Nerd News Tracker

So it wasn't long ago, perhaps a month or so, when Florida had some cities hit by ransomware. At that time, I stated on-air, and in my notes, that by paying somewhere about $1.5 million across three cities, they would bring more attacks. At least 20 local governments...

I'm so very confused. Every time we talk about a couple of nukes going off on Earth, it's all about how it will bring about Nuclear Winter. Instead, Elon Musk is talking about heating up and warming Mars by nuking it, and the Martians. So which is it?Elon Musk has...

Exists.Standing.Fighters ... Those three words point to the studios of one of the radio stations that I am on. In this case, three different words from What3Words.com actually saved a life. Anywhere in the world, down to a 10 foot by 10 foot space, has those three...

The short and simple of this, simply run Windows Update as soon as you can. It may have already run, if you're aggressive. Many folks are suggesting a sooner rather than later approach, and that's good. People and companies that rely on Remote Desktop on systems...

This presents a distinct series of additional questions. Could someone claim that a person with political views too far in one direction or the other has a faulty neural interface? Or perhaps could the neural interface be used to directly alter ones political...

I've been noticing that youth are burying their face deeper into these screens, and at an earlier age, than many people would bury their heads into books. Keeping your children and youth back away from the screen (an arms distance), and encouraging them to spend 15...

Odds are good that you don't know the term SQLite. It is one of the most widely used database formats in the world. All of the Apple iOS devices running iOS 8 or later (that's most of them) are vulnerable to this hack. Typically an iPhone reboot would resolve this,...

Is there any surprise here? And the argument here is that we might stop something horrible from happening. There's that old quote that rings true more each day... “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither...

People often forget that insiders can create as much havoc as outsiders. In this case, there were a number of scams that were run by insiders who were bribed to commit fraud. Unlocking phones that should have been tied to the network doesn't seem harmful, but that...

The comment section is more telling about the fans of Apple, and how this is all turning against them. Keith may disagree, but this is likely to turn into a larger political nightmare for Apple over the years. I feel that being able to replace key components that are...

Having spent much of my life in California, I'm very familiar with this company. They also did electronics recycling, so hearing that they are disappearing is a concern. We need to all be paying attention to our role in keeping the planet clean, and reusing items, but...

Now, before we freak out, note that this is a little more than half of their workforce, and there's no evidence that these contractors are being abused. Locating a government solution is not the route we need. To underscore this, often a place like Google will have a...

Let me get this straight... they will now add an obscure button allowing you to opt out of their years of contractors spying on you. That's the simple version of a complex situation, but I am not hopeful. Perhaps it'll be employees spying on you? Perhaps it'll be the...

We have been watching GameStop for a long time now, since Benny was running our gaming segment many years ago. This is not a surprise, but instead, the inevitable. It's amazing that they have lasted this long, and that they are able to continue forward. I do like the...

It's not often that I'm saddened by the death of someone I never met. The "King of Random" has been one of my YouTube choices for many years, through things like Lego Gummy Bears, making sand castings, making a knife in a coffee can forge, and lets not forget many...

I've been in these huge settlements before. I got a check for $4 from AT&T, and one from somewhere else that was supposed to be $90, and was about $9. Yes, I'm sure that you aren't thrilled about free credit monitoring from a company that lost your information...

Google, and many others, are out to distinctly get your information. Face recognition, identifying you, tracking you, and more, for a measly five dollar bill.As Google works on a version of Face ID for its next Pixel phone, its employees are stopping people in public...

Another major data breach, and we see 106 million customers with their data in the wind. Scarier is that we don't know yet what all of the other breaches are. There's a reference to how the hacker "just wanted to see if she could (get the data). She had no nefarious...

In a modern age, even grieving is changing. I like the idea of being able to attend services that I might not have otherwise been able to make. Just as attending a church service is an issue at times, the ability for loved ones many miles away to attend that 2nd...

