Hard Rock Lobster

If you could take two very different genres of bands and mix them together, what would it sound like? Mac Glocky over on YouTube has done just that. He has combined the B-52’s classic Rock Lobster with the sound of System of a Down. Yes, that ‘System’ which has such amazing songs as Chop Suey and Aerials. As most readers have found out, I love hearing reimagined and innovative takes on classic music. This mash-up is certainly a great one, especially if you like both System and the B-52’s like I do.

DNA Insecurity

Reinforcing my number one reason I won’t enroll in the CLEAR program for flying or to ever submit my DNA for genetic testing is this report from Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai over at TechCrunch detailing 23andMe’s data breach. The same hacker who leaked a trove of user data stolen from the genetic testing company 23andMe two weeks ago has now leaked millions of new user records. On Tuesday, a hacker who goes by Golem published a new dataset of 23andMe user information containing records of four million users on the known cybercrime forum BreachForums. TechCrunch has found that some of the newly…

Junk In Spaaace

While there have been efforts for decades to stop polluting Earth, nobody said we can’t do it off-world. So, sure, why not? That’s basically what’s been going on as a certain someone endlessly launches satellites into low orbit, NASA and other organizations work to explore space, and we build a hodgepodge of infrastructure in zero gravity. But what happens when all that stuff becomes junk? Well, debris in space is supposed to be ‘deorbited’. However, it seems that Dish Network didn’t quite do that to their decommissioned equipment, and the FCC is none too pleased. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy at The…

Apple’s Problem With Jon Stewart

It’s no secret I’m an Apple fan and generally support what the company does. Today is certainly not that day. Buried in the plethora of Apple TV+ content is the fantastic show The Problem With Jon Stewart. It’s a topical half-hour show that’s a cross between the Daily Show and Last Week Tonight. Stewart doesn’t pull any punches, as is his personality. But it seems there’s a line that was crossed… by Apple. Charles Pulliam-Moore at The Verge has more. Along with concerns about some of the guests booked to be on The Problem With Jon Stewart, Stewart’s intended discussions…

The NACS Have It

More dominoes have fallen in the auto industry’s switch to NACS, the Tesla plug for EVs. Toyota, who has basically zero EVs, has joined the club in adopting the North American Charging Standard in 2025. Of course this means future Toyota cars will also get access to the supercharger network too. Umar Shakir at The Verge has more. One of Toyota’s first vehicles to include a NACS connector is a future three-row SUV it is planning for 2025, which will be assembled at the automaker’s plant in Kentucky. Toyota is currently light on EV options compared to most other automakers…

Ala Cable Carte

Twenty years ago the ‘promise land’ for TV was not only cutting the cord but getting access to only the channels or networks you wanted. The Ala Carte model was a pipe dream until Netflix kicked off the streaming revolution. Fast-forward to today and you have a plethora of streaming services to choose from: Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Hulu, YouTube TV, Paramount+, HBO Max, and on and on. But in a cruel twist of fate, it’s now even more expensive to watch this content than traditional cable. Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac has more. As little as a year ago, a…

Ham & ISS

Leave it to creative and ambitious amateur radio operators to do things I never thought possible. Earlier this year an amateur radio operator was able to make contact with the International Space Station using nothing more than a handheld antenna. The radio operator, KB8M, recorded the interaction and it’s below. Also something very cool is the card shown at the end. A comment on Reddit sheds some light onto it. For those unfamiliar with amateur radio, the card shown at 2:41 of the video is a QSL Card. These are little post cards that are normally sent through the mail…

U2-A-Sphere

Vegas is no stranger to spectacle. The whole town is about excess, but there’s something that is jaw-dropping even in a place numb to the idea. A new venue called The Sphere is spinning things in a new direction. The building is a giant round venue that holds over 18,000 people and is lined inside and out with huge screens and LEDs. Together this takes a concert and turns it into an experience. Legendary band U2 opened the venue the other day and there is no shortage of video on YouTube. One is linked below. It’s not only the incredible…

Speedrunning Mario

Speedrunning, the technique of completing a video game as fast as possible, is a niche hobby in the video game realm. People focus on a game and look to exploit it as much as possible in order to break records for the shortest completion time. Nintendo’s 1985 masterpiece Super Mario Bros is one such game. The game may be 30+ years old but there is a whole new generation attempting to shave fractions of a second off records. Kyle Orland at Ars Technica has more of how humans are almost beating times only thought achievable by machines. Niftski’s new record…

Agressive Peeping

Social media is one of those technologies where you can find beautiful places in this world. But conversely you also learn about beautiful places in this world… to visit. And that’s where the reality of human behavior meets the road. This is why the town of Pomfret, Vermont is closing its roads to leaf-peeping tourists. They can’t behave. Lisa Rathke at AP News has more. In recent years, social media users and photographers have clogged the narrow road for selfies and fall foliage shots of the scenic private property, drawn by its colorful hillside trees, the barn and classic New…

