May 31
“No family should have to bury a child,” Trey Ganem said. “We don’t just paint caskets here; we represent the lives of the people who have passed.”
May 31
IRobot’s Roomba vacuums are already pretty smart, but the company plans to take things up a notch in the future, and that starts with iRobot OS.
May 31
Renowned Formula One racing driver Max Verstappen has amassed an impressive car collection over the years, including one particularly beastly model.
May 31
Spotify's podcast hosting service went down because of a lapsed security certificate
Posted in: Today's ChiliPodcast listeners, no matter the app they use, were unable to access shows hosted on Spotify’s Megaphone platform Monday night and early Tuesday. Those include The Joe Rogan Experience and podcasts from The Ringer and Gimlet Media. Worst of all, it seems the problem was entirely avoidable — it was due to a lapsed security certificate.
“Megaphone experienced a platform outage due to an issue related to our SSL certificate,” Spotify spokesperson Erin Styles told The Verge. “During the outage, clients were unable to access the Megaphone CMS and podcast listeners were unable to download podcast episodes from Megaphone-hosted publishers.”
A valid SSL certificate is required to create a secure connection between a server and a browser or app. It seems Megaphone’s certificate expired at around 8PM ET on Monday and the service didn’t come back online until just before 6AM this morning. It took a few more hours before the problems were fully resolved.
Megaphone, which dynamically inserts ads into podcasts, is a key component of Spotify’s podcast ambitions. It bought the company for $235 million in 2020. Spotify bolstered the service when it bought Whooshkaa, which can turn radio shows into podcasts, last December. It also acquired two other ad tech companies, Chartable and Podsights, earlier this year.
Neglecting to renew the certificate is a bad look for Spotify, which as a technology company, ought to know better. While listeners might not have been able to download episodes of their favorite shows overnight, they should have access again now.
Spotify is not the only major tech company to have dealt with such a snafu, though. In 2020, Microsoft Teams was down for a few hours after someone seemingly forgot to renew the SSL certificate.
May 31
DeWanda Wise's Jurassic World Dominion Character Will Soon Be Your New Favorite Hero
Posted in: Today's Chili
Oh, so you thought Ellie Sattler was cool? That Alan Grant was cool? That Owen Grady was cool? In two weeks, they’ll all be bowing to Kayla Watts.
May 31
Thousands of Salesforce Employees Want Company to Break Ties to NRA: Report
Posted in: Today's Chili
A solid number of San Francisco employees for company management software developer Salesforce say it’s time for their company to tell the National Rifle Association to go stick their muzzle where the sun don’t shine.
May 31
The thing about patents is that, even when they’re quietly filed, they eventually get exposed—especially if they’re Apple patents. The latest Apple patent to get this treatment concerns the Apple Watch, and how it might potentially fit a camera in the future.
May 31
“We hope today is one step forward to respecting and understanding each and every one as a valuable person,” BTS vocalist V said.
May 31
If you’re an owner of one of the 1.2 billion cars in the world, the thought of someone breaking into your car could be one of your nightmares. Should you worry?
May 31
Mercedes has big plans to change the way consumers buy its cars, at least in Europe. The move mirrors a similar direct-to-consumer approach used by Tesla.
Who's in charge here?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.