Tech News

The Revered Cone of Silence

And I thought the Cone of Silence was awesome...well it is, but check out...

...Science Daily - Spectral Cloaking:

Most current cloaking devices can fully conceal the object of interest only when the object is illuminated with just one color of light. However, sunlight and most other light sources are broadband, meaning that they contain many colors. The new device, called a spectral invisibility cloak, is designed to completely hide arbitrary objects under broadband illumination.

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Ars Technia - 1990 Technology For 2018:

I decided to enroll the Macintosh IIsi as my main computing system for a while. A 1990 bit of gear would now go through the 2018 paces. Just how far can 20MHz of raw processing power take you in the 21st century?

So how does 20MHz fare in 2018? You'll have to read the story.
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You've seen it, you've perhaps interfaced with it without even knowing. So, WTF is Dark Pattern Design? TechCrunch:

Manipulative timing is a key element of dark pattern design. In other words when you see a notification can determine how you respond to it. Or if you even notice it. Interruptions generally pile on the cognitive overload — and deceptive design deploys them to make it harder for a web user to be fully in control of their faculties during a key moment of decision.

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Remember this story when the U.S. - some day - thinks that this is the panacea to everything. ZD Net: India's digital Universal ID program is deeply flawed[.]

When the Indian government embarked on the plan to issue a compulsory nationwide universal identification (UIDAI) and accompanying digital payment system, the idea was that technology would act as an efficient tool for service delivery as well as a panacea for rampant corruption.

Well..how do you think it worked out?

A: Just as planned
B: It tanked, sucked and made things worse
C: It caused Pennywise  to appear

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Computer World: Win 10 1803 needs...

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...wait for it...

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...wait for it...

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... Security patches. MS is stuck in 1992.

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ATTN GAMERS - Geek: Hitman 2 and an interview with Sven Liebold.
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All ECommerce: Study shows online retail experience embarrassingly slow.

* The Average Score This Year Was 45% - Retailers did not do well in this evaluation. In fact, the highest score this year was only a 63% - down from a D+ last year.
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* Mobile Performance Is “Embarrassingly Slow”
* Third Party Requests Are Slowing Down Sites

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Is this fake news? Splinter News: White house want to enact FART Act.

...the White House wants Congress to pass a bill that “provides Trump a license to raise U.S. tariffs at will.” The bill is called the United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act.

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Extreme Tech: Facebook Files Patent For Exactly the Kind of Spying It Claims It Doesn’t Do.

In a patent application filed on June 14 and first discovered by the UK publication Metro, Facebook requested a patent on exactly the kind of system it has sworn that it never uses. 

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Technocracy: It's okay to hate Hungary because they don't kowtow to EU values. 

Hungary Refuses To Bow To the EU’s Imperial Technocracy[.]
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The Hungarian government and in particular the prime minister, Viktor Orban, are continually denounced for their alleged violations of EU values. The mainstream Western media have picked up the message that it is okay to hate Hungary.

"What are EU Values?", has to be the answer/question to a Jeopardy Daily Double under the category "Extreme and Laughable Oxymorons."
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BGR: Consumer Reports investigates Comcast's hidden fees.

With the proliferation of add-on fees, it’s nearly impossible for consumers to find out the full cost of a cable package before they get locked into a contract[.]

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TechDirt: Some of their Comments of the Week. Kinda hard to give you a preview or snippet, ya just gotta go there and read it.
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NextGov: There is no White House Cyber Coordinator.

White House National Security Adviser John Bolton eliminated the cybersecurity coordinator position soon after taking office in May.

The elimination was greeted with consternation by many cyber analysts who believed [...] U.S. cyber policy, was too complex to be subsumed into broader White House operations.

This is a very valid concern.
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Security Week: Facebook app exposes data of 120 million: 

...privacy bug on Nametests.com resulted in the data of over 120 million users who took personality quizzes on Facebook to be publicly exposed.

Patched as part of Facebook’s Data Abuse Bounty Program, the vulnerability resided in Nametests.com serving users’ data to any third-party that requested it, something that shouldn’t normally happen.

I have such a hard time believing that the numerous data breaches of Facebook are "accidental."
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UberGizmo: Camera explodes on the foot of a man trying to take videos up women's skirts.

...a 32-year old man from Wisconsin, [attempting to take] upskirt photos and videos [using] a camera he had attached to his shoe blew up on him. Thankfully this happened before he managed to get any actual footage because according to the reports, he was testing out the camera at home when the battery exploded.
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He had to be taken to the hospital for his burns[.]
The action of upskirting is considered a felony under Wisconsin state law[.]