Prideful sharing

It’s been a crazy week and I’m genuinely sorry to say that I don’t have a column this week.

I love writing these and your feedback is always thoughtful and insightful and helps me to keep building on the ideas I try to express here. It’s a much loved part of my week.

But this week got away on me.

But I do want to say how proud I am of the work of the team I’m building at the Byteside website.

Hope Corrigan, Chris Button, Alice Clarke, Peta Greenfield, Jessica Citizen, Emily Shiel, and Grace Hester are doing some really great work, and after just four weeks I’m deeply impressed by how quickly they’ve adapted to my crazy ideas and taken my encouragement to write with heart and voice and personality.

So I’m running all this week’s stories here as full highlight stories in order to really help them shine. There’s a great mix of angles here across all the domains I want Byteside to care about. I think we’re carving out a space that brings original approaches to covering what matters in the digital world for real humans, and I hope you agree.

As ever, keep the feedback coming. Even suggestions or complaints. Every little bit of feedback is appreciated as something coming from a place that shows you care enough to say something.

Top Stories

Like moths to the RGB

For years now, more and more stuff marketed to people who play games has heavily leaned into the aesthetic of a Swedish metal band who got tangled in discount Christmas lights on their way to Eurovision.

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Destroying my Animal Crossing island was an amazing lesson in mental health

There’s no ‘nuke’ button in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so the journey to destroy everything gave me so much along the way.

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Apple iPhone 12 got 5G: so what else is new?

We’ve picked out seven features that are faster, shinier, stronger and smarter than before in the latest iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro.

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PAX 2020 hands-on: our pick of the best demos

PAX Online was a different beast, but some of us still carved out time to dive into some hands on demos. Here’s seven of the best.

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Returning to the cinema is such a joy

Experiencing the pleasure of switching everything off and letting a big screen extravaganza take you away from it all for a few hours once again.

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Reviews

LG CX OLED 4K TV review: So good I’m buying one

When you can’t live without the TV you just tested, and hate having to let it go back after the review? That’s something very special.

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EPOS GSP 600 series headset sends you to a world of your own

It’s chunky and demands some desk real estate, but for solid passive sound isolation in a versatile gaming headset, EPOS has some great kit.

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Podcasts

New Apple iPhone day 2020

iPhone 12, why MagSafe rules, and why 5G feels ‘meh’, plus we still find time on iPhone day to talk AGDA Awards, Shadowlands pre-patch, and electric vehicles in regional Australia.

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Recommended

Star Trek: Lower Decks is the most human Star Trek yet

Let go of your lofty Starfleet ideals and come spend some time on the lower decks in this fun, adorable adult cartoon.

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WTF is Genshin impact?

What even is Genshin Impact? And why is it one of the best games I’ve played all year – and how is it free?

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Genshin Impact: 9 things to know when you’re starting out

Here are all the things you should know before you play Genshin Impact.

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News

South Australia breaks 100% solar power delivery for the first time

Between rooftop and utility scale solar, South Australia broke the barrier to 100% power delivery for the entire state last weekend.

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Why is Baldur’s Gate 3 being filled with bog standard white dudes?

The early release of Baldur’s Gate 3 might sound promising, but it’s a sad state of affairs to discover most players are just creating ultra generic white dudes?

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I am willing to die for Spider-Cat in Spider-Man: Miles Morales

We only just met, but from what Game Informer Spider-Cat reveal has turned the Miles Morales game into an instant must have.

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Rhianna Pratchett and Neil Gaiman react to the first trailer for The Watch

The BBC America series based on Terry Pratchett’s wondrous series of books has released a trailer that has brought shade from two of the Discworld’s most ardent true believers.

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Potato-powered DOOM, anyone?

How many spuds does it take to power a game of DOOM? One YouTuber decided to go to extreme lengths to find out.

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Halfbrick Studios is juicing more life out of Fruit Ninja with a remaster

One of Australia’s original world dominating mobile games is planning a fully remastered fruit chopping experience.

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Move over Bluetooth, UWB is the next big phone technology

Meet UWB. It’s like Bluetooth, but faster and smarter. And has uses across everything from location tracking to augmented reality.

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Interesting

This browser tool stops you buying Steam games you can play for free

Stop second guessing whether you should buy something that might be on Xbox Game Pass with this simple but smart little browser extension.

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Let’s talk about *that* boss fight in Hades

Cheapshot or masterstroke? We explore the agony and ecstasy of one of the big fights. BEWARE: SPOILERS ABOUND!

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