Geekly Update - 02 February 2022

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

In my home state, for years we've joked about the legality of the "New York State Rolling Stop". But Tesla took it seriously, and rolled out "Assertive Mode", which instructs Teslas with the Full Self-Driving package to roll through stop signs under certain conditions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) didn't seem to find it any funnier than the police in New York, and ordered the recall of 54,000 overly assertive Tesla cars.

Starlink's internet satellite dishes have a Snow Melt Mode which keeps snow from building up on the dish. That keeps the signal strong after a snowstorm, but it also makes the satellite dishes irresistible to cats. One Starlink user tweeted a picture of five cats cozied up inside a Starlink dish.

SpaceX is offering a Premium tier of their Starlink satellite Internet service. It promises speeds up to 500Mbps (about 3-5X faster than the existing service). Premium, which is aimed at small business and power users, will cost $500 a month (5X the $99 non-premium offering) and has an initial equipment cost of $2500. No word from SpaceX if the Premium tier will have Anti-Cat Mode.

Jack Sweeney is a 19-year-old who has a Twitter account called ElonJet that uses publicly available air-traffic data to report the takeoffs and landings of billionaire Elon Musk's private jet. Sweeney turned down an offer of $5000 from Musk to shut it down, and instead will expand his efforts to track the jets of other high-profile people, including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

And finally, a story that doesn't involve Elon Musk... Engineers from the Research Institute of Computer Science and Random Systems have developed a system that can detect malware by scanning devices for telltale electromagnetic waves. No anti-malware software is needed on the target device. A specially-equipped Raspberry Pi operates externally, and can discern between safe and malicious data emanations.

Jack Wardle's popular Wordle word game has been bought by The New York Times, for a price in the low seven figures. With that kind of layout, will the Times keep the game free for everyone to play? Wardle says it will remain so "initially" but there's no word from the Times if they will soon make it pay to play. But here's a little secret: Wordle is a webpage, so it's possible to download a complete copy of the game now, save it on your own computer, and play for free regardless of what the Times decides.

Engineering at North Carolina State University have developed a robotic "hand" with soft flexible grippers that can pick up a single strand of hair, or lift an egg yolk without breaking it. The researchers say the technology has both robotic and biomedical technology applications, and was inspired by the Japanese art of kirigami.

AT&T is offering a new "Unlimited MAX with 5G" plan for $45 a month. You get unlimited talk and text, and unlimited high-speed data.
But of course, there are a few limits to this "unlimited" plan. For starters, you can only get it with in-store activation of a single line at a Walmart retail store. And AT&T "may temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy." That said, the price beats the competition, and adds HD streaming, 10GB hotspot, and 100GB of cloud storage.

CNet says: "New aircraft designs could power air taxis that later this decade will pop you above the traffic for fast, though probably pricey, journeys around town." Ummm, I'm pretty sure someone already invented something called a "helicopter" back around 1939.

And finally, here is today's Just Here For the Headline: NASA Rover Creates A Silly Face On Mars While Digging For Rock Samples.

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