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Zoom introduces all-in-one home communications appliance for $599 | Zoom has unveiled the Zoom for Home - DTEN ME, an all-in-one communications appliance. It features a standalone 27-inch screen, three wide-angle cameras, and 8 microphones. The appliance is pre-loaded with Zoom software and a custom interface. It can be linked with a laptop or mobile phone through an ultrasonic pairing. Zoom is now taking pre-orders for the appliance, which costs $599 and works with an existing Zoom license. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Anonymous social apps shift their attention to Instagram in the wake of Snapchat’s ban | Anonymous social apps have moved to Instagram after Snapchat banned them due to being sued multiple times. | 4Miscellaneous
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This is Samsung's foldable smartphone | Samsung unveiled its much anticipated foldable phone today. Google is officially supporting these new foldable devices with Android and have updated their developer guidelines on how to build apps for these new foldable devices. There's a gif of the phone actually folding in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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“They’re more attractive than real boyfriends.” Inside the weird world of Chinese romance video games | While TV shows, movies, and books commonly feature romance as an integral part of their stories, romantic games are still relatively uncommon. Previous attempts have generally been unsuccessful, as the more emotional nuances to relationships are difficult to translate into game controls, usually resulting in transactional-relationship type interactions in games. A mobile game produced in China, Love and Producer, has become a hit, attracting millions of female users looking for love. Users play a TV producer with four love interests, and they can interact with these characters through phone calls and social media updates. Players can purchase special voice episodes where they can ‘talk’ to their virtual sweethearts on the phone. Producers say the success of the game is due to their focus and understanding of the emotional needs of their audience. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Meet the Chinese robot worm that could crawl into your brain | Researchers at Shenzhen have created a robot worm that can enter the human body, move along blood vessels, and hook up to neurons. The 1mm by 3mm robotic worm is powered by an external magnetic field generator. It is controlled by changing the magnetic fields around its body. The robot can squeeze through gaps by using infrared radiation to contract its body by more than a third. It can change color due to the hydrogel that it is made from. The robot can be used to deliver drugs to a targeted area, limiting the effects of the drug to the areas where it is needed and reducing the risk of side effects. It could also be used to create a brain-computer interface. It is unlikely that the technology could be used as a weapon as a person needs to lie still in a special environment in order for the robot to be controlled. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Harlem (GitHub Repo) | Harlem is an extensible state manager for Vue 3. It features extensions and plugins, a simple and functional API for creating, reading, and mutating state, and more. An interactive demo that shows some of the core features of Harlem is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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IRedis (GitHub Repo) | IRedis is a terminal client for Redis with auto-completion and syntax highlighting. | 4Miscellaneous
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Twitter will remove inactive accounts and free up usernames in December | Twitter accounts that have not had sign-ins for more than six months will receive an alert that they have to sign in by December 11 or their accounts will be removed. Recouped usernames will be made available again. The process will happen over many months. Accounts don't have to tweet anything to stay. Usernames with under five characters can no longer be registered on Twitter. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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A plunge in incoming sunlight may have triggered 'Snowball Earths' | Twice, somewhere around 700 million years ago, nearly the entire planet was covered with snow and ice. The events may have set the stage for the subsequent explosion of life on Earth. MIT scientists say that the Earth can be tipped into a global ice age when the level of solar radiation it receives changes quickly over a short time. This can happen to other habitable planets as well and it could be something to consider when searching for life on other planets. | 4Miscellaneous
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Bose built the first hearing aids that won't require a doctor's visit in the US | Bose's SoundControl wearables are the first FDA-approved hearing aids that can be sold directly to customers. Customers will be able to purchase the wearables without visiting a doctor or obtaining a prescription. The hearing aids have a CustomTune feature that personalizes volume levels, tone, treble, and bass. It also has a Focus feature that allows wearers to concentrate on specific areas. The batteries should last four days with 14 hours of use per day. SoundControl will be available in selected areas on May 18 for $850. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Scientists Used Over 100,000 MRIs to Map The Human Brain Across Our Entire Lifetime | Researchers have created a database that contains 123,984 magnetic resonance imaging scans taken from 101,457 individuals. The scans were collected from over 100 previous studies and cover every stage of life. They reveal new milestones and confirm developments that have only been previously hypothesized about. The database is designed so that new data can be easily added. A link to the database is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Outcry Over Power Outages, Smog Forces Iran To Act Against Bitcoin Miners | Iranian authorities are blaming bitcoin mining operations for power outages and worsening air pollution. Bitcoin farms use huge amounts of energy to supply their banks of high-powered computers. Iran eased its restrictions on cryptocurrencies in 2019 after facing US economic sanctions. This resulted in bitcoin operations becoming cheaper in Iran than in other countries. Thousands of illegal cryptocurrency farms have popped up around the country. Winter temperatures have added to the problem as the need for home heating rises. Road traffic has increased due to public transport closures, resulting in a visible rise in air pollution. The Iranian government has expanded its crackdowns on illegal cryptocurrency operations due to growing public outcry. | 4Miscellaneous
