Gadgets & Tech – Spoken Edition

It’s good to have options, especially when it comes to ergonomics on the job. That’s why standing desks have become a hallmark of the modern workplace (or co-working space) despite their unclear health benefits. Still, if the man in charge wants ‘em, that means everyone’s getting ‘em, which is what happened at Apple. In an interview with David Rubenstein, Apple CEO Tim Cook disclosed the fact that every Apple Park employee now has an adjustable standing desk.

The trial of two men who allegedly made $20 million in an insider trading scheme involving hackers who stole corporate press releases before they were public began in Brooklyn on Tuesday, Reuters reported, with prosecutors telling jurors they had “electronic communications, trading records and testimony from witnesses who took part in the scheme themselves.

For ten days in May, a Facebook “bug”changed the default privacy settings of new posts for as many as 14 million users, Recode reports. As a result, posts meant to be shared privately may have instead been shared publicly. Typically, users can opt to make all their Facebook posts private, meaning only certain friends can see them. For these users, each post they write is by default not shared publicly, unless they individually choose to do so.

With summer just around the corner, it’s getting to be the perfect weather to enjoy some delish fruits of the melon variety. Unfortunately, there’s a nasty outbreak of Salmonella that’s contaminated certain brands of pre-cut melons, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The center of our galaxy is an extreme place that holds all sorts of mysteries. Among those enigmas are what appear to be gas clouds that somehow refuse to be pulled apart by the immense gravity of the galactic center. Scientists usnig the Keck Observatory have discovered several more of these infrared-emitting objects, they reported at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Denver this week. Understanding what these things are will take more work.

It’s hard out there for people who play with imaginary money. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies plunged over the weekend after it was revealed that a South Korean exchange, Coinrail, was hacked. Roughly $42 billion of market value was destroyed in the sell-off, and Bitcoin has lost over 50 percent of its worth since December. Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency in the world, hit a record high back in December of 2017, reaching $19,783.06 in American currency.

A meteor lit up the sky over Botswana, Africa, early Saturday evening. Scientists discovered the six-foot-wide asteroid just hours before it reached Earth. NASA tracks 90 percent of near-Earth objects that are larger than 150 meters (~460 feet) in diameter, which means it misses lots of the smaller ones until they’re close by. This most recent rock, called 2018 LA, was spotted on June 2 by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona.

A Texas man thought he had bested a rattlesnake by decapitating it, but when he tried to pick up the slain serpent’s head, it bit him and released a potentially fatal dose of venom into his body. His wife Jennifer Sutcliffe told local news station KIIITV that doctors said he might not survive, but he is now in recovery, thanks to 26 vials of antivenom. Trauma surgeon Michael Halpert told the news outlet the man’s kidney function is weak, but he is stable.

A Sherpa man who helped lead a team up Mount Everest as a part of an ASKfm cryptocurrency publicity stunt is presumed dead. In an effort to promote their initial coin offering, the social media platform ASKfm sponsored four “crypto enthusiasts” on their climb of Mount Everest, so they could bury $50,000 worth of the company’s cryptocurrency, ASKT, at the peak. The team made it to the top on May 14.

The iPhone X is easily the best phone I’ve ever owned. And in almost every way, it performs exactly as I would like it to. There is just one problem, a thing that might seem so minor as to not be an issue at all but is the one thing that regularly makes me contemplate chucking my $1,000 gadget against a brick wall. Screenshots. To take a screenshot on the iPhone X, you simply press the side button on the right and one of the volume buttons on the left.