Category Archives: Technology

News about technology.

In GMail You Can Undo Sending an E-Mail

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I know, right? Hell froze over! Now we can actually undo sending e-mails. Remember that time when you pressed CTRL + Enter by mistake? Or when you hit send and just in the same moment saw a horrible mistake? Well, Google comes to our rescue, with the amazing “Undo Send E-Mail” functionality!

Granted, “unsending” an e-mail is possible using some other methods as well, but this is the first time I see a user-friendly method implemented by a major public e-mail provider. And this is why I thought it’s a good idea to make it known to other people.

Here’s how to do it: go to Settings and enable it. Simple, eh? How does it work? I tested this using two accounts of mine. Google will, in fact, delay sending the e-mail for up to 30 seconds.

How to set up Undo Send
How to set up Undo Send

Unfortunately, if you navigate away from the current page after sending the e-mail, I don’t think you can stop it from being sent anymore (at least I couldn’t find any relevant button or menu option when I opened a test e-mail during the undo window of opportunity). Also unfortunately, you cannot undo for more than 30 seconds. But I’m still very happy I learned about his functionality. I have enabled it for both my accounts.

It just... works!
It just… works!

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The Internet Is 25 Years Old

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Few discoveries have changed mankind so much in so little time. Even fewer have their future in as much doubt as the Internet. Even though the Internet is still technically open and anybody’s public thoughts can be accessed, it doesn’t mean that worthy information can actually reach the people that need it.

Search engines have become gate-keepers of sorts while social networks transform themselves into walled gardens. Mobile apps are also filtering out the open web into cute little boxes where companies keep their users enthralled:

http://www.wired.com/2016/08/25-world-wide-web-still-long-way-reality/^

Some time ago, I wanted to use Google’s AdWords to publish an advert for one of my articles. I was censored. Why? Because my article was titled “The Virtual Reality Revolution^”. And of course, nobody in the establishment likes to see the world “revolution” printed anywhere, right? Right?

And while we’re at it, check out this article^ I wrote about 3 months ago regarding social threats to the Internet (as opposed to the ones that are featured in this posting, which I’d classify as economical and technological).

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The Danger Posed by Vehicles with Tinted Windows

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Quote: “the need for the eye contact is something hard to do with tinted windows. As a pedestrian, before you step off a curb when you arrive at a four-way stop, the interaction with a driver requires a degree of not just acknowledgment, but trust. I have to know what you intend to do, and I have to know that you’ve seen me. Think of how often you respond differently because you see someone on the phone or texting. You need this information, and dark tinting obscures it.”

I don’t normally start my recommendations with a quote from the article I’m recommending, but sometimes I make exceptions. This time, the reason is that the quote I started with is exactly what made me feature this article. The same quote also got me thinking about how will pedestrians interact with self-driving vehicles. Food for thought…

There’s quite a lot of regional information in the article (pertaining to Canada). But once we get thinking about the dangers of tinted windows, a lot of risks will immediately pop into a driver’s mind: dangers of changing lanes in the dark, parking in an insufficiently lit garage and so on. Conclusion? Don’t tint your windows.

http://driving.ca/chrysler/300/auto-news/news/the-dark-side-of-tinted-windows^

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The Elevated Bus That Rides above the Traffic

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With ever-undented ambition, China rediscovers its innovative mojo. In the past decade, we’ve seen quite a few impressive Chinese projects. It doesn’t matter if this bus will not see wide-spread use, it still stands (ahem, rolls) as a testament that China Has Talent.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/02/china-has-actually-built-that-elevated-bus-that-travels-above-car-traffic/^

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/china-s-futuristic-straddle-bus-goes-test-drive-n622131^

Still, I’d rather see China’s Talent invested in ways that can reduce motor traffic rather than work around the problem by throwing more metal (and fuel) at it. Beijing and other major cities around in the world would love to get rid of the smog epidemic.

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Some of Today’s Overpriced Tech Products

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It’s full of overpriced devices out there. Here’s a short list of shame that I’ve compiled during years of reading hardware & technology news.

Lenovo PCs – they’ve took over IBM’s high quality laptop business and proceeded to thoroughly exploit it. Almost all competing brands offer a lower price for identical hardware configurations. Dell, another high quality manufacturer is also among these competitors (and unlike Lenovo, they’re much more upfront with drivers & servicing manuals, both of which are available online). Did I mention that Lenovo was recently involved in a major spyware scandal^?