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Product Hunt Has Released YourStack, A Social Network Where People Talk About Products | YourStack is a new social network that is focused on products that friends and public figures recommend. The site aims to become a Yelp for products. It is owned by AngelList, who also owns Product Hunt. Several high-profile tech executives have already joined the site in order to provide content as it launches. Review fraud will be one of the major issues that YourStack will face. The site shares spam and abuse detect systems and moderation practices with Product Hunt, and users will need a Twitter account to post, which should cut down on fake accounts. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Amazon Investigates Employees Leaking Data for Bribes | Amazon employees in China are offering internal sales metrics and reviewers' email addresses, as well as a service to delete negative reviews and restore banned Amazon accounts. The going rate for deleting a negative review is $300, while you can download the email addresses of customers who write reviews for a lower price. Amazon says that it is investigating the issue. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Uber lays off 3,000 people in second big round of cuts | Uber has laid off 3,000 workers in addition to the 3,700 workers that it let go earlier this month. Uber drivers are not directly affected. The pandemic has caused Uber's rides business to go down by 80 percent compared to last year. Losses were offset slightly by strong demand for Uber Eats but this did not come close to covering expenses. Uber has estimated that it will spend another $110 to $140 million in severance packages and $65 to $80 million on expenses related to shutting down 45 office locations. The cuts will reduce Uber's overhead by more than $1 billion. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Nvidia reveals enterprise H100 GPU for AI and teases ‘world’s fastest AI supercomputer’ | Nvidia has announced details about its new silicon architecture, the first data center GPU built using that architecture, and plans to build the world's fastest AI supercomputer. The new Hopper architecture is designed to accelerate the training of Transformer models on Nvidia's new H100 GPUs by six times compared to previous-generation chips. The H100 GPU contains 80 billion transistors and has a memory bandwidth of 3TB/s. It will allow models to be trained in days rather than weeks. Eos will be a supercomputer built using the Hopper architecture and offer 18.4 exaflops of AI performance. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Ship 10x faster (Sponsor) | Ship 10x faster . Swarmia gives you visibility into your software development process, so you can speed up software delivery without compromising culture or quality."In just three months, Swarmia helped us decrease our average cycle time by 48%. As we keep growing, these insights will become increasingly important."- Jeremy Krebs Co-Founder & CTO of MateraStart shipping faster today! | 0Sponsor
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Ultra-light liquid hydrogen tanks promise to make jet fuel obsolete | Gloyer-Taylor Laboratories (GTL) has developed ultra-lightweight cryogenic tanks that have a 75% mass reduction compared with other aerospace cryotanks. A 12 kg tank from GTL is able to hold over 150 kg of hydrogen. The weight reduction means that hydrogen-fueled aircraft may be able to fly at least four times as far as comparable aircraft running on jet fuel while completely eliminating carbon emissions. It could also mean increased cargo or passenger capacity. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Google buys triple-A game dev Typhoon Studio to beef up Stadia | Typhoon Studios has been acquired by Google's Stadia cloud gaming division as part of Google's plan to create exclusive content for the Stadia platform. The game studio is about to release its first game in January 2020. Typhoon Studios has built a team of industry veterans who have experience in building many triple-A games. Stadia was announced in March this year and launched with 22 games in mid-November. More games are being continually added, and Google will launch a broader service with more content in the coming months. In order for Stadia to stand out from competitors, it must produce more exclusive content and exploit features such as its Youtube social video technology. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Hydrogen (Website) | Hydrogen is a React-based framework for building custom storefronts on Shopify. It includes the structure, components, and tools needed to get started so users can spend time on styling and design. Developers can use Hydrogen to get started quickly, optimize performance, and build experiences faster. Screenshots and demos are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Cruise lays out its plan for ‘how’ it will make robotaxis a reality | GM's self-driving subsidiary Cruise recently presented a roadmap for how the company will build autonomous vehicles that will be safer and more scalable than any human-driven vehicle. The company's plan includes technology for generating large-scale maps of cities, software that transforms real events into editable simulations, a system called Morpheus that can generate simulations based on specific locations, custom silicon chips developed in-house, and more. More details about the technology are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Tesla buys $1.5 billion in bitcoin, plans to accept it as payment | Tesla announced that it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The company plans to start accepting payments in bitcoin in exchange for its products, making it the first automaker to do so. Tesla had more than $19 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of 2020, making the purchase a significant percentage of its cash. The move raises questions around Elon Musk's recent behavior on Twitter, where he has been posting positive messages about bitcoin and dogecoin. