Geekly Update - 05 February 2020

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek wants you to know that he's sorry for hurting your feelings. It came to light recently that the antivirus vendor was collecting and selling user data. After some soul-searching (and a barrage of bad press) Vlcek decided that the data collection business was "not in line with our privacy priorities," so they have shut it down.

If you watched the Superbowl, you might remember that you can ask your Google Assistant to remember things. Or maybe you forgot to ask it to remember. Anyway, here's a reminder. Google Assistant can remember things like where you put your keys, or your wife's favorite color. But Slate thinks there's something sinister about it.

Maybe we won't need to ask Google to remember stuff after all. Elon Musk says an 'awesome' update to his brain-computer interface project is coming soon. Musk hopes that the Neuralink device will be implanted in a human brain later this year. Next, hook that thing up to your Google account, and you won't have to remember anything!

Krebs on Security reports that a Pennsylvania man who operated an online attack-for-hire service was caught because he ordered a bacon and chicken pizza.

A story in Forbes explains how you can use the Password Of The Day website to get free accounts on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Dashlane, Disney+, or Hulu. It's legal, but probably not worth your time.

If your solar panel isn't generating enough electricity during the day, perhaps you should try one of these anti-solar panels, which can generate electricity at night.

The Google Maps service detects traffic jams by pinging phones in a locale. If there are a lot of phones that appear to be stopped or moving very slowly, Google Maps indicates a traffic jam with a "red zone" on the map. But what would happen if someone loaded a little red wagon with 99 smartphones, and walked around where there was no traffic?

You buy everything else on Amazon, so why not get your next date there, too? Amazon Dating is a fake dating site that looks just like an Amazon product page. Each (fake) profile has a photo, description, price tag, and a list of humorous personality traits. The best part: FREE One-Hour Delivery!

This just in from the "Wait, What?" department: Charges have been dropped against two "penetration testers" who were hired to test the security of electronic records befing stored at a county courthouse in Iowa.

A Chicago man claims that he was denied service in a coffee shop because he was wearing an Apple Airpod in his ear. He complained to advice columnist Salty Waitress, but she was not sympathetic.

Google just took all the fun out of Photoshop. The company has developed a bogus-photo detector, meant to help journalists check for "deepfake" photo manipulation.

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