How to Protect Compromised Private Keys

Private keys are a crucial part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. However, in recent times, some of those have been compromised. Qredo CEO Anthony Foy shared his suggestions on how to protect them.

Bitcoin lets you be your own bank by holding your private keys, but as the cryptocurrency industry has developed, this idea has become diluted. Many cryptocurrency users now choose to surrender their private keys to third party custodians. This has brought trust back into a trustless system—with fatal effects. Cryptocurrency’s short history is littered with massive losses, where the private keys controlling millions have been stolen from exchange wallets, pilfered by scam artists, and embezzled by trusted custodians. Even those individuals who have stayed true to the spirit of Bitcoin and kept their own private keys have still suffered, with dodgy wallets, silly mistakes, and even a series of ‘horrible boating accidents’ all leading people to lose their cryptocurrency.

Clearview AI Helps Law Enforcement With Facial Recognition

In a long read from NYT, Kashmir Hill writes about a startup called Clearview AI that works with law enforcement on facial recognition.

You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.

TMO Contributor Kelly Guimont (#9) - TMO Background Mode Interview

Kelly Guimont is a long-time podcaster, Contributing Editor for The Mac Observer, the host of the Mac Observer’s Daily Observations podcast, and a tech support guru.

In her 9th appearance, Kelly and I chat about our favorite TV shows and movies of late. We open in segment #1 with a shared favorite: The Mandalorian (Disney+). In segment #2: Kelly: Dr. Who (BBC), The World According to Jeff Goldblum (Disney+). John: Star Trek: Discovery (S2) (CBS), Virgin River (Netflix) and Downton Abbey – the movie (iTunes). Also: some honorable mentions. Join us as we explore together what’s great about these shows.

Samsung Names New Mobile Chief to Hold Off iPhone Challenge

On Monday, Samsung named the new exec who will lead its efforts to hold off the challenge from Apple’s iPhone. Bloomberg News reported that Taemoon Roh will now lead its mobile division, the world’s biggest mobile devices business.

Roh, who was formerly the unit’s No. 2 executive, will take over the top job from Koh Dong-Jin from Monday. Koh remains head of the Korean conglomerate’s IT and mobile communications division but hands the reins of smartphones over to a lieutenant credited with building up the marquee Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets. Roh, a two-decade veteran of Korea’s largest corporation, is regarded internally as an engineering maven who’s meticulous about phone features.

Slack Has Not Made us More Productive

Slack, the popular desktop and mobile messaging service, promised to help us avoid endless work emails and make us all more productive. However, as Wired reported, it has brought with it its own productivity issues.

The app may have a loyal band of followers but neuroscientist and lecturer, Lucas Miller is certainly not among them. As a lecturer at Haas School of Business at Berkeley University and co-founder of productivity consultancy, Stoa Partners, Miller warns students and clients on the dangers of getting hooked on Slack. “Technology advances usually supplant what has come before but Slack hasn’t, it’s just doubled the pain,” he says. The problem, Miller explains, goes beyond the inconvenience of monitoring another inbox. He sees Slack as a particularly “scary offender” in stopping people getting their work done because it encourages them to be constantly distracted. It’s scary because messenger-based systems directly tap into how humans seek to reward themselves, and the long term result is unhealthy.

Cool Stuff Found and Your Questions Answered – Mac Geek Gab 798

You like Cool Stuff Found? Good! So do your two favorite geeks. Listen as John and Dave begin this episode sharing you – and their – new finds over the past couple of weeks. Apps, utilities, gizmos, and gadgets to help you truly increase your enjoyment and productivity with your technology. Then, of course, questions! Listen to answers to your (and other listeners’) questions about migrating drives, software subscriptions, Catalina Mail, Photos, APFS, and more. It’s all about having fun and learning five new things in the process, folks!

Your Online Activity is a Social Credit Score

Violet Blue has an interesting take, that of your online activity as a social credit score. The SCC is something we usually associate with China, but we’re seeing trends suggesting America is moving toward a similar system.

Combine this with companies like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and yes, Airbnb deciding what legal behaviors are acceptable for service, and now we’re looking at groups of historically marginalized people being denied involvement in mainstream economic, political, cultural and social activities — at scale.

Blocs 3 Website Builder for Mac: $39.99

We have a deal on Blocs 3 Website Builder for Mac. Blocs is a fast, easy-to-use, and powerful visual web design software that lets you create responsive websites without writing code. As simple as stacking blocks, this app works on the concept of stacking pre-defined sections to build fully-coded web pages. Check out the promo video to see Blocs in action. Blocs 3 is $39.99 through our deal.

Apple Working on Eye Detection System to Stop Screen Burn-In

An Apple patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office refers to a feature to avoid display burn-in. It is primarily for use in AR or mixed reality headsets, Patently Apple reported.

Apple’s patent application relates to an eye monitoring system built into the frame support system of a headset designed to detect eye saccades and eye blinks and then make needed adjustments to the eye displays in realtime without the user even knowing this is occurring in the background. Saccades are fast, jerky and mostly ballistic eye rotations. Humans make several saccadic eye movements per second to utilize this highest-resolution part of the retina to look at the object of interest.