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Pfizer trials new pill that could stop early-stage Covid in its tracks | Pfizer has started stage one clinical trials on an oral pill designed to be an early intervention for Covid-19. The pill has demonstrated potent in-vitro antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. It can be used with other antivirals to create a treatment that complements vaccination. The pill is a protease inhibitor. It binds to a viral enzyme to prevent the virus from replicating in the cell. More information about the clinical trials will be shared on April 6. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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magic-trace (GitHub Repo) | magic-trace collects and displays high-resolution traces of what a process is doing. It can be used to debug apps and discover insights into what happens in any process. magic-trace can be used to take snapshots when specific functions are called or attached and detached to running processes to trace arbitrary points in a program. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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F8 Refresh: Key announcements from Facebook's developer conference | Facebook's F8 developer conference kicked off on Wednesday with a focus on technologies that enable developers and businesses to build and grow on its platforms. The Messenger API for Instagram is now available to all developers, enabling key automation tools on the platform for the first time. Facebook is also testing ways for people to opt into messaging with businesses. New updates to the WhatsApp Business API and Facebook Business Suite were also announced. A new Multipeer API will help developers make augmented reality effects for group calls. PyTorch is now officially Facebook's default framework for building AI and machine learning models. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Former Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia | Two men who had worked at Twitter were charged for monitoring accounts on the behalf of the Saudi government. A third man, who didn't work for Twitter, was also charged for spying. The trio obtained personal info for more than 6,000 accounts. One of the spies was paid a minimum of $300,000, plus a gift, for the espionage work. Another was granted a director position in the Crown Prince's private office. Twitter stated that those employees with access to sensitive information were trained and vetted and that there were tools in place to protect users' privacy. Only one of the three men are currently in the US. The others are in Saudi Arabia, where there is no extradition treaty with the US. This is the first time Saudi Arabia has ever been accused of spying within the US. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Stripe buys Nigeria's Paystack for Africa expansion | Stripe has acquired Nigerian payments startup Paystack. While the value of the acquisition has not been disclosed, the deal is estimated to be worth over $200 million. Both companies will continue to operate separately. Paystack allows users to set up online payment gateways to accept credit and debit card payments. Police in Nigeria have been targeting young tech workers in the country due to online fraud. However, their actions have been often criticized as they have frequently extorted people trying to build valuable startups. | 4Miscellaneous
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Building electronic devices via chemical reactions | Almost all demonstrations of atomically small machines are essentially assembled by hand. A team of scientists has successfully used a chemical reaction to bind two atomically thin materials, graphene and molybdenum disulfide, potentially paving the way for mass production. The bridge molecule can be used to alter graphene's behavior in different ways. Details about the technique are available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Why Andorra is the new ‘Silicon Valley for YouTubers’ | Andorra has become a creative hub filled with social media influencers from across Europe. The high concentration of other creators, along with other benefits like tax breaks, have attracted many to the area. Andorra allows business owners to put 'YouTube' as their company's purpose since 2019. There has been some backlash against those who have moved, with the national media in Spain calling them unpatriotic, especially during a time when the country is struggling with its economy. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Spotify now allows advertisers to specifically target podcast listeners | Advertisers can now target Spotify users based on the podcasts that they listen to. This feature will be rolling out to 10 markets today, including the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Australia. Ads will be played between songs, as usual, and ads within podcasts will not be affected. Targeting users based on podcast preference rather than music taste may be more beneficial for advertisers as podcast preferences reveal more information about the user. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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TikTok partners with GIPHY on new video creation tool, ‘TikTok Library’ | TikTok Library is a new in-app creation tool that allows creators to access select content from GIPHY. TikTok plans to expand the Library with additional content sources over time. GIPHY, launched in 2019, allows content makers to share short-form videos anywhere across the web with a link. It is owned by Meta, but the UK's Competition and Markets Authority has blocked Meta from fully integrating the service. TikTok Library will roll out to select markets on Android first before rolling out to iOS and users worldwide. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Peter Thiel to step down from board of Facebook parent Meta | Peter Thiel, an early Facebook investor and board member since 2005, is leaving the company's board. Thiel made his initial fortune as the co-founder of PayPal. He started a Founders Fund, which has backed companies like Stripe, Affirm, and Airbnb. Thiel is still chairman at Palantir Technologies, which he co-founded in 2003. He will continue to serve on Meta's board until the company's 2022 annual stockholder's meeting. Facebook's recent first-quarter forecast sent the company's stock down by 26%, its worst drop on record. | 4Miscellaneous
