NEWS
YouTube Kids launches outside USA YouTubs Kids is an app that has YouTube content, for kids (well that was obvious) that's been around for a while in the USA, but now is on Australian app stores. The premise of a separate kids app is that there's hand picked stuff suitable for children, instead of the violence, drug and sex hellhole YouTube normally is. The app also has localised content, meaning Australian kids will see Australian made content more often, so the American brainwashing of our children will be limited. There's ads in these videos, but kids ads. Which, um, is weird, as kids have no money to buy shit.
Production model of the Chevrolet Bolt will be shown at CES The Chevy Bolt is kinda like the Tesla for the every man. It's fully electric, has 200+ miles (300km+) range and is supposed to be affordable thanks to GM's manufacturing scale. At CES in a few weeks, GM will announce their plans to put it into production and into customer's homes mid-2016. It looks to be around the same size as a Barina and should be under US$30,000. US$40,000 is $42,000 in dollarydoos. I couldn't see myself paying $50k for what is a better featured Barina with batteries, when a Barina (a decisively shit car compared to others in the segment) goes for around $18k with an auto transmission. There's definitely a price premium that's worth it for an EV as an EV has no maintenance costs (fuck off avg $400/yearly servicing) and of course, no fuel (~$2,000/yr for me). So over a 5 year life span, if an EV car is ~$10k more than the petrol version, I'll go for the EV and save cash, which means the Bolt needs to sell in AU for ~$30k for me to give a shit, which it won't. So I continue to wait for an EV. I wish Toyota would stop pissing away their time and money on hydrogen bullshit and get back on the battery bandwagon.
Head of Uber Australia can't tell the Senate Inquiry into tax, how much tax Uber pays in Australia The federal government is trying to look like it gives a shit about foreign companies not paying tax in Australia by hauling a few large US startup's local bosses in to a Senate Inquiry to ask them how much tax they pay in Australia and how they could pay more of that in Australia please. Well Uber cracked the shits and is like "well Uber doesn't make any revenue here, so we don't pay tax here". Airbnb said they're based in Ireland because of the "access to great talent", not because of it's low tax rate, heh. After the "grilling" from our esteemed Senators, Uber said they wish the ATO would get off their backs. How dare they try to hold back such an innovate company like Uber, who use our roads and infrastructure, how dare they?!
Google and Microsoft release new search apps for iOS Microsoft's given the Bing iOS app a huge overhaul, to the point where it actually works now. You can, um, search, with it and it has a map, I think. There's news and "deep-linking" whatever the fuck that is. Either way, it's the Bing you know and love on Windows, now better than ever on iOS. I really don't know why you'd use this app vs. just changing your default Safari search engine to Bing if you love Bing that much? Maybe if you want to use Google 99% of the time, but want to Bing something (lol) every now and then? Google also refreshed their iOS app, focussing on bringing the entire "Material Design" experience to Apple users, re-arranging the cards interface and improving voice search.
TuneCore launches in Australia If you're a musician who wants to get their stuff onto streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer and who knows what else, doing that manually, for each one, is time consuming, or almost impossible without a label behind you. TuneCore is a service that distributes your music to all the streaming services all around the world. It's a one stop shop to get music you made and own into the ears of every streaming service user worldwide. The long tail at its best! TuneCore launched in Australia this week, so Australian artists can now give TuneCore a pretty low amount of money to handle all this distribution and collecting royalties nonsense, leaving them to concentrate on recording some killer tracks with a funky beat.
COOL SHIT
Don't buy cheap Apple or Beats gear off eBay, it's fake Fairfax threw me some crumbs this week and paid me to write an article informing people not to get burnt buying fake Apple stuff off eBay. I know all you smart intelligent readers of The Sizzle can tell the difference between real gear and fake gear, but pass it around to those you know who don't know any better. Though to be fair, some of the fakes are really, really good. Only reason I can tell sometimes is the fact I've been fondling Apple products for over a decade now and the subtle changes in material or type faces on screen printed areas stand out when I actually take the time to look.
Save some cash on an Office 365 subscription If you need Microsoft Office for something, the best way to get it is via a subscription. If you've been paying the full retail price per month via Microsfot, stop throwing your money down a toilet to Seattle and get a yearly subscription for way cheaper. To sweeten the deal, Microsoft Australia currently have a $25 cashback offer. Here's a tip: Officeworks sell Office 365 Home Premium for $96. MSY sell it for $82. Officeworks will price match MSY and give you a further 5% off, total price: $77.90. Get your $25 back from Microsoft and all you paid for 12 months of Microsoft Office, across 5 devices, with 1TB of OneDrive for up to 5 people, is a measly $52.90 - $4.41 a month.
Aussie telcos launch iPad Pro with LTE pricing If you're after an iPad Pro but can't afford the up front cost, maybe consider getting it on a contract from Telstra or Optus (Vodafone said they'll have it, but haven't launched pricing yet). You pay more in the long run (~$2000 vs. $1700), but you also get a data plan to go with it. The cool thing about this is if you have a contract with a telco already and you add an iPad to the mix, you can also share that data across to your phone. So if you have 5GB on your phone contract, and 3GB on your iPad contract, you'll get a total of 8GB to use across both. All the telcos have data sharing, but some are better than others.
Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!) --Anthony
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