Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. Tired of Facebook too? We’ve got a guide for that. Oh, and Instagram? Yep, here’s how to delete that too. What, and Twitter? Here’s all you need to know.
Read MoreA frequent beginner project involves measuring soil moisture levels by measuring its resistance with a couple of electrodes. These electrodes are available ready-made as PCBs, but suffer badly from corrosion. Happily there is a solution in the form of capacitive sensor probes, and it is these that [Electrobob] is incorporating in to a home automation
Read MoreGenetic testing used to be something that happened in a specialist clinic for those few families that had serious inherited conditions, like Huntington’s Disease or rare cancers. Now, new genetic tests called “polygenic risk scores” have increased access to genetic risk information for a wide range of conditions. With a few clicks of a mouse
Read MoreDevin Coldewey / TechCrunch: Inside Microsoft’s Building 87, which includes a lab with models of body parts that are used to help test products and a quiet room to measure product sounds — “It’s amazing that we ever ship a product.” — Nestled among the many indistinguishable buildings of Microsoft’s Redmond campus … Inside Microsoft's
Read MoreSarah Frier / Bloomberg: Many young Instagram users have turned their accounts into “business” profiles to get detailed analytics by providing their phone number or email to the public — – Creating a ‘business’ account provides detailed analytics — Users say they are businesses, in order to get the information Many young Instagram users have
Read MoreIf you hang around Hackaday long enough, pretty soon you’ll start to see some patterns emerging. As the nexus of all things awesome in the hacking world, our front page offers a unique vantage point by which you can see what’s getting folks excited this particular month, year, or decade. Right now we can tell
Read MoreAndy Greenberg / Wired: Interview with Facebook’s ex-CSO Alex Stamos about the Stanford Internet Observatory, funded in-part by $5M from Craig Newmark, for monitoring online abuse — Alex Stamos’ Stanford-based project will try to persuade tech firms to offer academics access to massive troves of user data. Interview with Facebook's ex-CSO Alex Stamos about the
Read MoreWho ya gonna call to help you find extraterrestrials? Ghostbusters! Planning to storm Area 51 to see aliens? Ghostbusters have advice – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreThe FCC has revealed images of what looks to be the upcoming smartwatch. Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 pictures leak – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreThere’s a good chance you won’t actually get the full $125. Here’s why. An Equifax hack settlement promises a 5 payout. The truth is more complicated. Source: Washington Post Tech
Read MoreEli Blumenthal / CNET: History of Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony, or Sprint, which transitioned to mobile, made some disastrous bets, and merged with T-Mobile — Sprint has struggled to stay alive for more than a decade, constantly fighting for that next wireless customer. History of Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony, or Sprint,
Read MoreIf you are writing a program that has a technical user base, it is a nice touch to make the program scriptable. In fact, you might want to do the hard work in a programming language and then use your scripting language to build out features. In theory, this should be easy. There are plenty
Read MoreA survey finds playing Mario Kart keeps the romance alive. And Call of Duty and Skyrim aren’t bad for love either. Couples that play Mario Kart together stay together – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreThis summer has proven a punishing reminder that climate change isn’t a far-off scenario, but one that’s happening right in front of our eyes. Unrelenting heat, though, doesn’t just affect humans. In Massachusetts there lives a an 85-foot northern red oak tree, a sprawling member of the 4,000 acre Harvard Forest — an outdoor research
Read MoreHanna Kozlowska / Quartz: A look at “pedophile hunting” vigilante Facebook groups, which stage real-life sting operations, some that are live streamed, to catch suspected child abusers — Tony Blas is a plumber in his mid-thirties who lives in Queens, New York. He has two young daughters. A look at "pedophile hunting" vigilante Facebook groups,
Read MoreThe techniques developed to help DeepMind play the almost decade-old strategy game are now being used to quickly retrain neural networks for self-driving vehicles. Google's DeepMind is using StarCraft II to help train self-driving cars – Roadshow Source: CNet
Read MoreThe $26.5 billion takeover is closer to happening after a year of regulatory battles, with Dish Network set to take Sprint’s place and become the fourth national wireless player. T-Mobile-Sprint merger gains Justice Department OK thanks to Dish – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreWelcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. As Google pushed out beta after beta of Android Q, it became clear the company was taking a page out of Apple’s UI. This is most notable with regards to
Read MoreZack Whittaker / TechCrunch: Marcus “MalwareTech” Hutchins sentenced to time served and one year of supervised release for writing and selling the Kronos banking malware — Marcus Hutchins, the malware researcher who became known as an “accidental hero” for stopping the WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017 … Marcus "MalwareTech" Hutchins sentenced to time served and
Read MoreDean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Facebook says it will migrate Instant Games from the Messenger app on iOS to the Gaming tab in Facebook’s main app starting later this summer — Instant Games have become a popular pastime, allowing friends to play light games with each other in their messaging apps. Facebook says it will migrate
Read MorePhoto by Mark Wilson/Getty Images If you’re anything like me, you took off like a shot the moment you heard Equifax would pay you $125 just for filling out a simple form. Perhaps you even considered it a reasonable stab at compensation for the fact that the 2017 data breach exposed the personal information of
Read MoreCommentary: I like this homage to Hollywood’s golden age starring Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie. But I could do without all the blood spattering. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Tarantino love letter to movies has a bloody twist – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreHe blames Bahamian corruption and the CIA for his jail stint. John McAfee to reveal detainment details from London – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreNot everything Siri hears is completely private, according to the Guardian. Apple listens to some Siri recordings to make it better – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreLiam Tung / ZDNet: A developer based in Crimea and one based in Iran say that GitHub has “restricted” their accounts “due to US trade controls” — If you use GitHub’s online services in a country facing US sanctions, you could be about to be kicked off all but the most basic offerings. A developer
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