Items of Interest

Maersk & NotPetya

#123
This is a rivieting story by Wired on the NotPetya virus and how it wiped out the computer networks of companies worldwide in 2017 including Maersk. A fifth of the world's shipping capacity was shutdown for over 10 days. Shipping ports around the world had to revert to manual paper systems while Maersk IT workers flew in a sole unaffected DNS controller backup from a server in Ghana that happened to be knocked offline by a powercut before the infection.
Tech

1995 Blockchain

#123
Before Satoshi and Bitcoin, researchers Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta invented the blockchain concept in a paper published in the Journal of Cryptography in 1991. They then went on to found a company called Surety which provided timestamping and digital seal services for digital documents.
Blockchain
Innovation

KODAK One & Lobster

#123
KODAK One have completed a trial with stock image service Lobster to monitor and report on the use of 10,000 images from the Lobster libarary across the web for a two week period. The trial demonstrates the successful implementation of three services from KODAK One's image rights management platform, their image recognition system, web crawlers and post-licencing services. They plan to continue the trial by reigstering all images in the Lobster library on the KODAK One blockchain.
Blockchain
Photo

Room Detection For IOT Devices

#122
This Smashing Magazine tutorial demonstrates how to build a machine learning model that can predict which room you are in based on the signal strength of wifi networks around you. The system requires a map of the networks to be recorded and a model trained using the recorded data. Such a system could be useful to passively trigger IOT devices based on which room your phone is in, without the need for active notification methods like bluetooth beacons.
AI & ML
Tech

Uzbekistan's Metro

#122
The Tashkent Metro system in Uzbekistan doubles as a nuclear fallout shelter and as a result, all photography was banned in the metro until recently. The Guardian have a nice feature of photographs taken by Amos Chapple of the art and architecture of the Tashkent metro after the ban was lifted.
Photo

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