Issue 296 - Wednesday, 14th December 2016 - From Timbuktu To Old Berlin

• Apple's AirPods are now available to buy
• Google splits self driving car stuff into a new company called Waymo
• The ATO's SAN shit itself, blames HP

• If you want to buy a new monitor, read this thing about PPI

NEWS

Apple's AirPods are now available to buy Apple's AirPods went on sale today. If you didn't order them already, there's now a 4 week wait. Now that they're gonna be out and about soon, we'll hopefully see some opinions about them from regular people instead of reviewers from media outlets hand picked by Apple. Will this be the start of audio augmented technology in a Her/Black Mirror style world? Or just another trinket for the nerds with money to burn? Bose just released a pair of headphones marketed as hearing companion rather than something to specifically listen to music on. Discuss

Google splits self driving car stuff into a new company called Waymo Google has split its self driving car stuff out into a new company called Waymo, making it part of the Alphabet family of companies. There's no new tech announcements and they're still using that koala looking bubble thing in their promo material. Right now it seems like they're still doing trials and that's it. Whether their plans are to make cars, or partner with a car maker to integrate their tech, we don't know. Discuss

The ATO's SAN shit itself, blames HP The lovely, hard working, honest and trustworthy people at the ATO have suffered an unfortunate hardware issue that's 100% totally Hewlett Packard's fault which is currently impacting the ATO's online services. A big fancy SAN, holding 1PB (yeah, 1000TB), shat the bed and now all the data is corrupted. The ATO currently is restoring from a backup to try and get services back online. The ATO also insists that no data was lost. I would not like to be the guy restoring 1PB of data from backups, farkkkkkk. Discuss

COOL SHIT

If you want to buy a new monitor, read this thing about PPI If you're after a new monitor this holiday season, read Marc Edward's short article about PPI. Buying a monitor is more than just picking one with good colour accuracy and the right panel tech - the resolution of that screen in respect to its size is important. Basically you want a monitor that's got a PPI of either 200-220 or 105-115. PPIs in the middle are weird and don't look good. It's why I want a 40" 8K monitor. Discuss

Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!) --Anthony