Geekly Update - 29 June 2022

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

Maggie Grout was born in poverty in China, then adopted by American parents. At age 22, she is spearheading an effort to use 3-D printing to build schools in Madagascar.

University of Cambridge psychologists say there may be some overlooked benefits of dyslexia. The neurological condition which makes reading difficult could also benefit dyslexic individuals by making them more inventive, and better at abstract reasoning skills to predict outcomes.

Would you like to vacation in a luxurious nuclear-powered ‘flying hotel’ that never touches the ground? The proposed 5,000 passenger Sky Cruise will have 20 engines powered by nuclear fusion. Two words come to mind: Hindenburg and Titanic.

You might not think of Hyundai when talking electric vehicles, but Bloomberg reports a surge in the company’s EV market share in both Europe and the US. Hyundai's all-electric Ioniq 6 crossover SUV promises to be a sleek competitor to the Tesla.

In response to a North Carolina State University study which found that Gmail was more likely to mark Republican campaign emails as spam, Google is implementing a pilot program that would allow emails from candidates and political organizations to be exempted from Gmail’s spam detection systems.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... a microwave oven in space? NASA has announced the launch of CAPSTONE. a CubeSat roughly the same shape and weight as a microwave oven. It will be the first spacecraft to test an elliptical lunar orbit, and will help to develop new spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation systems.

Google's Threat Analysis Group says cybercriminal groups have collaborated with ISPs to spread mobile malware to both Android and Apple iOS devices. The hackers worked with ISPs to switch off a victim’s mobile data, then sent text messages instructing users to download a (malicious) app to restore their internet connectivity.

Citing a "serious national security threat," FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wants Apple and Google to remove popular social media app TikTok from their app stores. Carr says TikTok "functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data," which is accessible by TikTok employees in Beijing.

NASA needs your help finding hidden clouds in Mars's atmosphere. The Cloudspotting on Mars Citizen Science Project encourages Earthlings to comb through data collected by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with a goal of better understanding Mars' atmosphere.

Instagram is testing video selfies as a way for teenagers to verify their age and comply with platform rules. Facial analysis software is used to analyze the "social vouching" video, to confirm the age of the user. The technology is said to be accurate for teens with an error range of about 1.5 years. Sounds like a good time to invest in companies that make rubber masks and fake mustaches.

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