This Raspberry Pi Jack-O-Lantern Follows Passersby

· Jeff Butts · Cool Stuff Found

Halloween is approaching faster than some would like. Here’s a great piece of interactive decor that’s bound to give your house top marks on the spookiness factor. Maker Caleb Lemoine put together a jack-o-lantern that uses Raspberry Pi, a home security camera, and a servo motor to really creep out anybody walking past. As soon as the camera detects someone walking in its field of vision, the Raspberry Pi sends commands to turn the jack-o-lantern. Your scary pumpkin decoration just became even more frightening. This Raspberry Pi jack-o-lantern actually follows anybody walking past. Lemoine got the idea from Ryder Damen, whose porch piracy prevention project we’ve covered in the past. Damen’s version used a mannequin head, but Lemoine thought a jack-o-lantern would be more appropriate. I definitely agree, and this is a project I want to replicate this year.

Jay Z Makes Huge Investment in Smart Home Tech

· Jeff Butts · Link

Jay Z Makes Huge Investment in Smart Home Tech

Rapper, songwriter, businessman Jay-Z has reportedly made a huge investment in smart home tech recently. Through Marcy Venture Partners, Jay-Z sent $110 million into Wyze Labs’ coffers. That brings the smart home device maker’s total funding to date to $146 million. The smart home tech company, founded in 2017 by Amazon veterans, has more than 300 employees. The work Wyze is doing with AI and camera technology will definitely. benefit from the extra cash.

“We are doubling down and investing heavily to build world-class artificial intelligence into our camera products,” Wyze co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Dave Crosby told GeekWire in a recent piece. “Just in the last year, our AI team has built person detection, vehicle detection, package detection and pet detection into our cameras. “Right now we have AI features in the works that we truly think will be game-changing for any camera, let alone one that costs less than $36.”

Developer of 'Apollo' Reddit Client Announces App to Kill Google AMP Pages

· Andrew Orr · Cool Stuff Found

Christian Selig, creator of the best Reddit client on iOS, has released two new apps. Achoo is an HTML viewer and inspector, and Amplosion redirects you away from Google’s contentious AMP web pages. Achoo HTML Viewer & Inspector: Achoo allows you to easily view the HTML for the webpage you’re viewing in Safari. It shows the HTML (as well as any inline CSS and JavaScript) with beautiful and fast syntax highlighting. You can share the HTML you’re viewing, allowing you to easily inspect it on an external device of your choosing, or send it to a friend, or simply copy it to your clipboard. Amplosion: Amplosion automagically redirects AMP pages/links to their normal counterparts within Safari using an easy and elegant Safari extension. It’s completely open source, so with this transparency you can verify everything about the extension. Both of these take advantage of the new Safari extension system on iOS 15 | iPadOS 15

Developer of ‘Apollo’ Reddit Client Announces App to Kill Google AMP Pages

Grain Cooperative 'New Cooperative Inc' Hit with BlackMatter Ransomware Attack

· Andrew Orr · Link

ransomware

Cyber gang BlackMatter has attacked Iowa-based grain cooperative New Cooperative Inc with ransomware, successfully shutting down its systems.

The attack occurred on or around Friday, according to Allan Liska, senior threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future Inc. The ransomware gang, which goes by the name BlackMatter, is demanding a $5.9 million ransom, Liska said.

New Cooperative confirmed that they had been attacked and said they had contacted law enforcement and were working with data security experts to investigate and remediate the situation.

Here's How Much Your Car Knows About You

· Andrew Orr · Link

car dashboard

Jon Callas, the Electric Frontier Foundation’s director of technology projects, explained what data newer cars, especially Tesla, collect from you.

“All of these things are at least theoretically able to be logged,” cautioned Callas. “And there is a port that you can connect something to — and there’s lots of hardware and software that you can connect to your car and get all sorts of telemetry information about how the car is running — and just like there are people who hack their computers there are people who hack their cars.”

Apple TV+: Trailer for 'Finch' Starring Tom Hanks

· Charlotte Henry · Cool Stuff Found

The first trailer for Finch, starring Tom Hanks, was released Monday. It gives us an intial peek into the world of a man on a journey for a new home, with his dog and a newly created robot for company. The film will premiere on Apple TV+ on November 5.

Here's How to Force Files to Download on iOS

· Andrew Orr · Cool Stuff Found

Redditor u/kevingrabher wrote about a shortcut that can force files in iCloud Drive to download. This helps you keep important files handy for offline access. Here are the steps: Open the Shortcuts app and create a new shortcut. Add Action “Get Contents of Folder” (*). Press the triangle icon and enable “Recursive.”  Add Action “Get Details of Files.” Set the detail variable to “File Size” (if not set by default).   In the first action you’ll probably want to choose Ask Every Time, so you can download a different folder each time.

Here’s How to Force Files to Download on iOS

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch — Mac Geek Gab 891

· John F. Braun & Dave Hamilton · Mac Geek Gab Podcast

Today the “we” is three with the return of Pilot Pete! The content is the same, only better, as Pete ensures your two favorite geeks complete their explanations for you. Topics today include Time Machine, Watch battery drain, airplanes, and of course your favorite Quick Tips and Cool Stuff Found. Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things with John, Dave, and Pete!