The UK government today ordered domestic companies to stop buying equipment from Chinese vendor Huawei and to stop using its kit entirely by 2027. Huawei is suspected to be an arm of the Chinese government, breaking into western markets (and maybe its networks) by selling impossibly cheap equipment. The UK only recently approved more Huawei orders for its growing 5G system, but the Covid pandemic and China's virtual annexation of Hong Kong has clarifed matters.
UK bans Huawei purchases
PHOTO: Reuters, 2019
The first webcam was invented in order to see if there was still coffee in the Cambridge break room
Today in the humble history of the internet: the very first webcam was invented in 1991 because computer science researchers at the University of Cambridge just wanted to see if there was coffee in the break room. Quentin Stafford-Fraser wrote software dubbed "XCoffee" to save his coworkers the disappointment of walking all the way to… READ THE REST
100m T-Mobile accounts reportedly hacked, including social security numbers
The personal data of more than 100 million T-Mobile users is for sale online and the company says it is investigating the claim. Joseph Cox at Vice first reported on the forum post touting the cache, which offers names, addresses, social security numbers and phone numbers. "T-Mobile USA. Full customer info," the seller told Motherboard… READ THE REST
25-year retrospective of Nokia's Communicator, the first pocket computer phone that worked
I reel at the knowledge that the Nokia Communicator is 25 years old. The 1996 gadget was the first that combined cellphone, built-in keyboard and a solid set of apps without being bigger than a cellphone—half a decade before the first BlackBerry of any consequence. The phone had 8 MB of memory and a 33MHz… READ THE REST
Clean up your golf game from home or the office with this PhiGolf simulator
As the summer fades, it's become painfully clear that we spent less time doing the things we love and more time burning the candle at both ends at the office, having severe anxiety over all things COVID, and just generally wasting time. If you missed out on summer, including a few extra rounds of golf,… READ THE REST
These beginner watercolor painting courses can turn you into a regular old Claude Monet
Got a stroke of genius and nowhere to make your mark? Sounds like you could use some help in the art department. You could go back to art school and get in-person lessons, but people are full of germs these days, and it's still a safe bet to just stay home. Try the Watercolor Painting… READ THE REST
This Indiegogo-funded charging cable does way more than charge your devices
Between the pictures from your vacation you need to send to your mother-in-law to the files you need to upload for the meeting tomorrow, your digital tasks are on overload, to say the very least. And with these, comes the need for various apps, cords, chargers, and then some. Quite frankly, it's hard to keep… READ THE REST
