Got an unexpected guest coming to Christmas dinner? Don’t panic – you can send last-minute gifts through the iOS App Store.
Sir Jony Ive Donating £100,000 to Daily Mail Tree-Planting Campaign
Former Apple Chief Design Officer Sir Jony Ive has donated £100,000 to a campaign that will plant orchards in schools across Britain.
Track Santa's Journey Around the World
It’s that time of year ago – to follow Santa and Mrs. Claus on their journey around the world! Google’s Santa Tracker is ready and waiting for Santa to take off on his journey delivering presents around the globe. You can follow that journey as Christmas day begins.
Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Quits Company Board
Uber’s controversial founder and former CEO, Travis Kalanick is leaving the company’s board, Techcrunch reported. It appears Mr. Kalinick has sold all of the stock he had in the ride-hailing service
Kalanick, who was forced out as Uber CEO and eventually replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi through shareholder action, with support of the board, in 2017, has been in the process of selling off his considerable ownership stake in the company through successive sales of his shares. Just last week, Kalanick sold around $383 million in shares and reduced his overall stake to less than 10%, per an SEC filing. UPDATE 7:35 AM PT: In fact, it looks like Kalanick has actually sold all his remaining stock, with the SEC filings to show up on the web likely after the Christmas holiday, per the FT. The share sales started when Uber’s restriction on the sale of stock for private investors and employees expired six months after the company’s IPO.
How the Makers of 'Jumanji: Next Level' Used The Mac Pro and Pro XDR Display
Filmmaking and animation was an obvious target market for the Mac Pro as it was revealed. In a blog post, Lunar Animation, the animation studio behind ‘Jumanji: Next Level’ revealed how they used the devices in their work.
With the texture issues we were encountering on the iMac Pro, we opened the same scene on the Mac Pro and all of the textures loaded up completely fine. This makes sense, as there is double the graphics memory for textures (32GB instead of 16GB). We were then surprised to see that it was playing back in real time without pre-caching, because even with clamped textures on the iMac Pro, we weren’t getting a consistent 24 frames-per-second during playback. We then unlocked the 24 frames-per-second cap on the playback and got speeds of up to 134 frames-per-second. This allowed us to review, change and preview everything at lightning speed avoiding the need to create proxy textures and models, and we were able to work with the content directly.
Russia Disconnects From Internet in Tests
Russia announced it successfully completed a series of tests that disconnected the whole country from the internet.
Pentagon Warns Military Not to Use Home DNA Kits
A Department of Defense memo warns U.S. military members about the privacy risks of home DNA kits.
The memo provides little details on how genetic profiles could endanger security, other than noting that potential “inaccuracies” in health information could pose a risk to military personnel, who are required to report medical issues. Most of the health reports provided by DNA companies typically pertain to medical risks, though, such as a predisposition to cancer, rather than diagnosing a condition.
Cosmologist Dr. Andrew Friedman (#2) - TMO Background Mode Interview
Dr. Andrew Friedman is an astronomer, cosmologist, and data scientist. He’s currently an NSF funded Assistant Research Scientist at the University of California at San Diego Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences. He is also a Research Affiliate in the MIT Program in Science, Technology and Society. He holds a Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Harvard.
We chatted about the apparent, seemingly contrived conflict between science and religion. We explored some of the sources of this conflict and how, with a good perspective, they are not really at odds. We looked at faith, both in science and religion, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, proof of God’s existence, varying views about what God is, approaching the subject with humility, and how the Bible cannot really serve as a science textbook. Join us as we get our theology hats on.
Robocall Fines Rise to $10,000 Per Call
Congress approved a bill on Thursday that raises the fine for robocall eras up to US$10,000 per call. It’s called the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED).
Once TRACED is enacted, the Federal Communications Commission could fine robocallers up to $10,000 per call. It also would require major carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to deploy a new technology called STIR/SHAKEN into their networks, which will make it easier for consumers to know if they’re receiving a call from a spoofed number.
Speaking of spoofed numbers, the trick many robocallers use nowadays is to make it appear as if the number they’re calling from is one in your area. Different one each time, making it harder to trace.
Spotify Encourages Journalists to Plug in Random USB Drives
As part of a promotion for a podcast, Spotify sent USB drives to journalists. But the move was criticized by computer security researchers.
But anyone with basic security training under their hat — which here at TechCrunch we do — will know to never plug in a USB drive without taking some precautions first.
Plugging in random USB drives is a bigger problem than you might think. Elie Bursztein, a Google security researcher, found in his own research that about half of all people will plug into their computer random USB drives.
I doubt anyone at Spotify was clueless about the security risk. But negative publicity is still publicity.
