAPTCHA popups use by 91%. Cloudflare reckons its more private than Google's implementation. To use Turnstile you need to have a Cloudflare account, but don't need to be routing traffic or using any other bits of Cloudflare's network.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Self sabotage your Zoom calls with Zoom Escaper

This is so perfect. I'm just gonna copy and paste it from the website - "Zoom Escaper is a tool to help you escape Zoom meetings and other videoconferencing scenarios. It allows you to self-sabotage your audio stream, making your presence unbearable to others". I hope this is useful for you one day! Old mate also makes Zoom Deleter, which "continually checks for the presence of Zoom on your computer, and if found, immediately removes it". Legend.

## Bargains

- 2nd-gen Google Nest Hub - $79 from MyDeal
- Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano (i5-1130G7/8GB RAM/256GB SSD) - $1099 from shallothead's eBay store
- 4th-gen Amazon Echo Dot - $39 at JB Hi-Fi
- Ryzen 5 7600X, Ryzen 7 7700X, Ryzen 9 7900X or Ryzen 9 7950X CPU - $495/$649/$900/$1175 from gg.tech365's eBay store
- Jabra Elite 4 Active wireless earbuds - $119 at JB Hi-Fi/The Good Guys
- Refurb Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 4a, Pixel 4a 5G or Pixel 5 - $249/$329/$359/$469 from Phonebot
- Apple AirTag 4-Pack - $137 from digiDirect
- Samsung Soundbar HW-Q800B/XY - $629.15 from Samsung

## The End

📻 Blast (Fuzz Version) - The Smashing Pumpkins

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