ReHacked #39: culture, security, copyrights and pro memoria.

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High quality audio makes you sound smarter #science #psychology

People rated a physicist’s talk as 19.3% better when they listened to it in high (vs low) audio quality. They also thought he was smarter and liked him more.

IT companies warn in open letter: EU wants to ban encryption #privacy

According to the signatories of the open letter, any obligation to screen all private chat messages contradicts European principles of data protection. The authors are convinced: Allowing access to encrypted communication by private organizations and public authorities is incompatible with a strong EU as a technology location, It would enormously damage European ideals and the indisputable foundations of our democracy, namely freedom of expression and the protection of privacy.

5 keys keyboard for one hand #hardware

Illustrations from old books #culture #history

NASA on Friday selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build spacecraft that would land astronauts on the moon for the first time since the last Apollo mission.

The award to SpaceX for the “human landing system” was a stunning announcement that marked another major victory for the hard-charging company that vaults it to the top tier of the nation’s aerospace companies and solidifies it as one of the space agency’s most trusted partners. #space #technology

Bitcoin miners buying powerplants #blockchain

Bitcoin tumbled more than 4% on Friday after Turkey’s central bank banned the use of cryptocurrencies and crypto assets for purchases citing possible “irreparable” damage and transaction risks.

In legislation published in the Official Gazette, the central bank said cryptocurrencies and other such digital assets based on distributed ledger technology could not be used, directly or indirectly, to pay for goods and services. #blockchain

Tests carried out by researchers at Purdue University on their "ultra-white" paint showed it reflected more than 98% of sunlight.

That suggests, the scientists say, that it could help save energy and fight climate change.

Painting "cool roofs" white is an energy-saving approach already being rolled out in some major cities.

Commercially available white paints reflect between 80% and 90% of sunlight, according to lead researcher Prof Xiulin Ruan from Purdue, in West Lafayette, Indiana. "It's a big deal, because every 1% of reflectance you get translates to 10 watts per metre squared less heat from the Sun," he explained.

"So if you were to use our paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 sq ft (93 sq m), we estimate you could get a cooling power of 10 kilowatts. That's more powerful than the central air conditioners used by most houses," he said. #technology

Are the top websites using WebGL for fingerprinting? #privacy

GitHub Reinstated YouTube-DL But Restoring Forks is Apparently a Problem * TorrentFreak #copyrights

After the RIAA had youtube-dl removed from GitHub last year, the platform decided to reinstate the YouTube-ripping tool, claiming that the industry group's takedown was unwarranted. However, users who forked the project weren't so lucky and according to a counternotice filed this week, GitHub isn't responding to informal restoration requests. There is probably a good reason for that.

‘No one was driving the car’: 2 men dead after fiery Tesla crash in Spring, officials say #technology

Two men are dead after a Tesla traveling in Spring crashed into a tree and no one was driving the vehicle, officials say.

The crash happened at 11:25 p.m. in the Carlton Woods subdivision near The Woodlands. The car burst into flames after hitting a tree near 18 Hammock Dunes Place.

Founder of Adobe and developer of PDFs dies at age 81 #promemoria

Charles “Chuck” Geschke — the co-founder of the major software company Adobe Inc. who helped develop Portable Document Format technology, or PDFs — died at age 81.

Geschke, who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Los Altos, died Friday, the company said.

5G: The outsourced elephant in the room #privacy #security

The theory is that our telecommunications infrastructure could then be spied upon by China, or that it could be shut down in case of a conflict with China or a Chinese ally. A less urgent aspect is that getting all our telecommunications stuff from very far away would impact our ‘digital sovereignty’, meaning that even if we wanted to, we would no longer be able to autonomously build up a communication infrastructure without Chinese help.

These three worries, spying, availability and sovereignty (or autonomy) are supposed to hang in the balance with the “5G decision”.

One European government attempted to procure a terrestrial emergency communication network a few years ago. This attempt failed since vendors only offered cloud operated services - no vendor was able to quote an actually independent network.

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Dainius