Getty AI-Generated Images

The age old saying “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” has no better example than this: Getty Images has announced it is releasing its own AI Image Generator that’s been trained on its own images and will be exclusive to its service. Matt O’Brien at AP News has more. CEO Craig Peters said the new service, called Generative AI by Getty Images, emerged from a longstanding collaboration with California tech company and chipmaker Nvidia that preceded the legal challenges against Stability AI. It’s built upon Edify, an AI model from Nvidia’s generative AI division Picasso.  It promises “full indemnification…

Even Netflix Doesn’t Want its DVDs Back

I know we all thought it was long gone already, but it’s only now that Netflix is winding down its DVD rental service. Those once-ubiquitous red envelopes are no more and it’s been a good run. But after this week, Netflix has informed customers still getting those round piece of plastic to simply keep ’em. Jay Peters at The Verge has more. Netflix won’t charge DVD.com customers for any discs they still have after September 29th, the company announced. That generous offer, combined with Netflix’s recent announcement that it may send customers as many as 10 extra discs from their queues, means that…

BeaverNet

If you’re going to have an internet outage, and you live in Canada, there is no better way than this: a beaver causing a small British Columbia town to lose connectivity. Kaitlyn Bailey at CTV News has more. The beaver gnawed its way through an aspen tree which then fell on both BC Hydro lines and a Telus fibre-optic cable line strung along BC Hydro poles between Topley and Houston. The resulting power outage affected just 21 customers but the fibre optics damage affected Telus customers in Burns Lake, Granisle, Haida Gwaii, the Hazeltons, Kitimat, Prince George, Prince Rupert, Smithers,…

The Fall of CNET

It’s hard to imagine a website that has endured as long as CNET. One of the big, early websites of the mid-90s internet is still around today. CNET has been in the game of tech news reporting since its inception and been a notable landing place for not only news but product reviews. But it’s been a company finding itself looking to make money and stand out. And part of that is doing the unthinkable: deleting articles. Benj Edwards at Ars Technica has more. The deletion process began with small batches of articles and dramatically increased in the second half…

Traditionally Beating It

If it’s one thing I can never get enough of, it’s incredible alternative covers of Michael Jackson’s Beat It. This time around we get a rendition using a traditional Chinese Guzheng. The sounds this instrument make is instantly recognizable not just for the similarities to traditional Chinese music we’ve heard over the years, but then how it morphs into a song that is legendary. The song is performed by 墨韵 Moyun Official and I am so, so impressed with how fantastic it sounds. If you’re a fan of the track, it’s well worth a watch.

Data Recovery Exonerates A Man

Every justice system has failures where innocent people are wrongly convicted. A recent story I saw on Mastodon recounts how the Bloop Museum, a technology archive project, was called upon to try to recover crucial data from old floppy disks. Why? Because court records were stored on them, and it was vital to retrieve that information in order to exonerate an innocent man. You can find more details on the museum’s Patreon page. Okay, it was just last year, and the museum received a visit from the Wicomico County Prosecution Integrity Unit. We weren’t in any trouble, but any time…

Atari Tries Again

When it comes to video games, there is always a sense of nostalgia. Nintendo had a hit on its hands when the NES Classic came out a few years ago. Sega had been doing the same for many years with subpar retro consoles, but then copied Nintendo to release a proper Genesis clone. Sony followed suit with a PS1 version, which reinforced the fact that games from the PS1 / Saturn era do not hold up well. Now Atari is back, again, with a console that will play all those pixel-perfect games, in an emulated fashion. Wes Davis at The…

ABC’s 1980’s All-In Promo

Television’s landscape 40 years was a big push for eyeballs. When only a few networks were in existence, each of the national broadcasters were in fierce competition for viewers. In 1980, it seems ABC decided to go all in. One single promo that lasts a whopping minute and forty seconds features every. single. actor. on its network. How ABC was able to get the talent for each program onto a set at a single time is beyond my comprehension but it’s a feat ABC achieved. Crazy to think that not only were these big A-List actors but they were all…

It’s-A Time To Retire

Since the first Mario game where the famed plumber needed a voice, one man has held the role: Charles Martinet. For over 25-years he has voiced Mario, Luigi, and a host of other characters in the bestselling franchise. Now, Martinet is stepping down in order to focus on being a “Mario Ambassador”, which is Nintendo-speak for ‘retire’. Ash Parrish at The Verge has more. Martinet has voiced the character since the ’90s, appearing in mainline Mario titles like Super Mario 64, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Mario Galaxy as well as countless spinoffs. “Charles is now moving into the brand-new role of Mario Ambassador. With…

SegWhy

The Segway is two things: a thing mall cops ride and a thing you may ride on a tour. That’s it. And what a fall from grace it is for this weird device, because it’s an innovative piece of tech that never stood a chance. For the unfamiliar, the Segway was marketed as a revolutionary way to get around when you didn’t want to walk and distances were too short for a car. Dean Kamen invented it and tried to market it as “the “the next big thing.” We know that never panned out, but the “why” that defined its…