Razer – oh no, it’s those guys who try to make their devices seem more capable or expensive by adding fancy LED lighting and cool logos. Razer’s gaming laptop is nice but overpriced, so is most of their product catalog. What’s worse is that the company also has lots of quality issues^. Admittedly, Razer has innovated quite a bit in the past decade, so at least they’re putting the money to (some) good use.

Any top CPU or GPU model – unless you’re swimming in money, don’t buy the fastest CPU or GPU. Their price-performance ratios are terrible (around twice the price for just 50% extra bang). Always buy mid-range or mid-to-high-range, unless you urgently and imperatively need everything you can get and are sure you will fully exploit it.

Oculus Rift – despite being cheaper than the competing Vive, the Rift comes with no special VR-designed controllers and lacks room-scale (the ability to track the position of the player’s body). Oculus controllers will only come out in Q4 2016 and the platform will probably continue to lack room-scale. Add to this a rather arrogant approach to cross-platform compatibility and you got a product that definitely needs some additional time to mature.  For those that want to get into VR, I recommend the Vive. This is a completely unbiased recommendation since I do not own either of them, nor do I intend to buy anything just yet.

What about Apple? Their products are indeed over-priced, but this is at least partially justified. The quality of Apple hardware is among the highest I’ve ever seen. The software is highly optimized so that it requires fewer resources. This is especially important when it comes to mobile devices. Apple devices have impressive battery life. The company also deserves credit for currently having the highest standard in terms of privacy and security for its customers. All things considered, with Apple, you get what you pay for. And no, I do not own any single Apple product, being a long-time PC / Android user.

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These Mobile Homes Are Awesome

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One day, when I grow older, I’d like to roam the cities of Earth and enjoy the diversity and beauty of the 21st century society (hopefully things will be better than they are today). I always thought that a motor-home is a good idea to do this. However, the engine would lie unused for long periods of time and the sewage requires a lot of maintenance. Not to mention that any reasonably priced motor-home is also quite small.

So then how about a detachable apartment?

https://www.facebook.com/CollectiveEvolutionPage/videos/1887653478127712/^

You come, you visit and then you take the daily truck, moving you to wherever you wish. While being transported, you sit in your comfortable home, doing whatever you wish to do.

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All Your Computers Are Belong to Us

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In recent years, Intel has moved towards integrating some pretty nifty remote administration features into its CPUs. While this may be a good idea for certain enterprises, it may quickly turn into a nightmare as soon as exploits and vulnerabilities are found. And guess what^?

Software has bugs. Hey, it happens, everybody makes mistakes. But in this case, the mistakes can’t be corrected in time (before an attacker exploits them). That’s because, in typical monopolist corporation fashion, Intel is obscuring the process by not allowing the security community to analyze whatever code the company decides to shove into our machines. The same argument stands true regarding any proprietary code, especially Microsoft’s Windows, which after 20 years of fixes is still the most vulnerable mainstream operating system.

The following article describes the problem pretty well:

http://hackaday.com/2016/01/22/the-trouble-with-intels-management-engine/^

It’s probably only a matter of time until a clever attacker will compromise the company’s buggy code. Of course, Intel will eventually patch its security holes, but given that the company’s CPUs are used across the world in some pretty sensitive contexts, there’s no telling how much damage such attacks can cause.

As for us mortals, we are at risk of having our privacy compromised even by petty criminals. This is because there’s a large window of opportunity between the time when a security hole is found and the time that Intel moves to fix it for less prioritized customers.

And don’t even get me started on how governments across the world can (and probably will) force Intel’s hand into giving over political dissidents on a silver platter. Privacy? What privacy?

If you want to learn more, here’s another article on the same topic:

http://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/intel-x86-processors-ship-with.html^

I wrote this hot on the heels of a Dissected News piece about Cyber-Warfare^. There’s additional interesting information to be found there.

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How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

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Let’s have a look at a very interesting article that shows how the choices we have in our daily life are limited and controlled. It’s written by a Design Ethicist at Google:

https://medium.com/swlh/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3^

In a nutshell, the article explains how our choices are constrained by poor design or clever manipulation techniques that aim to hide those options that are not favorable to certain commercial interests. Being aware that this happens is important knowledge. A quick fix is to always dig deeper and try to look beyond “what’s on the menu”.

