Facebook wants to offer new services to its users, so it’s asking banks in the United States to share personal account information. That includes account balances and credit card activity, because who better to have access to our personal financial data than Facebook? From the Wall Street Journal:

As part of the proposed deals, Facebook asked banks for information about where its users are shopping with their debit and credit cards outside of purchases they make using Facebook Messenger.

Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have shown time and again that our personal data is far more valuable than our privacy. At least one bank has already told Facebook «no,» and hopefully the others will, too.

On August 1, LEGO launched its first line of sustainable blocks made from sugarcane. LEGO wants to make its production to be sustainable by 2030. The new blocks are made of sugarcane plastic and are shaped like plants. But is that really eco-friendly?

According to the World Wildlife Fund:

Sugarcane is a water-intensive crop that remains in the soil all year long. As one of the world’s thirstiest crops, sugarcane has a significant impact on many environmentally sensitive regions, like the Mekong Delta and the Atlantic Forest.

Sugar mills produce wastewater, emissions and solid waste that impact the environment. The massive quantities of plant matter and sludge washed from mills decompose in freshwater bodies, absorbing all the available oxygen and leading to massive fish kills. In addition, mills release flue gases, soot, ash, ammonia and other substances during processing.

The terms artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and deep learning are often confused or interchanged. Friday’s Particle Debris links to an article by a researcher who explains the differences. With that background in hand, PD looks at some intriguing research in the field, including research robots that beg for their lives.

I previously wrote about how Apple Books has greatly improved in iOS 12, and Ryan Christoffel agrees in his own rundown of Apple Books as a love letter to readers.

Apple could have easily taken the look of apps like Music and Podcasts and slapped it on Books, and it would have been fine. The company did nothing of the sort, though; instead, Apple Books offers one of the most drastic departures from existing iOS design norms available on the platform…

Books’ design isn’t entirely foreign to other iOS apps – there are some similarities, such as the abundant use of white space – but overall its differences far outweigh any commonalities. And those differences prove that there’s still plenty of room to expand the accepted design norms on iOS.

Apple iPhone processor maker TSMC was knocked to its knees over the weekend when the WannaCry computer ransomware virus infected fabrication tools. The virus left the equipment unusable while it was being removed. Bloomberg reports,

TSMC said that 80 percent of the fabrication tools affected by a virus outbreak Friday evening had been restored and that it expects full recovery on Monday. The Taiwanese company said the incident, which comes as it ramps up chipmaking for Apple Inc.’s next iPhones, would delay shipments, without specifying which customers would be affected. Its shares fell more than 1 percent in Taipei.

Odds are TSMC is prioritizing Apple, so we probably won’t see much of an impact on iPhone availability when new models ship this fall. TSMC’s other clients, however, probably won’t fare as well.