Weekly Digest Of Must-Read Articles (02.08)

Every week we meticulously browse through a large variety of articles to choose the 10 most interesting pieces you shouldn’t miss on any occasion. This week you’ll find out how the wealth gap reshapes the American cities, learn the history of money, get into the cybersecurity with Robert Mueller and so much more. Here goes our new Weekly digest of 10 articles we’d like you to like. 

The Future of Satellite Intelligence Is Sentient. – The Verge

“A product of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Sentient is (or at least aims to be) an omnivorous analysis tool, capable of devouring data of all sorts, making sense of the past and present, anticipating the future, and pointing satellites toward what it determines will be the most interesting parts of that future. That, ideally, makes things simpler downstream for human analysts at other organizations, like the NGA, with which the satellite-centric NRO partners.” Read the article.

How Gender Stereotypes Affect Pro-Environment Behavior. – Pacific Standard

“New research points to another, more surprising disincentive for going green: the fear that others might question our sexual orientation.

As a 2016 study confirmed, environmentalism is widely perceived as feminine behavior. Even today, caring and nurturing behavior is associated with women—and that includes taking steps to sustain the environment.” Read the article.

Hearing Every Word at the Statue of Liberty Museum. – AV Magazine

“Accessibility was a keyword in the development of the new Statue of Liberty Museum on Liberty Island in New York. Central to that was a comprehensive assistive listening system from Contacta to give visitors with hearing loss the best possible experience of the new attraction.

With 12 exhibits all requiring separate audio playback, Contacta’s challenge was to design a network of hearing loops in close proximity without creating overspill into the neighboring display. The Museum wanted to create a listening environment where visitors could move seamlessly from one exhibit to another, hearing the correct playback in each area, without the need for additional equipment.” Read the article.

How Scientists Built a ‘Living Drug’ to Beat Cancer. – Wired

“Cancer is shitty and unfair, but that shitty unfairness reaches a whole other level when it happens to a kid. Tom and Kari Whitehead were told that they needed to consider hospice for their daughter. Or, if they wanted, she could die at home. Traditional medicine had nothing else to offer her. But a researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia might, if Emily’s parents were willing to take the risk.

The Whiteheads learned of this possibility on a Sunday. By Monday, they were in Philadelphia. Emily Whitehead would be the world’s first kid to try an experimental cancer therapy, called CAR-T. Researchers were offering to reprogram her immune cells into a clone army of cancer-targeting serial killers.” Read the article.

Cybersecurity Advice (For the AV Industry) From Robert Mueller. – rAVePubs

“On April 30, 2019, Tenable cybersecurity researcher Jacob Baines wrote a blog posted, “Eight Devices, One Exploit,” which outlined a total of 15 vulnerabilities that his team found in wireless presentation devices. Two of the vulnerabilities discovered, CVE-2019-3929 and CVE-2019-3930, were found in products sold by eight separate audiovisual manufacturers. The eight products all used the same underlying software developed by AWIND, a subsidiary of Barco.

In his blog post, Baines explained that although the eight manufacturers OEM’d the same underlying software, the security patch release dates spanned over two years, for essentially the same vulnerabilities! Why? Because the AV industry is not in the habit of sharing cyberthreat information and cybersecurity intelligence. It literally takes a cybersecurity researcher to expose the cyberthreats in a blog post in order for AV companies to realize they have a common problem.” Read the article.

Signs of an End to the Tech Slump Offer Hope to Asia’s Economies. – Bloomberg

“The slump in tech exports has been one of the biggest drags on Asia’s manufacturing base. Key gauges for factory sentiment continue to show contractions for output in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan. Real investment growth across Asia slowed to 2% in the first quarter from 7% a year ago, according to S&P Global Ratings.

Industry announcements across Asia signal a possible recovery, which is good news for a region that accounts for more than 60% of global economic growth.” Read the article.

The Invention of Money. – The New Yorker

“In June of this year, Facebook unveiled Libra, global currency that draws on the architecture of Bitcoin. The idea is that the value of the new money is derived not from the imprimatur of any state but from a combination of mathematics, global connectedness, and the trust that resides in the world’s biggest social network. That’s the plan, anyway. How safe is it? How do we know what libras or bitcoins are worth, or whether they’re worth anything? Satoshi Nakamoto’s acolytes would immediately turn those questions around and ask, How do you know what the cash in your pocket is worth?” Read the article.

American Wealth Is Broken. – The Atlantic

“When I set out to write this story, I wanted to better understand the intricate narratives that make wealth in the black community so complex. My own understanding was rooted in the idea that while my family represented a version of the American dream, the injustices that have kept black families without a safety net for generations still reverberated throughout our history. I found those historical echoes still ringing in the stories of other families, too.” Read the article.

The Disastrous Woodstock 50: What Went Wrong? – The New York Times

“Late last year, Michael Lang, one of the producers of the original Woodstock festival in 1969, began to approach music’s most powerful managers and booking agents with a pitch.

Lang wanted to commemorate Woodstock’s 50th anniversary with a three-day, multigenerational event that would draw 150,000 people to a Formula One racetrack in upstate New York. With the Woodstock brand as a magnet, he told them, the festival would celebrate the spirit of the original yet be relevant to the youth of today, according to five agents and other talent representatives, who spoke anonymously because the conversations were confidential.

The agents were skeptical.” Read the article.

It's Fight Night in Las Vegas: Elon Musk's Loop vs the Monorail. – Techcrunch

“The Las Vegas Monorail, is facing upstart challenger The Boring Company, in a fight to decide the future of Sin City’s urban transportation.

In May, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority approved a $48.7 million contract for The Boring Company (TBC) to design and build a short underground transit system at the city’s Convention Center, using Tesla electric vehicles running through narrow tunnels.” Read the article.