The Victorian state government announced yesterday that they're giving a fat stack of cash to "globally renowned ticketing supplier" Conduent Business Services over 15 years to replace NTT as the supplier of Myki. Conduent have also delivered and operated ticketing systems in Paris, Dubai, New Jersey and Montreal and will bring the much desired ability for passengers to "tap on and off with their credit or debit card and pay with a digital wallet on a smartphone or smart watch" - things that are table stakes in Sydney and believe it or not, Adelaide. Trials kick off in 2024 and Conduent have the gig for 15 years.
Corporate goons PwC get truckloads of money from the government to practically come up with policies and get an even bigger truckload of cash from megacorps to come up with ways to get around those policies. Never has this utterly fucked situation been more fucked than a story in the AFR yesterday explaining how Apple, Google and Microsoft were the first people PwC got on the blower to after an ex-PwC partner finished up formulating the multinational anti-avoidance law for Treasury and the ATO in 2015. PwC gave these three massive tech companies (and others) advice on how to get around the very tax laws they created. Dunno if this is "tech news" but Apple, Google and Microsoft are involved and it pissed me off, so in The Sizzle it goes.
Want a free 55" 4K HDR smart TV? Telly in the USA is offering you that - in return all you need to do is put up with a second screen just below it that permanently shows ads "and other information". The secondary smart screen is how Telly makes money, flogging ads that you will always have in front of your eye balls. My first reaction upon reading this was utter disgust and a general lowering in my already quite low faith in humanity, but if you don't use this thing as a TV for watching your favourite movies and TV shows, but as some sort of display you glance at every now and then, it feels more tolerable and maybe, quite thrifty and I'd be tempted to take the free TV.
Alex Kidd in Miracle World (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It) 5067 for Sega Master System. (AlMagno / Internet Archive)
📻 Incinerate - Sonic Youth
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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.