Geekly Update - 25 April 2018

Category: Tech-News

What's the connection between artificial intelligence and Chinese cockroaches? Would you test drive a suicide machine? And is this new development proof that it's finally time to welcome your robot overlords? Get answers in today's Geekly Update -- it's jam-packed with the latest tech news. This issue is guaranteed to make you 146% smarter -- you'll see why. Read, think, and, comment!

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

Chipmaker AMD has released a BIOS update that, along with a recent Windows 10 patch, eliminates the Spectre vulnerability that afflicts every CPU made in the past several decades.

This just in from the "Here's Your Exit" department: Is mobile tech getting a little too convenient? A tourbus driver in New York City was caught watching TV on his smartphone while driving. "And if you look out the left side of the bus, you'll see that the Robinson family has just crash-landed on an alien planet…" The driver was fired.

If you love motorcycles and Twitter, but couldn't figure out how to make money from your hobbies, here's the answer. Harley Davidson is seeking paid interns to ride all summer and post photos of the fun to social media. Lucky participants get paid, and get to keep the bike.

Patch My PC is a small, smart, and free app that can update more than 300 application programs for you automatically. It could allow you to kill all those “update monitor” applets that chew up system resources.

Geekly Update 04-25-2018

Soylent Brown? Artificial intelligence software helps a Chinese cockroach farm maintain ideal conditions for the six billion bugs it breeds annually. The horrible beasts are processed into a “health food” beverage.

Sarco (short for “sarcophagus”) is a souped-up suicide machine. Visitors to this provocative exhibit at Amsterdam’s “Funeral Fair” can enjoy a virtual reality experience of how Sarco ends a life painlessly using nitrogen gas to induce hypoxia.

It’s dead simple to free up storage space on your Android device using Google’s new Files Go app. It quickly identifies junk files, apps that you have not used in a long time, old photos, and other wastes of space, then lets you erase them all with one tap.

A robot passed the ultimate test in Singapore recently: planning, organizing, and executing the assembly of Ikea furniture.

Did you know that Amazon handles nearly HALF of all online sales in the USA? And for the first time, Amazon has revealed the official number of Prime subscribers: 100 million at roughly $100 per year. I'll spare you the math, that's $10,000,000,000 -- ten billion dollars.

This story is getting old: a database of 48 million in-depth profiles of Americans was left on an Amazon Web Services server without even password protection, allowing anyone who could read the server’s directory to swipe it. The new outrage is Localblox, a Bellevue, Wash.-based firm that compiled this “3-dimensional” profile of hapless victims by scraping data from Facebook, LinkedIn, Zillow, and countless other sites without anyone’s permission.

Paint your walls with festive touchkey arrays and brightly colored sensors, and they will actually work! That’s according to a paper issued by a research team from China. The new conductive paint can create sensors capable of “smelling” indoor air quality or detecting the locations of electronic devices in a room.

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

 
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Most recent comments on "Geekly Update - 25 April 2018"

Posted by:

Lucy
25 Apr 2018

What could go wrong?

"It’s dead simple to free up storage space on your Android device using Google’s new Files Go app. It quickly identifies... old photos ...then lets you erase them all with one tap."


Posted by:

Len
25 Apr 2018

Too bad that "Files Go" won't delete all the bloatware (that I DON'T use) that Android sticks on my cell that I can't get rid of without rooting it.

They lie ;)


Posted by:

briansmac
25 Apr 2018

LOL....Len, WHO doesn't these days??


Posted by:

Ron
25 Apr 2018

@Len: That's why I bought an Essential Phone. No bloatware.


Posted by:

Butch
25 Apr 2018

I noted that Adobe Flash Player is on their list of files to update. Thanks but no thanks, PatachMyPC.


Posted by:

bb
25 Apr 2018

Butch: If you don't want to update Adobe Flash Player, UNINSTALL IT! And yes, I'm shouting.


Posted by:

PgmrDude
26 Apr 2018

New chip: Leave it to AMD to build something that Intel either can't or won't. Good on YOU, AMD!

Harley Davidson Paid Interns: Isn't that every MAN's DREAM (aside from sex, of course)?

Chinese “health food” beverage: What the Literal Health?

Robot assembling IKEA furniture: That'll sell like HOT CAKES here in the USA!

Amazon Prime Subscriptions: $10B per YEAR, in just SUBSCRIPTIONS! People are INSANE!

Amazon Web Services - Data Breach: Isn't this becoming EXACTLY what we all worried about when the Web started, and especially when we started making PURCHASES online. The world is getting worse all the time, as expected.


Posted by:

cal67
26 Apr 2018

Re Sarco: I am opposed to assisted suicide, especially by the medical profession, but I'm curious who tested it and let them know the death was "painless"? I work with nitrogen and know from personal experience that getting a good lung full of nitrogen hurts. Displacing the oxygen that you need to remain alive is not painless. Oh well, why let facts get in the way of a marketing campaign.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Dead men tell no tales. And they don't complain either. :-)


Posted by:

Ken Driver
28 Apr 2018

Apparently 10 billion isn't enough for Amazon Prime, they recently announced the annual price is rising to $120 annually.


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