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Devices that use sound in an attempt to repel mosquitos don’t work, and mosquito repellant apps that use your phone speaker don’t work either.

It’s all wishful thinking. There is no evidence sound emitting devices can stop mosquitoes biting. A review of field testing showed no protection was provided. Similarly, laboratory studies failed to show any bite prevention…There’s no reason to think smartphone apps are going to perform any better than any of the other gimmicks that have come and gone from supermarket shelves over the decades.

I didn’t even know mosquito repellant apps were a thing.

Elon Musk is no stranger to Twitter controversy. Today he committed another social media faux-pas, The Independent reported. The Tesla and Space X founder tweeted a picture with the slogan Occupy Mars on it…accompanied by a picture of the Moon. As you might imagine, nobody on Twitter pointed out the error…

Elon Musk has amused his Twitter followers by tweeting the words “Occupy Mars” alongside a picture of the moon instead of the Red Planet. Users on the social media site were quick to point out the error. “Hey Super Space Genius, that’s the moon in a total lunar eclipse,” said Upulie Divisekera, an Australian scientist, in reply to the post. The SpaceX founder appeared to admit the mistake in subsequent tweets joking about the faux pas. “Moon too,” Mr Musk said, using laughing emojis in a separate reply.

Over the weekend Apple shared a video called ‘Cascade’ shot on iPhone XS by Donghoon Jun and James Thornton of Incite in collaboration with WET.

The video offers incredibly close-up looks at water in a variety of different environments, showcasing the potential of the iPhone XS camera. The video shows off features such as slo-mo, 4K, and more.

It’s a beautiful video and part of Apple’s Experiments series.

We expect most places to get hacked now. However, I’d always rather hoped NASA would be able to keep itself safe. Turns out, it can’t. ZDNet reported the space agency was hacked via an unauthorized Raspberry Pi, which connected to the network. In total, 500 MB of data related to Mars missions was stolen.

The point of entry was a Raspberry Pi device that was connected to the IT network of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) without authorization or going through the proper security review… The hackers used this network gateway to pivot inside JPL’s infrastructure, and gained access to the network that was storing information about NASA JPL-managed Mars missions, from where he exfiltrated information. The OIG report said the hackers used “a compromised external user system” to access the JPL missions network. “The attacker exfiltrated approximately 500 megabytes of data from 23 files, 2 of which contained International Traffic in Arms Regulations information related to the Mars Science Laboratory mission,” the NASA OIG said.

Pixar was determined that Toy Story 4 would feature the voice of Don Rickles. The actor played Mr. Potato Head in previous Tory Story films but passed away in 2017 aged 90. The LA Times spoke with director Josh Cooley, who described how Pixar included late actor’s voice in the new film.

“Toy Story 4” director Josh Cooley was overjoyed. “I can only see Mr. Potato Head as Don Rickles doing that voice. I can’t imagine anyone else.” It was a painstaking process to include archival sound of Rickles’ voice. Bit by bit, an editorial team mined more than two decades’ worth of Rickles’ voice sessions and outtakes recorded for movies, shorts, theme parks, toys and other projects. They “logged every word, every cough, every hum, just so we’d know what we had,” Cooley recalled. The 39-year-old director collaborated with screenwriters Andrew Stanton and Stephany Folsom to write general lines for Mr. Potato Head, and then they searched the archival database for the best fit.

In her latest New York Times column, Kara Swisher reflects on last week’s Code conference. She says tech leaders had not taken on-board Tim Cook’s call that they take responsibility for the chaos their products cause.

Consider a wide-ranging interview I did during the Code conference last week with Andy Jassy, the sharp chief executive of Amazon Web Services, who defended his company’s facial recognition software. The program is called Rekognition — perhaps one of the creepiest names you could give surveillance software — and can match photos and videos with databases. It has been sold to businesses and law enforcement agencies, and its capabilities scare many, given questions of how and where it is deployed. Some critics, for example, are concerned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement may be using Rekognition to help deport immigrants, but Mr. Jassy would not comment on whether that agency uses the program or not.

Remember when Apple and Qualcomm were at each other’s throats? Well, they aren’t anymore, but their legal battle has ongoing ramifications. 9to5 Mac reported that the chipmaker used internal Apple documents in its current case with the Federal Trade Commission.

Included in those documents were slides from an internal Apple presentation in which Apple outlined ways to pressure and “hurt” Qualcomm… Qualcomm had originally used the documents during its Apple legal battle with Apple earlier this year. Apple and Qualcomm came to a surprise settlement in that case, but the chipmaker continues to fight the antitrust ruling handed down by Judge Koh last month.

Steve Jobs’s style of management was a hot topic both during his life and remained so after his death. An interesting article on Thrive Global from earlier this month wondered whether or not the Apple founder emotional intelligence.

He certainly found a way to motivate and inspire many of those he worked with, along with millions of consumers around the globe–even across language and cultural barriers. These are all signs of exceptional social awareness, as well as the ability to influence, which is a key aspect of relationship management. But what about Jobs’s communication style, which angered and frustrated many? He had become known for wild emotional swings and was perceived as arrogant and narcissistic. His manner pained many–including his family and others with whom he was close. Jobs himself blamed this on a lack of self-control. When his biographer Walter Isaacson asked him why he was sometimes so mean, Jobs replied: “This is who I am, and you can’t expect me to be someone I’m not.”

Gizmodo writes:

…if you really want a reminder of just how dumb everything is in 2019, check out this video from GE, which recently went viral on Twitter. GE even had the audacity to call it a “smart” light bulb.

A video from GE demonstrates some really bad design decisions. Really bad.

If you buy a used Nest Cam, the previous owner could have access to it. The Wirecutter discovered a way a previous owner can view the images, via the Wink hub. It is unclear if the issue applies to other products. Oh, and there is currently no way to fix it.

If you buy and set up a used Nest indoor camera that has been paired with a Wink hub, the previous owner may have unfettered access to images from that camera. And we currently don’t know of any cure for this problem. We are unsure what further implications there may be regarding Nest’s video service, including whether it may be vulnerable to other methods or through other smart-home device integrations.

There has been much excitement, discussion, and concern regarding Facebook’s forthcoming cryptocurrency, Libra.  Wired told the story of Chainspace, the little-known London startup that made it possible.

One of the key moments in Facebook’s march towards the creation of Libra came in February 2019, when the company announced it had acquired Chainspace, a London-based, Gibraltar-registered blockchain venture which counted among its ranks several academics from the University College London Information Security Research Group, including George Danezis, one of the UK’s leading privacy engineering researchers. (Danezis did not reply to an interview request.) Founded in early 2018, over its relatively brief lifetime Chainspace tallied up several noteworthy achievements…“The real potential that we saw in Chainspace was one of the first serious implementations of state sharding across a trustless network,” says Lior Messika, an early investor in Chainspace with his VC company Eden Block. “We were impressed by a pioneering approach and solid plans for implementation.”

Mel Magazine writes:

A generation raised on mp3s and Spotify are collecting [CD] discs like vinyl — but for reasons that have almost nothing to do with the music.

Did you throw all yours away?