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Scientists Are Generating Oxygen from Simulated Moon Dust | European scientists are creating a system that will be able to create breathable oxygen from moon dust. Lunar dust, known as regolith, consists of around 40 to 45 percent oxygen. It requires a method called molten salt electrolysis to extract the oxygen. The scientists' prototype is working, but adjustments are still required to make it suitable for use on the Moon. Once the oxygen is extracted, the leftover metals could be transformed into compounds for 3D printing. The resulting system could provide building materials and oxygen for lunar settlers. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Elon Musk says Apple refused a meeting to acquire Tesla | Elon Musk attempted to sell Tesla to Apple during the Model 3 rollout in 2017. Back then, Tesla was on the verge of collapse, and CEO Tim Cook refused a meeting with Musk to discuss a deal. Tesla has since become the most valuable automaker on the planet. Apple has recently announced its interest in developing an electric, autonomous car for general consumers. It has been developing a lithium iron phosphate battery that is more compact, resulting in lighter batteries with increased potential energy density. Tesla is already using iron phosphate batteries in some of the cars it is making in China. Apple and Tesla have swapped a lot of talent over the last decade. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Ask HN: What Have You Learned at Google as a Software Engineer? (Hacker News Thread) | Working at Google means you have many amazing tools at your disposal to help your productivity, but the organization and management can result in frustration. It is impossible to escape the politics of the workplace, and at Google, developers are very competitive. Co-workers are usually quite intelligent, and continual skill development is important and encouraged. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Hong Kong Protests Show Dangers of a Cashless Society | The latest protests in Hong Kong demonstrate the dangers that a cashless society may bring. Hong Kong citizens were recently protesting against a new law that will increase the extradition powers of China in Hong Kong. Citizens are concerned that China will use the law to target political dissidents. A popular payment system in Hong Kong is the Octopus contactless smart card, which can be used to pay for public transport and other things. During the protests, citizens were warned by other citizens to use cash in order to purchase train tickets as the government may be able to track their movements using purchase histories and target them as protestors. In a completely cashless society, citizens would have no choice but to use traceable payment systems, and this would mean that citizens would be giving up their privacy. | 4Miscellaneous
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Google Password Manager Just Got So Many Sweet New Features | The new features include the ability to manually add passwords, multiple password grouping, a homescreen shortcut, and iOS password generation. | 4Miscellaneous
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Netflix will start publishing video games, has hired former EA exec | Netflix hired a former EA and Oculus executive to lead a Netflix game-publishing team. The company has not confirmed what type of service it is creating, but it likely means that video games will be available on Netflix soon. Netflix has been building a collection of exclusive TV series based on video game licenses. There are a growing amount of cloud-based gaming subscription services. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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This self-healing concrete automatically fills in cracks | A new type of concrete uses an enzyme found in red blood cells to heal itself. Making concrete more durable could help lower carbon emissions due to concrete production, repair, and transport. Earlier attempts at making self-healing concrete used bacteria, but the process was slow and expensive. Carbonic anhydrase is the enzyme that transfers CO2 from cells into the bloodstream. When added to concrete powder, it helps the concrete turn CO2 from the atmosphere into calcium carbonate crystals, filling in cracks. It can be put into a spray and used to fix cracks in traditional concrete. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Researchers Teach Human Brain Cells in a Dish to Play “Pong” | Scientists from biotechnology startup Cortical Labs have successfully taught a collection of human brain cells in a petri dish how to play Pong. The researchers created mini-brains of up to one million living human brain cells in a petri dish with a microelectrode array to analyze the neural activity. To play the game, the scientists sent a signal to one side of the array to indicate where the ball was, and the neurons would send signals back to move the paddle. The mini-brains were able to learn how to play the game in five minutes, faster than some AIs. Cortical Labs plans to use their findings to develop technology using live biological neurons integrated with traditional silicon computing. