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.
Robots Company Anki Shuts Down
Robotics company Anki announced that it’s shutting down, and close to 200 employees would be paid a week of severance. The company said it was left without “significant funding” to support its goals.
“Despite our past successes, we pursued every financial avenue to fund our future product development and expand on our platforms,” a company spokesperson said. “A significant financial deal at a late stage fell through with a strategic investor and we were not able to reach an agreement. We’re doing our best to take care of every single employee and their families, and our management team continues to explore all options available.”
Sad to see. I remember first seeing Anki announced at Apple’s keynote back in 2013.
Apple 5G Engineer Rubén Caballero Leaves Company
Apple engineer Rubén Caballero recently left the company. Is this related to Apple’s settlement with Qualcomm?
Apple Gets Low Marks on Trust From Survey Respondents
A new survey makes grim reading for tech giants. It found that users gave a number of firms, including Apple, low marks when asked whether they trust them. Interestingly, Amazon came out on top, Cult of Mac reported. It looks like Tim Cook’s privacy message is not quite getting through yet.
All seven of the tech giants mentioned in a YouGov survey received jarringly negative results from an undisclosed number of respondents from the U.S. and United Kingdom. The survey, sponsored by Tresorit, which offers encrypted file sharing, shows Amazon as most trusted, but with just 28 percent. Microsoft was second with 24 percent, Apple was third with 22 percent, Facebook and Google each had 13 percent, while Dropbox and Instagram were at the bottom with single digits.
Mozilla Says Cities Can Help Save The Open Internet
International bodies like the EU have made some effort to protect the open internet recently. However, it is also happening at a more local level too. The Mozilla Foundation told Fast Company about the important action being taken by cities.
“Cities are a place to shape what we want from the internet, which might be faster and more powerful than what national governments can do,” says Mark Surman, the executive director of the Mozilla Foundation. He points to an example from 2015, when the New York City Department of Education was able to require Amazon to make its e-books accessible to blind people, even though the company had been ignoring the same request from the National Federation for the Blind for years. How? By making it a stipulation of the city’s $30 million contract to create an e-book store for teachers in 1,800 schools.
Silicon Valley Lobbyists Want to Limit California Consumer Privacy Act
Silicon Valley lobbying groups are trying to gut the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
The California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, gives residents of California the ability to request the data that businesses collect on them, demand that it be deleted, and opt out of having that data sold to third parties, among other things. But last week, the California Assembly’s Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection advanced a series of bills that would either amend CCPA or carve out exemptions for certain categories of businesses.
I have a couple of opinions here. I think groups affected by a certain bill or law should have the right to voice their opinion. On the other hand I feel uneasy by corporate lobbying focused on donating or influencing political campaigns where there is a conflict of interest.
Exposed Database on Microsoft Cloud Contains Info on 80 Million U.S. Households
A research team has uncovered an exposed database hosted on a Microsoft cloud server containing 24GBs of data on over 80 million U.S. households.
Toyota Retrofits Older Vehicles for Apple CarPlay
Owners of Toyota’s Camry and Sienna vehicles will be able to add Apple CarPlay and Amazon Alexa as part of a retrofit.
Toyota says it will be notifying Camry and Sienna owners and “encouraging them to contact their dealer” about the retrofit; the installation will be done at dealerships. We reached out to Toyota to ask if the retrofit costs anything, and a spokesperson for the brand said there “may be a small service charge” and that dealers will be able to provide more information. Toyota doesn’t say how long it will actually take to complete the installation.