Last minute geek

1. A machine-learning wishlist for hardware designers
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

Pete Warden (previously) is one of my favorite commentators on machine learning and computer science; yesterday he gave a keynote at the IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, on the ways that hardware ...

2. Florida man convinces Western Union clerk to insert a thumb drive, steals $32K, does it again, gets caught
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

... with malicious software into his computers, which allegedly allowed Savu to steal $32k from the business. Savu then went into another Western Union, in nearby Opa-locka, and allegedly tried to do it ...

3. Artist designs a machine-learning assisted sculpture, then casts it in the powdered remains of the computer used to design it
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

... he filled the mold with a resin impregnated with the computer that ran the algorithm, which Snell had ground to powder. “I consider myself, not the computer, to be the artist,” he says. But he also ...

4. Text-mining journalists find that lawmakers introduced 10,000 bills that were copypasted from lobbyists' "model legislation"
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

... 1,000,000 bills, and then consumed months of computer time on a large cluster, comparing these bills to "model legislation" promoted by lobbyists, using a text-mining engine that could identify paraphrases, ...

5. Acer ConceptD 9 laptop hands-on: A bombastic attempt to stand out
(English/engadget)

Acer has been busy. It unveiled a whole new brand of computers at its global press conference today, showing off not just a trio of laptops and a pair of desktops, but three monitors and a new VR headset ...

6. Acer has a new pro-grade computer line called 'ConceptD'
(English/engadget)

Acer had a lot to share at its annual global press conference in New York today. In addition to a slew of gaming laptops and monitors, it showed off a new line of pro-grade computers. Called ConceptD, ...

7. Amazon stores recordings of Alexa interactions and turns them over to internal staff and outside contractors for review
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

... serial number of their device. Recordings are made any time an Alexa device detects an activation word, like "Alexa" or "Echo" or "computer." Sometimes recordings are made inadvertently when these words ...

8. US charges Assange with conspiracy to commit computer hacking
(English/engadget)

... to commit computer intrusion" for agreeing... Read all  ...

9. Julian Assange dragged from Ecuador's embassy in London and arrested
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

... dates. The U.K. Foreign Office admitted, however, that his arrest today was made at the behest of U.S. authorities over "computer crimes" charges that await him there. WATCH: Julian Assange gets arrested ...

10. "How to take a picture of a black hole," a 2017 TED talk by grad student Katie Bouman who then helped make it happen
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

Yesterday, scientists revealed the first ever photo of a black hole. Three years ago, Katie Bouman, then a computer science grad student at MIT, led the development of a key algorithm that helped make ...

11. Man found guilty of using phone while driving - even though phone was dead and stored in glove box
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

... the action of plugging headphones into a phone to connecting a keyboard to a computer, Adair determined the keyboard “would then be part of the electronic device”. Image: Anneka/Shutterstock Read the rest ...

12. This is the first real picture of a black hole
(English/engadget)

Yes, it happened. After years of relying on computer-generated imagery, scientists using the Event Horizon Telescope have captured the first real image of a black hole. The snapshot of the supermassive ...

13. Apple stops charging $99 to transfer data to new Macs
(English/engadget)

If you have a ton of files you need to move to your new Mac, you're in luck. Apple quietly did away with the $99 fee it charges to migrate data from your old Mac to your new computer. The policy change, ...

14. Watch: Kayaking a river in Norway on a gorgeous Spring day
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

“Feels like summer in Norway,” says Tomasz Furmanek, who shot and shared this serene and beautiful video of kayaking down a lazy river on a beautiful April day. If you need a serenity break at the computer ...

15. Secret Service learns why you don't plug strange USB drives into computers
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

... it in a computer to see what was on it. From the Miami Herald: Secret Service agent Samuel Ivanovich, who interviewed Zhang on the day of her arrest, testified at the hearing. He stated that when another ...

16. Tidying up your computer in the '90s: Marie Kondo style
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

The latest retro-fantasy from Squirrel Monkey - how to declutter your 1990s computer files, Marie Kondo style. Read the rest Read all  ...

17. AZIO RCK Retro Compact Keyboard review
(English/the-gadgeteer)

REVIEW – Do you like a minimalist keyboard with shallow keys and a modern style to go with your high tech computer or do you like to change things up and go with an eye-catching keyboard that has a vintage ...

18. Former NSA contractor Harold Martin pleads guilty to 'willful retention of national defense information'
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

... removing highly classified information from the National Security Agency worked with the organization's elite computer hackers, who specialize in using computer code to penetrate the systems of foreign ...

19. eBay uses AI to help you shop for similar-looking items
(English/engadget)

... that uses computer vision to find items that resemble what... Read all  ...

20. Office Depot, OfficeMax fined over faked malware scans
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

Office Depot, OfficeMax and other retailers will pay $35 million to the FTC over their use of fraudulent software that falsely reported malware infections on customers' PCs. Customers who took their computers ...

21. A mathematician found a solution to the much-studied problem 33 = x³ + y³ + z³
(English/BoingBoing ibag)

Solving 29 = x³+ y³+ z³ is easy (29 = 3³ + 1³ + 1³). Solving 33 = x³ + y³ + z³ has confounded number theorists for a very long time. As far back as 1955, they've been using computers to grind away at ...

22. Lamborghini’s latest Huracán is a supercar with a supercomputer
(English/engadget)

Over the past few decades, technology has made vehicles safer and easier to drive. Anti-lock brakes, traction control, torque vectoring and other bits of tech keep cars on the road instead of flying into ...

23. ASUS releases fix for ShadowHammer malware attack
(English/engadget)

ASUS may have inadvertently pushed malware to some of its computers through its update tool, but it at least has has a fix ready to go. The PC maker has released a new version of its Live Update software ...

24. Using a Maker Mindset to Shape a Successful Career
(English/makezine)

In 2018, only 26 percent of the workers in “computer and mathematical occupations” were women, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but did you know that 46 percent of Quick Base ...

25. Hackers hijacked update server to install backdoors on ASUS machines
(English/engadget)

For nearly half a year, computer maker ASUS was unwittingly pushing malware that gave hackers backdoor access to thousands of computers, according to Kaspersky Lab. Hackers managed to compromise one of ...