Gadgets & Tech – Spoken Edition

A so-called “fatberg”—a tightly congealed mass of fat, wet wipes, diapers, and condoms—is blocking a section of London’s Victorian-era sewage network. It could take weeks for utility crews to remove the horrific mass, which, if not removed, could cause raw sewage to spill onto London’s streets. Such are the perils of maintaining an aging sewage system.

This is a golden era for rich nerds who make people uncomfortable. Remember Tesla CEO Elon Musk posing with maracas next to a mariachi band? Remember sentient ball of pizza dough Mark Zuckerberg doing his best normal guy impression? Okay now forget those guys because Jack Ma set the new high watermark for inscrutable technocrat behavior at this year’s Alibaba Annual Party in Hangzhou.

Apple is rolling out facial recognition to unlock its new iPhone X, as has been rumored for months and confirmed in leaks over the weekend. The technology builds on Touch ID and is called Face ID, of course. It uses a new selfie camera setup in the iPhone 10 called the “TrueDepth camera system.” TrueDepth uses a set of sensors, cameras, and a dot projector to create an incredibly detailed 3D map of your face.

At this point, last year’s NES Classic is best remembered as the cute, retro gadget no one could buy because Nintendo didn’t produce enough of them. In a new interview, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé swears this won’t be the case with the SNES Classic—and that pre-order screw-ups were not Nintendo’s fault. Fils-Aimé told the Financial Timesthat the short supply of the NES Classic were not an intentional move to create buzz.

If you’ve managed to hang onto your solar eclipse glasses since August 21st, don’t throw them away! If you haven’t already donated your shades to Astronomers Without Borders, you can use them to stare at the Sun and actually learn something cool. According to NASA, safe solar eclipse glasses can be used to check out sunspots, which are temporarily dark, cooler areas on the sun’s photosphere.

The credit reporting agency Equifax announced today that it suffered a massive breach, losing Social Security numbers and other personal information for 143 million U.S. consumers. Although the public is just now learning about the breach, Equifax says it discovered it on July 29—which makes the stock trades three executives made a few days later look ... not great. The shares sold by the three executives were valued at almost $1.8 million, Bloomberg first reported.

Apple doesn’t release new products very often, but when it does, people pay attention. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that the gadget gurus at Sony were taking notes. The Japanese company just announced two products that could safely be called ripoffs of Apple’s newest products: a slick set of wireless earbuds and a smart home speaker. Let’s start with ripoff number one: the new Sony WF-1000X earbuds.

The Sun is good. Without our hot, gas ball of a friend, we’d all be dead. More accurately, we would have never been born! So it’s a good thing that our Sun has escaped some very close encounters with other stars throughout its lifetime. But the danger isn’t over yet.

Tim Cook—a man who is totally, definitely running for president soon—is not like you or me. Besides vast wealth and power, the Apple executive seems trapped in a kernel panic of identical talking points, all of which The New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin allowed him to rehash this morning in a Dealbook piece loudly titled “Apple’s Tim Cook Barnstorms for ‘Moral Responsibility.

For the first time ever, Nest has redesigned its iconic smart thermostat. The new Nest Thermostat E basically does the same stuff the old thermostat did, but it’s not black and steel any more. It’s all white, like the front half of a classic iPod. Very pretty! The new Nest Thermostat E, like its predecessor, is a smart thermostat that promises to save you money by learning your habits and adjusting your air conditioner or furnace accordingly.