Geekly Update - 23 September 2015

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

"I'm not dead yet…" A firefighting captain in Texas is struggling to prove he’s still alive after a woman in California used his father’s stolen identity to declare the captain “dead.”

Amazon is offering a one-day discount on it's Amazon Prime service, which gets you free two-day shipping on many items, and streaming music & video. On September 25th, new members can join Prime for $67 instead of the regular price of $99.

A 50-foot silvery object landed in the front yard of a Mountain View, CA, home, prompting speculations that aliens had landed. But it was just a Google Project Loon balloon that crashed instead of carrying its payload of 3G-broadcasting gear to Sri Lanka. Hard to say which sounds more improbable.

"You're not gonna like this…" The long-desired Dislike Button is definitely coming to Facebook, proclaims founder Mark Zuckerberg, as soon as his team can figure out how to avoid any “negativity” associated with the word.

"Water? Poof!" Ads for Sony Xperia smartphones have long touted the Xperia line as “waterproof.” But now Sony says its phones only resisted “gentle” immersions under lab conditions, and should not be used underwater.

Snapchat has started charging users 99 cents for up to three replays of a “deleted” photo, and also launched Lenses, a feature that uses facial recognition technology to render one’s face unrecognizable.

A library in New Hampshire joined the Tor network of anonymous Web browsing proxy servers, prompting an email and visit from the Dept. of Homeland Security. The library’s management decided to shut down the Tor server.

Totally selfish! Bhanu Prakash, 24, has quit his research assistant job in India to train for an attempt to break the Guinness Record for most selfies taken in an hour. The current record of 1,449 selfies in an hour is held by NFL player Patrick Peterson.

“Mission Impossible” for computers. DARPA has developed a self-destructing computer chip based upon stressed glass which shatters instantly if anyone attempts to remove the chip from its circuit board.

The biggest complaint of Amazon workers in the State of Washington is not low pay, long hours, or the grueling pace of warehouse operations. According to formal complaints filed with the state, it’s “not enough toilets for men.”

Now you can instantly Tweet cash donations to your favorite political candidates, thanks to a partnership between Twitter, payment processor Square, and political campaigns.

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