Mentioned in today’s edition: auDA, OpenAI, New Apple displays, Google Play Store, Meta, Chrome, Samsung and Tesla. Plus, deals on LG OLED TVs, Dell monitors and Lebara prepaid SIMs.

The News

.au is 40 years old and don't she look great

Today marks 40 years since the creation of the .au domain (auDA)! We've gone from having our first registration by Melbourne University’s IT department — 3 years before Australia was permanently connected to the internet! — to 4,000 registrations in the mid-90s to 4.3 million .au domains today. .au's the 7th most popular country-code top-level domain which, as auDA notes, is pretty good considering our relatively small population. 

The Sizzle: For all of the cultural cringe that afflicts Australians, I usually find myself looking to see if something has a .au domain as one quick signal of legitimacy. That's not unique; 3/4 of Australians surveyed by auDA say they trust Australian businesses more if they have a .au domain. It's a shame we didn't hit the jackpot of Tuvalu or Anguilla whose .tv and .ai domains have become quite lucrative for reasons other than their country's name, but I guess that would be a lot to ask for. I will add that I still find myself balking at the recent-ish release of "direct" .au domains, i.e. thesizzle.au rather than .com.au. But I'm just being a curmudgeon. 

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Google's Play Store cut is officially being slashed in Australia

Google will give up its 30% Play Store cut in Australia by the end of September this year (Engadget). Prompted by its settlement with Epic, Google is ripping off the bandaid on the mobile maker's big profit centres (Android Developers Blog). Now, it will charge at most 20% for Play Store purchases, 10% for subscriptions, and even less to use its billing system (at the same time as developers can also offer other billing systems). There'll be more to write about this later but this is going to have some massive flow-on effects for the mobile app ecosystem, and Google broadly. 

Also in Google news: this new lawsuit claiming that Google's Gemini fuelled someone's psychotic break and contributed to their suicide has some just incredibly devastating details

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Apple's MacBook Neo is going to do good business, I reckon

The leak was right! Apple has launched its version of a Chromebook killer, the MacBook Neo (EFTM). Starting at a reasonable (for Apple) $900, this 13-inch new laptop line is made for casual computing needs, particularly students (Apple). It's powered by the A18 Pro chip found in the iPhone 16 Pro/Max, comes in some fun colours, has just 8GB of RAM, starts at 256GB of storage, thicker and heavier than the Air, and doesn't have a few other MacBook bells and whistles. But above all, it just looks solid. I reckon this will FLY off the shelves.

Apple also refreshed its 5K studio displays including its drool-inspiring Studio Display XR which will set you back $5,500 (Information Age). Also, I forgot to say yesterday that the new MacBook Pros will start at a higher $2699 (Pickr)

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Leftovers

Australia:

Stripe, Starlink and Telstra have all added new federal lobbyists 👀 

Rest of World:

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Oh, Also

A novel way to beat tech surveillance with decoy browsing

I've been thinking recently about what I could do to make it harder for tech companies to track me. Things like self-hosting, VPNs, using privacy services help, but, speaking frankly, it's hard to do a lot of things without conceding that you're going to have to deal with the big guys amassing profiles about you.

I'm fascinated by this Chrome extension that takes the opposite approach: instead of trying to leave no trace, what if you try hide in noise. Poisson is a "browsing noise generator" that essentially creates a whole bunch of decoy traffic and web site actions that obscures what you're really doing. I do wonder how well it works, and what the trade-offs are (for example, messing with cookies that are actually useful etc) but, at the very least, it seems more achievable than the myth of trying to be a ghost online. 

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Bargains

Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

🤖 We love robots at the Sizzle but this newsletter has always been and will always be written by humans for humans. Also by Aussies for Aussies — so all prices are in dollarydoos, of course.

🗣️ Have any feedback, a tip or just want to chat? Send me an email or Signal message. I promise to reply!

💬 Want to hang out with other Sizzlers? There’s a subscriber-only Slack server and forum if you want to procrastinate and chat about tech-related news.

🌐 The Sizzle is on Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn if you’re feeling social.

💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the Beehiiv customer portal.

🎁 Make someone's day and gift them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle.

💔 Don’t want this any more? I won’t take it personally. There’s a unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email or here’s a guide.

🦺 The Sizzle has been tested to meet and exceed ISO 3533 standards.

Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Gadigal 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.