Cave News

A lot of people will be working from home

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Apple’s iPhone privacy billboard is a clever Consumer Electronics Show troll, but it’s also inaccurate.

Even without a booth at the last Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, Apple loomed large over CES.

Literally.

In a giant billboard that went up on the side of the Springhill Suites Marriott hotel near the Vegas strip, Apple touted the privacy features baked into the iPhone, telling people, “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.” However, the clever Apple sign was inaccurate.

Another iPhone billboard ad

Walmart is testing autonomous scanning robots in some stores

Artificial intelligence will soon be implemented at some Walmart stores in the U.S. in the form of autonomous scanning robots.

A robot waiting to begin checking shelves

The robots will go up and down through the store sections automatically, at 2 to 3 mph, scanning the shelves for empty spots, and also checking the price tags. The robot would be installed with a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and the way it will see things would be similar to the observation of a self-driving vehicle.

A robot at work checking shelves

Martin Hitch is the chief business officer at Bossanova, the San Francisco company that manufactured the robot. He says the robot is supposed to drive around obstacles and look for alternative routes.

Link

RadioShack to put customer personal data up for sale in bankruptcy auction

For several years, RadioShack has collected customers’ contact information at the checkout counter.

Now, the bankrupt company is putting that data on the auction block.

A list of RadioShack assets for sale includes more than 65 million customer names and physical addresses, and 13 million email addresses. Bloomberg reports that the asset sale may include phone numbers and information on shopping habits as well.

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As if RadioShack wasn’t obnoxious enough when you had to turn over a phone number just to buy a cable splitter.

Now, the store’s trying to go back on its promise to keep that data to itself. It’s one more reason to treat these contact information requests with caution, since you can never be sure where the data will end up.

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Link

What would Dick Tracy say about the new Apple watch?

Dick Tracy, the square-jawed police detective created by cartoonist Chester Gould, checks out the new Apple wrist watch while using his 1964 two-way wrist TV.

Tracy’s two-way wrist radio dates all the way back to 1946.

Samsung reveals its smart TV’s can capture your private conversations

It is true that Samsung smart TV’s can capture your private conversations but it may not be as ominous as it sounds.

It is the voice recognition feature that, in order to work, must be able to listen for and capture your words.

This feature must be enabled by the user before it can record your words. To enable this feature the user must agree to the TV’s terms and conditions.

The feature can be turned off at anytime. There is an icon in the corner of the screen that appears when the feature is turned on.

The part that is troubling to some is that Samsung has said it sends the the TV users conversations along with information about the device to a third-party service.

This third-party service, which Samsung does not name, converts speech to text. The TV uses this text to search for content or carry out tasks for use in developing Samsung’s voice command feature.

In addition, Samsung said it may collect and capture voice commands and associated texts for future use, so it can improve the features.

Link

Troubled Radio Shack may sell half of its more than 4,000 stores to Sprint

From a Time report at the link below:

Troubled electronics retailer RadioShack is reportedly close to filing for bankruptcy and is in talks to sell half of its more than 4,000 stores to Sprint while closing its remaining locations.

Full report here.

Friendly hackers go after automobile computers

A team of hackers showed that they would be able to pop the trunk start the windshield wipers, cut the brakes or lock them up, and even kill the engine.

Their motives were not malicious. These hackers worked on behalf of the U.S. military, which along with the auto industry is scrambling to fortify the cyber defenses of commercially available cars before criminals and even terrorists penetrate them.

"You're stepping into a rolling computer now," said Chris Valasek, who helped catapult car hacking into the public eye when he and a partner revealed last year they had been able to control a 2010 Toyota Prius and 2010 Ford Escape by plugging into a port used by mechanics.

Full report here.

American’s taste in TVs is changing from big to giant

From a report at the link below:

Supersized isn't just for french fries.

Americans increasingly are replacing their once-enviable 50-inch TVs with even bigger screens. Think: 65-inches and up.

People are snagging big screens — pushing sales of them up 50 percent in the past year while overall TV sales have faltered. As prices fall, hardcore TV watchers and video gamers are finding sets affordable that a few years ago would have been playthings for wealthier people.

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Chicago police tested a mobile phone in 1922

In 1922 Chicago police experimented with a radio telephone which broadcast at a frequency just above the AM radio band.