Update: in 2017 I wrote a more detailed article^ on this same subject.

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nVidia GeForce 1080 and AMD RX 480 – the Video Cards of June 2016

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This June is a good month to be a gamer. Both nVidia and AMD have announced new graphical processing units that exhibit vast improvements over the previous generation. After being stuck for almost four years on the now-primitive 28 nanometer lithography, the GPU manufacturers have jumped straight to 14 (AMD) and 16 (nVidia), skipping over the intermediate step of 20-22 nanometers.

In combination with switching over to multigate transistors^, this technological leap allows the new video cards to achieve a boost of up to 40% in performance at a much lower price than the previous generation. In terms of price/performance ratio, we’re looking at an improvement between 60% and 80%. That’s massive. We haven’t seen such a leap in GPU technology for many years.

It’s also important to note that nVidia and AMD are not directly competing this time around. nVidia took to the high end with its Pascal microarchitecture while AMD went mainstream with Polaris. AMD’s RX will offer the best value, but if you want maximum quality Virtual Reality gaming, then nVidia is your only option.

The new video cards aren’t widely available yet and a shortage can be expected in the coming months. But make no mistake; these new models will kick some serious pixel! I want to make sure you’re aware of this and for heaven’s sake, don’t buy any of the previous generation video cards. The new arrivals are making them beyond obsolete.

There are a lot of “trap products” out there right now. In a perfect example of bad timing, Asus just unveiled a beastly, liquid-cooled gaming laptop. Unfortunately, it has the obsolete GPUs inside. In six months, a lighter laptop will be more than capable of humiliating this one:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-gx700-gx701-water-cooled-strix-gl502-thin-and-light,31888.html^

And don’t worry; there will be plenty of new video cards to choose from. MSI, a video card manufacturer, will release no less than five options using the same GeForce 1080 GPU. Talk about consumerism:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/msi-nvidia-gtx-1080-gpus,31913.html^

Last but not least, I’m very interested what these new GPUs will bring for a certain emerging product category: virtual reality backpacked computers. It was only a matter of time until some company would try to address the issue of people tripping onto the cables they use to connect their high-end Head Mounted Display to the computer. As goofy as it sounds, do not underestimate the temptation of VR gaming. These products will sell.

And, to confirm what I’ve just said, it turns out that it’s more than just one company developing these things. The only catch is that, unsurprisingly, manufacturers are using the recently obsoleted GPUs. I imagine that in about 6 months, when nVidia’s mobile Pascal will have shown up, these backpacks could become quite a product, especially for those interested in VR gaming:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/vr-backpacks-msi-zotac-chaintek,31974.html^

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The Vehicles of the Future and Our Security

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As the world becomes increasingly connected, so are all the devices that we’re using. Vehicles, of course, are no exception. But while a hacked phone or refrigerator won’t be immediately life-threatening, a compromised vehicle can endanger the lives of many.

Nissan found itself in hot water after security researchers managed to hack its electric cars through a web link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nissan-leaf-hacked-web-link,31275.html^

The auto-maker shuttered the faulty software application^, but according to the article above, this might not have been enough since “attackers don’t even need to use the NissanConnect app, because they can deliver the attack through a web browser by spoofing the app.”

With self-driving cars heading our way fast, this is not my idea of a software ecosystem that I would trust with my life. In addition to all the immense challenges that companies involved in researching automated driving will have to overcome, the security aspect will have to be handled in an extremely careful way. Check what they did to this jeep^.

Self-driving vehicles will, through their very nature, rely on a wealth of external information. When they will go mainstream, we will already be talking about automatically negotiating traffic lights, combining more vehicles into trains for optimal fuel efficiency or tragedy-prevention ethics^ (I highly recommend reading the linked article).

Companies have proved time and again that they care about little else than their profit margins. There is very little regard for safety and quality. In a recent posting^, I wrote that we’re perhaps partially to blame for this. Unless the situation changes both we and our environment will suffer because of these companies’ neglect.

At least some sort of relief comes from the fact that some governments will make hacking vehicles a very serious criminal offense. Michigan, for example, proposes to go as far as life in prison^. But what about the companies that allow their applications to be hacked (due to rushing the development process)? I believe those entities should face equally serious punishments.

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