Pokemon Drives Terror App to Airbnb

Teaser medium

France’s terror alert app fails, autonomous cars or not, no more McPorn, Addicted to Pokemon Go, hidden voice commands, Airbnb laws, lack of diversity hiring.
In the post show: Ranscam, Las Vegas, iOS Development and bugs in AVPlayer sound completions.

It took nearly three hours for France's terror alert app to respond to Nice attack | The Verge

A terror alert app released by the French government last month has come under criticism after taking hours to notify users of Thursday night’s attack in Nice.

Drivers Prefer Autonomous Cars That Don't Kill Them - Slashdot

“A new study shows that most people prefer that self-driving cars be programmed to save the most people in the event of an accident, even if it kills the driver,” reports Information Week. “Unless they are the drivers.” Slashdot reader MojoKid quotes an article from Hot Hardware about the new study, which was published by Science magazine.

Will the Autonomous Car Industry Survive Autopilot’s First Fatal Crash? - News

In May, the first fatality involving a self-driving car made history. Will it change the autonomous vehicle industry’s future?

Understanding Tesla Autopilot – Marco.org

A few Tesla vehicles have had accidents with Autopilot enabled recently, and I’ve gotten countless questions about these incidents and the nature of Autopilot from people who aren’t Tesla owners. Tesla and the media haven’t clearly communicated what these features do (and don’t do) to the public, so I’ll try to help in whatever small way I can as a Model S owner for a few months so far.

I apologize in advance if I get any technical details wrong about these features. Authoritative information is hard to find, and these features change and evolve often.

Tesla driver dies in first fatal crash while using autopilot mode | Technology | The Guardian

The first known death caused by a self-driving car was disclosed by Tesla Motors on Thursday, a development that is sure to cause consumers to second-guess the trust they put in the booming autonomous vehicle industry.

Starbucks and McDonald's move to block porn from their Wi-Fi networks - Jul. 15, 2016

Starbucks and McDonald’s, due in part to pressure from anti-pornography groups have started to block porn on the chains’ Wi-Fi networks.

Pokémon GO | Pokémon Video Games

Lyle chats about his whole family playing, or trying to play, Pokemon Go together. When the servers are up, it is a great experiences. Lots of walking, chatting, and laughing.

Hidden voice commands in YouTube vids can hack mobile devices

A team made up of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Georgetown University, have created a technique capable of compromising a mobile device via voice commands embedded into a YouTube video. The signal is imperceptible to viewers, but is able to trigger commands within a nearby device, whether a laptop, computer, smart TV, smartphone or tablet. On Apple systems, Siri receives the message and on Android systems, Google Now interprets the signal.

Santa Monica convicts its first Airbnb host under tough home-sharing laws - LA Times

Santa Monica, which last year passed some of the nation’s toughest regulations on short-term rentals, has now convicted its first Airbnb host under the new law, prosecutors said. 

Elizabeth Warren Wants an Investigation Into Airbnb-Style Rentals - Fortune

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday called for a regulatory probe into whether short-term rental websites such as Airbnb are taking housing away from long-term renters and pushing up prices.

The Big Lie: Tech Companies and Diversity Hiring — Don’t Panic, Just Hire

In the past week or so I’ve had three instances to reflect on how three major tech companies talk about diversity hiring and their actions. One pattern that continues to repeat itself is that companies say a lot about how much diversity is important to them and wanting to hire more underrepresented minorities but then can’t get out of the rut of their ingrained hiring practices.

Facebook Blames Lack of Available Talent for Diversity Problem - WSJ

Facebook Inc. said Thursday that it made meager increases in the number of women and minorities working at the social-network giant, highlighting the difficulty large tech companies have in diversifying their workforces.

No honor among thieves: New ransomware takes your money, deletes files anyway | ZDNet

Ransomware is bad enough, but offers a sliver of hope to victims by promising to give them their files back if they obey instructions — with the exception of a new strain which has been created for money and nothing else.

Debugging woes as a deveoper

Lyle chats about a bug he is trying to fix at work which he seems to blame on a bug in
AVPlayer Class Reference callback for completed sounds. Looking for redemption he speculates a similar bug in Pokemon Go caused be the same issue.