David Lidsky's Blog, page 2935
July 23, 2015
App Used 23andMe's DNA Database To Block People From Sites Based On Race And Gender
A coder used 23andMe's open API to create a program that can discriminate against people online, based on their DNA.
The future imagined by the 1997 sci-fi film Gattaca may come to pass sooner than we think. This week, personal genetics company 23andMe discovered that a programmer had used its open API to create a screening mechanism for websites—which could effectively block people by race, sex, and ancestry.
Meet The Chuck II, The First New Converse All Star Design In 100 Years
But how do you redesign the Coca-Cola of shoes without becoming the New Coke of shoes?
Released for the first time in 1917, the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star is an American design classic. The Chuck's canvas, star-blazoned silhouette isn't just iconic, it's sacrosanct, and for good reason: according to the company, All Star sales made up the "majority" of Converse's $1.7 billion in revenue in 2014. Yet today, for the first time in almost 100 years, Converse is finally unveiling an honest-to-god sequel to the Chuck Taylor All Star. Meet the Chuck II, a more premium pair of kicks that were designed from the ground-up with a simple mandate: "Let's obsess the Chuck."
Al Franken To Feds: Investigate Apple Music
The senator addressed the FTC and Justice Department in a letter Wednesday, asking them to investigate Apple Music's practices.
Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) has some concerns about Apple's entry into the music streaming market. On Wednesday, Franken wrote to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Justice Department, requesting that they look into whether Apple inflates prices and undercuts the competition.
Product Hunt Wants To Be The New Oprah's Book Club
The popular product recommendation site is launching a new vertical for books.
Product Hunt is expanding yet again. This time, the wildly popular product recommendation site is launching a new tab dedicated entirely to books. Product Hunt Books, which went live this morning, takes the site's dead-simple, Reddit-style submission and voting mechanism for products and applies it to sci-fi romance novels, business biographies, and whatever other reading material tickles the collective fancy of its geeky community.
Open Access: How a Nonprofit is Giving Techies Without Tuition Their Shot
A nonprofit founded by a former Army officer is taking participants with an average salary of $26,000 and turning them into code masters.
In a crowded classroom on a recent Saturday morning in a donated community college space in Queens, New York, more than 20 students were huddled together learning the basics of building Android apps. The scene wasn't too different from any learn-to-code intensive, as these things go. There were bagels outside, and teachers urgently getting the projector ready before the lesson kicked off. But the differences were apparent when students were asked to introduce themselves: They told stories of coming from Siberia, Ethiopia, Brazil, and even the Bronx.
Why This Mobile Game Company Raised $130 Million
SGN, MySpace cofounder Chris DeWolfe's mobile gaming firm, just raised $130 million from a Korean rival.
Social Gaming Network (SGN), the game publisher helmed by MySpace cocreator Chris DeWolfe, just raised a mammoth $130 million funding round from Korean gaming giant Netmarble. The funding round will make Netmarble the largest shareholder in SGN, and create a (according to the company) "strategic partnership" through which SGN will help increase Netmarble's footprint in North America, and Netmarble will assist SGN within several international markets.
An Immersive Geometric Maze Built On The Site Of A Coal Mine
Belgian architects Gijs Van Vaerenbergh construct a maze using over a mile of steel plates.
Getting lost in tight spaces isn't normally a good thing if you're at a coal mine. That is, unless you're lucky enough to be wandering the corridors of Belgian architects Gijs Van Vaerenbergh's immersive steel labyrinth, located on the old Winterslag mining site in Genk, Belgium.
Why Google's Deep Dream A.I. Hallucinates In Dog Faces
It turns out Google's neural network is obsessed with canines for a reason.
We've all been getting a kick out of what artists and developers have been doing with Google's Deep Dream, the neural net powered hallucination AI. Now you can play with it for yourself, thanks to the Dreamscope web app. Just upload an image, pick one of 16 different filters, and turn that image into a hallucinogenic nightmare of infinitely repeating dog eyes for yourself.
July 22, 2015
South African Airways Lifts Ban On Hunters' Animal Trophies
Feel free to ship your prized elephant head in the cargo hold.
South Africa's largest airline, South African Airways, lifted a ban today that had prohibited the transportation of hunting trophies like the heads or carcasses of elephants, rhinos, and lions, Bloomberg reports.
Sony To Serve Corporate Clients With New Drone Company
The new subsidiary, Aerosense, will build drones that rely largely on Sony's sensor technology.
Sony is entering the drone business. The electronics giant is starting a drone subsidiary called Aerosense, which will use small drone aircrafts to capture data for corporate customers. Initial use cases for the drones include land surveying and monitoring oil pipelines.
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