Technology

How to save your online writing from disappearing forever

Published

2 hours ago

August 13, 2024

How to save your online writing from disappearing forever

While the notion lingers that “the internet is forever,” it can also feel like it’s written on water. If you’re an internet-based creative, the company that publishes your writing or exhibits an online gallery of your work can suddenly fold (see: Gawker or Game Informer), migrate content management systems, or simply unpublish older work. In that case, the article you researched for a month, the story you carefully constructed, or the gallery of photos that you painstakingly put together could, in that moment, be forever unavailable. And if you’ve linked to your work in a blog or social network, that link has now become useless.

So what do you do? You can save a PDF of each of your works to a local drive, an online storage service, or to your preferred productivity app. You can create your own website to showcase your favorite works. You can use the paid tier of bookmarking services such as Pocket Premium or Raindrop Pro, which automatically save copies of the sites you bookmark.

Or you can archive and / or exhibit your work using a service created for that purpose. These archiving services offer a place where you can exhibit some or all of your work to potential fans or employers, and even (for a price) automatically find and save your work for you.

In this article, I’m going to concentrate on resources for writers and other text-based creatives. There are also resources out there for photographers and other visual artists, such as Flickr and 500px. We’ll cover those separately in the future.

The Wayback Machine can save copies of your online work — except when it can’t.

Screenshot: Internet Archive

The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has been archiving webpages since 1996, and if you’ve been putting your work online that long — or longer — there’s a good chance you can find it somewhere in the archive. However, not everything has been archived, and archived pages can be removed if the owners of the site request it.

You can request that a specific page be archived by using a browser extension (for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, iOS, or Android). The extension saves the page to the archive, allowing you to access it later, even if the original disappears. However, since the publisher of the site can, as mentioned, ask that the archive be removed, you may want to use the Wayback Machine to find pages you may have missed and archive them using a safer method.

In addition, at the time this was written, it was possible that the Chrome extension could itself disappear — when I last looked, a notification on the download page read, “This extension may soon no longer be supported because it doesn’t follow best practices for Chrome extensions.” (Part, no doubt, of the change in Google’s extension specification.) There are other, if less handy, ways to save your work to the archive, detailed in a blog written in 2017.

The Wayback Machine is free to use, although you can donate if you choose.

Authory can track specific sites and automatically add your contributions.

Screenshot: Authory

Authory is a long-standing app used by writers to preserve their writing. (Note: I’ve been using Authory for several years, ever since one of the publications I had written for decided to pull its archive off the internet and a colleague told me about the app.) Authory will automatically back up links to your material along with the actual text by scouring the online publications that you’ve specified; because it picks up anything you’ve written for those publications automatically, you don’t have to worry about losing any of your work. Authory also archives videos, podcasts, and individual social media posts or emails.

You can also use Authory as a portfolio to exhibit your content to others. By default, people who click on an article link in your portfolio are sent to the original source, but you can also choose to have them read it from the Authory backup — very useful if that source no longer exists.

Free plan: 10 items max, no auto-import

Paid plans: Standard plan ($15 / month or $144 / year) includes unlimited items, automated import of past and future items, searchable content, and more. Professional plan ($24 / month or $216 / year) adds custom domain support, Zapier app, and higher updates frequency.

Free trial: 14 days of Standard or Pro plan

Journo Portfolio can create good-looking sites that list articles, videos, and other media.

Screenshot: Journo Portfolio

Despite the name, Journo Portfolio touts its ability to be used by almost any creative who wants to show off work, including visual artists such as photographers and videographers. The emphasis (as can be guessed from its name) is more on creating a portfolio site than archiving, although, if you subscribe to its Pro or Unlimited plan, it will automatically back up saved articles, create an archive of screenshots, and let you import older articles.

And Journo Portfolio does offer a lot of resources for individualizing that portfolio: you can choose a theme for your homepage and, afterward, tweak that theme by adding blocks of content types, including images (with a gallery, if you so choose), quotes, maps, subscriptions, and a wide variety of other features. Its Unlimited plan even allows you to sell your art or other products from your site.

Free plan: A homepage with your name in the URL along with 10 portfolio items

Paid plans: Plus plan ($8 / month or $60 / year) offers a five-page site with 50 portfolio items. The Pro plan ($12 / month or $96 / year) adds the ability to store 1,000 portfolio items and do article backups as well as up to two collaborators, automatic article imports, and more. The Unlimited plan ($18 a month or $168 /year) gives you unlimited pages, portfolio items, collaborators, and more.

