What You Need to Know to Be Culturally Literate in 2016 | WIRED #science #culture #security #business #design #knowledge #literacy


THERE ARE LOTS of things they don’t teach you in school. How to mesh music with technology, the way Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have managed to do. How to navigate a post-Snowden security landscape. Why Ebola can help us fight other diseases. When it comes to living in the here and now, your education is incomplete. Good news: We’re about to school you. We’ve assembled the ultimate cheat sheet for the worlds of security and government, business, science, design, and culture. You’ll learn about the core people and concepts, as well as the go-to Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr feeds that you absolutely must follow. Welcome to your crash seminar in the present. Feel free to take notes. READ MORE: What You Need to Know to Be Culturally Literate in 2016 | WIRED

9 Facts About Computer Security That Experts Wish You Knew | Gizmodo


Every day, you hear about security flaws, viruses, and evil hacker gangs that could leave you destitute — or, worse, bring your country to its knees. But what’s the truth about these digital dangers? We asked computer security experts to separate the myths from the facts. Here’s what they said.

READ MORE: 9 Facts About Computer Security That Experts Wish You Knew | Gizmodo

Cybersecurity Lab | NOVA Labs | PBS


Cybersecurity | NOVA Labs | PBS

The Cybersecurity Lab is a game designed to teach people how to keep their digital lives safe, spot cyber scams, learn the basics of coding, and defend against cyber attacks. Players assume the role of the chief technology officer of a start-up social network company that is the target of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. In the game, players must complete challenges to strengthen their cyber defenses and thwart their attackers. The Lab also features stories of real-world cyber attacks, a glossary of cyber terms, and short animated videos that explain the need for cybersecurity, privacy versus security, cryptography (cyber codes), and what exactly hackers are. MORE: Cybersecurity | NOVA Labs | PBS.

The Almost Completely Open Source Laptop Goes on Sale | WIRED


Andrew “bunnie” Huang and Sean “xobs” Cross want to sell you a laptop you can completely trust.

Earlier this year, the two Singapore-based engineers fashioned a laptop made almost entirely from open source hardware, hardware whose designs are freely available to the world at large. They called it Project Novena. Anyone could review the designs, looking for bugs and security flaws, and at least in theory, that meant you could be confident the machine was secure from top to bottom, something that’s more desirable than ever in the post-Edward Snowden age.

The original idea was simply to encourage others to build their own open source laptops at home. But now the pair are taking the project a step further. Starting today, you can order your own pre-built Novena laptop through the crowd-funding site Crowd Supply, and it will ship out in the coming months. Much like Kickstarter, Crowd Supply is place where you can put up money to help fund a company and then get a product in exchange.

The project is part of larger movement towards open source hardware. Open source software has become a mainstay across the web and inside many businesses, and now, open source hardware is beginning to find its own place in the world, not only among hobbyists but inside big companies such as Facebook. The idea is not only to improve security, but to help spur innovation. If you share designs, others can make them better. The new, commercial version of the Novena does include some parts that are closed source, such as the processor, but Huang and Cross have tried to minimize these as much as possible.

Read more: The Almost Completely Open Source Laptop Goes on Sale | Enterprise | WIRED.