On the heels of the news that I'll be writing (and talking) more about Macworld, here's a summary of recent articles and podcasts there and all over.

Articles

• Tough Old Birds (Economist): a look at useful satellites and how long past their expiration date they've remained in orbit with a nifty chart assembled by the newspaper's chart boffins.
• Phase fresnel lenses and Nikon (self-published): This article on Nikon's new use of technology called "phase fresnel" to make a lighter-weight, shorter telephoto lens couldn't find a home.
• Everything You Know About Passwords Is Wrong (Fast Company): Why "The fretful porpenpine" is an easily broken password, but "stepped forest squirrel" is not.
• Think you have the right to demand police identify themselves? Look closer (Boing Boing): The police have no right to remain silent, but no punishment for hiding their badge or refusing to give their name or employee number, either.
• How to share your location with iOS 8 (without creeping yourself out) (Macworld)
• The mysterious case of the unauthorized iTunes Store purchases (Macworld): Was my iTunes account compromised? No! It was the infrared!
• iWatch, iHub (blog): The Apple Watch isn't a watch. It's a portable personal identifier for payment, unlocking mobile devices and laptops, and managing your health, home, and car gadgets and features. Just wait a couple of years.
• The Huge Web Security Loophole That Most People Don't Know About, And How It's Being Fixed (Fast Company): Can we trust the organizations in charge of ensuring that encrypted web traffic is trustworthy?
• "Stranger Danger" to children vastly overstated (Boing Boing): Commonly cited statistics are not only 16 years out of date, but used inappropriately. Fewer than 150 children in the U.S. are abducted by strangers and taken far away, with the intent to harm.
• LastPass for Mac protects your passwords but needs polish (Macworld): review of a popular web and mobile password manager that now has a native, but rough Mac OS X version.
• The Worst Thing About Lenovo's Adware Isn't The Adware (Fast Company): The laptop maker breaks security with a man-in-the-middle loophole.

Podcasts

• Macworld podcast #445: My first appearance as co-host! We talked about Google's updated Wallet offering with cell carriers, malware in hard drive firmware, solar farms and data centers, and new emoji.
• Clockwise #75: Apple Car, government spying, Samsung spying, and Apple's greatest threats.