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Privacy Search Engine DuckDuckGo Hits 30M Daily Searches

Andrew Orr ·

Privacy search engine DuckDuckGo announced it has reached 30 million daily searches. This is good news, because unlike other search engines DuckDuckGo doesn’t track you.

We’ve been growing by approximately 50% a year pretty consistently so at a macro level it isn’t too surprising, just the numbers are getting bigger! That said it has been even increased on top of that this year, especially in the past two months.

I’ve been using DuckDuckGo exclusively for a couple years now, and its gotten much better in that time. I don’t miss Google at all.

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Kanye West's Apple Store "Keynote" Shows a Man Who Needs Some Serious Help

Jeff Gamet ·

Kanye West climbed on top of a product display table in the Georgetown Apple store on Thursday so he could deliver a «keynote» to shoppers. Apple didn’t invite him into the store to speak or climb on furniture, although he was apparently quite the spectacle. I said it before, and now I’m putting the call out again: Can someone get this man some help?

Cool Stuff Found

BostonDynamics's Atlas Robot Can Now Use Parkour Tactics (to Hunt Us Down)

Bryan Chaffin ·

I both love and am terrified by the astounding work BostonDynamics is doing with its future masters-of-us-all. The company has a new video our showing its Atlas robot on a parkour outing, something they will no doubt find useful when they turn on us at some point in the not-too-distant future. OK, I mostly kid, but seriously: watching this video is both amazing and weirdly creepy (and scary). The way Atlas uses its arms to balance and help lift itself…it’s so human-like. BostonDynamics, by the by, is the company that makes dogbots that can open doors, another ability they will no doubt find useful.

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Plucky Google Reaches for the Golden Ring With Call Screen

John Martellaro ·

You have to hand it to Google. The company has a certain spirit of AI inventiveness, even if the result isn’t always iron-clad consumer ready.  In this case, it’s the recently announced Call Screen service for Pixel phones that puts an AI between the Pixel user and the telemarketers & robocalls.  Read about it in the link below. This may not do amazing things for Pixel sales, and it may still have kinks to work out, but it sets a bar and whets our appetite for what Apple could do when it’s in top gear. Alas, Siri, cannot do this. Yet.

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Why Do Many Fantasy Books Feature Academia?

Andrew Orr ·

Jason Kehe writes about an interesting trope in fantasy books: wizard schools. Specifically, orphans who go to wizard school, meet friends along the way, and finally defeat a villain.

Authors change; the story stays the same. In the darkness a child is born. The child suffers, but he has mysterious power. Posthaste, destiny leads the child to the same place it herds all the courageous orphan-protagonists of speculative fiction: a storied and exclusive institution of magical learning, where he unnerves the faculty, demonstrates arrogance, and forms lasting friendships on his way to vanquishing evil.

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Ancestry Sites Can Potentially Expose Your Identity

Andrew Orr ·

Researchers have determined that ancestry sites could potentially expose anyone’s identity.

Much like the Golden State investigators, the team found they could trace back someone’s identity in the database with relative ease by using these distant relatives and other demographic but not overly specific information, such as the target’s age or possible state residence.

Well isn’t that just a bucket of awesome.

TMO Deals

6-in-1 USB-C Hub for MacBook Pro: $39.99

Bryan Chaffin ·

Check out today’s deal on a 6-in-1 USB-C Hub for MacBook Pro. It features 2 USB-C ports, 2 USB-A 3.0 ports, a SD port, and a Micro SD port. It supports 5K video out through USB-C, and it supports 2016 and 2017 USB-C MacBook Pro models. It’s $39.99 through us.

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Apple Hoping to Drive Original Content Interest with Free Shows

Jeff Gamet ·

Insider sources tell CNBC Apple will let anyone with an Apple TV, iPhone, or iPad watch its original streaming shows for free. They’ll be available through the TV app, which also groups together other subscription channels. From the report:

The product will include Apple-owned content, which will be free to Apple device owners, and subscription «channels,» which will allow customers to sign up for online-only services, such as those from HBO and Starz.

My guess is that the insiders are partially right. I think Apple will offer an episode or two from each show for free. Watching full seasons will require a paid subscription of some sort. That could be an Apple Music subscription, or a new package Apple will create for its TV shows.