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Forget Exercise—These Mice Got Ripped With Gene Therapy | Scientists have created a gene therapy that builds muscle mass and reduces obesity in mice even while eating a diet high in fat and not exercising. The therapy targets FST, a gene responsible for muscle growth and metabolism control. In the 18 weeks of the trial, the mice more than doubled their muscle mass and strength level. They also experienced reduced damage related to osteoarthritis, less inflammation in their joints, and healthier hearts and blood vessels, despite their diet and lack of exercise. If the treatment can be used in humans, the research team aims to use it to help people with conditions like muscular dystrophy or severe obesity. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Tesla shares fall after SEC asks judge to hold Elon Musk in contempt for violating deal | In October 2018, a court ruling declared that Elon Musk must have prior approval for any tweet prior to publication. On February 20, Musk tweeted that Tesla would make around 500,000 vehicles in 2019 but later clarified that he actually meant that the annual production rate could be 500,000 vehicles. The SEC has asked a judge to hold Musk in contempt of the October ruling, citing that he did not seek pre-approval for the tweet. This has resulted in a 5% fall in Tesla’s share value. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Norled Picks Westcon to Build World’s 1st Hydrogen Ferry | Norled, a Norwegian ferry company has signed a contract with shipyard Westcon to build two new environmentally-friendly ferries. One ferry will be the world’s first hydrogen-fueled ferry and the other will be a battery-operated ship. The ships will be operational in 2021 and will each carry up to 299 passengers and 80 cars. Hydrogen is a zero-emission fuel that is suited to supplying large amounts of energy to ferry propulsion systems, increasing sailing distance and speed on boats. A second hydrogen-powered vessel will soon operate in France as part of the EU’s Flagships project. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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What Ecstasy Does to Octopuses | Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Gül Dölen studies how the cells and chemicals in animal brains influence animals' social lives. Octopus brains have completely different architectures, "more similar to a snail" than ours says Dölen. They created an experiment to test the effect of MDMA (ecstasy) on octopuses. They had a tank with three chambers, put a toy in the far left chamber, put an octopus in the far right chamber, and put the test subject octopus in the middle chamber. They were testing how much time the subject spent with its fellow octopus as opposed to the toy. All five octopuses doused with MDMA spent much more time with their fellow octopus than they did when not on ecstasy. Dölen says they also behaved abnormally, "When they had MDMA, they had this very relaxed posture. They floated around, they wrapped their arms around the chamber, and they interacted with the other octopus in a much more fluid and generous way. They even exposed their [underside], where their mouth is, which is not something octopuses usually do." We last shared a common ancestor with them around 800 million years ago, and their brains have evolved independently from ours since then, but evidently we still share a few extreme similarities! | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Bizarre 890-Million-Year-Old Fossils May Be Earliest Known Animal Life | Tiny traces of what may be ancient sponges that date back around 890 million years have been discovered in Canada's northern McKenzie Mountains. It will still take a lot of work to confirm whether the rocks are really animal fossils, but it could be evidence that animals emerged before the Neoproterozoic Oxygenation Event that began around 700 million years ago. Scientists have long hypothesized that life had begun before the oxygenation event due to evidence from molecular clock data, but this is the first bit of physical evidence discovered that supports the idea. | 4Miscellaneous
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JAX (Github Repo) | This is a Google open source project that combines Autograd and Tensorflow XLA to create a library that can automatically differentiate Python and NumPy functions and allows for JIT compilation of NumPy programs to run on GPUs and TPUs. If you're interested in high performance machine learning, this looks like it could be the future. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Meet Dr. B, the startup promising a better way to distribute leftover vaccines | Dr. B is a service that aims to reduce the number of COVID-19 vaccines that will end up in the trash. Up to 30% of vaccine appointments are missed, leaving a thawed vaccination dose that must be used within six hours or be permanently lost. Some of these doses are allowed to expire, but they are usually distributed to whoever is available. Dr. B is designed to serve as a standby list for these situations, making it easier for providers to summon willing patients. More than half a million people in the US have signed up to be on Dr. B's waitlist. | 4Miscellaneous
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Elon Musk Confirms SpaceX Ocean Spaceport Deimos Under Construction for Starship Launch Next Year | SpaceX's Ocean Spaceport Deimos is under construction and its first launch will take place next year. The site is intended for Starship and its Super Heavy rocket booster. SpaceX has finally landed a Starship, so its next step is to land one with the Super Heavy. There is no set date for SpaceX's Mars mission, but it aims to launch by 2030. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Coronavirus: Tunisia deploys robots to enforce lockdown | Robots are being used to enforce lockdown in Tunisia. Citizens who are out and about are being questioned and ordered to go home by robots. The robots are manned remotely and use several infrared cameras, a laser telemetry system, and thermal cameras. Tunisia has shut schools, universities, cafes, and bars. Its borders are also closed. The military will be used to enforce restrictions. Employees at a mask factory in Tunisia have self-isolated in order to prevent the factory from closing down due to infections. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Uber CEO tells staff company will cut down on costs, treat hiring as a 'privilege' | Uber is cutting back on spending and will focus on becoming a leaner business. The company will slash spending on marketing and incentives and treat hiring as a privilege. It will be deliberate about when and where to hire staff and be more strict about costs across the board. Uber will focus on achieving profitability on a free cash flow basis. | 4Miscellaneous