Free trial: A seven-day trial of the Plus plan on signup

Conifer is managed by a nonprofit arts organization and offers a robust free plan.

Screenshot: Conifer

Conifer, formerly called Webrecorder, is a web archiving service maintained by Rhizome, a nonprofit arts organization. This service works a little differently than Authory or Journo Portfolio, which archive screenshots or PDFs of your articles but can lose links and other interactive parts in the process. Instead, Conifer saves your pages as clickable “sessions” — including workable links — and organizes them into collections. According to Conifer, “viewers of a collection should be able to repeat any action during access that were performed during capture.” You can either keep your collection private or create a public listing of specific items from a collection in order to create a portfolio.

Conifer feels like a work in progress. It’s not as simple to master as either Authory or Journo Portfolio, and it doesn’t provide any kind of automated saving, but its free plan makes it a viable alternative, especially because it lets you save as many items as you can fit in 5GB of space, while Authory’s and Journo Portfolio’s free plans limit you to just 10 items.

Free plan: 5GB of storage

Paid plans: For $20 a month, you get 40GB of storage and the option to add more for $5 / month per 20GB. For an annual payment of $200, you get the same 40GB, along with the option to add the 20GB for $50 a year.

Technology

Forget drones, this street-smart robot could be future of local deliveries

Published

2 hours ago

August 13, 2024

Press Room

Forget drones, this street-smart robot could be future of local deliveries

In recent years, the e-commerce landscape has transformed dramatically, with delivery drones and robots emerging as pivotal innovations. Vayu Robotics has introduced its first delivery robot, “The One,” which aims to revolutionize how goods are delivered. Let’s explore the features of Vayu’s robot, its implications for the future of delivery services and its broader impact on the e-commerce industry.

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The One delivery robot (Vayu Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Innovative technology behind Vayu Robotics

Vayu Robotics, founded in 2021 by a team of experienced engineers and technologists, is at the forefront of developing cutting-edge robotics technology for real-world scenarios. The company’s mission is to remove hardware and software bottlenecks that have hindered e-commerce growth.

The One stands out due to its unique combination of AI and low-cost sensing technology. Unlike traditional delivery robots that rely heavily on expensive Lidar systems, Vayu’s robot uses a proprietary vision system called Vayu Sense. This innovative system integrates low-cost CMOS image sensors with advanced computational imaging and machine-learning techniques. The result is a cost-effective, high-resolution robotic vision system with depth perception and object detection capabilities that can operate effectively in challenging conditions.

The One delivery robot (Vayu Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Vayu Drive: AI-powered autonomy

Complementing the Vayu Sense system is the Vayu Drive, a proprietary foundation AI model for robotics autonomy. This model is trained using both simulated and real-world data, eliminating the need for HD maps and localization technology (Lidar).

The Vayu Drive operates similarly to large language models, processing multimodal inputs, including image tokens from cameras, instruction tokens for robot tasks and route tokens for road-level navigation. Its unique “state” feature allows for efficient processing of large context windows, enabling the robot to operate at 10 frames per second.

The One delivery robot (Vayu Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

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Features and capabilities of The One

The One is designed to carry up to 100 pounds of goods and can travel at speeds of up to 20 mph. Its maximum range on a single charge is between 60 and 70 miles, making it suitable for both urban deliveries and in-store operations.

Measuring 3.3 feet in height, 5.9 feet in length and 2.2 feet in width, The One is compact enough to navigate various environments without causing significant obstruction. It can autonomously navigate through crowded areas, load customer orders in supermarkets and deliver packages directly to doorsteps. Upon arrival, it can open its side door and utilize a robotic arm to release the package, streamlining the delivery process.

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The One delivery robot (Vayu Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

REVOLUTIONARY DELIVERY DRONE COULD BE DROPPING A PACKAGE AT YOUR HOME

The future of delivery robots

As e-commerce continues to grow – projected to account for 23% of American retail purchases by 2027 – the demand for efficient and cost-effective delivery solutions is on the rise. Vayu Robotics has already secured a significant commercial contract to deploy 2,500 of its delivery robots with a major e-commerce player, starting in San Ramon, California. This deployment marks a significant step toward scaling robotic delivery services across the United States and potentially beyond.

The company’s technology is not limited to delivery robots. Vayu is working with a leading global robotics manufacturer to replace Lidar sensors with Vayu sensing technology in other robotic applications. Furthermore, the company’s software is designed to be robot form factor agnostic, with plans to expand into quadrupedal and bipedal robot markets in the future.

