Issue 2252 - Monday 20 January, 2025

In Today’s Issue

The News

TikTok lives to be sold another day

TikTok is banned! Same with ByteDance’s other apps like Capcut, Lemon8 and Marvel Snap (The Verge). Wait, TikTok is now back “as a result of President Trump’s efforts”, according to a prompt (Reuters) shown to the platform’s 170 million US users who were forced to touch grass for 12 hours.

You could look at this as another win for the nothing ever happens crowd (KnowYourMeme) and sanity prevailing, but really Trump’s promise to sign an executive order to delay the sale-or-be-banned law should be understood as the United States’ 47th president getting in on the action himself. “I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership in a joint venture” he decreed (Truth Social). This law gives Trump a weapon to use against TikTok and its providers, like Apple, Google and Oracle, if they fall out of his good graces (The Verge). Whether or not it ends up becoming a state-owned platform, make no mistake: TikTok’s US operations are going to be sold, it’s going to be to someone who has pledged fealty to Trump and it will be to Trump’s benefit. Just to repeat myself from last week since it has popped up again: no, Australia is not going to “follow the US in banning TikTok” (The Daily Telegraph, $) anytime soon.

Phone sales pick back up as manufacturers go all-in on AI

Phone sales were up in 2024 after two down years, with Apple and Samsung neck-and-neck as the top manufacturers (The Verge) but most growth coming from other makers. The industry blamed “cost-of-living pressures, improved device longevity, and extended software support” for the previous dip (Telsyte) but I also wonder if we just spend more time inside than pre-pandemic which means we rely less on our phones? Anyway, foldables are apparently out and AI-powered phones are the new phone trend. Apple is reportedly planning on releasing a thinner iPhone model called the Air (Wall Street Journal, $) and a new budget entry, the iPhone SE 4 (Tom’s Guide); whereas leaks show Samsung’s latest flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra with souped up specs and further AI integration will be released later this week (AndroidAuthority).

CBA will take a QR code instead of your Medicare card

It’s crazy that in 2025 that we still have to physically hand over things like our Medicare card — which would give someone much of the information they would need to gain access to our online health records (Services Australia) — just so we can open a bank account. Now, the CBA is trialing letting people use their MyGov app to scan a QR code to share proof with the bank of their Medicare enrolment, and therefore their identity, without passing over info like their card number or expiration (ITNews). There’ll be another opportunity to write about Digital ID stuff in the future, but frankly I’m a big supporter of government-run tech stuff that reduces the risk of things like identity fraud and other scams because of antiquated requirements.

Oh, Also

Why is someone uploading early 2000s LAN photos?

Internet archive archivist Jason Scott shared that someone is uploading dozens of images of LAN parties from the early 2000s. That someone, it appears, says they are a “full time software engineer based in Australia” and at least one of the images has a name that shared a title with an Australian party, so there’s a decent chance that there are Sizzler subscribers are captured in these photographs.

Just seeing these photos brings back a visceral nostalgic feeling for me. It’s almost like I can feel the cool air-conditioning on my skin and the Mountain Dew coursing through my veins as I played CS 1.6 at an internet cafe. (Or, as it was succinctly put by Australian user @darius.dons.net.au, “photos you can smell”).

Bargains

The End

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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.