This Flying Car is Electrical

The year is 2023 and we still don’t have flying cars. We likely never will and based on how many people drive, I am not optimistic it’s really a good idea. Heck, we’ve been here before. But that won’t stop companies from trying. As Natalie Neysa Alund reports at USA Today, yet another aspiring company looks to make this a reality. This week, Alef Aeronautics revealed its flying car “Model A” was granted legal permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to test run the vehicle on the road and in the sky − a move needed before it can be released to…

Bike Brick

Yet again we find another glaring example of why you should never buy physical devices that depend on a cloud service or app or company remaining in business. This time around it’s VanMoof and its series of e-bikes. The Dutch company is now bankrupt leaving customers with bikes made with non-standard parts and features that won’t work without its app. Rob Schmitz at WGBH has more. VanMoof’s creators fancied their company to be like Apple — creating unique products that would spawn its own ecosystem — but Hartogs says the company ran out of money because, unlike Apple’s products, VanMoof’s…

4K Nirvana

One of the most influential bands of the 90s, Nirvana has endured through its short span of existence. The band had incredible hits and musicians. The unfortunate suicide of Kurt Cobain marked the end of the band, but their music lives on. I recently stumbled upon this 4K 60FPS video of Nirvana performing on Saturday Night Live in 1992. The video is clear, the sound is great, and it’s incredible to see Cobain in full high definition. You can even see how his hair is a different color. It’s nine minutes of pure nostalgia, but it opens with the legendary…

Gotta Catch ’em All

There’s a time when things that were popular as kids becomes popular again as an adult. In the 90s Pokemon was a craze. While it’s never faded away, and I was too old to get into it, it has ebbed and flowed in time. But now, we’re seeing something interesting: Pokemon infiltrating everyday life. In this case it’s a new community in Las Vegas where each street will be named after a Pokemon creature. Nicole Clark at Polygon has more. Construction has been booming in the Las Vegas valley, leading to the unique challenge of coming up with names for…

Surf Otter

If Wide World of Sports was still on the air today, this news out of California certainly would’ve made the cut. Surfers in Santa Cruz have to be on the lookout for aggressive… otters. That’s right. These cute, but not-quite-tame creatures are not only attacking surfers but also taking people’s surfboards. Dustin Jones at NPR has more. Steamer Lane is a legendary point break nestled along the rocky shores of Santa Cruz, home to swaths of experienced surfers, as well as a 5-year-old female sea otter with a growing reputation for repeatedly confronting surfers and kayakers. Videos across social media…

Eroding the iMessage Moat

RCS has long been the battle cry for Google and Android in the “messaging wars”. The better way to text has had an uphill battle, but Google has stuck with it and continues to push to make it a standard. Unsatisfied with carriers’ dragging its feet, Google made RCS the default way to message on Android and now has turned on end-to-end encryption by default. That is a big deal. Abner Li at 9to5Google has more on why. Google is making this big move to “ensure more people benefit from this added security.” E2E encryption for 1:1 conversations fully launched…

The Prop House where One Of a Kind Props Sit in Filing Cabinets

Every movie needs “stuff” to tell its story. Actors convey the lines and the crew films it, but the “stuff” is what everyone interacts with. Of course, we know them as props, and some are quite famous. Adam Savage, best known for Mythbusters, filmed a visit to The Earl Hayes Press, which is a shop that has been printing props for over a hundred years. Alone, that is a really cool place, but kicking things up a notch is his interview with Michael Corrie, who’s an archivist at the shop. Corrie details how some valuable and one-of-a-kind items were found…

McMerch

While the Summer of Grimace is fading away, there’s one thing McDonald’s is very good at: merchandising and creating products people want. Whether it’s food in the aforementioned Grimace Shake or a Happy Meal for adults, it’s a company that gets people in the door for a variety of reasons. But the little-known McD’s-run Smilemakers site lets you browse and purchase merch straight from the company itself. Smilemakers is generally geared toward restaurant operators and managers to provide shirts, pins, accessories, and awards for employees. But the site is open to the public. Right now, there is a Heritage Collection…

Intentionally-Stupid Games

In the past decade video games have become an accepted form of art. Millions go into producing Triple A titles in order to give gamers amazing experiences. Bad games are certainly not a thing of the past and James Rolfe continues to be the Angry Video Game Nerd reviewing those bad games. But we also have something interesting that’s come along: a contest to make the stupidest game possible on the ZX Spectrum. Rich Kelly at The Guardian has more. The Comp.Sys.Sinclair Crap Games Contest (CGC for short) has run almost every year since 1996. The idea is to write the crappest…

What’s Mine is Mine and What’s Yours is Mine

We’re hot in the AI movement right now, regardless if most of the generative stuff out there is a giant BS machine. It hasn’t stopped the likes of Microsoft adding ChatGPT to Bing and Google rolling out Bard. But all that AI needs to be trained on real data and so Google is doing what they always do: taking the entire internet for themselves. Because they can. Thomas Germain at Gizmodo has more. Google updated its privacy policy over the weekend, explicitly saying the company reserves the right to scrape just about everything you post online to build its AI…