Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.
Welcome to your weekend! We regret to report there’s more bad news to share about Facebook and how it’s protecting your privacy. Some of the highlights from earlier this week include an incredible tech demo, tech gift ideas that cost less than $ 50 and hands-on with Tesla’s latest Autopilot system.
Maria Butina: Cybersecurity charlatan, spy
As columnist Violet Blue explains, “anyone holding even the barest minimum of cybersecurity knowledge could’ve figured out in minutes that Butina’s interest in cybersecurity was minimal. While she spied on and infiltrated the Republican party, she also was a research assistant at American University and co-authored a paper titled “Cybersecurity Knowledge Networks.” Read it if you want to see what achingly fake, buzzword bingo looks like.”
‘Overpowered’ Infinity Blade removed from ‘Fortnite’
Epic admitted it “messed up” with the weapon and has already sent the Infinity Blade into Fortnite’s vault.
NASA’s Voyager 2 probe has entered interstellar space
NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft has exited the heliosphere — the plasma bubble created by the sun that encompasses most of our solar system — and entered interstellar space, making it the second human-made object to do so. Voyager 1 was the first to do it, but this spacecraft still has a working Plasma Science Experiment, used to measure solar-wind particle flow until the amount dropped to nothing at all. Both spacecraft are still technically within the solar system, however. And they will be until they exit the Oort Cloud, a large collection of distant objects that are still affected by the sun’s gravity.
50 years ago, ‘the mother of all demos’ foretold our tech future
Innovation usually happens in slow, measured steps over many years, but a demo in 1968 transformed the world of personal computers in just 90 minutes. In a presentation dubbed “the mother of all demos,” Douglas Engelbart showed off technology that would lead directly to Apple’s Macintosh, the internet, Windows, Google Docs, the computer mouse and much, much more. The most remarkable part was that it happened 50 years ago, in 1968, when microchips were just a gleam in scientists’ eyes.
Facebook bug let apps access unposted photos for millions of users
Facebook has disclosed yet another privacy flub. This time around, it says a bug in the Photo API led to third-party apps being able to access not only timeline photos (which users had permitted them to do), but Stories, Marketplace images and photos people uploaded to Facebook but never actually shared. The bug affected as many as 6.8 million people across up to 1,500 apps, Facebook says, and it was active for 12 days before it was detected and fixed on September 25th
‘Travis Strikes Again’ is an indie-sized comeback for Suda51
Goichi Suda is back with a No More Heroes spin-off called Travis Strikes Again. The game has a smaller story that focuses on Travis Touchdown, the series’ foul-mouthed hero, as he battles his way through a phantom console called the Death Drive Mark II. It’s launching on Nintendo Switch next month and is, unsurprisingly, pretty weird. But maybe in a good way?
But wait, there’s more…
- Nintendo warns it won’t make more retro NES and SNES consoles
- The Pixel 3 has 2018’s best smartphone camera
- PlayStation Classic review: A disappointing dose of nostalgia
- Tesla’s Navigate on Autopilot takes on LA’s freeways
- What’s coming to Netflix in January: ‘Kimmy Schmidt,’ ‘Ant-Man 2’ and Star Wars
- Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo reaches space for the first time
- The OnePlus 6T McLaren edition packs 10GB of RAM
- The best tech gifts under $ 50
- Apple’s streaming service will include new ‘Peanuts’ cartoons
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