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World’s largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly in France | The world's largest nuclear fusion project has begun in France. It will weigh 23,000 tonnes, with 200km of superconducting cables connecting 3,000 tonnes of superconducting magnets. All the components will be kept at -269C inside the cryogenic plant. The Iter project will cost €20bn and promises clean, unlimited power. It is intended to be a proof-of-concept of large-scale fusion rather than a design for a commercial reactor. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Kubernetes Best Practices 101 (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains a guide on Kubernetes best practices. The guide covers security, cost optimization, scalability, resources, shutdown, and more. It aims to help with the learning curve and to help prepare more stable, reliable, and functional environments. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Microsoft thinks coronavirus will forever change the way we work and learn | Microsoft has released data on how people are using its Teams app. Video call usage went up by more than 1,000 percent in March. Microsoft engineers are challenged with the task of making sure that Teams' infrastructure has enough capacity for this increase in usage. New features have been prioritized, and Microsoft is working on increasing the number of participants allowed per meeting. Despite coronavirus restrictions lifting in China, Microsoft reports retaining many of its new customers, with a growing number of daily active users still. This indicates that we might start seeing a cultural change in the way we work, and working from home might become normal for many. Give feedback by replying here or messaging me on Twitter @tldrdan! If you don't want to receive future editions of TLDR, please click here. | 4Miscellaneous
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Android Messages update handles Apple iMessage reactions properly | Google Messages on Android can now properly display emoji reactions sent from the iPhone's Messages app. Before the update, Android users would see a separate text message when receiving an emoji reaction. The emojis sometimes appear different on Android. The feature is still rolling out, so it may not appear for all users yet. A screenshot of a chat with emoji reactions on Android is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Apple employees say the company is cracking down on remote work | Apple will roll out a new hybrid model that requires employees to return to the office three days a week starting in September. The company has historically discouraged employees from working from home. Some employees have said that they won't be continuing with the company due to the new hybrid model. Employees are trying to find ways to get Apple to change its mind. | 4Miscellaneous
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The 'megascale' structures that humans could one day build | As humans discover new laws governing the universe, we start to find out what our physical limits are, and also what we are not limited to. The discovery of new technologies opens up possibilities for us to build bigger things. Whenever a physical law is revealed as universal, the next natural step is to scale it up and to explore the theoretical consequences. Whether or not it is the right thing to do, it is possible to redesign Earth. Megascale engineering has already happened in parts of South East Asia, Europe, and the US. Even larger projects would require a high level of coordination. Each part of the project would need to function perfectly, as well as be maintained. | 4Miscellaneous
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Swiss e-voting trial offers $150,000 in bug bounties to hackers | The Swiss government has announced a month-long testing period for their e-voting system, in which they encourage white-hat hackers to discover and report vulnerabilities. The total prize pool for the Public Intrusion Test is $150,000, with bounties ranging in value according to the seriousness of the vulnerabilities discovered. Swiss law guarantees the ability to vote for every citizen, but overseas citizens have complained that postal methods are usually delayed, and have called for e-voting methods. Opposition to e-voting claimed that the method was not secure, so the test will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the current system. | 4Miscellaneous
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MySpace Says It Lost Years Of User-Uploaded Music | Since 2003, people have used Myspace as a platform for uploading and sharing their music. As one of the most popular sites in 2006, it had helped launch the music careers of stars such as Lily Allen, the Arctic Monkeys, and Kate Nash. Since 2018, users have been finding that they could not access older music from the social media site. It has recently been revealed that due to a server migration, all photos, videos, and audio files uploaded before 2016 were lost and is no longer available. While MySpace claims it lost the files in an accident, skeptics say that the real reason was due to the cost and effort of migrating and hosting a large amount of old data and that the claims of incompetence were just for PR. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Apple WWDC 2022: the 16 biggest announcements | Apple recently revealed news about macOS Ventura, iOS 16, the M2 chip, a new MacBook Air, and much more at WWDC 2022. iOS 16 will have a customizable lock screen, updated notifications, Live Activities, editable and unsendable texts in Messages, a Pay Later feature, Safety Checks, and more. watchOS 9 will come with new health-tracking features. The new MacBook Air will feature the new M2 chip, which offers an 18 percent performance upgrade when compared to the M1. macOS Ventura will feature an improved multitasking tool, Passkeys, and the ability to use an iPhone as a webcam. iPadOS 16 will have new multitasking and collaboration features. More details about the announcements are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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GitHub Free (Announcement) | GitHub is giving everybody free private repositories with up to three collaborators per repo. Pretty awesome, the announcement post is pretty short because a blog leaked the information a day early, this was actually meant to be announced tomorrow. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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I'm Making AlgoDaily Free | AlgoDaily’s premium course is now completely free. Jake Z, the creator of the course, felt that the course tackled the wrong problems and that he wanted to contribute back to the community. There is currently a lot of content on the internet regarding coding interview preparation. However, this information is lacking guidance on how to get programmers to the point of being comfortable in doing an interview, consistency in getting programmers to complete exercises, and full immersive interview experiences. The AlgoDaily course will be ad-supported until Jake brainstorms a new solution to tackle these problems. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Elon Musk’s Twitter Pitch Deck Leaks, Revealing Big Plans for Revenue and User Growth | Elon Musk's pitch deck for Twitter has leaked. Musk plans to quintuple revenue to $26.4 billion, hit 931 million total users, and increase the number of employees to over 11,000 by 2028. There will be job cuts in the short term. Job interest in Twitter has spiked 250% since Musk announced his takeover plans. Musk may take Twitter public in 2028. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Tesla's next Gigafactory is being built in Austin, Texas | Tesla reported its fourth straight profitable quarter in a row with a GAAP net income of $104 million, qualifying it to be listed on the S&P 500 market index. Elon Musk will be able to cash in an additional 1.69 million stock options in five years. Tesla made some severe cuts to preserve its earnings in Q2, resulting in a tough time for employees. Its factories are now back at capacity and Musk has already announced plans to build Tesla's next Gigafactory in Texas. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Create-React-Extension (GitHub Repo) | Create React Extension is a tool to create React browser extensions with no build configuration. It features the same developer experience as the Create-React-App, a webpack dev server, support for any combination of chrome extensions, an automatic fork watcher, and more. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Citizen is now paying New Yorkers to livestream crimes | Citizen, the app that allows people to submit local crime reports, is paying people at a starting rate of $25 an hour to livestream crimes around New York City. It is keeping its hiring activity quiet and posting ads for the position through another company. Citizen is not mentioned in the job postings, which have all been deleted. The company has been criticized many times for encouraging reckless behavior. | 4Miscellaneous
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Alibaba On The Backfoot? TikTok Parent ByteDance Reportedly Launching In-house Cloud Computing Service | ByteDance's Volcano Engine division will roll out its Cloud computing service between September to October. The company plans to move its core services to its in-house cloud platform. ByteDance has already stopped using Alibaba Cloud services for TikTok outside of China. Moving more of its infrastructure in-house could save ByteDance a significant amount and cost Alibaba a lot in lost revenue. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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The pandemic is bringing us closer to our robot takeout future | Starship is a startup that uses six-wheeled, microwave-sized robots to deliver food in campuses across the US. With a simple app, Starship now has hundreds of robots in service delivering food to real customers. The robots run at a low cost, do not require tips, and are more popular than ever as they start to displace human-driven food deliveries. For Starship to work in a city, it must create a map, get approval from city officials, sign up with commercial partners, and make sure it has enough back-end resources to support each robot. This makes its rapid growth particularly impressive as it continues to deploy robots around the world. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them? (Hacker News Thread) | This Hacker News thread discusses profitable side projects that people haven't talked about openly with others. The top replies include hand tremor canceling software for the mouse, an Adsense blog, an online market for a game, and a 3D first-person creative writing RPG. A link to a thread on the same topic from two years ago is available. | 4Miscellaneous
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Amazon to close French warehouses until next week after court order | Amazon will close its French warehouses after it received a court order to limit deliveries to essential goods such as food and medical supplies. The warehouses will be closed until at least April 20. During this time, Amazon will reassess the risks of operating during the pandemic and take necessary measures to ensure the safety of its employees. Amazon will use a state partial unemployment scheme to pay its employees during the suspension. Science & | 1Big Tech & Startups