The One delivery robot (Vayu Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Industry recognition and funding

Vayu Robotics has garnered significant attention from investors and industry experts. The company emerged from stealth in October 2023 with $12.7 million in seed funding from backers, including Lockheed Martin. Kanu Gulati, partner at Khosla Ventures, expressed confidence in Vayu’s potential, stating that their novel sensing and AI foundation models address a robotic challenge with immense economic and societal impact.

As Vayu’s co-founder Anand Gopalan noted, “Autonomous delivery robots are only the tip of the iceberg,” hinting at the broader potential of their scalable robotics architecture to empower businesses across industries.

The One delivery robot (Vayu Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Kurt’s key takeaways

Vayu Robotics has really shaken things up with its new delivery bot, The One. It’s not just another robot on wheels, it’s a game-changer. Think about it: This little guy can navigate city streets, load up orders in stores and even deliver packages right to your doorstep. Sure, it might take some getting used to seeing robots rolling down our streets. But if it means more efficient deliveries and maybe even lower prices on the things we buy online, I think a lot of people will be on board.

Are you ready to have a robot deliver your next pizza or grocery order? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

Elon Musk tells Donald Trump ‘we shouldn’t vilify the oil and gas industry’

Published

9 hours ago

August 13, 2024

Press Room

Elon Musk tells Donald Trump ‘we shouldn’t vilify the oil and gas industry’

Elon Musk, who famously owns an electric vehicle company and has said he wants to move humanity to “a sustainable energy civilization,” told former President Donald Trump during an interview on X that “we shouldn’t vilify the oil and gas industry.”

Musk interviewed Trump on his social media platform, where the livestream was delayed over 40 minutes due to technical difficulties. After long, rambling discussions about immigration, inflation, and foreign policy, Musk and Trump finally came to the subject of energy and climate change — where Musk surprisingly came to defense of the fossil fuel industry.

“I don’t think we should vilify the oil and gas industry and the people that have worked very hard in those industries to provide the necessary energy to support the economy,” Musk said.

“People that have worked very hard in those industries”

The Tesla CEO, who described his views as “pretty moderate” on energy despite owning an EV and home energy company, claimed the economy “would collapse” if oil and gas firms were forced to shutdown. Musk also said that the planet can transition to a sustainable energy economy in “50 or 100 years” — despite the scientific community warning that humanity is quickly reaching a tipping point on the climate. (Trump later changed it to “500 to 1000 years,” which Musk didn’t correct.)

“So it’s not like the house is on fire immediately,” Musk said. “But I think it is something we need to move towards… It’s probably better to move there faster than slower. But like without vilifying the oil and gas industry and without causing hardship in the short term.”

But he quickly contradicted himself. Musk acknowledged that the air will become harder to breath with the continued use of fossil fuels, causing people “headaches and nausea.” But that was no reason to quickly transition away from the use of planet-heating fuels. According to Musk, we can casually stroll into a more sustainable future.

“We still have quite a bit of time,” he said. “We don’t need to rush.”

Trump, who often sounded like he was slurring his words, quipped that rising sea levels means people would have more “oceanfront property.” That comment was quickly blasted out by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.

Trump then briefly touched on one of his favorite topics, electric vehicles, claiming that fossil fuel-powered energy generation is what powers Tesla’s vehicles. “[We] can’t get away from it at this moment,” he said.

But the EV discussion didn’t go much further than that, despite Trump’s vows to end subsidies for plug-in cars that could seriously impact Tesla’s sales. Trump urged Musk to put solar panels on the roof of his cars. (Tesla filed a patent for a solar panel-covered tonneau cover for the Cybertruck, but didn’t follow through.)

“People talk about global warming, or they talk about climate change, but they never talk about nuclear warming,” Trump said. “An immediate problem.”

Technology

A controversial experiment to artificially cool Earth was canceled — what we know about why

Published

17 hours ago

August 12, 2024

Press Room

A controversial experiment to artificially cool Earth was canceled — what we know about why

After years of legwork, Harvard researchers canceled plans to test a controversial theory for cooling the planet by sending sunlight-reflecting particles up into the atmosphere. Now, members of an independent advisory committee tasked with addressing ethics and safety concerns are sharing what they learned from the ill-fated project.

A policy analysis published in the journal Science on Friday highlights how important it is to talk to people on the ground before launching an experiment, especially one tied to potentially planet-altering consequences. The paper echoes recent calls to get policies in place to protect against any unintended side effects.

