Wired: New Sex Toy Standards Let Some Sensitive Details Slide. “Security researchers who specialize in sex toys have been pointing out the potential risks of ‘teledildonics’ for years. To them, the new ISO standards—which don’t address privacy and barely touch on security—are something of a missed opportunity.”
Consumer Reports: Meet NumWorks, the Modern Graphing Calculator. “Most of the graphing calculators in students’ backpacks are made by Texas Instruments, and they look a lot like models going back to when these gadgets were introduced in the 1980s. But as the school year gains steam, NumWorks, a calculator startup launched a few years ago, is expanding on a cult following among high school teachers, along with a slice of tech innovators who say they like the company’s consumer-friendly approach to repairs and tinkering.”
The Verge: Google’s Pixel 6 And 6 Pro Launch Event Live Blog . “This is easily the most important Pixel the company has launched in years, it’s a launch where the company says it is taking on flagships from Apple and Samsung at the high end. Google hasn’t really talked big game about its phones before, so even if we’ve seen a lot of rumors, how Google goes about making this launch happen will be interesting.”
Bleeping Computer: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink. “Canon USA is being sued for not allowing owners of certain printers to use the scanner or faxing functions if they run out of ink. David Leacraft, a customer of Canon, filed the class action lawsuit on Tuesday alleging deceptive marketing and unjust enrichment by the printer manufacturer.”
Motherboard: The White House’s Plan to Stop Government Employees From Getting Phished. “The White House has an ambitious plan to greatly reduce the risk of phishing to the U.S. government. Part of that is having agencies phase out the use of SMS and app-based multi-factor authentication, and replace them with phishing-resistant methods such as hardware security keys.”
Google Blog: Check out Chromebook’s new accessibility features. “With accessibility features on Chromebooks, we want everyone to have a good experience on their computer – so people can get things done, families can play together, students and teachers can learn together, and employees can work productively and efficiently, wherever they are. October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, so we wanted to share a few recent and new Chromebook features that help people access information in a way that works for them.”
Raspberry Pi Foundation: Introducing raspberrypi.com. “As well as being able to learn about and purchase the full range of hardware products, on the new website you can download our latest software, find detailed technical documentation, connect with the community on the forums, and read the latest news about Raspberry Pi technologies and how they’re being used to change the world.”
New York Times: One Man’s Endless Hunt for a Dopamine Rush in Virtual Reality. “Since the arrival of the seminal Oculus headset in 2013, [Wolf Heffelfinger] has played games in virtual reality, watched movies, visited distant lands and assumed new identities. He sees his virtual adventures as a relentless search for the dopamine rush that comes when the technology takes him somewhere new. When he reaches the edge of what the technology can do, the rush wanes. He has put his many headsets on the shelf, where they have sat for months. But when advances arrive, he leaps back in.”
VentureBeat: Open source can boost EU economy and digital autonomy, study finds. “A new report from the European Commission (EC) sheds light on the impact open source software (OSS) and open source hardware (OSH) could have on the European Union (EU) economy.”
MIT News: A universal system for decoding any type of data sent across a network. “Researchers at MIT, Boston University, and Maynooth University in Ireland have now created the first silicon chip that is able to decode any code, regardless of its structure, with maximum accuracy, using a universal decoding algorithm called Guessing Random Additive Noise Decoding (GRAND). By eliminating the need for multiple, computationally complex decoders, GRAND enables increased efficiency that could have applications in augmented and virtual reality, gaming, 5G networks, and connected devices that rely on processing a high volume of data with minimal delay.”
The Verge: Facebook and Ray-Ban tease smart glasses announcement on September 9th. “Facebook and Ray-Ban are teasing an announcement around their upcoming smart glasses on September 9th. Ray-Ban posted a promotional page with a silhouette of a pair of glasses, the date ‘09.09 2021,’ and the text “sign up now to get your release notification” — although it doesn’t specify whether that’s news about the release or the release itself.”
The Register: BrakTooth vulnerabilities put Bluetooth users at risk – and some devices are going unpatched. “White-hat hackers have disclosed a bunch of security vulnerabilities, dubbed BrakTooth, affecting commercial Bluetooth devices – and are raising red flags about some vendors’ unwillingness to patch the flaws.”
Mashable: Philips Hue smart lights can now react to your Spotify songs. “On Wednesday, Signify — a Philips spinoff that manufactures lighting products — announced that Philips Hue lightbulbs are now integrated with Spotify. This includes an algorithm that analyzes the metadata of each song you play on the music streaming platform, in real time, in order to make the lights ‘dance’ to the music.”
Motherboard: This Seemingly Normal Lightning Cable Will Leak Everything You Type. “The OMG Cables, as they’re called, work by creating a Wi-Fi hotspot itself that a hacker can connect to from their own device. From here, an interface in an ordinary web browser lets the hacker start recording keystrokes. The malicious implant itself takes up around half the length of the plastic shell, MG said.”
The Conversation: Wearable tech for your ears: ‘Hearables’ can teach you a language or music with the help of AI . “Hearables are wireless smart micro-computers with artificial intelligence that incorporate both speakers and microphones. They fit in the ears and can connect to the internet and to other devices, and are designed to be worn daily. Some technology companies are now marketing these as ‘the future of hearing enhancement,’ and focusing on their capacities to disrupt existing hearing aid markets.”
