Issue 300 - Tuesday, 20th December 2016 - Fresh Like A Box Of Krispy Kremes

• Softbank invests US$1.2b in an internet satellite constellation startup
• Waymo shows off their self driving Chrysler mini vans
• Tim Cook answers employee questions about what the hell Apple is doing

• Mark Zuckerberg blogs about his DIY smarthome system called Jarvis

NEWS

Softbank invests US$1.2b in an internet satellite constellation startup One of Trump's first meetings as president elect was with Masayoshi Son - the CEO of SoftBank - who said he will invest $50b in the US. Well the first billion of the fifty has been revealed: Softbank invested $1.2b in a satellite startup called OneWeb. OneWeb want to cover the globe with internet access with hundreds of low Earth orbiting satellites and will manufacture those satellites in the USA. Elon Musk/SpaceX wanna do the same thing, as does Boeing. Set aside the main way this is being pitched (US jobs, yeahhhhhhh), how fucking cool is it that we can launch hundreds of satellites into space and provide internet access all over the globe? Talk about a game changer. Discuss

Waymo shows off their self driving Chrysler mini vans Waymo (aka Google) showed off the latest driverless cars it plans to cart humans around in - a Chrysler Pacifica minivan with a LIDAR dome on top and some cameras slapped on the sides. 100 of them will hoon around America in an effort to make a robo car platform that can be tacked on to anything with wheels that won't kill anyone. This also means Chrysler are doing something related to self-driving cars, a big deal for the US car industry. Ford let journalists drive around in their robocars a few months ago and GM recently announced it will slap some cameras and shit on a Chevy Bolt and drive it on public roads as part of their attempt to have some self-driving tech. Oh, and Tesla - but we know what they're up to. Discuss

Tim Cook answers employee questions about what the hell Apple is doing Tim Cook did some sort of internal AMA at Apple where employees got to ask questions like "Mr. Cook, your company seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why is it so popular?". Jokes aside, he explained why desktop machines are "very strategic" for Apple (bullshit), what he reckons makes Apple different to other companies (loads of cash) why he went to that weird Trump meeting thing (better to fuck shit up from the inside than the outside). Discuss

COOL SHIT

Mark Zuckerberg blogs about his DIY smarthome system called Jarvis Zuck earned a little more street cred today, chucking up a blog post about how he's tried to get his house to be all smart and shit. The main reason for him doing this was to learn more about AI and deep learning and the state of the tech right now. He got his house lights and door bell hooked in to a Facebook Messenger bot and built an iOS app he can talk to that'll shoot a clean t-shirt at him from a t-shirt cannon. Because which self-respecting billionaire doesn't have a t-shirt cannon? It's a pretty interesting post overall and backs up my stance that smarthome stuff is mostly stupid and mostly a waste of time unless you're a nerd with time to waste and treat it as a learning exercise. Discuss

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