Until pretty recently, the thought of reflecting sunlight back into space to combat global warming — a process called solar geoengineering — seemed to be firmly rooted in science fiction. But with the climate crisis worsening, the idea has started to move from the fringes of academic research to garner more serious debate.

“Public engagement is necessary”

Some researchers and their Silicon Valley backers want to put the theory to the test. And time is running out to establish rules for how to craft those experiments responsibly, which could help determine whether solar geoengineering will do more harm than good.

“One of the core messages that comes out of this is that public engagement is necessary even when you don’t think that the impact of the experiment is going to be felt in a real way, in a concrete way, in real time. This issue has such a long tail, and it has such deeper meaning for so many people,” says Sikina Jinnah, lead author of the Science policy analysis and a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Harvard researchers launched the project called SCoPEx — short for Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment — back in 2017. To better understand any potential risks or benefits associated with solar geoengineering, it planned to conduct the first-ever outdoor experiment using reflective particles. It would have released some of those aerosols into the stratosphere via balloon and then piloted the balloon back through the plume to take measurements. The aim was to observe how the particles interact with each other and other elements of that environment — resulting in data that could be used to make more accurate computer models.

That never happened. There was supposed to be an engineering test flight without any particle release in Sweden in 2021, but it was scrapped after facing strong opposition from local Indigenous leaders. A big point of contention was that the researchers didn’t initially reach out to the Saami Council, which represents Saami Indigenous peoples’ organizations in the region. Members of SCoPEx’s advisory committee didn’t agree on whether to consult with the Saami since the test flight wasn’t going to release anything into the atmosphere, according to the policy analysis. The majority wound up deciding that the test flight could go ahead if there weren’t any significant environmental concerns to flag.

The Saami Council caught wind of the plans anyway and wrote a strongly worded letter to the advisory committee demanding the researchers cancel the flight. They said it was “remarkable” that the test flight would take place without consulting the Saami people or other local stakeholders, given the controversies swirling around solar geoengineering. Local environmental advocates, including Swedish chapters of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, also signed the letter.

Solar geoengineering is still considered a “false solution” to climate change by many activists. Injecting particles in the atmosphere attempts to recreate the way erupting volcanoes can temporarily cool the planet by releasing sulfur dioxide. But sulfur dioxide might also lead to acid rain, worsen the Antarctic ozone hole, or have other unforeseen consequences. There are also fears that solar geoengineering could detract from efforts to transition to clean energy, or lead to a dangerous swing in global temperatures if it’s ever implemented and then abruptly stopped.

“We note that [solar geoengineering using reflective particles] is a technology that entails risks of catastrophic consequences … There are therefore no acceptable reasons for allowing the SCoPEx project to be conducted either in Sweden or elsewhere,” the Saami Council letter says.

The advisory committee ultimately recommended canceling the test flight in Sweden after receiving that letter. By 2023, Harvard had told the advisory committee that it had “suspended” the project and then canceled it altogether in March of this year. The project “struggled both with intense media attention and with how to address calls from the scientific advisory committee to broadly and formally engage with the public,” Nature reported at the time, citing one of its project leaders.

“I’m grateful for the SCoPEx Advisory Committee’s insights. Their thoughtful analysis is valuable to the scientific community as it considers important questions of governance,” Frank Keutsch, who was the principal investigator for SCoPEx, tells The Verge in an email. He didn’t elaborate more on why the project ended.

It’ll take more than an ad hoc committee to effectively oversee geoengineering research moving forward, according to the newly published policy analysis. “The time is ripe for governments to begin discussing coordination of research governance,” it says.

Those talks have already started at the European Commission and the United Nations Environment Assembly, although they haven’t led to any concrete new policies yet. There has been a moratorium on large-scale geoengineering since a United Nations biodiversity conference in 2010, but it excludes small-scale scientific research.

And small fly-by-night initiatives have become a bigger concern lately. Last year, the founders of one geoengineering startup grilled fungicide in a California parking lot to produce sulfur dioxide gas that they then attempted to launch into the atmosphere via weather balloons. That followed a similar balloon launch in Mexico that prompted the government there to bar solar geoengineering experiments. The policy analysis calls the startup’s efforts “irresponsible” and “not tied to any legitimate scientific pursuit.”

Since then, there have been calls to either lay down rules for how to regulate future experiments or to stop solar geoengineering altogether. But without broader policies in place, keeping up with new geoengineering efforts gets to be a bit like playing whack-a-mole around the world.

Those policies could also ensure that nearby communities get to have a say in projects that might affect them. And as we’ve learned with SCoPEx, even more studious efforts can skip that step to their own detriment.