NEWS
The infamous San Bernardino iPhone was hacked with a 0-day and contained nothing useful According to the Washington Post, that goddamn iPhone 5c was cracked open by hackers paid by the FBI, who used some 0-days to reveal all its secrets. To nobody's surprised, it ended up fruitless - nothing relevant to the tragedy was found. What was surprising was that Cellebrite, who crowed that they can get into any phone, anywhere, wasn't who the FBI engaged (this time). Discuss
Sean Parker (the Napster dude) gives $250m to cancer research If you watched the only Sorkin movie I could tolerate, the Social Network (Moneyball was good too), you saw the character of Sean Parker (aka the guy who made Napster) as a giant douchebag. In real life, he's starting the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and giving it $250m. Some of the USA's leading research hospitals are members and will use the money to share resources and collaborate on improving the pace of cancer research. Hopefully more rich tech types feel guilty over their massive, unnecessary wealth and increase their philanthropy to this sort of level. Discuss
Amazon intros the new and expensive Kindle Oasis After a few leaks, the new Kindle Oasis has been officially revealed. It's a high end Kindle, costs AU$449, is just 3.4mm thick (at its smallest point), weighs 131g, uses a 300ppi Paperwhite e-ink display, has a new ergonomic grip and a fancy leather case with a built in battery. It's available in Australia from Officeworks or Amazon direct and you can pre-order now. Should arrive in your hands within 2 weeks. 131g is nice my weak pathetic nerd wrists get very sore holding an iPad one handed. Dunno about $449 tho. Discuss
GoPro headhunts Apple senior designer, stock goes wild Danny Coster is part of the inner sanctum in Apple's design team. One of Jony's small crew that works on all the Apple gear we enjoy since the 90s. Something happened with that tight knit team as Danny has left to go work for GoPro. GoPro shared jumped 19% on the news that someone shithot as Danny Coster decided to go work for GoPro. I guess there's only so many times you can re-design a black glass and metal rectangle full of electronics. Discuss
MPAA's piracy myth can't get any weaker as they proclaim a record setting box office year The MPAA has announced that global box office revenues hit $38.3bn in 2015, a 5% increase over 2014 and the most revenue Hollywood has made in a single year. They still reckon piracy is an issue though, saying that if piracy was stamped out, they'd have an extra $1.5bn in revenue. Keep banging that "piracy hurts our industry!" drum MPAA, keep on banging. Discuss
COOL SHIT
SpaceX truthers are a thing For all fans of wacky YouTube conspiracy videos (Loose Change babey), here's a new one for ya - people reckon SpaceX faked their latest rocket landing! NASA = Never A Straight Answer. "Rockets don't work in space". "The video is of a rocket launch, reversed". "More like FakeX". Chemtrails, 9-11, moon landing, financial crisis and now SpaceX. Discuss
Review of the $199 Oppo F1 smartphone Ausdroid have reviewed the Oppo F1, a cheap but well made smartphone running Android. It's only $199 from Optus, has 3GB of RAM, a decent camera and nice design. Ausdroid reckon it's good, has a quality camera compared to others in the price bracket, but has a few weird app background refresh issues due to ColorOS, its skinned version of Android 5.1.1. Seems like if you're a light user, this phone is fine out of the box, but it can't have its ROM replaced with Cyanogenmod or anything like that due to a locked bootloader. Why Oppo, why? I thought you were the cheapskate's mate? Discuss
Pics inside an FTTN NBN enabled exchange Bit old, but I only just saw it and thought I'd share. Here's some photos of what happens in a Telstra exchange when it's packed full of FTTN gear for NBN. These were taken at the Redlands exchange in Queensland. There's also some photos of what's inside those damn FTTN cabinets. Just a little telco porn for ya (I love telco porn). Discuss
Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!) --Anthony
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