Believe it or not, we don’t cover every piece of tech news here at SnapMunk. In an effort to keep you apprised of all things relevant in the world of technology and startups, here are some noteworthy tech news items that didn’t get a full column this week but certainly deserve a glance.
New Dating App For Those Who Opposed Brexit. Admittedly, I don’t understand much about Brexit. It has something to do with Britain voting to leave the European Union, Paul Revere’s midnight ride, and tea thrown into the Boston Harbor. Or something like that. Whatever it is, there’s now an app for Brits who voted to remain in the EU. Called “Remainers”, it’s currently trying to crowdfund £5,000 to launch. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from history, it’s that love and politics are always a great mix.
U.S. May Start Screening Social Profiles Of Foreign Travelers. In an effort to curb terrorism, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) may start asking foreign travelers about activity on their social media accounts; apparently it is not currently in the job description of immigration officers to study what travelers do on Facebook and Twitter. It seems that this proposal is in light of the recent shooting in Orlando, where shooter Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS via social media.
Photo via LATimes.com
Google Rips Symantec For Flaws. Researchers for Google’s Project Zero, which seeks to identify “zero-day” code flaws, recently ripped Symantec for outrageous lapses in their anti-virus software. In fact, the flaws were so bad that a virus could cripple an entire enterprise fleet. To Symantec’s credit, they did patch the flaws quickly after they were revealed, but this certainly doesn’t leave me with much confidence in the software giant.
Photo via newsfactor.com
Facebook Changing News Feed To Focus On Friends. Facebook is tweaking their News Feed yet again. Now the News Feed will focus even more on items posted by friends and family rather than news pages. This means that page owners / companies can expect to see yet another decrease in organic reach with their Facebook posts. Moving forward, it will be fascinating to see how Facebook navigates its relationships with news publishers. The main lesson learned here is that Facebook will always look out for Facebook first and foremost, and if you’re relying on Facebook for traffic (at almost any level), you’re eventually gonna get screwed.
Apple Patents Camera Blocker. Leading the way in the “Orwellian Technology” category, Apple was granted a patent for a smartphone camera that can receive coded infrared signals. Based on the signals, the phone could display information on the screen, or even shut the camera down altogether. This is freaky on a number of levels. When you think of the role smartphone cameras played in recent political revolutions, this easily sounds like a patent designed for dictators wanting to squash people. And by “dictators”, we of course also mean, “Alicia Keys“.
Photo from Apple Patent
Google Funded Cable Connecting U.S. and Japan To Go Live. A 5,600 mile cable which stretches under the Pacific Ocean and connects the U.S. to Japan, went live this week. The connection runs at 60 terabits per second, which is a whopping 10 million times faster than the average cable modem. The cable was funded by $300 million from Google, as well as money from several other companies.
Photo via cork.eazycity.com
Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments!
Stephen Altrogge is a freelance writer based in Tallahassee, Florida. He writes about tech, marketing, faith, and lots of other things. He’s married to Jen and has three young girls. Every day he consumes more coffee than the entire population of Colombia. He knows more about Star Wars than any respectable man should, and he runs more than any sane man would. He once attempted to eat a 2 pound hamburger in under an hour. He failed.
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Pretty cool that Google still puts money up for projects like that one connecting to Japan.
Why would app patent a camera blocker? I get the whole concert thing, but it doesn’t make sense otherwise.