Robot technology often invokes sophisticated mechanisms, in order to perform a task, that mimic those of living creatures. When done right, the visual effect can be startling, even creepy. Mark Serrels writes: “Meet “Salto-1P” a robot being designed by the Biomimetic Millisystems lab at Berkeley, University of California. The work is being supported by an Army Research Office Grant, which makes me wonder if one of these things is gonna kill me one day.” Better check under your bed again, Mark.
Apple Music Trailer for Carpool Karaoke with Jamie Foxx and Corinne Foxx
Apple has a new trailer out for Carpool Karaoke promoting an upcoming episode with Jamie Foxx and his daughter Corinne Foxx. The trailer feature’s Foreigner’s ripoff of Deep Purple’s “My Woman from Tokyo” “Hot Blooded.” The theme of this episode is father-daughter clashes over what gets played on the car’s radio, which will surely resonate with lots of folks. Jamie Foxx is a great singer, too. Here’s the trailer.
Meross Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip: $23.99
We have a deal on the Meross Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip. This device not only has three standard plugs and two USB ports, it has Wi-Fi connectivity that allows you to control each plug individually through the Meross app. You can turn connected devices on and off, set schedules, and activate timer routines, protecting your devices and trimming down your power usage. It’s $23.99 through our deal.
macOS Mojave Made Me Hate Dark Mode
I’ve been a fan of Dark Mode ever since Adobe added it to Photoshop CS6 back in 2012. That’s why I was so excited to see system-wide Dark Mode support in macOS Mojave, and yet Apple managed to make me dislike the feature so much I gave up on it. For now, I’ll be sticking with the pre-Mojave light colored windows and menus instead. I planned on using Dark Mode to cut the brightness out of Finder windows, but now I’m going back to what I did before: When I’m writing and my screen feels too bright I switch to Grayscale mode. Andrew Orr did a great job of explaining how to turn it on and off for your Mac as well as iPhone and iPad. Check out his tip.
How Do Companies Make Money off our Data?
Big Data is a huge money making business, and a big example of this is AOL. No longer an ISP, AOL is now a data broker.
The collected data has value because of how it’s used in online advertising, specifically targeted advertising: when a company sends an ad your way based on information about you, such as your location, age, and race. Targeted ads, the thinking goes, are not only more likely to result in a sale (or at least a click), they’re also supposed to be more relevant to consumers.
While some people might want better ads that are more relevant to them, the article makes a good point: “I have targeted ads that are more attuned to my desires and my wants… But if you have someone who has an alcohol abuse problem getting a liquor store ad…”
And I’m cynical enough to believe that the average advertiser wouldn’t care about that in the slightest.
Cops Taught How to Avoid Face ID Lock Out
While suspects can be forced to unlock their iPhones, cops have been instructed not to look directly at iPhones to avoid Face ID lock out.
Smart Speakers Take Advantage of Wikipedia
Smart speakers like the Amazon Echo take advantage of Wikipedia, and Wikipedia deservers way more of our money.
But it’s not just the fact that this donation is, in the scheme of things, paltry. It’s that this “endowment” is dwarfed by what Amazon and its ilk get out of Wikipedia—figuratively and literally. Wikipedia provides the intelligence behind many of Alexa’s most useful skills, its answers to everything from “What is Wikipedia?” to “What is Slate?” (meta). Tech companies that profit from Wikipedia’s extensive database owe Wikimedia a much greater debt.
Amazon recently donated US$1 million to Wikimedia, but that’s a drop in the bucket when you think just how many people and services use Wikipedia. Especially since it’s a non-profit organization that gets most of its money through donations.
Cryptocurrency Malware Found in Adobe Flash
Cryptocurrency malware has been found in Adobe Flash updates by researchers from Palo Alto Networks. It’s a Monero mining bot.
What's New with WiFi Mesh, Apple's Possible iPad Pro Media Event - TMO Daily Observations 2018-10-12
Dave Hamilton and Andrew Orr join Jeff Gamet to look at what’s new in the WiFi Mesh market, plus they share their thoughts on whether or not Apple will host an iPad Pro media event in October.
Privacy Search Engine DuckDuckGo Hits 30M Daily Searches
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.