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: 28 January-3 February, 2019

Summary of this week:

• Apple pulls group Face Time to fix a security flaw
• Oppo arrives in the UK this week
• Dept of Justice indicts Huawei
• iPhone sales are down, Apple still has a good financial quarter
• Cloud computing way up, so Microsoft has a good financial quarter
• So does Facebook, in spite of all their famous troubles
• So does Amazon with its cloud computing paving the road with gold
• Facebook pays people to spy on themselves or something

Monday 28 January 2018

DDoSecret (not sure who that is) releases 100,000s of leaked Russian government documents.

A test of the GDPR access to personal data: 138GigaBytes of ... well bytes.

And now we have treatment programs for Internet addiction. All addiction is bad and can ruin lives.

The subscription video on demand (SVOD) industry (did we have one?) is growing at 60% per year and now exceeds $1Billion.

It is the usual Monday, not much news out there.

Tuesday 29 January 2018

Sending sound via laser to one person. The technique works, but can it work in a practical sense and to do what?

Our Dept of Justice has indicted China's Huawei with theft, fraud, and other things.

Nvidia's worth drops 14% after announcing what everyone knows: selling to China is not as lucrative as it used to be.

Facebook blocks ad-transparency tools. Facebook doesn't want users to know how ads are sent to just them.

Group Face Time is great—remember the Elvis commercial at Christmas? ooops, a flaw has a large security hole. Apple pulls the feature until they can find and issue the fix.

Apple computers, US manufacturing, Chinese manufacturing and labor, and all that mixed together. If you want to manufacture in the US, you must have your act together. We don't have the cheap and unregulated labor to compensate for mistakes in management.

Perhaps this is the start of the return of the glass bottles that we take back to the store of a nickle (or is it a dollar these days?).

We have an updated Raspberry Pi—still base price of $25. These guys should be given the Nobel Peace Prize for the most successful education technology in history.

News Flash (not): we aren't buying new iPhones because the price is too high.

And watch out Apple, here comes Oppo. They make smartphones and outsell Apple in China and India. Oppo comes to the UK this week.

Wednesday 30 January 2018

With an office in New York City, Amazon is funding computer science classes there. Grow a large group of programmers to keep the supply up and salaries down.

Fascinating story of how Facebook has paid people to install a "research" app (great name) that monitors all their activities and reports on competitors.

Intel continues to invest in manufacturing in Israel.

Don't like Facebook or rather the persons who run Facebook? This book is for you.

Slack now claims more than 10Million daily active users.

Google collects movement data from cellphones. That is how we can see the traffic on the street maps. Guess what? It can do the same for pedestrian traffic and will sell that to city planners.

Firefox release 65 is here.

According to this survey, JavaScript passes Java as the world's most-used programming language.

Steven Pruitt spends three hours a day editing Wikipedia. He has touched over a third of the English language entries and written some 35,000 articles.

IBM releases a data set of 1Million face images with the goal of providing a more diverse training set for facial recognition.

Samsung is now making 1TeraByte storage chips for smartphones.

Thursday 31 January 2018

The FBI arrests a second Apple employee for stealing self-driving car technology. The arrest occurred one day before the person planned to return to China, his homeland.

The big Foxconn-Wisconsin deal is shriveling.

In the wake of the Facebook "research" app, Apple blocks Facebook apps from iOS.

And now we have cyber-mercenaries.

Microsoft has a good financial quarter. Surface hardware is up while cloud computing is way up.

Changes in the H-1B visa program: we finally move to what it should be. Favor goes to the advanced degrees instead of the low-salary, entry-level persons. We now have a better chance of becoming a brain sink instead of a brain drain..

The State of New York considers "fake persons" on Facebook et al to be against the law of some sort.

Facebook has a very good financial quarter. Now if they could just stop the shenanigans and keep the hotshots running that place out of the news...

Electronics—born in California—are polluting the world. Environmentalists, hmmm, also born in California, are losing ground to the folks next door.

Chrome version 72 is here.

The iRobot lawn mower is here. No price given.

Friday 1 February 2018

The field of computer vision is dominating AI research. Much of it is aimed at enabling cars to drive themselves.

Someone gathered 2.2Billion (with a B) usernames and passwords, and they are giving this information at no cost to anyone who wants it.

