Geekly Update - 11 May 2022

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

SpaceX COO Gynne Shotwell says the company still plans to put humans on Mars by 2030. But leave the young ones at home, because Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids.

Google I/O 2022, annual conference in which the company announces new projects, is happening today and tomorrow. CNet's live blog lets you follow the announcements of Pixel 6A, Android 13, Pixel Watch and future AI projects.

One software developer discovered that he could crash Google Docs by typing a certain word five times in a row. Upon hearing the news that "And. And. And. And. And." would cause trigger the bug, others discovered that "Therefore", "Anyway", "But", "Who", "Why", "Besides", and several more words had the same effect. Google fixed the problem hours after it was reported.

A National Security Memorandum warns that powerful quantum computers might one day be able to crack encryption, undermining national security systems and financial markets. The report urges a migration of the US's cryptographic systems to quantum-resistant cryptography.

Here's good news for households with a mix of Apple and Android products. Industry watcher Ming-Chi Kuo says his survey of vendors indicates that Apple will abandon the proprietary Lightning port and switch to the USB-C port, which almost all other mobile devices use for power and data transfer. The iPhone 15 will likely be the first model with a USB-C port.

Here's an interesting confluence of competing technologies. One techie figured out how to add support for Apple CarPlay into a Tesla using the Android operating system, a web browser, two Raspberry Pis, and a handful of add-ons and cables.

Congress is planning to hold the first public hearing on UFOs in 50 years. The US House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee will spill what they know about UFOs in an open hearing on Tuesday, May 17. Prediction: Boring.

Boost Mobile has a new option for paying your phone bill, or at least part of it. Boost calls it "gamifying your attention" -- you can knock a few cents off your bill with every ad you watch, or by playing games that engage them with Boost partners.

Speaking of gaming the system, Amazon is suing four companies they claim are deliberately flooding its ecommerce website with fake product reviews. The companies give reviewers free products and in some cases payment in return for each review, and the sellers pay a fee for boosting their Amazon ratings. The scale of the problem is impressive -- Amazon says they blocked 200 million fake reviews in 2020.

This just in from the Pick Your Poison Desk: A study published in the journal Open Heart claims that the naturally occuring chemicals in coffee tend to increase total cholesterol, but the effect varies depending on gender and brewing method. Other studies have shown that coffee also has anti-inflammatory effects, protects the liver, and lessens the risks of cancer and diabetes.

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