Gloss Staff - Gloss Australia (Page 2)

Limited edition white Steam Deck launching next week in Australia.

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Australia really is finally part of Valve's hardware plan. The company's not only launching a normal lineup of Steam Deck models on November 19, but also a Limited Edition White model with 1TB of storage. Via Valve:

Steam Deck OLED: Limited Edition White has all the same specs as the Steam Deck OLED 1TB model, but in white and grey (and it comes with an exclusive white carrying case).

In a move that'll surely put Valve's servers to the test, the model will be launching at the same time as the Steam Deck's general Australian availability, Tuesday November 19 at 10am AEDT (Sydney time). And it's apparently a one-time option, so when models sell out for the extra $50 compared to the normal Black model, they're gone for good.

PS5 Pro

Some PS5 Pro's are louder than others - ours has pulsating coil whine

Shipping hardware is hard! And sometimes it's hard to guage the scale of an issue. Just look at early shipments of Amazon's new Kindle Colorsoft, many of which had a "yellow band of discoloration" at the bottom of their screens. Amazon announced it was

Steam Deck orders begin in Australia on November 19

Valve has announced exactly when the Steam Deck will be made available in Australia. The company will start selling the handheld console-like PC on November 19 at 10am AEDT (Sydney time). Pricing starts at AU$649 for the 256GB LCD model, with the 512GB OLED model priced at AU$899.

Keep an eye open for election-buried tech news, including this from Mozilla

As reported by TechCrunch, the Mozilla Foundation has sacked 30% of staff, including the closure of its open-web advocacy division. It's interesting timing for the news, which will likely be overshadowed by a big news event happening in the US at the moment. Mozilla Foundation lays off 30%

The only way to endure the US election from Australia

If you don't have every single US news channel open, are you really watching the US election? This site is a real punish: election.omg.lol Bonus points if you turn the volume for every channel all the way up.

A look behind triple j's rebrand at the ABC.

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A little over a month ago, ABC youth brand triple j relaunched at its One Night Stand music festival. And it was a pretty big rebrand, touching the logo, typeface and general audio style of the station. A pretty big change is the new "J" audio sting that plays often on the station.

Gloss Australia reached out to the ABC for more details on the sonic rebrand, but didn't hear back. On the visual side of things, Howatson+Company, partnering with the ABC, has more info on the visual changes:

Since 1975, national broadcaster triple j has served as a lighthouse for young Australians, actively pushing culture forward and challenging norms through its disruptive programming, shows and events. Yet for the last 15 years, the brand and logo have remained static. To address this, triple j has partnered with Howatson+Company to reinvigorate the brand for today’s listeners.

To make it, a custom variable typeface was designed that changes based on audio and musical inputs. The type was taught to respond to music and sound using algorithmic machine learning, creating a reactive design.

The brand’s most iconic element, the drum, was also updated to reflect the tastes of the station’s youth audience today, featuring a simplified base designed to reference digital soundbars and incorporate a hidden ‘j’.

The rebrand successfully refreshes triple j’s visual world while preserving its core identity as a champion of youth culture and new Australian music.

Can someone sell me a white Sony Discman like this?.

We need to bring back truly beautiful, mechanical electronics. Case in point: the Sony Discman D150:

at the risk of being reductive, I think Xbox and Sony would fix the console sales problem overnight if they simply released consumer-technology that looked fucking cool again. https://t.co/97msh8Aso3
— dannyodwyer (@dannyodwyer) October 22, 2024

Kindle

Colour Kindle skips Australia for now

Amazon has announced new Kindle e-readers, though the most interesting one won't arrive in Australia until 2025. The Kindle Colorsoft features "a new light-guide with nitride LEDs that, when combined with our custom algorithms, enhances colour and increases brightness, all without washing details". The colour e-ink

Australia

New Zealand launch of Max may be a preview of Australian Foxtel partnership

Warner Bros. Discovery, which operates Max (formerly HBO Max), has been hinting at an Australian launch for months now. And while there was some talk of the company independently launching the service and possibly taking shows away from Foxtel and Foxtel-owned streaming service Binge, WBD may instead be giving Foxtel

Steam Deck finally comes to Australia this November

Valve has officially announced the Steam Deck for Australia, after a very, very long wait. The handheld gaming PC will be available starting November, though no specific date was mentioned. You can wishlist the device on Steam, with the device set to ship as soon as orders open. Pricing is

The Verge considers paywall.

From Oliver Darcy's media newsletter Status:

As part of the effort, the Jim Bankoff-led digital media conglomerate — which houses widely recognizable brands such as New York magazine, Eater, Vox, SBNation, NowThis, Thrillist, and more — has started exploring the introduction of a pay wall on its popular technology website, The Verge, people familiar with the matter told me.

As Darcy also writes, The Verge has already experimented with some paid newsletters, which are published to The Verge as articles that require a subscription. This new offering could be a bundle and include additional bonus content.

This would fit with previous efforts to bring the focus of The Verge back to its homepage as a central way of accessing its content, as opposed to relying on social media links and SEO for traffic. From 2023:

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PlayStation Network has been down for hours now.

Via Press Start:

The PlayStation Network appears to have been down for most of today, with users reporting an issue starting at 10am, and it still being down at 1:30pm AEST.