Geekly Update - 12 September 2018

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

Need space? For a limited time, you can buy a 128 GB Samsung EVO Select microSD card for just $29. The 64 GB version is going for $16.

Police in Platte City, Missouri were called when a set of interconnected plastic containers filled with blue fluid was found behind a Jimmy John's restaurant. Turns out it was a high school kid's science project, designed to show how hydrogen can be used as power.

Monica Walley's mother wanted a greek omelet on her birthday at the local diner. But when the restaurant refused to serve her disabled mother, she left a negative review online. That upset Norman Auvil, a friend of the owner. He is accused of driving to Walley's address and firing three shots into her home.

A top-secret prototype of Google’s next Pixel phone was left in a Lyft car. You know what happened next.

Apple is holding an event in Cupertino, CA today, and is expected to announce the iPhone XS, a larger iPhone XS Max, and a new Apple Watch Series 4. MacRumors will have live coverage of the event.

While we're on the subject of top-secret phones that may or not exist in the future, Samsung says it is serious about delivering a foldable smartphone this year. I guess they never heard of the thing called a "flip phone."

The District Court of Appeal in Florida found that the warrantless use of a "stingray" device is unconstitutional. The stingray mimics a cell tower, and can be used to spy on mobile phones in the vicinity. "Without a warrant, the government cannot: use technology to view information not visible to the naked eye, attach a device to property to monitor your location, search a cell phone in your possession without a warrant, or obtain real-time location information from the cell carrier."

The Internet has a new patron saint: Saint Isidore of Seville, who tried valiantly to record all knowledge in an encyclopedia. Unfortunately, this tasks turns out to be an infinite loop.

Google has launched a new Dataset Search feature that enables laypersons to retrieve highly specific results from millions of scattered scientific and technical sources. If you like to get to original scientific sources of data, this one’s for you.

The European Union is about to vote on copyright legislation that would impose liability upon service providers for users’ violations, require Facebook, Google, etc., to filter copyrighted material, and allow newspaper and other publishers to collect licensing fees for links to their Web-published copyrighted material.

Your thoughts on these topics are welcome. Post your comment or question below...