Geekly Update - 25 May 2016

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

The Pilot is an in-ear real-time language translator that will discreetly and instantly translate conversations into each of the participants’ language, provided it’s a European Latin or Germanic language.

Rhian Lewis was born with retinitis pigmentosa, a disorder that destroys the light sensitive cells in the retina, leading to blindness. In January, Lewis received a "bionic eye" -- a tiny chip implanted in her right eye. The device reconnected her optic nerve with the brain, enabling her to regain a significant amount of sight.

At the Georgia Institute of Technology, Jill Watson has been helping graduate students with their projects for over five months, answering questions via email and chat room sessions. Did I mention that Jill is a robot, and none of the grad students has noticed?

An “origami robot” is so small and flexible that it can be folded and swallowed whole. In the tummy, the robot unfolds to retrieve foreign objects that were accidentally swallowed.

Google’s new Art Camera has an insanely high, multi-gigapixel resolution suitable for preserving great works of art. But its real claim to fame is speed; an exposure that once took 24 hours can now be completed in 30 minutes.

“Eric,” the UK’s first robot (built in 1928) will rise again now that Science Museum curators have found his plans. Eric will be reconstructed and sent on a tour of the world, the museum folks promise. Let's hope he fares better than HitchBot.

Google is paying some lucky Arizonans $20 per hour to ride around in the company’s self-driving cars, paying close attention and taking copious notes.

UPS has become the first major package carrier to let recipients track the final movements of their packages in nearly real-time. The Follow My Delivery button in an emailed shipment notification takes you to a page that refreshes every 2-3 minutes, showing on a local map exactly where the truck bearing your package is. The idea is that you’ll be standing at the front door when the driver pulls up, saving him time and you stolen packages.

In the past year, 160,000 customers’ banking records left the offices of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on unauthorized removable storage media such as USB thumb drives, FDIC officials testified to a Congressional subcommittee last week. The FDIC is calling most of this unauthorized copying “inadvertent,” but at least one Congressman calls it “theft.”

In 2010, Alex Jason traded a minibike and an electric snowblower for an iMac G5 computer. Today, 15 year-old Alex has a gigantic collection of vintage PCs, including 200 Apple computers. His collection will soon be housed in the Maine Technology Museum, a converted library.

Clifford Stoll’s 1995 Newsweek article, “Why The Web Won’t Be Nirvana,” dissed things such as ebooks, portable mobile computers, and online shopping. But it's still a worthwhile read that predicts many of the social, economic, and technical issues plaguing the Web today. Bear in mind that the Web was invented in 1993.

A study by Sensor Tower Store Intelligence reveals the discouraging news that 94% of all revenues generated by sales of apps through app stores accrue to just 1% of app developers.

LinkedIn suffered a data breach, losing 100 million of its users’ email addresses and passwords. “Change your password NOW!” is LinkedIn’s helpful advice.

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