This Man Is Building an Armada of Saildrones to Conquer the Ocean

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This plan rests on Richard Jenkins, an engineer, sailor, and adventurer who invented the saildrone more or less by accident. Jenkins doesn’t act like one of Silicon Valley’s world-conquering capitalist nerds. For starters, he tends to skip the usual platitudes about disruption to focus on sailing, beer, and sailing with beer. “What’s the definition of a sailor?” he asks while launching one of the drones off the Alameda dock. “A primitive organism for turning beer into urine.”

Source: This Man Is Building an Armada of Saildrones to Conquer the Ocean – Bloomberg

Researchers Hacked Amazon’s Alexa to Spy On Users, Again

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“On default, Alexa ends the sessions after each duration… we were able to build in a feature that kept the session going [so Alexa would continue listening]. We also wanted to make sure that the user is not prompted and that Alexa is still listening without re-prompts,” Erez Yalon, manager of Application Security Research at Checkmarx, told Threatpost.

Source: Researchers Hacked Amazon’s Alexa to Spy On Users, Again | Threatpost | The first stop for security news

Login With Facebook data hijacked by JavaScript trackers

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When a user grants a website access to their social media profile, they are not only trusting that website, but also third parties embedded on that site” writes Englehardt. This chart shows that what some trackers are pulling from users. Freedom To Tinker warned OnAudience about another security issue recently, leading it to stop collecting user info.

Source: Login With Facebook data hijacked by JavaScript trackers | TechCrunch

Don’t use Facebook.

Linus Torvalds says Linux kernel v5.0 ‘should be meaningless’

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With the removal of old architecture and other bits of tidying up, with v4.17 RC1 there were more lines of code removed than added: something described as “probably a first. Ever. In the history of the universe. Or at least kernel releases.”

Source: Linus Torvalds says Linux kernel v5.0 ‘should be meaningless’

SpaceX Falcon 9 camera blackout still seems strange

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“The National and Commercial Space Program Act requires a commercial remote sensing license for companies having the capacity to take an image of Earth while on orbit,” NOAA said in a statement last week. “Now that launch companies are putting video cameras on stage 2 rockets that reach an on-orbit status, all such launches will be held to the requirements of the law and its conditions.”

What’s odd is that the law in question has been on the books in its current form since at least 2010. SpaceX has been broadcasting video back to Earth from orbit for years without issue or, apparently, license.

Source: SpaceX Falcon 9 camera blackout still seems strange – CNET

A $1.6 billion Spotify lawsuit is based on a law made for player pianos

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In 2018, streaming companies know with precision how many people are listening to what song. Databases of artists and how much they’re being owed are being updated regularly. And yet, in this unprecedented age of information and automation, it’s only become more difficult and more complicated to get money to the people who are owed it. Everywhere else the digital revolution is supposed to be streamlining old processes; when it comes to music, the logistics have only gotten more convoluted.

Source: A $1.6 billion Spotify lawsuit is based on a law made for player pianos – The Verge

Why selling off the International Space Station would be a tricky mission for the U.S.

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The Trump administration’s proposed 2019 budget says the U.S. will end its funding of the International Space Station by 2025. The news led to speculation the goal is to simply sell off the ISS to private enterprise. But experts say it’s not so simple.

Source: Why selling off the International Space Station would be a tricky mission for the U.S.

“There is a democratization of space going on … that you could never imagine 10 years ago.”

How Bitcoin Ends

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We thought the net would break the monopoly of top-down, corporate media. But as business interests took over it has become primarily a delivery system for streaming television to consumers, and consumer data to advertisers.

Source: How Bitcoin Ends

This explains why bitcoin has become less a means of exchange than a speculative pyramid, as well as why the coin’s developers and early investors have ended up billionaires. The wealth disparity in bitcoin is worse than that of central currency, with 4% of users owning 96% of bitcoin. So much for breaking the banking monopoly; this is just hackers seizing the banking industry for themselves.