NEWS
25 years of the WWW The world's first website celebrates 25 years of being online. http://info.cern.ch is still pretty much the same it was back in 1991. Nice and simple HTML. Just like this newsletter. What an awesome idea HTML and the concept of hyperlinks are. Thanks CERN and Sir Berners-Lee. Discuss
Apple buys a machine learning company called Turi Apple has purchased yet another company, this time it's a Seattle based group called Turi, that specialises in machine learning. As usual Apple ain't said shit besides "yeah, we bought them", but it's rumored they spent US$200m to obtain the people and tech Turi have. Turi have already contacted their customers and said that by the end of July, their products will no longer be available and their blog now now longer loads. Apple isn't messing around. Discuss
IBM's Watson detects leukemia when doctors couldn't Speaking of AI, IBM's fancy Watson AI service has managed to diagnose leukemia in a woman after doctors didn't know what to do. Doctors at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Medical Science gave Watson the woman's genetic info and compared it to 20 million oncological studies where it realised that her genetic info was similar to those noticed in leukemia sufferers. Pretty cool. Discuss
Pokemon Go caused sales of batteries to double Pokemon Go has caused sales of external battery packs to double. According to NPD, who track stuff like this, the sale of mobile battery packs is up 101% in the USA compared to this time last year. Good stuff, Nice. I like it. Discuss
The Olympics are a massive cyber scam and fraud opportunity The Olympics is apparently a goldmine (get it, gold-mine) for cybersecurity scams. Phishing websites selling counterfeit tickets, social media posts and emails with fake clips of the Olympics full of malware, gamblers placing bets on fake websites and even locally in Rio, ATMs and POS terminals are ripe for the picking by crime gangs. Promotional USB sticks are given out, filled with malware for unsuspecting noobs to load onto their computers and bogus wi-fi hotspots are delicious honeypots. Discuss
COOL SHIT
Dude makes his own boarding passes to get in to airline lounges for free A smart hacker called Przemek Jaroszewski has figured out how to automate the creation of airline boarding passes that are good enough to get in to airline lounges. The scanners at lounges apparently just check for some very rudimentary info to see if you're allowed in, so this guy just scripted the creation of the passes so that the QR code appears on his smartphone and he can enter any lounge he likes, hah. I love this so much. First class QF lounge every day baby (though they'd probably notice you're in there way too often and not actually boarding a flight) Discuss
Use this app to save power on your Mac laptop Those of you with Mac laptops may like this app called Endurance, which is pretty much a "low power" button for your laptop. It turns off non-essential services like flash and background apps, as well as slowing down the CPU and dimming the screen. I found it on The Daily App, which is a cool simple app a day blog by a Sizzle reader! Discuss
CSIRO's wi-fi testbed is now in a museum in Canberra The popular "A History Of The World In 100 Objects" exhibition is coming to Canberra soon and getting an extra 101st item - the WLAN Test Bed developed by the CSIRO. I dunno if it's gonna be touring with the exhibition permanently or it's just something that's going on show in Canberra, but still, cool. I've read the book this exhibition is based on (it's also a podcast), so I reckon I might have to head back to Canberra to see the actual items in the flesh at the National Museum. Discuss
Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!) --Anthony
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