Geekly Update - 15 January 2025

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

Robots are taking center stage at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show. Unitree's Go2 dog bot walked on its hind legs, performed flips, and accidentally sprinted at full speed toward the human attendees. The Jzai Mi-Mo is a six-legged table with an attached lamp that looks like something from a Pixar movie. And of course, the Noono AI robotic pet hamster enjoyed a good back scratch. I'm not so worried now about the advent of the Robot Overlords.

ZDNet published their list of the 25 best products from CES 2025. In that list were the Oslo Sleepbuds (sleep earbuds that block out loud noises), Swippitt (charges your smartphone in just two seconds), Roborock (a robot vacuum with a mechanical arm that can grab small obstacles while it cleans), and the Nuance Audio hearing glasses (smart glasses with built-in hearing aids).

Researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School say AI is making cybercrime easier. They studied the effectiveness of AI-enhanced phishing emails, with a tool to automate spear phishing campaigns. They used ChatGPT and Claude to search the web for available information on a target and generate highly personalized phishing messages that achieved a click-through rate of 54%.

An article on MalwareBytes details how hackers are using fake game sites to entice unwitting users to download and install information stealer malware. Users on the popular Discord or Steam platforms may receive a direct message like “Can you try a game I made?” which seems to come from an online friend. But the fake game is capable of exfiltrating (stealing) 2FA backup codes, browser cookies, autofill data, saved passwords, credit card details, and even cryptocurrency wallet information.

The FCC is rolling out a new program designed to help consumers choose IoT (Internet of Things) devices that are safe to use. Garage door openers, door locks, video doorbells, house alarm, interior lights, and many other gadgets are examples for IoT devices. But these products can be susceptible to a range of security vulnerabilities. The goal of the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark is to "differentiate trustworthy products in the marketplace, and create incentives for manufactures to meet higher cybersecurity standards."

170 million TikTok users in the U.S. may soon see "ACCESS DENIED" when they try to login to their accounts on the hugely popular social media app. In response a law that requires TikTok to sell its U.S. assets by January 19th, the Chinese-owned company plans to shut out U.S. users on that date, unless the Supreme Court moves to block or delay the ban.

Scientists at Cornell University have created virtual reality headsets for mice. The MouseGoggles are designed to give researchers insight into mouse behavior and brain functions. So far, we've learned that mice are afraid of looming black blobs.

Blue Ghost and Resilience are two private lunar landers heading to the moon to aid future NASA astronauts. Both crafts were propelled moonward by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral last Wednesday.

After taking flack for spoofing the Google Search interface on their Bing search engine, Microsoft has stopped trying to trick people into thinking they're on Google. Users who searched for “Google” on Bing would get a page that looked and acted a lot like Google. Microsoft refused to comment on their subterfuge, but a Google rep was happy to note that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Microsoft spoofing the Google homepage is another tactic in its long history of tricks to confuse users & limit choice.”

I was going to use A Fast-Moving Belly Flop: Researchers Unveil The Unique Skills Of Cricket Frogs as this week's Just Here For the Headline, but when I saw that "the way these frogs move in the water could bring insights to tools for the future of robotics and watercraft," I thought it was worthy of a full-fledged Geekly link.

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