Linked List: May 5, 2022

Thursday, 5 May 2022

How Mechanical Watches Work 

Perhaps, as a watch person, I’m biased, but I found this illustrated essay by Bartosz Ciechanowski to be astonishingly fun and informative. Even the parts I already knew I enjoyed relearning.

Apple, Google, and Microsoft Commit to Expanded Support for FIDO Standard 

Apple Newsroom:

In a joint effort to make the web more secure and usable for all, Apple, Google, and Microsoft today announced plans to expand support for a common passwordless sign-in standard created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium. The new capability will allow websites and apps to offer consistent, secure, and easy passwordless sign-ins to consumers across devices and platforms.

Password-only authentication is one of the biggest security problems on the web, and managing so many passwords is cumbersome for consumers, which often leads consumers to reuse the same ones across services. This practice can lead to costly account takeovers, data breaches, and even stolen identities. While password managers and legacy forms of two-factor authentication offer incremental improvements, there has been industry-wide collaboration to create sign-in technology that is more convenient and more secure.

There are few areas in the intersection of things Apple, Google, and Microsoft can agree upon, but moving beyond passwords, clearly, is one of them.

Cameo Layoffs 

Janko Roettgers, reporting for Protocol:

Cameo, the celebrity video greetings startup, laid off 87 of staffers Wednesday, a move that CEO Steven Galanis described as “right-sizing.” The layoffs also affected some of Cameo’s most senior executives, Protocol has learned. Leadership departures included Cameo CTO Rob Post, top marketing executive Emily Boschwitz, CPO Nundu Janakiram and Chief People Officer Melanie Steinbach, according to a source close to the company.

How does Cameo even have 87 employees?