Writer Evan Ratliff spents years tracking Paul Le Roux, and eventually rejected the theory that the drug dealer might be bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. But the the theory never quite went away. Then, a court case brought it right back into his inbox. He recounted the gripping story for Wired.
Over a few days, I found myself uncovering surprising correlations I’d missed or discounted the first time. After a couple more, I’d built a spreadsheet mapping the evidence for and against the proposition. Within weeks, I’d poured over every piece of writing credibly attributed to Le Roux or Satoshi, and found myself perplexed at the growing size of the “for” column on my spreadsheet. I called up experts, ran my evidence by them, and found no one who could really shoot it down. After a month, I was able to convince a colleague with deep cryptocurrency knowledge, someone who’d followed every twist and turn of the Satoshi saga, that Le Roux was the odds-on solution to the mystery of who created bitcoin. And then, just as I was ready to go out and publicly place my bet on Paul Le Roux, to make the case for him from every thing I’d found, I started to wonder about what I hadn’t.
Apple pushed out an Arabic version of the App Store to developers. It will be fully rolled out as part of iOS 13. The Jerusalem Post reported it is part of a wider push into the Arab world from the company.
The store will “open” to the general public simultaneously with the release of Apple’s latest operating software system, IOS-13. This move is seen largely as the company’s latest attempt at capturing the growing Middle East market. “Apple is continuing its push for localized content in the Arab world by releasing a version of its App Store – in full Arabic glory,” Noura Alzabie, a strategist and project manager at the Bahrain chapter of the Global Social Media Club, told The Media Line. Apple opened its first store in the Arab world in 2015, and the amount of Arabic content available, while still relatively small, has since grown.
Some people have noticed that the app gifting ability seems to have disappeared in iOS 12.3.1. It sounds like it’s a bug, rather than an official decision on Apple’s part. App Gifting As of July 7, 2019, it appears there is no longer an option to “Gift” an app through the App Store (i.e. the…
This isn’t super tech-related, but this website gives a nice visualization of how men’s pockets are bigger than women’s pockets. There’s also a section that lets you find jeans that can fit smartphones like the iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy, and Google Pixel.
Only 40 percent of women’s front pockets can completely fit one of the three leading smartphone brands. Less than half of women’s front pockets can fit a wallet specifically designed to fit in front pockets. And you can’t even cram an average woman’s hand beyond the knuckles into the majority of women’s front pockets.
David Marcus, the founder of Facebook’s Libra digital currency, is in front of the Senate Banking Committee. He is taking questions about the plans. In particular, lawmakers are expected to focus on data privacy issues. It comes as the project is facing evermore scrutiny, including from Democratic members of House. Mr. Marcus’s hearing is available to watch via CSPAN.
An iOS 13 password bug was discovered in the latest betas that give unauthenticated access to Website & App Passwords in Settings.
As detailed by iDeviceHelp on YouTube, you can access all of the saved usernames and passwords in Settings by repeatedly tapping the “Website & App Passwords” menu and avoiding the Face ID or Touch ID prompt. After several tries, iOS 13 will show all of your passwords and logins, even if you never successfully authenticated with Face ID or Touch ID.
I haven’t been able to replicate the issue, but I’ll keep trying to see.
In just a few decades, we’ve gone from knowing of no planets beyond the solar system to thousands. Here’s how it happened.
The now retired spacecraft, Kepler, has been instrumental in the discovery of over 4,000 planets beyond our solar system. Referenced here: CNET article and NASA video.
We have a deal on a beast of portable battery, the 27,000mAh SuperTank. This device can charge up to four devices at a time with 2 USB-C and 2 USB-A ports—plus one of those USB-C ports can put out 100 watts of power. It’s TSA-compliant and is crush-proof, too. The SuperTank is $134.99 through our deal.
Darren Beyer is a former NASA Space Shuttle engineer at Kennedy Space Center who worked on launching and recovering more than a dozen missions. He also conducted astronaut training and had the honor of working onboard every Space Shuttle orbiter except Challenger. In late 1998, he left NASA to become an author.
The result was the Anghazi series of novels, Casimir Bridge, released in 2016 to rave reviews thanks largely to his commitment to putting the science back in science fiction. The second installment, Pathogen Protocol was released in October, 2018. In this second show with Darren, we continue our previous discussion: Back to the Moon first or off to Mars first? With robot companions? Industrializing the Moon. Plus: Darren’s approach to the third novel in the Anghazi series and an explanation of how his characters achieve interstellar travel.
A Twitter web redesign is rolling out for all users, simplifying navigation, a sidebar, profile switching, and more.
The update is designed to make it easier to move around Twitter. Before, you’d have to click on your Profile icon to access features like Lists, Themes, Settings, and other options. Meanwhile, getting to Moments was available both in this Profile dropdown menu and in the main Twitter navigation at the top of the screen, next to Notifications and Messages.
Over the weekend a Facebook event page to raid Area 51 has had over 400,000 people signing up. This is because of the belief that aliens or alien technology are held there. But the Air Force is prepared.
“[Area 51] is an open training range for the US Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces,” McAndrews said. “The US Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.”
Although Tim Cook vocally supports privacy laws in the United States, Apple doesn’t actually support many of them.
A number of privacy advocates and U.S. lawmakers — who did not attend the meeting — say Apple has not put enough muscle behind any federal effort to tighten privacy laws. And state lawmakers, who are closest to passing rules to limit data sharing, say Apple is an ally in name only — and in fact has contributed to lobbying efforts that might undermine some new data-protection legislation.
This is something I’ve noticed as well. I think Tim and co should do more to support privacy legislation.
