Sorry for this week's issues of The Sizzle coming through later than normal. My email host, Active Campaign, has been holding them up for some weird reason they refuse to detail to me when I ask their support team. They assured me it's only temporary. Let's see how today's issue goes.
NEWS
Passports in the cloud. Passports. In the cloud. Cloud. Passports. Cloud Watch out, the government has had a thought bubble! This time it's passports, in the CLOUD. Yep, DFAT had an internal hackathon and this was the thing that stood out most to the ministers involved with DFAT. Look, it's nice that technology is on their radar, it really is. Travelling without a passport sounds great, but let's just wait and see how badly the implementation is fucked up before we get our hopes up. Is there any doubt the government is competent enough to do this properly? Let alone convincing other countries to play along? Something as basic as filing your tax online doesn't even work properly most of the time. Prove me wrong DFAT IT project delivery team, prove me wrong.
Microsoft releases all new Outlook app for iOS and Arrow Launcher for Android Microsoft purchased the popular iOS Acompli email app and Sunrise calendar app a while ago. Today Microsoft released the fruits of that combination in the new Outlook app for iOS. If you're an Outlook user and want to get that stuff on your iPhone, this looks fantastic. 30 million people use Outlook on iOS and Android, which is about what I thought. The Outlook app even supports Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo and other IMAP accounts, as well as Dropbox, Box and Google Drive. Microsoft has been busy on Android too, releasing Arrow Launcher. A pretty sweet looking way to get around on Android. The frequent apps thing would be awesome on iOS.
Nintendo's consoles aren't selling well, but Amiibos are crazy popular and Nintendo designed smartphone games coming March 2016 Nintendo had a strategy briefing in Tokyo today. Nintendo admitted heir consoles aren't really going anywhere and they acknowledge they're behind in the tech stakes. That said, people just can't get enough Amiibos (little figurines of Nintendo characters that have NFC capability to interact with games), selling USD$1.7b worth. The headline news is Nintendo's foray into smartphone apps - they were supposed to have one out by the end of 2015, but that's been pushed back to March 2016. The first title will be called Miitomo and in traditional Nintendo style, I have no idea what the hell it is. Apparently your Miis run around talking to other Miis? Keep it weird Ninty, I look forward to trying this out.
Apple TV reviews start appearing As the Apple TV arrives in people's homes tomorrow (not mine, wahh), some outlets who have had their hands on one for a few days have posted their opinions. Luke Hopewell at Gizmodo was blessed by Apple to get one of the handful of Australian review units. Nothing too surprising in his review, but there is a Stan screenshot - good to know they've got something out the door for launch. Luke also tested Crossy Road which apparently is heaps of fun on the Apple TV. The Verge wrote many words about the new Apple TV too. Apparently searching with Siri only works with a handful of apps and is quite limited in what it can do. The remote is supposedly fantastic though, even if the touchpad is pretty underutilised at the moment. Overall it looks like the Apple TV is the best thing you can plug into your TV to watch stuff.
IoB (Internet over Balloon) coming to Indonesia thanks to Google Remember Google's Project Loon? That thing they were gonna do to provide Internet to remote areas via balloons with wi-fi? Well that's going to be a real thing in Indonesia over the next 12 months. Google has partnered with some Indonesian telcos to provide LTE across the Indonesian archipelago. Google sets up the infrastructure (i.e: the balloons 18km-25km high that cover roughly 40km of ground and Internet) and the telcos resell it, much like an MVNO. I would love to see how they're getting Internet to the balloons. Getting connectivity from the balloon to the ground is (relatively) straightforward, but what sort of backhaul do you get from balloon to balloon? Google has used Ubiquiti gear before, maybe they're using Ubiquiti AirFibre?
COOL SHIT
A retrospective look at the first issue of Wired Some people have books that changed their lives or imprinted values upon them. For me it was Wired magazine, so naturally I loved this 2008 (this was sitting in my bookmarks for 7 years?!) review of the very first issue of Wired from 1993. It goes through it with what was at the time of writing, 15 years of hindsight. The feature articles in it about cellphone hacking, and Japanese/Otaku culture are still relevant today. A story about Richard Stallman (you may know him as toejam eating, anti parrot ownership, uber nerd) was way before it's time - so before it's time the phrase "open source" wasn't even used. The ads are wonderful time capsules too. Logitech's ad of a baby taking a piss doesn't make sense and Apple's ad for a PowerBook has a fax on it, hah. P.S: if you have any old issues of Wired taking up space, I will gladly take them off your hands!
Apple needed to remind us how good they are at making fancy computers Mashable scored an in-depth interview with Phil Schiller - one of the few OG Apple executives left - and John Ternus, vice president of Mac and iPad engineering, about how Apple is awesome and stuff. It focusses on the ingenuity and creativity of Apple's engineers in making the new MacBook. How all the different teams collaborated and how collaboration is important at Apple. Oh and to fluff Wall Street as it's no coincidence this came out the day after Apple's earnings. Schiller throws some shade on Microsoft's Surface stuff too (even though the iPad Pro is pretty much a Surface clone). After reading it, I do kinda want a MacBook, even if it is ludicrously expensive.
Large IT project failures are so common and very, very expensive Anyone who has worked in IT at any large-ish company or institution has been part of expensive projects that despite all the resources thrown at it, simply don't work. After all the money is spent, more is spent to fix it, or worse, just ditched completely. Millions, if not billions of dollars that could have been used for something much more useful are flushed down the giant, gold plated toilet that is a typical large IT project - over and over again. IEEE Spectrum has a brilliant series of articles trying to understand why we suck so hard at big IT projects. Billions of dollars spent, zero outcomes achieved. It's depressing and frustrating. Check out the interactive chart of the costs incurred on Queensland Health's payroll system (which is still totally rooted), it's a brilliant example of how pathetic this stuff gets.
Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!) --Anthony
Sign up for a free two-week trial today and find out for yourself. You don’t need to provide any credit card details.
Hear from me daily by signing up for a free two-week trial today.
