In a new blog post, ProtonVPN announced it will fully encrypt its exit servers to help stop man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks.
Mark Zuckerberg to Focus on Privacy at F8
Mark Zuckerberg will focus on privacy when he speaks at the F8 developer conference, saying Facebook has a new “privacy focussed” approach.
HSBC Says 300,000 Use Its Money Management iOS App
Over 300,000 people in the UK use the HSBC money management app, called Connected Money, which is only available for iPhone.
Apple Poached Lead 5G Intel Developer Umashankar Thyagarajan
Just weeks before Apple and Qualcomm reached a settlement, Apple poached Intel employee Umashankar Thyagarajan.
Mr. Thyagarajan’s departure is understood to have been a setback to Intel’s efforts, forcing the company to reshuffle the 5G project. Shortly afterwards, Intel said it would not be able to release a 5G smartphone chip until 2020, more than a year after Qualcomm.
Very interesting. More and more pieces of the puzzle are being revealed.
Legacy App Aperture Won’t Run on Future macOS Versions
Apple has created a new support document warning users that its legacy photo editing app Aperture won’t run on future versions of macOS.
Belgian Programmer Solves 20 Year Old Crypto Puzzle
In 1999, MIT created a puzzle designed to take 35 years to solve. Belgian programmer Bernard Fabrot has solved it early.
The puzzle essentially involves doing roughly 80 trillion successive squarings of a starting number, and was specifically designed to foil anyone trying to solve it more quickly by using parallel computing.
“There have been hardware and software advances beyond what I predicted in 1999,” says MIT professor Ron Rivest, who first announced the puzzle in April 1999. “The puzzle’s fundamental challenge of doing roughly 80 trillion squarings remains unbroken, but the resources required to do a single squaring have been reduced by much more than I predicted.”
Huawei: U.S. Warns Against Using, Backdoors Found in Software
A U.S. official warned allies not to use Huawei equipment, as Vodafone said it found backdoors in equipment supplied by the company.
Not all USB-C Is Created Equal – Mac Geek Gab 759
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more confusing, USB-C cables can add some additional questions to the mix. Add to this lots of Cool Stuff Found, a discussion about the best desktop Mac to buy, some tips and follow-ups from recent episodes, and you’ve got yourself this week’s Mac Geek Gab. You’re guaranteed to join John and Dave in learning at least five new things. Press play, and enjoy!
Humans May Emotionally Bond With Robots
Big Think writes:
- Human-like robots may creep us, at first, but roboticists believe the more like us they appear, the more likely we’ll feel comfortable around them.
- Some studies suggest that we could develop feelings for robots, despite them not being human.
- As the loneliness epidemic continues, such robots may fill certain people’s social voids.
This is not so crazy. After all, I heard about a guy who married his iPhone.
TMO Background Mode Interview with Cosmologist Dr. Andrew Friedman
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 how science fiction inspired him as a youth to become a cosmologist. Also, how important it is to have a Ph.D. thesis advisor who’s enthusiastically supportive. Then, we got into some cool topics of cosmology: using Type Ia supernovae to measure the rate of expansion of the universe, why infrared observations of those stars are helpful, whether quantum entanglement suggests a substrate on which spacetime resides, the multiverse, and the implications of the Planck length and Higgs field for our very existence.
