The Actuator - July 10th

In Austin this week where the weather is boring, just a constant 97F degrees and bright blue skies. The locals tell me it doesn't really get warm until August. I'm not going to stick around to find out.

As always, here are some links I hope you find interesting, enjoy!

People in Japan are renting cars but not driving them

OK, I would never think about renting a car just to take a nap, because we don't rent cars by the hour here in the U.S. Well, not yet, anyway. And at $4 for 30 minutes, I might think differently.

How the Dutch Made Utrecht a Bicycle-First City

I'm always amazed when cities are able to successfully implement bike lanes into their core. Many European cities make it look so easy. I sometimes think how such designs wouldn't work where I live, and then I realize that they *could* work, if the people wanted it to work. Public transportation is broken for much of America; bike lanes offer a partial solution.

Digital license plates now in 3 states, with more on the way

I honestly don't understand what problem they're trying to solve here. Consumers lose privacy, and pay more for that privilege than using regular license plates.

7-Eleven Japan shut down its mobile payment app after hackers stole $500,000 from users

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Until we hold developers responsible for building applications with poor security choices, we will continue to have incidents like this one.

British Airways faces record £183 million GDPR fine after data breach

Finally, a fine that might cause a company to rethink how they handle security! Thank you GDPR!

Warning: free hotel wifi is a hacker’s dream

As a frequent traveler I can attest that I am uneasy about public and shared Wi-Fi systems such as those in hotels. In a few weeks I'll be at Black Hat, and will probably wrap all my devices in foil, leave them in my room, and burn them on the way to the airport.

User Inyerface - A worst-practice UI experiment

I know you'll hate me for this one, but I want you to try to understand how the things you build are seen by others.

It's Carny season! The best place for $8 draft beers and $6 fried dough.