"This is your captain speaking. We forgot to reboot before we took off. So, yes, the plane will turn off, and we'll be in freefall for about 12 seconds, but there's nothing to fear. Oh wait, the co-pilot is telling me it'll be a little bit longer. Assume the crash...

3D printing hair?!? The fictional Jean-Luc Picard, the real me, and many other men may be saved the hazards of going bald. Except many of us do this by choice. Yes, I do know men who would appreciate this, and even some women (for their own alopecia issues), so this...

Another govenrment offical saying that you shouldn't have privacy. It's not surprising, and don't go blaming the current administration... this was also a theme from the previous administration. The biggest flaw here is the thought that if the government has access,...

Quick and simple, Libra is not out yet. It's going to be a while, and when it is, I doubt you'll get any great deals, as this is supposed to be a "stablecoin", tied to not just one world currency, but multiple currencies to allow it to be somehow protected from the...

I often consider that tipping should be abolished. You'd have to tip a lot of cash with Door Dash in order for the delivery person to see any of it. This same issue plays itself out across many other big names, and it plays into the same bizarre ideas of owners...

Planning an upgrade to your system might benefit from a delay until Christmas. With prices now predicted to fall, simply because the chip manufacturers are making too much... that's great. Two downsides: First being that a week ago it was expected to go up in the next...

In the game world of hacking, I think this is probably the best high score yet. Sure, one gets to claim big hacks like Target, or Home Depot as high scores, but the information is one or two credit cards which can be changed. In this instance, we're talking about THE...

50 years, to the day, after man first set foot on the moon, we are presented another chance to dream of "Space, the Final Frontier". I'm far more thrilled for this, than I was for Star Trek: Discovery. We see some very familiar faces, some promises of action, and so...

The scary tale of "registered camera owners" and a chance to eavesdrop on you and your neighborhood, gives the police powers that they shouldn't have. Directly out of 1984, it doesn't even pretend anymore, as law enforcement actively pitches in cash towards your...

In an unfolding tale of privacy lost, our own images are being stolen as people make us look older, another gender, or more. Another proof of "if you don't know what is up for sale, then it's you." Sure, there's more about how it's Russians, and that it's even more...

I am highly concerned that an organization that is openly of a political persuasion, with an ex-boss who is admittedly of that same political persuation, making and GIVING AWAY free software to "guard" our elections. This is a company that has made paid software that...

New car. Fast car. Nearly 2000bhp. 0 to 186 miles per hour in under 9 seconds. 9 seconds. I've already spent 9 seconds telling you about it... 186 miles per hour. This is amazingly brilliant, and also outside of my price range at $2 million. But one can dream, can't...

I had a feeling something like this was going on. We see pictures of idyllic lives, of photoshopped realities, and they get wrapped up in a cocoon where you can't see the behind the scenes... and you look at your own reality which can't hope to compare... and where...

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Uber and Lyft wish to protect themselves from legal turmoil. The reality is that something like this bill will hurt the gig economy if done wrong. Who benefits from a bill like this? The companies that compete against Uber and...

One of the topics this week will be about how Apple is reducing specs for our money. In a world where Moore's law is still holding solid, this is a way to just make more money off of the brand. Are we surprised?The Retina MacBook Air was refreshed last week with a new...

Germany has taken aim at Microsoft, and as one of the leading privacy advocates (Germany), I think it bears taking notice. This is a recurring theme with the two of them, with Office, Windows, Internet Explorer, and more. But lest you think Germany is only picking on...

I believe this is a mis-identification of the issue. The real issue is that all systems are vulnerable. Further, the more important the systems are, the more targeted they will become. Few hackers care about Linux or Macs (sorry Keith!) due to their low usage...

In an amazing move, the FTC levied what we might thing is a humongous fine against Facebook for the Cambidge Analytica scandal, where Facebook users personal data was used for politcal advertising purposes without the consent of the owners of that data. $5 Billion...

The good news is that Apple isn't even announcing how it works, and it may be not all that important in the grand scheme of things, as it may have all been just a proof of concept hack, with no actual usage in the real world. Still, Apple is taking the right...

