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ment in personal data storage – Non- drones? Amazon CEO
Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) drives
- which come in various configurations Jeff Bezos claimed in
and are 25 times faster than an HDD. December 2013 on
· USB nomenclature is changing (in addi- “60 Minutes” that drones would be delivering
tion to USB-C, mentioned above). Tra- packages within five years. Where are our
ditional 2.0 USB ports and cables are drone deliveries?
being replaced by the faster 3.0 version
in new tech products. (USB 3.0 trans- There are plenty of drones, or unmanned aeri-
fers data at 5.0 Gbps.) Meanwhile, the al vehicles (UAVs) out there now, of all kinds.
techies have come up with a USB con- They protect our borders, launch strikes
figuration that will transfer data at 10
Gbps. Then someone came up with the against our enemies, photograph and film our
idea of combining two of the latter ca- events and monitor our real estate, crops, for-
bles into one, to allow transfer of 20 ests and construction. They can also provide
Gbps. After considering various new entertainment, through personal use and
names for these improvements, the drone racing. Unfortunately, misuse of the
USB Implementors Forums (USB-IF) technology has also occurred, requiring new
organization has come up with the fol-
lowing marketing names for the different regulations for their use. From interfering with
3.0 configurations: SuperSpeed USB, fire-fighting efforts in California wildfires to the
SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps and Super- recent shutdown of the Gatwick Airport in Eng-
Speed USB 20 Gbps. I’m sure we will land due to drone overflights, we have seen
hear more about this transition as 2019 how these useful devices could be misused by
progresses. (Not sure when we will see
these technologies in the marketplace.) vandals, criminals and terrorists. Some avia-
tion experts believe it is just a matter of time

Technology is not the only thing that keeps changing. before a drone causes a commercial plane
So do scams. The FTC has just published a detailed crash.
Consumer Sentinel Network report for 2018, breaking
out all sorts of statistics about consumer scams reported Another technology that
last year. (While scary enough, these statistics may didn’t exist ten years ago
only be the tip of the iceberg, since many victims are is personal DNA analysis.
embarrassed to report that they have been scammed.) Companies like Ances-
You can read this report at https://www.ftc.gov/system/ tryDNA, 23andMe and
files/documents/reports/consumer-sentinel-network-data
-book-2018/ MyHeritage claim to pro-
consumer_sentinel_network_data_book_2018_0.pdf. vide ancestry information
and ethnicity breakdowns.

Some claim to provide ge-
We have a lot to keep up with during 2019! Please think netic health information and predisposition to
about the items I’ve listed here – as well as other tech /
security questions or concerns you may have - and let inherited conditions. Some can match you to
Linda Rohlfing or myself know which you would like to others that may be relatives. These are home
have as presentation topics over the remainder of the kits that allow you to provide a sample that is
year. analyzed and potentially matched to the sam-
Thanks! ples of others. Many of these kits were dis-

Phil counted for the holidays and advertised as
great gifts.

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