NEWS
Adobe finally gives Flash the arse Adobe will end support for Flash on December 31st, 2020. That's right, Flash has an expiry date. Adobe reckons HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly are good enough now, so Flash is irrelevant. Adobe announced this on their site, but Apple, Google, Facebook, Mozilla and Microsoft also made announcements as to how they're handling the death of Flash. Basically, from now on, all the browsers (most already do) will implement some sort of "click to show Flash" feature, where by default, Flash won't work unless you click OK to a gnarly warning screen explaining how shit Flash is. Good riddance. Discuss
The UK will give internal combustion engines the arse by 2040 The UK has joined France in declaring their country will stop selling diesel and petrol engined cars and vans by 2040. Part of the same plan also includes new pollution taxes for old diesel engine cars spitting out high levels of nitrogen dioxide. The best way to meet strict emissions targets is simply not having any emissions at all (i.e: an electric car). To be honest, I think the market itself will end the sale of ICE cars much earlier than 2040 (that's 23 years away!). This government statement is just a way to appear environmentally friendly and forward, whilst actually doing nothing. Discuss
Toyota gets off its arse and announces an EV for 2022 After spending way too much time and money on hydrogen fuel cells, Toyota realised about a year ago that battery powered electric cars are the only sane option going forward to meet tough emissions rules. Now, Toyota reckons they've figured out a way to use "solid state" batteries and will release that car in Japan in 2022. Solid state batteries are safer, smaller, lighter and can charge faster than lithium batteries - perfect for use in a car. Problem is, nobody has managed to make them in any sort of scale. It's still an idea in a lab. Good luck Toyota, you're gonna need it. Discuss
Vodafone thinks NBN needs a massive overhaul in how it generates revenue Vodafone (the current NBN CEO used to be the CEO of Vodafone AU) has weighed in on the NBN's crazy CVC charges. Like the rest of the industry, they think it's way too expensive. Instead of just shitting on the NBN like most other people, Voda has offered some constructive feedback. NBN should focus on meeting its revenue targets by encouraging users to take up faster speeds (i.e: gigabit). Mike Quigley (the former NBN CEO) has also been opening his intelligent mouth, saying that the cost delta between fibre to the curb and fibre to the home is so low, why the hell are we bothering with it? Just run the fibre a few more meters into the house! Smart man. Discuss
South Australia will force you to hand over passwords or go to jail South Australia is writing up laws that will compel people under investigation to hand over passwords to encrypted or locked devices. The law is being pushed as a way to combat kiddie porn, but of course, can be used by law enforcement for other "serious and organised crime investigations". If you don't hand over a password, you'll get up to 10 years in the slammer instead. As usual, politicians and law enforcement are using the same "well we can get a warrant to force you to let us into your house, why not the same with your computer?" analogy to justify themselves. Discuss
COOL SHIT
More eBay stuff: 15% off iTunes, Linksys router, Dell laptops & Sony headphones eBay has 15% off iTunes cards, no code required. Here's some other items from the latest eBay sale (use the code PLAYER) I've spotted since yesterday: Linksys WRT1200AC-AU router for $111.20. Dell XPS 15 9560 laptop (15.6" FHD, i7-7700HQ, GTX 1050, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) for $1,839.20. Dell XPS 13 9360 laptop (13.3" FHD, i5-7200U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) for $1,439.20. Sony MDR1000X noise cancelling headphones (local stock) for $444.30. Discuss
Chrome gets Touchbar support Version 60 of Chrome gets support for the new MacBook Pro TouchBar. Head into View > Customize Touch Bar in the latest version of Chrome and you'll be able to customise what appears on the Touch Bar when Chrome is in focus. You'll be able to open a new tab, go back/forward, launch your home page, and reload sites from the TouchBar. It doesn't seem incredibly useful to me, as all the things the TouchBar can do, you can do with a keyboard shortcut anyways, but it's nice to see more apps leverage what is essentially an embedded computer faster than the original iPhone, within your laptop. Discuss
USB 3.2 - it's USB 3.1, but faster Say hello to USB 3.2, yet another USB specification. It's basically the USB you now and love now, but faster. It uses the USB-C physical connection and supports up to 20Gbps speeds. It does this by implementing "multi-lane operation" so a device can have two lanes of 5Gbps (USB 3.1 Gen 1) or two lanes of 10Gbps (USB 3.1 Gen 2). No new cables are required either, if the device and the host both support USB 3.2, you'll get the faster speeds. It's backwards compatible with all the other USB standards too. More info on USB 3.2 will be out in late August, dunno when it'll actually arrive on computers and devices. Discuss
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