Best of the Nerd Web Roundup for Thursday 08 February 2018
Yes, it's here again - the best nerd news links outside of Steemit - enjoy! :)
First ... The biggest geek event of the century so far ... :)
SPACESHIP! STARMAN!
Watch live as 'Starman' drives Elon Musk's Tesla in space
Did you watch live? Wasn't it amazing when those boosters came back to earth in perfect unison. Like watching our science fiction dreams come alive before our eyes!
You can watch the 'Starman' on his voyage through space. Love the "Don't Panic" sign on the display :)
Read More
Virtual currencies may stay even if bubble is already deflating: ECB
The market bubble of virtual currencies is already deflating but central banks should still pay attention as the innovation may be here to stay even if early market leaders die out, European Central Bank board member Yves Mersch said on Thursday
People forget we are in the very, very early stages of all this stuff. It's like back in the early days of the web. Difficult, even frustrating to use, small but growing numbers of players, who mostly die out to let more new innovators take their place.
Remember Netscape? Mosaic? Pets.com?
Read More
John Perry Barlow, EFF Co-Founder and Author of 1996 Cyberspace Manifesto, Dies at 70
John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and author of the 1996 manifesto, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” has died. He was 70 years old.Barlow was a seminal child of the 1960s who took LSD with Timothy Leary, wrote lyrics for the Grateful Dead, and eventually became an internet activist in the 1980s and 90s. Barlow cofounded the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in 1990 to advocate for digital rights and was a regular in the pages of Wired after the magazine was started in 1993.
Sad news but what a legacy!
Read More
Automation is going to hit workers in three waves, and the first one is already here
1. A flood of algorithms. Already, data analysis and simple digital tasks are becoming the purview of machines.
Augmentation inundation. Into the late 2020s, repeatable tasks and the exchange of information, as in financial data analysis, will come to be done by humans and automated systems working together.
Autonomy tsunami. Starting by the mid-2030s, machines and software will make decisions and take physical actions, like driving cars, with little or no human input.
All the signs are there. If your job can be automated it will be automated.
Read More
Unicode Emoji 11.0 characters now final for 2018
The new Emoji 11.0 set is fixed and final, and includes the data needed for vendors to begin working on their emoji fonts and code ahead of the release of Unicode 11.0, scheduled for June 2018. The new emoji typically start showing up on mobile phones in August or September.
The man and woman emoji can now have various hair styles (red-haired, curly-haired, white-haired, and bald), and the new superhero and supervillain support genders and skin tones. The new leg and foot also support skin tones.
Yay, more emojis! Love them or hate them, new ones are coming :)