Geekly Update - 20 January 2022

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

Habitat for Humanity is using 3D-printing technology to speed up the home-building process for families in need of affordable housing. Using liquid concrete, the process of fabricating the exterior walls has been reduced from four weeks to 12 hours, and costs 15% less.

Perhaps more so than any other electronics purchase, buying a TV can be a dizzying assault of confusing buzzwords and acronyms. Do you know HDR from HDMI, or the difference between LED, Mini-LED, OLED, and QD-OLED? Do you need eARC and VRR? See Making Sense Of New TV Features In 2022 to see if you can make sense of it all.

For over 100 years Polar Manufacturing has been making metal products in Chicago, and recently the company has begun to use robots to produce some products. A robot leasing agreement brings the cost of labor down to about $8 an hour. But in a defeat for the robot overlords, the company says it will not need to fire any of their 70 employees, which are currently paid a minimum of $15 an hour. Those human workers will be given other tasks that ultimately increase output.

Cyber security firm Internet 2.0 is advising athletes, members of the media, and audience members to leave their phones at home, and use temporary "burner phones" instead. They say that the My2022 app, required for daily Covid monitoring, contains security weaknesses that may leave users exposed to data breaches.

An international team of researchers has found a method of printing biometric sensors directly on human skin without the use of heat. The sensors can measure temperature, blood oxygen levels and heart performance signals, and transmit them wirelessly.

A study by Kaspersky says they've identified tens of thousands of cases of stalkerware (software that enables someone to secretly spy on another person) being installed on smartphones. The Coalition Against Stalkerware offers tips to detect if stalkerware is present on your mobile device, and steps to remove it.

A few decades ago, one had to knock three times on the ceiling to get the neighbors to turn down the music, or twice on the pipe to skip to the next song. Now, earbuds made by Wisear have some clever hands-free ways to interact with your music, but your dentist may not approve. Electrodes in the earbuds record brain and facial activity, making it possible to pause a track by biting down twice on your teeth, or three times to skip to the next tune.

Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard, the maker of Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, and other popular video games. The goal of the $68.7 billion acquisition, aside from becoming the world's third-largest gaming company, is to "provide building blocks for the metaverse."

It's not necessarily geeky, but The Spectacular Winners of the 2021 Ocean Art Photography Competition is worth a look.

Bowing to pressure from airlines, Verizon and AT&T have agreed to delay the rollout of C-band 5G service. There was concern that advanced 5G signals might disrupt air navigation systems, and force the cancellation of flights.

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