We will be supporting the upcoming WordCamp Switzerland 2015 with picu as a Micro Sponsor. If you are near Zurich at September 19th and haven’t got your ticket yet, now is the time to go and grab one.
picu is an official micro sponsor of #wcch. Meet us in Zurich, get your ticket now! https://t.co/0XZZT8IzWq
— picu (@picu_io) August 24, 2015
Looking forward to meet you all in Zurich.
Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President.
What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), andCalico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related.
Google just announced that they created a new company called “Alphabet”, which will be the holding company for all their different efforts with Google being the largest of them.
A crazy experiment that generates a particle field using WebGL which reacts in real-time to your webcam.
An attacker could first remotely compromise the boot flash firmware on a MacBook by delivering the attack code via a phishing email and malicious web site. That malware would then be on the lookout for any peripherals connected to the computer that contain option ROM, such as an Apple Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter, and infect the firmware on those. The worm would then spread to any other computer to which the adapter gets connected.
A firmware worm that completely hides itself from the system and can spread through peripherals like Ethernet Adapters is a pretty scary thought if you ask me.
Hopefully hardware vendors will remove those vulnerabilities as fast as possible.
WIRED: Researchers Create First Firmware Worm That Attacks Macs
So what is the designer’s role in this? Design is an ethical trade. And yes, it is a trade done for money. But we have a choice in how we make that money. A designer possesses a set of skills necessary to get something made. And needs to properly assess how they are putting those skills to use. But, won’t someone else just design it?
A great answer by Mike Monteiro on the question whether we can separate the intent from an object and if one can appreciate an AK-47 for it’s “good” design on an aesthetic level although it’s designed purpose is to kill.
Profound advice by British-born philosopher Alan Watts. What would you do, if money was no object at all?
A very detailed redesign concept for the NYTimes from russian designer Artem Troinoi.
Brian Krogsgard wrote a post on Post Status about the Thesis VS Automattic Case. It sums up pretty much everything from the beginning of their dispute about GPL to the nature of licenses and patents and sheds some light on possible outcomes of this whole debate. It’s the most thoroughly researched article you will find on this topic and Brian managed to let both sides speak without taking sides for on or the other.
Chris Pearson and Matt Mullenweg have hardly communicated with one another in the last five years, but they are ideological enemies. They have very strong personalities and unshakable beliefs on business and software. This is a story of their dispute, their idealism, and the implications it will have on the WordPress project.
The post is about 10’000 words long, so go grab some coffee or other beverage and take some time to read it. It’s worth it.