Items I happen to view each day. Science, Technology, Management, Culture, and Writing

    This is my day book for this week. It is a log of things I see on the Internet.

This week: 18-24 May, 2020

Summary of this week:

• Apple is opening 25 retail stores this week
• Microsoft teams with Sony on computer vision
• Minecraft still has 126 million active users
• winget - the new Windows Package Manager
• Univ of California systems drops all standardized tests in favor of high school grades
• Nvidia has a big financial quarter

Monday 18 May 2020

Where the money is: Congress pours mountains of money into special unemployment claims. Fraud immediately follows.

Apple is opening 25 stores in the US this week. Wear a mask and have your temperature taken at the door.

Google releases its Zoom competitor called Meet. 50million downloads of the software in three weeks.

The X-37B goes up again.

You can't make up these stories: (Headline says it all) 'It's a slap in the face': Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts their hazard pay

Speculation about major changes in how college is delivered and priced given all this online learning we are doing.

The Universal Basic Income concept pops up again. If it were in place, Congress maybe wouldn't have spent a few Trillion dollars over a weekend.

Tuesday 19 May 2020

Logitech shows its updated Circle View camera that is built to work with Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video platform.

By not hearing a case, the US Supreme Court basically shields Facebook et al. from crimes of treason.

Microsoft and Sony team to put Microsoft's Azure AI technology onto Sony's new vision sensor and processor the IMX500.

A pizzeria owner shows the economic absurdity of Uber, DoorDash and the like.

Jack Dorsey tells Square employees that they can work from home forever. The real estate market, especially in the farm lands, will change.

Today's smartphones are supercomputers attached to telecommunications systems. Add a sensor, an ultrasound wand in this story, and you have a doctor's office in your home.

I was ahead on this one: instead of work from home I want to work from anywhere. I suppose companies and government offices will resist this one.

Our President takes hydroxychloroquine to prevent the virus. He doesn't have the virus, hence, it works. Of course this is silly as it is an experiment with sample size of one. Much of what is reported in today's news is equally as silly when examined in light of experimental science.

Wednesday 20 May 2020

Google releases Chrome 83.

Microsoft releases PowerToys Run launcher for Windows 10. Try to ignore what is probably the worst name for anything, this allows power users to launch programs faster.

It appears that more persons are coming to more realization of the dangers of living in densely populated cities. Couple that with, "Hey, we can work from anywhere," and let's see what happens.

Must-see video: robot herds sheep. Shepherd dogs everywhere are lining up for unemployment (just kidding about the last part).

The newest SD card specification allows for much higher data transfer speeds.

OpenBSD 6.7 is released.

The world turns upside down: Microsoft is adding command-line interface tools for programmers using Windows.

The British invasion 2020: persons in the US are now burning 5G towers.

Thursday 21 May 2020

Cisco tells its 75,000 employees to take off Friday and have a four-day weekend. For some of us, we have been isolated for ten weeks now. And why is it that we did this to ourselves? Locking up healthy people? Odd.

Of libraries, copyright, and the National Emergency Library. The herds of lawyers are gathering.

We are no longer tracing a person's location, we are notifying exposure. Sounds nicer, but it is the same thing. Let us hope that someone is thinking this through with care.

Little robots, the kind that look like an ice chest with wheels, are servicing a town in the UK.

Delving into Intel's 10th generation processors.

Google wins a contract with out DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) for multi-cloud security.

Samsung launches a new smartphone for military and industrial uses. Basically, it is a tough phone that withstands conditions of military, law enforcement, fire fighters, and the like.

Sigh, students trying to take AP tests at home are failed because the test evaluators cannot read photos taken with the phones in the hands of 99% of students. Who is learning and who and failing?

Become accustomed to "winget." It is the command-line interface to the new Windows Package Manager. It is the best thing Microsoft has done in years.

"We keep seeing proof that cable news and other media don’t simply report the culture, they create it. Each of us now has our own microphone and network, and we get to decide what to program and what to consume...It turns out that spreading the news about things that are smart is, in itself, smart."—Seth Godin

"There’s a huge gulf between earned expertise and strong opinion. Knowing what others who have come before have done (and having successfully done it yourself) is demonstrably more effective than simply acting as if your opinion matters."—Seth Godin

When governments promise privacy: researchers quickly find security flaws in the UK's person tracking app.

When government promise value: Utah government spends $3million on an app that 2% of its residents use.

Friday 22 May 2020

Mr. Zuckerburg also notes that if you live in a lower cost-of-living area, or move to one, you will be paid less.

HP Enterprise has a bad financial quarter.

Nvidia has an outstanding financial quarter and year.

Those fitness trackers, well, they don't seem to work well if you aren't walking correctly or in a lot of other cases.

For some kids, school at home is a blessing. They focus much better. The same is true for some adults working from home. Who knows what the percentages are.

Facebook's Workplace version reaches 5million users. That is a pretty large number, but it pales in comparison to Slack and Microsoft. In today's world, it's just a pretty good niche offering.

Something for the deck: Samsung announces a line of TVs built for the outdoors.

I don't like this: John Krasinski’s  Some Good News is moving from YouTube to a CBS pay-per-view service and John won't be on it anymore.

The definition of the Long Tail: Microsoft's Solitaire is 30 years old. And 35million of us still play it. Compare that number to Zoom use, Facebook Workplace use, etc.

Meanwhile in Holland, a grandmother is ordered by a judge to remove Facebook photos of her grandkids because they didn't grant her permission to use them.

The rumors are arriving about Apple's augmented reality glasses coming real soon now.

The University of California system will no longer use SAT and ACT tests. High school grades will suffice. One wonders about what high schools the boards members attended.

Saturday 23 May 2020

5G tech is coming to China. Its governors celebrate over the potential of being able to watch all the subjects all the time.

Real news that's not news: unhappy employees leave their current employer and take knowledge with them. This is cyber insecurity. We know how to prevent it, but we fail to do so.

The pendulum swings back as younger people return to Facebook. It isn't just for their grandparents, or perhaps they learned that it is a good idea to keep in touch with their grandparents.

How governors track persons for public health, or is it for the convenience of the governors?

Let's play golf! Social distance and sports outdoors. Rich people can do this. The public basketball courts and playgrounds for the rest of the populace remain locked. Something to contemplate.

Mr. Zuckerburg's wealth grew $30Billion during the Wuhan virus situation. Facebook censors certain videos at the same time. Consipracy? Coincidence? Clever? Some other words that starts with "C?"

I appears that on Wednesday, SpaceX will send a couple of persons into space. We haven't done this in a long, long time.

In the driver's seat no longer, Hertz filed for Chapter 11 protections as it falls into bankruptcy. Was all this worth it?

IBM lays off hundreds across the US. Was all this worth it?

Dr. Fauci hedges his bets by saying we shouldn't stay locked in "too long," whatever "too long" means.

Nvidia uses AI and GameGAN to recreate PacMan. Good stunt, but it has further implications.

Sunday 24 May 2020