Devin Coldewey
Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He first wrote for TechCrunch in 2007. He has also written for MSNBC.com, NBC News, DPReview, The Economist/GE’s Look Ahead, and others.
His personal website is coldewey.cc.
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Latest from Devin Coldewey
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These solar glass blocks would make great skylights for your solar roof
If you’re going to be decking your roof out with solar tiles, there’s a possibility that you may forgo what might be the best placement of a skylight in favor of more solar cell square footage. Luckily solar glass is fast becoming an option, and these clever glass blocks are the best option I’ve seen yet. Read More
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This 3D-printed robotic arm is built for sign language
While we usually see robotics applied to industrial or research applications, there are plenty of ways they could help in everyday life as well: an autonomous guide for blind people, for instance, or a kitchen bot that helps disabled folks cook. Or — and this one is real — a robot arm that can perform rudimentary sign language. Read More
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Trump approves Obama-era plan for a more independent US Cyber Command
President Trump has given the go-ahead for a plan dating from the Obama administration to elevate US Cyber Command to the level of Unified Combatant Command, giving it more operational independence from the National Security Agency. The statement also raised the possibility of splitting off CyberCom from the NSA entirely. Read More
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Alt-social network Gab booted from Google Play Store for hate speech
Gab, the conservative social network that has acted as a haven for people banned from the usual platforms, has been removed from the Google Play Store for violating the company’s hate speech policy, the company announced on Twitter. Apple removed it from the App Store in June for similar reasons. Read More
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Independent inquiry called for in FCC’s secretive cyberattack claims
The FCC’s claim that its commenting system was attacked on the night of May 7 has been the subject of considerable controversy, but not because of the attack itself. The agency has been so reluctant to release any substantive details about the attack or the countermeasures it has taken since that Congress is calling for an independent investigation by the Government Accountability Office. Read More
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Survey adds detail to patterns of sexism and harassment in the tech industry
The problem of sexism is front and center in the technology industry right now, but for those not directly affected (read: men like me) the problem can languish in the middle: too close to see the scale of it, but not close enough to see the details. A new survey of tech workers fills out this picture nicely, and identifies interesting — and depressing — contrasts in… Read More
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Protecting 3D printers from cyberattacks could be as simple as listening carefully
As 3D printers grow smarter and continue to embed themselves in manufacturing and product creation processes, they are exposed to online malefactors just like every other device and network. Security researchers suggest a way to prevent hackers from sabotaging the outputs of 3D printers: listen very, very carefully. Read More
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Ofo comes to the US, joining the bike-share fray in Seattle
Seattle seems like an unlikely venue for a duel between bike-sharing companies: it’s rainy, hilly, its residents can’t drive and another bike-share program recently went belly-up publicly and ignominiously. But Ofo, one of several Chinese giants in the space, is the third company to launch in the city in a month. It’s the company’s first foray in the States. Read More
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Crowdfunded reMarkable e-paper tablet ships on August 29
The idea of using technology to replicate the simplicity and versatility of paper is an enduring one, but no device has nailed it just yet. That may change with the reMarkable, a unique and ambitious tablet that aims to do what paper does, but better. And four years after the concept was first proposed, the team is finally shipping its first devices on August 29. Read More
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Privacy advocates advise Supreme Court to protect phone location data under the 4th Amendment
Among the Supreme Court’s many upcoming cases is Carpenter v. United States, which will settle the question of whether your location and movements, as determined by the ordinary interactions of your phone with the network, are protected by the Fourth Amendment. Dozens of companies, advocates, experts and interested parties just weighed in ahead of the hearing. Read More
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FCC’s favors for Sinclair are the natural byproduct of a pro-industry agenda
Several Representatives are asking for an explanation for why so many of the FCC’s actions seem to benefit Sinclair Broadcast Group, and a New York Times report details a rather cozy relationship between the two. There’s no big conspiracy, though. Sinclair benefits because the FCC is deregulating these industries at their request and on their terms — as Chairman Pai has… Read More
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Allen-backed AI2 incubator aims to connect AI startups with world-class talent
You can’t swing a cat these days without hitting some incubator or accelerator, or a startup touting its artificial intelligence chops — but for some reason, there are few if any incubators focused just on the AI sector. Seattle’s Allen Institute for AI is doing just that, with the promise of connecting small classes of startups with the organization’s formidable… Read More
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Battle.net lives
Last year Blizzard made what I felt was a huge mistake in scrapping the Battle.net brand, which gamers have associated with properties like StarCraft and Diablo for decades. The company has now reversed that decision, in what can only be a humble acknowledgment of my wisdom in these matters. Read More
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DJI adds an offline mode to its drones for clients with ‘sensitive operations’
DJI is working on a “local data mode” for its apps that prevents any data from being sent to or received from the internet. The feature will be welcomed by many, but it’s hard not to attribute the timing and urgency of the announcement to the recent ban of DJI gear by the U.S. Army over unspecified “cyber vulnerabilities.” Read More
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Discord shuts down alt-right server and accounts for ToS violations
Popular voice chat platform Discord has shut down several servers and accounts associated with the alt-right for violations of the terms of service. The company announced the enforcement action on Twitter, emphasizing that it will “continue to take action against white supremacy, nazi ideology, and all forms of hate.” Read More
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FCC adds 2 weeks to comment period for the proposal to eliminate net neutrality rules
The comment period for the FCC’s proposal to roll back the net neutrality rules established in 2015 was originally August 16 — next Wednesday. But after advocacy organizations asked the agency to add time to the clock in order to look through existing comments, the deadline has been extended (against the strenuous arguments of the broadband industry) by two weeks, to August 30. Read More
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Deep learning could discover new plant species hidden in centuries of herbarium data
Machine learning techniques excel at doing a good-enough job quickly in situations where there’s lots of data to grind through. It turns out that’s a great fit for backlogs of plant samples at herbariums and other repositories around the world, which have millions of the things waiting to be digitized and identified — including some that may be new to science. Read More
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Malicious code written into DNA infects the computer that reads it
In a mind-boggling world first, a team of biologists and security researchers have successfully infected a computer with a strand of DNA. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s very real — although you probably don’t have to worry about this particular threat vector any time soon. That said, the possibilities suggested by this project are equally fascinating and terrifying… Read More
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FBI account of tracking and arresting an online ‘sextortionist’ is grimly satisfying
Tales of internet trolls and worse things are common to hear about — that is, if you’re not experiencing their effects yourself, as many are. But while those stories often end in the victim uselessly soliciting the help of Facebook management or clueless law enforcement, this one ends up with the perpetrator in question, a low-rent script kiddie who targeted girls, completely owned… Read More
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Dueling AIs compete in learning to walk, secretly manipulating images and more at NIPS
A little competitive spirit is often just the thing when you want to spur some innovation, and that’s exactly the idea at the Neural Information Processing Systems conference, where AI systems will be competing in a variety of tasks. Teams are already setting their systems against one another, imitating how muscles work when we walk, answering pub quiz questions and subtly… Read More
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