TEH 025: Help Me Obi Wan Kenobi, You’re Our Only Hope

In This Episode: Now everybody knows where you (and your kids!) are — an extra-concerning Breach of the Week for parents. Google slapping web sites that are “Not Secure” …even when they don’t need to be. Yanni, or Laurel (and how that reflects the blue/gold dress thing a few years back). And the first Holographic cell phone isn’t quite to “Princess Leah” level yet, but it’s a stepping stone in that direction.

This Week’s Hosts

Show Notes

  • From the Warmup: Randy’s wife just completed the 500-mile path of the Camino de Santiago in Spain — and uploaded about 20 GB of photos to Randy. Leo used a flight tracker to make sure a friend got to her destination OK. Gary launched his WindWord game app.
  • Another week, another breach — or two. LocationSmart was leaking the specific locations of most any cell phone in the U.S. (at least, if you had that phone’s number, says Krebs on Security). And we were alerted by MacRumors that the “TeenSafe” app was making teens very unsafe, even leaking their critically important Apple ID and passwords online …in plain text. If you even tried that service, change your kids’ Apple passwords immediately.
  • Google has been pushing web sites to be “secure” — great! Except that not all sites actually need to be secure, but they’ll be punished anyway by warnings in Google’s Chrome browser by being called out as “Not Secure” (ZDnet).
  • We discussed how the “Yanny or Laurel” thing works, and how it shows the differences in people’s perceptions: they’re not dumb or lying, they really do hear (or see, as with the dress meme). cnet does a good job explaining it, which Gary talked about too.
  • We’re intrigued by Red’s new “Hydrogen One” — a $1500 phone holographic/3D phone — and a little bit on how that tech works (Digital Trends).
  • Randy mentioned he is finishing up with the book Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto, and how it’s an amazing story of exploration, tech, and perseverance.

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