NEWS
Snapchat officially begins the IPO process Snapchat has filed for an IPO, which will value the company at between US$25b and US$35b. Get ready for Snapchat to properly monetise its platform and wring every cent it can out of its user base. If you're wondering (like me) what all the fuss is about and how Snapchat can be worth so much goddamn money, this Hacker News comment sums up why the market is excited. It's all about selling ads to the kids, who are the hardest to advertise to. Discuss
Twitter did something to try stem the flow of abuse on its service Twitter has added the ability to mute notifications with user defined keywords in them, so your phone won't beep when someone calls you a rude word and won't show up in tweets directed at you. You can block hashtags, emojis, words and usernames. Seems like a decent first step to combating the trolls. I guess they'll just revert to sending pictures of insulting bullshit instead of just words. Discuss
Silicon Valley lobby group writes to Trump with what it'd like to see from government The Internet Association, a lobby group made up of Google, Uber, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and others, has sent a letter to Donald Trump, outlining what they want to see from the President Elect. Less regulation, stronger encryption, lower taxes and making sure Europe doesn't make any more data privacy laws. Basically maintain the status quo so they can keep on making truckloads of cash. Discuss
Apple are selling a $429 coffee table book now Apple has announced a fancy coffee table book highlighting products from the past 20 years of Jony Ive's reign as design boss. Titled, Designed by Apple in California, the "linen-bound, hardcover volume is printed on specially milled, custom-dyed paper with gilded matte silver edges" and comes in two sizes, a small one and a large one that'll sell for $289 and $429 on the Apple online store tomorrow. Jony Ive had a chat with a design magazine about the book and why it exists - watch the video too. I reckon he's gonna retire soon. He's over this shit. He got to make his $20k gold smartwatch, his car project bombed, he's made the world's most popular consumer electronics device and countless computers - what's next? Drinking warm beer all day in a design studio attached to his mansion in the British countryside and making one off high end contraptions with his Aussie mate Marc Newson, that's what. Discuss
DJI's new Phantom 4 Pro and Inspire 2 DJI has some new drones. The Phantom Pro 4 and Inspire 2 join the Mavic in DJI's lineup. The Phantom 4 Pro is similar to the Phantom 4, just with a better camera and some of the new flight modes from the Mavic. DJI's flagship drone, the Inspire 2, has a 100km/h top speed and a camera that supports ProRes, H265 and even records to an NVMe PCIe SSD. Pretty impressive stuff. Here's a short film recorded fully on the Inspire 2, starring Ryan Phillippe. It looks great, even if it's a bit wonky at times (drone is hovering vs. a proper tripod) and the voices are all dubbed because the sound of the drone would drown them all out. Still, the quality of the camera is pretty good considering it's on a fucking flying contraption. DJI's YouTube channel has all the videos you could ever want about these new drones. Discuss
COOL SHIT
ICQ was launched 20 years ago It's been 20 years since ICQ came out. Holllyyy shit. ICQ was so popular amongst the nerds at school. We all used it to catch up after school and during holidays. It wasn't until MSN Messenger that we ditched ICQ (and then ditched Messenger, hah), but apparently in Russia, it's still a thing. Man some of those interfaces take me back. It really was revolutionary to have these instant messages go back and forth, kinda like email, but faster. Fucked if I remember my ICQ number though. It seems like once AOL purchased ICQ, it all went to shit. Discuss
Review of the Hyundai Ioniq EV I really enjoyed this video review of the new Hyundai Ioniq - Hyundai's first full EV which was just released in the UK. While it doesn't meet my benchmark for purchase (around 300km range for around $30,000), it's close though and probably one of the nicest EVs you can get besides the expensive Tesla and BMW i3. If Hyundai can manage to get a slightly bigger battery and get the price down a bit, I would totally buy one right away. The entire YouTube channel this review came from is excellent too - the host really understands EVs. Discuss
Google's PhotoScan app wants to preserve all your dead tree photos Google has made an app called PhotoScan that aims to digitise all your photos that aren't in 1s and 0s. Using your smartphone's camera, it automatically straightens and crops your prints and then chucks them on your phone or on Google Photos. It's not as good as a proper scanner or scanning the negatives, but if all you've got is a print in a frame or an album, using this app to preserve the image is better than nothing. Discuss
Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!) --Anthony
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