Someone way up in Facebook defends their Research App.

Amazon has a better-than-expected financial quarter. Lots of profits driven by AWS.

The cost to just maintain the Facebook software rose by $10Billion in 2018. That is more money than many industries have in total.

Intel has a new CEO.

News Flash (not): Fake News sites are clever. They are changing names to bounce around the censors at Facebook et al. It is all a game to many persons, and they love playing games. Ignoring them is the best "cure."

Researchers have transformed brain signals into speech. This could be a great breakthrough for those suffering from strokes and other serious ailments.

Something for the home: Dell's 49-inch ultra-wide super duper duper monitor.

Saturday 2 February 2018

I've not thought of this one. With self-driving cars, shoppers will go in a store and have their car circle the block for hours instead of finding an expensive parking place.

A detailed look at Intel's biggest and fastest processor ever. It has 28 cores, costs $2999, and will generate enough heat to roast a turkey in an hour. (I made up the last part, but it does generate lots of heat.)

Now Foxconn is back to building a factory in Wisconsin. A "personal conversation with Donald Trump" changed some minds.

Going to New York City? Uber and Lyft prices jumped up as a result of a new driver minimum-wage law.

Child vaccinations, the return of the measles, grevous vexation, freedom of choice to parent as you wish, and all other things rolled into one story.

The Steve Case Venture Capital goes to Florida. No duh. It's below zero everywhere else in America this week. Of course he goes to Florida.

Facebook runs on the attitude that "forgiveness is easier to get than permission." (I have always hated that attitude.) Facebook is reaching a point where forgiveness won't come so easily.

Family Tree DNA is giving the FBI freedom to search its DNA databases at will. Privacy advocates are unsettled about all this. Let's see what we reap from this sowing.

Take a look at the Philips 49" ultra-wide super duper monitor at only $1,100.

Here come the costly washable, reusable straws (they are too tall for my shirt pocket). I read this as I sit in Starbucks sipping water through a throw-away plastic straw held by a throw-away plastic cup. And I thought Starbucks was eco-something or other.

Sunday 3 February 2018

Computers are becoming "smarter" in that software recognizes things better. CAPTCHA has become far more difficult for us humans because the software recognizes things better. Is everyone ready for national electronic health records and other things?

AT&T bought some satellite dish companies. They raised the prices to pay for the acquisitions. Consumers walked away. Predictable and predicted. Maybe sometime real soon now some of these companies will learn that consumers have choices.

Some persons discover that Google employs persons and not all persons agree on all things.

After 15 years of losing money, Tesla has been profitable two quarters in a row.

Yet another technology that could "replace" a border wall. These, however, require many border patrol persons to respond to alarms. Funny thing about walls. They stand there all alone.

A Microsoft executive argues for facial recognition tech in the hands of government customers. It appears that the technology is used in many health care applications and that is where its real potential lies.

It appears that those who are not vaccinating their children are rich. If their kids become ill, they can afford the best health care. The other folks convinced to follow their lead are not rich and cannot afford similar care.

"Don't commute -- communicate!"—Arthur C. Clarke, 1977. It appears that he was one of the first to predict telecommuting. He also acknowledge the social and cultural drawbacks of such.

There is probably water underground all over Mars. Wake me when we are making coffee with the water on Mars.

It appears that someone will once again attempt to make Dune into a movie. This time they are assembling an all-start cast. Such usually guarantees a failed movie.

The NFL has a tech competition every year. The winners are aimed at improving the health and safety of players. The key is that these sports developments carry into the lives of the rest of us.

Emotional overwhelm and writer's block and all that. Sometimes we are tired—that's how I describe it. Eat, rest, work, in that order.

Question for the writer: do you write that novel now or learn all the learnings about writing that novel first? No one has the answer. Write a novel now. Learn. Write another novel. Learn. Repeat. Do not expect anyone to publish or buy these novels. JK Rowling was an exception.

Tips on having pieces published in magazines for money.

Tips on the home office for the writer. CAUTION: you are a writer, not an interior decorator, not a writing shed builder, not a ... whatever. The point is writing. It is easy to become fully engaged in building an office and forget about writing in an office.

Some advice on editing a longer piece of writing like a novel. Such are more difficult to keep in ones mind. Techniques vary.