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: 8-14 October, 2018

Summary of this week:

• Facebook releases its first hardware...video chat device
• Intel shows generation 9 of its core processors
• Google drops out of the $10Billion DoD Cloud contract
• Google has a new smartphone, tablet, home video device
• American Russian emergency egress from failed space launch
• Microsoft now in top 5 of PC sellers
• Music Modernization Act becomes law

Monday 8 October 2018

AnandTech gives in-depth review of the 2018 iPhones. The processor is more powerful than a speeding bullet and all that.

Old-fashioned yet successful techniques of stealing information.

We like free speech until we don't like the speakers. At that point, we call them terrorists and their speech is information warfare. And WE do this. It isn't someone else.

New "sunglasses" that block the light from all these flat screens that surround us everywhere.

This must be the most important thing in the world as it is everywhere on the Internet. This painting shredded itself after someone bought it for over $1Million. I suppose there is some point to the self-destruction and the story.

SpaceX has its first launch and landing on the west coast.

Tuesday 9 October 2018

Have a storage problem. Consider the Internet Archive with 22 PetaBytes of data that grows by 4Petabytes a year.

Facebook introduces their first hardware: a video chat screen and camera gadget.

Project xCloud: Microsoft streams video games to us.

Intel shows its 9th generation Core desktop processors. These have up to eight cores for processing that those Facebook comments.

LinkedIn (Microsoft) acqui-hires Glint.

Only three weeks in, Apple already updates iOS 12 with .0.1

HP releases a $599 Chomebook with bending folding and all that for a 14" screen. Have we forgotten why we wanted a Chromebook?

Google removes itself from competing for the $10Billion DoD cloud computing contract.

Wednesday 10 October 2018

Google has a big event. An updated smartphone, a new slate tablet, a home hub with video and camera. All these things are more expensive than they should be, but we are all used to a $1,000 telephone, so let's go for it.

I am a little surprised at all the folks who claim the Bloomberg story about the Chinese supply chain interdiction is false. Still, Bloomberg stands by the story and still others shout that it is false. "Follow the money," an old expression.

And there is push back about Facebook's new video home gadget. What will Facebook do with our faces and voices and video of the inside of our homes?

Now that it no longer deletes files, Microsoft is releasing the October 2018 Windows 10 update.

It is just a Patent application, but Walmart wants to put health sensors in the handles of shopping carts. Yes, the system could alert store employees if a shopper was ill. It could also provide a treasure of information to advertisers and interior designers.

You have to read it to believe it. Fake studies that were published in peer-reviewed journals about a bunch of nonsense.

This is just plain depressing...new weapons systems are accessible remotely, and that means that hackers can take control. This study shows that you don't have to be a very good hacker.

Thursday 11 October 2018

Rapids: Nvidia partners with IBM, HP, and other big-name players to bring GPU acceleration to commonly used open-source software in big-data analytics.

Facebook tries in vain to keep pace with fake news. It is simply a matter of numbers. Let everyone in the world generate news and hire 100 people to read it all. Guess who wins?

Another ooops in the world of AI: Amazon had an algorithm-assisted (why don't we call them what they are?) recruiting tool that disliked women.

Nvidia lands an agreement with Volvo for all the processors for the car maker's autonomous driving features.

Once again...Apple has big plans for an Apple TV service that will change the world or at least give Apple device owners something new to watch.

All the tech stocks had a bad day at the stock market.

Sales of PCs flatten last financial quarter, and look who is in the Top 5 of PC sellers—little old Microsoft.

Microsoft joins the Open Invention Network. A large group of tech talent that shares its patents royalty free.

Good news, bad news: Mozilla and others start a competition for professors to integrate ethics (theft and lying are wrong) into computer science. Good that someone is doing it, bad that someone must do it. When did the colleges decide that right and wrong were wrong to teach?

Amazon, embarrassed by its pay raise pay cut at warehouses, tries to raise pay a little.

Everyone wanted to be part of the Saudis' building a city of the future until they learned that it was the Saudis.

An American and a Russian were headed to the Intl Space Station, but a launch failure caused an emergency exit. It seems that the two are alright. The story is developing.

Friday 12 October 2018

The Boston Dynamics robot is now hopping up and down boxes. Amazing technology. How can we use it?

The Music Modernization Act becomes law. Some should make more money now, and that means others will make less.

New fake Flash installers are installing cryptomining software on computers.

Israeli robotics company has a fulfillment center running on robots. Greater efficiency allows it to fit in a smaller building.

The space program is trying to pick up the pieces and decide what to do next with the ISS after the failed mission to send two persons up yesterday.

Samsumg teases details of its fold-able smart phone that is coming real soon now.

Apple Maps is spotted driving a new mapping vehicle. How many times and how many companies are driving these things around?

News Flash (not): Americans are also making fake Facebook accounts to run political ads. This is actually surprising some folks who seem to be surprised by just about everything.

Saturday 13 October 2018

The pendulum on open-private workspace continues to to swing back an forth. It is simple, really. Open workspaces cost less money to build. Federal govt 1980...open workspace. Ahead of our time? No. Cheap. Lousy. Smokers (remember people who smoked at work?) next to non-smokers. Effective? No, but who cared. It was cheap.

ooops, Facebook hack...30million users affected.

Someone agrees with me that diversity of thought is more important than the other types of diversity that are merely accidents of birth. Yes, we need philosophers sitting next to computer programmers so that we ask philosophical questions and take the thought behind the answers seriously—not frivolously as we do now.

Think you have a good camera? This one runs at trillion frames per second—give or take a few.

Will we ever move on from the QWERTY keyboard? Probably not.

This is an excellent piece analyzing international and nation-based (evil) hacker communities.

Search engine DuckDuckGo has a 50% increase in users in the last year.

Chasing the money—in this case Saudi money—is fraught with peril. Case in point: Silicon Valley. There are times when an adult need to walk into the room and calm the children.

Sunday 14 October 2018

I wrote a piece on the research part of writing or the observation.

A different perspective on Universal Basic Income. Give money to people. People spend the money on modern social digital convenience. The money goes to the big tech companies. Hence, it is a funnel to give money to the big tech companies.

The government of China, the Uigher minority nationality, Google and other American tech companies, and the playbook on how you suppress a minority and other subjects. Let's pray we don't ever do this in America. This is a bit serious for a Sunday morning.

This writer was thrown into chaos by the last presidential election. Really? Chaos? Be an adult! There is a presidential election every four years, and every election throws 40% of America into chaos. Really.

Yet another post about writing a book of fiction. One great idea: Write a Few Short Stories With the Main Characters.

One writer's list of five top tools to help write a book. Yes, Scrivener is at the top of the list. The tools can help. I know tools can help. Essential, however, is the desire to do the work, i.e., sit and type the words everyday.

How one writer loves the Scrivener tool. I have looked at it several times and have yet to see what is wonderful. I once felt the same way about Evernote and now like it. Perhaps I will have to...

In the age of Google, there are still other online sources that contain gems of information for writers.