OK, I'm sitting here, and I'm marveling over the idea of hair straightners, not because I'm bald, but because they have Bluetooth. They can also be hacked. Who would bother hacking a hair straightener? Just seems like a waste of time, but again, so does straightening...

Was it intentional? Was this the start of a robot uprising that went bad? We may never know. On a more serious note, while we get scared by these things, sometimes issues happen. The Great Chicago Fire (of 1871) cost much more than that, killed some 300 people, and...

Explanation about why ShakeAlert didn't alert is... well, shaky at best. Still, it'll take time before they iron out all of the issues, especially since it was about 20 years since the last quake of this size. Mrs. Nerd, my wife, was out of town, actually with me, so...

I'm not a proponent of any rule like this, censorship by any other name is still censorship. First is the issue that this might be delivered unbalanced... either the Christians or Islamics or Jews will be under or over represented by the censors, and that leads to...

I'm happy to hear this hitting the news. Frankly, the more impressive thing is that "Woz" has been touting this for ages, but is now getting media attention as it's the in thing to do. The various newspapers and other media (other than social) have realized that...

The headline is a little mislead. An industry group out of England is attacking Mozilla (Firefox) over a new plan to increase our privacy and internet speeds. This approach of streamlining how we get our webpages can be used to bypass certain locking mechanisms...

A thing to consider... which will in effect be meaningless, for all of the people who can't stay away will still keep things rolling, but I like the idea for personal growth. Can you do it??? Can you stay off of social media for 48 hours? “Humanity has been...

CITY NUMBER 3!!! My show hasn't even gone to air this week, where I talk about CITY NUMBER 2!!! If you are in any part of a small town or city, right now, you need to batten down the hatches, as the hackers are going to come after you as other cities start paying up....

Another reason why "what you bought" isn't really yours, and how your hard earned money can be lost. This is not a story of theft, as we discussed with Amazon, but a story of a server that will no longer be maintained. This article unfolds some of the deeper details,...

Yep. So, the cries to censor our President can get louder, Twitter is now officially allowing political tampering by themselves. In a quest to make things "fair", they'll probably track your every choice, track you as well, and all of your political decisions... and...

Forget the headline, as he's not going all that far. He's starting a company that will still work directly with Apple. OK, so it's more of an outside consultancy which allows him to do whatever else he wants to do. Apple said on Thursday that its chief design officer,...

Another layer in this story. Guest speaker, Matt Nye, will be joining me this week to discuss this in more detail.BIG UPDATE: YouTube has REMOVED the video from their platform. The video is still available on this website page.UPDATE 1: Congressman Louie Gohmert...

Deleted social media accounts after Project Veritas expose of political meddling. Guest speaker, Matt Nye, will be joining me this week to discuss this in more detail. James O’Keefe and Project Veritas released alarming new undercover video, leaked documents, and...

Apple had their big huge 5k monitor reveal, so now the others are announcing their answers to it. I am really enjoying the idea of the size of this one continuous spread. It still matches up to two 27" class monitors, but as one very wide spread... but at about $1000...

I like the different headlines... Apple fanboys are claiming that Bill Gates said that fighting Apple was his biggest mistake. It's a lot of interpretation, clearly. Still, no matter if you take the anti-Apple or anti-Android, it's a matter of his not taking a better...

Man has long wished to fully conquer time. It's the measure that is most elusive to us, and even with this new space clock, it still will have some level of inaccuracy that is not predictable. This quest will continue, and we will see more accurate time keeping over...

Something to be aware of. This is a problem, of course, that strikes many different companies, due to the nature of battery fires. We've seen this all over, but the idea that Apple is addressing something this old is amazing. Kudos! Overheating batteries are no...

Fans will know that I am an avid Apple iPad user, and love the Apple Pencil. Still, I'm disheartened to see that Google is backing off of their tablets, in a time where we should all be moving forward. We still have tablets from Samsung and elsewhere, but a leader...