In this week’s podcast, editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys look back on favorite hacks and articles from the week. Highlights include a deep dive in barn-door telescope trackers, listening in on mains power, the backstory of a supercomputer inventor, and crazy test practices with new jet engine designs. We discuss some of our favorite
Read More‘Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Power platform on top of what we’re doing with Azure is the core of what we are doing as a company,’ says CEO Satya Nadella. Why Microsoft's 'Power Platform' is one of its biggest bets for 2019 and beyond Source: ZDNet Microsoft
Read MoreThe streaming service is ratcheting up its ambition, aiming beyond video. Netflix: Fortnite is a bigger rival than HBO Source: Washington Post Tech
Read MoreMicrosoft has continued to waffle around how exactly it plans to position Cortana. But CEO Satya Nadella gave the clearest explanation so far: Cortana will be a skill, not a head-to-head competitor with Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri. Microsoft CEO Nadella makes it official: Cortana is an app, not a standalone assistant Source: ZDNet Microsoft
Read MoreA new book argues that Google and Facebook created a new business model that profits off private human behavior. Bits: The Week in Tech: How Google and Facebook Spawned Surveillance Capitalism Source: NY Times Tech
Read MoreAT&T, one of the biggest advertisers in the U.S., had balked because offensive content too often accompanied its ads. Now it says YouTube has addressed the issue. AT&T to Advertise on YouTube Again After a Nearly 2-Year Holdout Source: NY Times Tech
Read MoreMen can’t tell the difference between fear and respect. They act accordingly. Work Friend: If You Don’t Think Your Office Is a War Zone You Are Fooling Yourself Source: NY Times Tech
Read MoreMicrocontrollers are small, no one is arguing that. On a silicon wafer the size of a grain of rice, you can connect a GPS tracker to the Internet. Put that in a package, and you can put the Internet of Things into something the size of a postage stamp. There’s one microcontroller that’s smaller than
Read MoreAs a birder, I had heard that if you paid careful attention to the head feathers on the downy woodpeckers that visited your bird feeders, you could begin to recognize individual birds. This intrigued me. I even went so far as to try sketching birds at my own feeders and had found this to be
Read MoreA security flaw may have disabled the “Protect your Tweets” setting. Twitter admits bug exposed some Android users' protected tweets for years – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreSAP has launched a blockchain-based supply chain tracking system to allow drug wholesalers to authenticate pharmaceutical packaging returned by pharmacies and hospitals. That should help them weed out counterfeit drugs from their supply chain. SAP says it hopes to eventually expand the use of distributed ledger technology to cover a broader range of pharmaceutical supply
Read MoreFacebook today removed multiple accounts, Pages, groups, and Instagram profiles that were related to Russian networks. The accounts in question were masquerading as news organizations and interest pages to spread misinformation. The pages and accounts were linked to employees of defamed Russian state publication Sputnik, which was previously downranked by Google for spreading false information.
Read MoreThe Redmond giant is keenly interested in remote code execution and privilege escalation flaws. Microsoft launches Azure DevOps bug bounty program, ,000 rewards on offer Source: ZDNet Microsoft
Read MoreMatthew Panzarino / TechCrunch: Hands-on with Nike’s $350 Bluetooth-enabled Adapt BB shoe with automated power-lacing, which will allow basketball players to change shoe tightness via an app — Nike’s Adapt BB shoe has utility for pros, but is also a lens into a connected future — Why does the world need a self-lacing shoe? Hands-on
Read MoreMortal Kombat 11 is pairing its familiar ultraviolence with more character customization. Mortal Kombat 11's first gameplay footage: new fatalities, characters revealed – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreWe’ve known for a while now that China has a roadmap to implement a ‘social credit system’ for its citizens in 2020: the plan is to score people based on their interactions and infractions with public and private institutions, such as breaking traffic rules, and spreading misinformation online. This week, China Daily reported that North
Read MoreArtificial intelligence and automation are no longer the stuff of science fiction; they’re a very real and growing presence in both the business and consumer landscape. For many companies, AI can streamline operations and improve decision-making with advanced data analysis. Automating routine tasks can also free staff up to work on bigger picture projects that can
Read MoreIf you’ve ever engaged in social media, you’re familiar with the little thrill you receive when your post, tweet, or project gets a like. But, if logging in feels like too much overhead to obtain your dopamine reward, [pt’s] CircuitPython Hackaday portal may be just what you’re looking for. This project creates a stand-alone counter
Read MoreThe European Union is inching closer to enacting sweeping copyright legislation that would require platforms like Google, Facebook to pay publishers for the privilege of displaying their content to users, as well as monitoring copyright infringement by users on the sites and services they manage. That’s set to open a Pandora’s Box of problems that
Read MoreNot long ago, we published an article about researchers adding sensor data to passive RFID tags, and a comment from a reader turned our heads to a consumer/maker version which anyone can start using right away. If you’re catching up, passive RFID technology is behind the key fobs and stickers which don’t need power, just
Read MoreToday, Twitter disclosed a bug persisting from 2014 on its platform that affected protected tweets and accounts on Android. The company said the bug – active between November 2014 and January 2019 – switched off the “Turn your tweets private” option when users made changes to their account, like updating the email address associated with
Read MoreIssie Lapowsky / Wired: Government review: Trump admin lacks integrated data system to track separated families, ad hoc records likely mean thousands more kids separated than disclosed — THEY KEPT THE kids in cages. And Excel spreadsheets. And more than 60 other government files and databases … Government review: Trump admin lacks integrated data system
Read MoreThey knew what they were doing when they taught it to walk this way. Scientists built a lizard-like robot based on a 280-million-year-old fossil – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreBusiness Insider: Satya Nadella says Cortana won’t challenge Alexa and Google Assistant directly, instead Microsoft will focus on making it a skill on other voice platforms — – Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says that it no longer sees its Cortana smart assistant as a competitor to Amazon’s Alexa. Satya Nadella says Cortana won't challenge Alexa
Read MoreEverything needs to be designed, at one point or another. There are jobs for those who design kitchens, and stadiums, and interplanetary spacecraft. However, there are also jobs for those who design cutlery, hose fittings, and even toilet roll holders. [Eric Strebel] is here to share just such a story. [Eric] covers the whole process
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