Gloss Staff

I’ve been poolside testing the Steam Deck OLED this week for Gloss. Definitely going to be tempted by some of these games going on sale starting November 27 (November 28 in Australia). The sale will end December 4 (December 5 in Australia).

This is despite the study also assuring readers that Tesla vehicles aren’t specifically unsafe and the company isn’t shipping “design flaws”. The higher statistic could be as simple as a Tesla feature, like the controversial “Full Self Driving”, giving drivers a false sense of security. The US National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration is investigating FSD’s safety, for now at least.

The study from iSeeCars analyses data from the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). Via Road & Track:

The study was conducted on model year 2018–2022 vehicles, and focused on crashes between 2017 and 2022 that resulted in occupant fatalities. Tesla vehicles have a fatal crash rate of 5.6 per billion miles driven, according to the study; Kia is second with a rate of 5.5, and Buick rounds out the top three with a 4.8 rate. The average fatal crash rate for all cars in the United States is 2.8 per billion vehicle miles driven.

It’ll be exciting to see how Elon Musk brings this kind of efficiency to the US government. He should probably get cracking on improving FSD if he’s still worried about birth rates declining.

Twitter user @IdentsEveryHour is really one of the only reasons I still use Twitter. I love watching TV station identification graphics from other countries:

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.

Steam Deck™

Steam Deck™ is the most powerful, full-featured gaming handheld in the world.

STEAM

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.

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

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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