The week that was (TWTW) takes a look back at the week’s most prominent tech stories from around the world.
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In the week that was July 22nd to July 29th, 2018:
- Facebook has the biggest share market loss in history
- Chrome 68 calls out insecure websites
- Apple fix their CPU throttling MacBook Pros
- Details emerge about the new Xbox
- The UK gov realises fibre is better than copper
Intro
Hello everyone, my name’s Raj Deut and it’s time to take a look back at the tech news in the week that was:
July 22nd to July 29th, 2018.
Stories
Facebook hit a little snag this week. The company saw it stock plummet a record breaking 20% in a single day losing a lousy $123 BILLION US dollars off its market value.
What got investors so spooked? Slowing user growth primarily; the company’s North American user base has plateaued at 185 million and in the past quarter added only 22 million new users worldwide. Just the population of Australia or there about, still sounds pretty good to me.
Coupled with Zuckerberg’s recent faux pas, the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the introduction of GDPR policies in Europe Facebook is having a slightly harder time than it’s accustom to.
Making good on a promise two years in the making Google released version 68 of their popular web browser Chrome that now makes it abundantly clear that the website you’re viewing is likely insecure.
All websites running of the web’s standard HTTP protocol will now be marked as “Not Secure” next to their URL by the browser. This is of course not new information with most users knowing to look for the little padlock before entering any sensitive information.
Google, and others, hopes for the change is to move the internet onto a more secure platform all round by naming and shaming those websites who don’t run via the encrypted version of the protocol, especially now that obtaining an SSL certificate to do so is both free and painless.
Apple released an update to fix a hardware cooling bug in its latest MacBook Pro laptops this week. The update returns what Apple are calling a [quote] missing digital key [end quote] that directly affected the laptop’s thermal management system.
As to what that key was or is no one really knows and Apple aren’t telling either. It has however fixed the issue with the i9 versions of the MacBook Pro running as they should, faster than the i7 versions albeit not by much.
Rumours are running wild about Microsoft’s newest Xbox consoles this week. The company is said to be working on two versions of their currently second-fiddle gaming console.
The first version is largely an iteration of the current. Updated processor, GPU, and other accoutrements.
The second, codenamed “Scarlett Cloud”, is something new altogether. A hybrid console the new version is said to stream the majority of the GPU construction from Microsoft’s servers with the console handling lightweight processing such as input and collision detection before handing things off to the cloud.
And finally we drag the NBN up to the surface for a gasp of air before plunging it back into the politicised wasteland it resides. This week it’s courtesy of the UK.
In a recent review by the UK’s government it was revealed that their current dying copper network cannot continue nor prop up the future needs of the country moving forward. The review instead suggests the country look at…. wait for it… fibre to be installed to every home and have it done by 2033.
Malcolm Turnbull’s favourite example of a “cheaper, faster” and ultimately shittier broadband infrastructure is gone realising that perhaps they backed the wrong pony. Oopsies!
Outro
And that’s it for another week!
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For our wonderful Patreons, you have of course a new episode of “I don’t quite know” with my guest Jeff Cannata talking all things online dating to listen to. There’s also a new video show called “Unedited” available exclusively for Patreon subscribers where we release a raw unedited review of a product ahead of it’s feature write up. This week that’s the new NVIDIA Shield TV.
Of course there’s plenty on the website for everyone regardless of if you’re a Patreon subscriber or not. We have new writers on board and of course a new episode of the Reckoner podcast hitting this week.
Have a great week and bye for now.
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