Geekly Update - 27 April 2022

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

On Monday, Elon Musk bought Twitter for forty-four billion dollars. Some people seem to be upset that Musk wants less censorship. But Former Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey has no such qualms, saying “I trust [Musk’s] mission to extend the light of consciousness.” That was probably just after he cashed his $978 million check from the proceeds of the buyout, and spent it all on weed.

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that frequent vaping (the use of pod-based e-cigarettes) can alter the inflammatory state of the brain, heart, lungs, and colon. The good news is that you can enjoy mint, mango and other flavors while contributing to the onset of anxiety, depression, cardiac infection, and gastrointestinal disease.

If you've been wondering what Web3 is all about, read this Wired article and you'll learn that it's a "decentralized online ecosystem based on the blockchain," and you'll probably still be wondering what Web3 is all about.

Apple is now offering do-it-yourself replacement parts to iPhone users, who want to repair their own phones. But you probably won't save much, compared to having repairs done at an Apple Store. Apple charges $69 for a battery replacement Kit, the same as the price for an out-of-warranty battery replacement at the Apple Store.

Warner Brothers Discovery, the parent company of CNN, is shutting down the CNN+ streaming service at the end of April. The company spent $300 million to develop CNN+, but subscriber numbers for the $6/month service were far below projections. It was reported that fewer than 10,000 people were using it on a daily basis.

MIT researchers have developed an ultrathin material that can turn any rigid surface into a high-quality audio speaker. The team showed off a hand-sized speaker that weighs about as much as a dime, and uses far less energy than a traditional loudspeaker. One possible application is noise cancellation in noisy environments, such as an airplane cockpit.

This just in from the "Cute But Creepy" desk: Nobody should be surprised to hear that Astro, Amazon's home robot, gathers an enormous amount of personal data as it roams around your home. Astro has sensors, audio and video recording capability, facial recognition, and onboard AI. Some of that data gets sent back to Amazon's cloud, prompting Will Owen, communications manager at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Program, to call Astro "a very dystopian level of surveillance capitalism."

Netflix execs say about 100 million households are sharing passwords, resulting in rapidly declining paid subscriber numbers. Netflix has ignored the password sharing problem for years, hoping that it would eventually lead to subscriber growth. Rumors abound that the company will soon be forced to crack down on customers who allow friends and family to share access to the popular streaming service. That could mean higher prices, ads in the content, or technology to prevent screen sharing.

Watch this video showing an international transfer of cash from Miami to a displaced Ukrainian in Poland. Bitcoin’s Lightning Network eliminates nearly all transaction fees, and allowed the recipient to withdrew the cash funds in less than three minutes.

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