Geekly Update - 17 July 2019

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

July 20th marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. I was seven years old, but I still remember watching on TV, and standing out in the front yard with my entire family, to see if we could catch a glimpse of the lunar lander with binoculars. NASA has a series of events planned to celebrate the historic achievement.

A joke on Facebook has attracted over a million people who plan to swarm the mysterious Area 51 on September 20th. The Air Force says that would be a bad idea, and "stands ready to protect" the top-secret military base.

Did you know that today is World Emoji Day? If you've ever seen the emoji (icon) representing the calendar, you'll know why. In honor of the whimsical holiday, Apple and others have released dozens of new emojis, and you can vote for your favorite in the 2019 World Emoji Awards.

Yikes. Drones can now be turned into flamethrowers. The $1,499 Throwflame TF-19 Wasp is a flamethrower attachment "designed for remote ignition of aerial and ground targets." It's designed for high-end drones, has a 25-foot range, and can shoot flames for 100 seconds. The maker says flamethrower drones are legal and not considered weapons. Yet.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing AT&T for allegedly selling customer location data to third parties. AT&T denies the allegations, maintaing that they only share location data with customer consent, for services such as roadside assistance, fraud protection, and medical device alerts.

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, wants to read your mind. Sort of. His Neuralink project aims to connect human brains directly to computers, creating a "symbiosis with artificial intelligence." Musk claims that in early tests, a monkey has been able to control the computer with his brain, and hopes to gain approval for human brain implants by the end of next year.

Swiss researchers at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne have created robotic "ants" that can jump, crawl, and work together to perform some impressive tasks.

Burger King has created a meatless version of the Whopper and a chicken sandwich, and now they're daring customers to see if they can tell the vegetarian versions from the animal-based versions. The Rebel Whopper and Rebel Chicken King are only available in Sweden, but BK has plans to bring the "Impossible Whopper" to the USA.

If you forget your laptop on your next trip to Tokyo, you'll want to book the Superior Cockpit Room at the Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyu, which features a full-fledged Boeing 737-800 flight simulator. The cost for the room and a a 90-minute flight simulator session (supervised by an expert) will run you USD $511.

Usually, the latest and greatest in computer tech means that your shiny new toy is faster than the one you're replacing. Not so with the new MacBook Air, which ZDNet reports is "significantly slower than last year's model," due to cost cutting measures by Apple. The good news is that it has a nicer True Tone display and a lower price tag.

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