Geekly Update - 20 January 2021

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

Do you have range anxiety? That fear, unique to electric vehicle owners, is of running out of battery power before reaching a charging station. But engineers at Penn State say they have the cure. They've developed an affordable lithium iron phosphate battery with a range of 250 miles and the ability to recharge in just 10 minutes.

If you use Linux or macOS but miss your Windows apps and games, the latest version of Wine (Wine is Not an Emulator) might save the day. Wine 6.0 has better support for running Windows software on Linux and macOS. Wine currently supports over 27,000 Windows applications and games, including Office, Adobe Photoshop, and World of Warcraft.

When I read the headline that said “Scientists Count Elephants From Space with Satellites and Computer Smarts”, I knew right away it couldn't be true. I might be persuaded to believe in elephants from outer space, but definitely not ones with satellites and computer smarts. Elephants are smart, but they lack opposable thumbs, and everyone knows they are afraid of a mouse.

Samsung's new One UI 3 has an "object eraser" which lets you delete people from the backgrounds of your images. Just tap on the people you want to remove, and artificial intelligence magic will make them disappear.

When is a flamethrower not a flamethrower? Apparently when Elon Musk says it’s “Not a Flamethrower”. Local authorities may beg to differ, though.

Engineering researchers have developed a new technique for eliminating tough blood clots, using engineered nanodroplets and an ultrasound drill to break up the clots from the inside out. the new approach is designed to treat retracted blood clots, which are difficult to treat with drugs that dissolve blood clots.

Cyber-security firm Malwarebytes said it was hacked by the same group which breached IT software company SolarWinds last year. Company officials say they’ve determined the attacker only gained access to a limited subset of internal company emails, and Malwarebytes products are not affected. Still, it’s troubling that the companies we’re supposed to trust for protection from cyber threats are vulnerable themselves .

If you use Microsoft Teams, you can forget about goofing off at work. ZDNet says the app that facilitates online meetings also records your chats, voicemails, shared meetings, transcriptions, profile details, email address, phone number, privacy settings, and device types. It also keeps track of the number of messages a user posts in a private chats, how many meetings that user organized, how many urgent messages they sent, total screen-share time, and other (potential) indicators of productivity. It’s up to the “global administrator” (your boss) as to whether or not these little details about your work habits are shared with the company.

Are you having trouble unlocking your Android smartphone or Mac with the built-in fingerprint reader? Dirt, oil, abrasions and other factors can make it hard for your device to match your finger with the stored prints. Here are some tips to make your fingerprint reader more reliable.

Video conferencing software such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet are able to identify and highlight the active speaker, by detecting the sound of a voice. That can make it difficult for those who use sign language, but Google researchers have proposed a sign language detection model that can “fool” the software into thinking the person is speaking aloud.

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