The News

Samsung is betting big on foldable phones

Spoiled by many of the details already leaked, Samsung nevertheless dropped its new generation of folding phones and smartwatches at a swagless event (The Verge). The massive electronics company is going hardon its folding phone form factors with its new Galaxy Z Fold 7, Galaxy Z Flip 7, and introduced a cheaper model called the Flip 7 FE. On the watch front, the Galaxy Watch Ultra and Watch 8 updates are just iterative size and storage improvements.

The Sizzle: I’m getting the sense we’re at the tipping point where folding phone technology is getting good enough to tempt average punters, despite the drawbacks of size, weight and look. I ran into a guy at a servo who had a Z Fold 6 recently and he raved about how often he got to use the full screen when I asked. One major sticking point? The Z Fold 7 starts at AU$2900 (Whistleout).

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

AI “web-browsers” are a step towards the end of the web as we know it

OpenAI is about to release a web browser that is “designed to keep some user interactions within a ChatGPT-like native chat interface” (Reuters). It joins Perplexity (Verge) and the Browser Company’s Dia (TechCrunch) which have also released AI-powered “web browsers”. And Google’s Gemini integration in Chrome is doing the same thing, just to an existing browser (The Verge)

The Sizzle: These AI-powered web browsers are teaching people who are used to surfing the net to instead suck it up through an AI straw. And I think they’ll be popular. Why? Realistically, most people don’t want to Google something. They want an answer to a question, and Google is the best way. For now. But going down this route will mean a lot of changes to the way the internet works — including, potentially, the end of the open internet.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

My big 2025 election takeaway (because I’m going on the telly to talk about it)

This afternoon, I’m going to the ABC to film an interview for upcoming TV show about elections. They’re getting me in to talk about the internet shenanigans around this year’s election (as well as explaining terms like “algorithms” and “fan cams” lmao).

The Sizzle: The big trend is the way politics has just been flattened into another type of content by the internet, and now feels like all other content. Politicians are speaking to YouTubers and podcasters because that’s better content than speaking to boring journalists. Political parties are churning out AI slop as a form of political communication because they are competing with every other meme account. Third parties are setting up mysterious Facebook pages because, at the end of the day, there’s no difference between a political party and a Facebook page. Any lofty ideals about the sanctity of “policy” and “discourse” in politics is dead or sidelined. The only thing that matters now in politics, in everything, is: is this good content?

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

People keep buying Australian tech publications to turn them into zombies

Australian games writer Edmond Tran posted about something troubling: the lovely, niche Australian gaming news and reviews publication GamesHub is now promoting crypto casinos (Bluesky). This change wasn’t because of an editorial change of heart, but because the domain was sold to some scummy US-based bitcoin shill guy (Creative Hubs Group). The same thing also happened recently to Kotaku Australia.

People are buying web properties that used to be for great things purely so they can turn them into zombie versions of their brand (both literally and for SEO) to promote spam and scams. And it sucks! You know what we call people who suck the life out of stuff? Vampires.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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

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