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The product analytics suite you can host yourself (Sponsor) | The product analytics suite you can host yourself . With PostHog's open source analytics platform, customer data never has to leave your infrastructure.Featuring product analytics, session recording, feature flags, heatmaps, and more - all available for free.The best part is everything is seamlessly integrated, so you can spend less time configuring different tools and more time getting valuable insight into user behavior. Learn more. | 0Sponsor
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Nikola Motor to open pre-orders for fuel cell pickup truck to compete with Ford, Tesla | Nikola Motor, a publicly-traded Arizonan startup, will open reservations for its hydrogen fuel cell electric pickup truck later this month. The Badger has 906 horsepower and 980 pound-feet of torque. It will be able to travel 300 miles on a single charge, with upgrades that can double the range. Nikola Motor designed the Badger to compete with the Ford F-150 and Tesla Cybertruck. The company doesn't have a factory and hasn't produced any products yet. It will begin construction on a factory this summer. Nikola Motor is currently valued at $28.63 billion. | 4Miscellaneous
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The Atlantic Ocean is getting wider every year, pushing the Americas away from Europe and Africa. We may finally know why. | The Atlantic Ocean is growing 1.5 inches wider every year because the tectonic plates under the Americas are separating from those beneath Europe and Africa. This is due to the formation of a large underwater mountain range in the middle of the ocean called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge separates the North American plate from the Eurasian plate, and the South American plate from the African plate. It sits on a convection hotspot on the Earth's crust. The process started about 200 million years ago. | 4Miscellaneous
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South Korea law forces Google and Apple to open up app store payments | Apple and Google are battling lawsuits and regulators around the world due to their app store rules. An amendment to South Korea’s Telecommunications Business Act will force app store owners to allow developers to use alternative payment options. Apple and Google charge a 30 percent cut for most transactions through their stores and they don't allow developers to use their own payment systems. App stores will be banned from unreasonably delaying the approval of apps or removing them from marketplaces as a form of retaliation. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Tesla remotely disables Autopilot on used Model S after it was sold | Tesla remotely disabled the driver assistance features from a Model S after it was sold to a customer by a third-party dealer. The dealer had purchased the vehicle directly from Tesla at an auction. Tesla claims that the customer didn't pay for the features so therefore they aren't eligible to use them. The features were enabled when the dealer bought the car and the customer purchased the car under the assumption the features would be included. Tesla says that the customer will have to pay $8,000 to turn the features back on. This incident raises hard questions about the problems that over-the-air updates can cause. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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These cute backyard houses can be entirely 3D-printed | Mighty Buildings is a startup that 3D prints homes. Its 3D printed homes can take a total of 24 hours to build and cost as much as 45% less than buying an average house in California. The company's process automates up to 80% of the total construction process. It uses a special material that immediately hardens and can support its own weight, making it possible to print horizontally in the air. Windows, plumbing, and electrical installations will have to happen on-site and a bathroom pod is made by another supplier. California is experiencing a labor shortage in the construction industry and will need to increase housing significantly in the next few years to meet demand and lower the cost of housing. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Google brings Halloween to life using augmented reality | Google has updated its augmented reality models on Google search with Halloween-themed options. There is now a dancing skeleton, costumed animals, ghosts, and more. Users can find the feature on their mobile devices by searching 'Halloween' on the Google search app or in the browser and selecting 'Summon up a 3D ghost' at the prompt. Some examples of the models are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Scientists develop first-of-its-kind implant that relieves pain without drugs | Researchers have developed an implant that can relieve pain on demand without the use of drugs. The device works by wrapping around nerves and delivering targeted cooling via evaporation. A sensor ensures that the cooling doesn't damage any tissue. The device can be remotely activated and users can control its intensity. Cooling nerves numbs them and blocks pain signals to the brain. The device is water-soluble and it is naturally absorbed by the body after use. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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bit (GitHub Repo) | bit is a git CLI that features command and flag suggestions, autocompletion for files and branch names, automatic fetch and branch fast-forwarding, and more. Several short GIF examples are available in the repository. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Lockheed Martin partners with satellite start-up Omnispace to build a space-based 5G network | Lockheed Martin and Omnispace are partnering up to develop 5G capabilities from space. A global 5G network would enable users to seamlessly transition between satellite and terrestrial networks. Lockheed Martin has expertise in a variety of markets, with many customers from the Department of Defense. The project will be developing direct-to-device technology, so users will be able to connect to the network with any standard 5G device. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Could high-flying kites power your home? (11 minute read) | At least 10 firms in Europe and the US are developing variations of kites to capture airborne wind energy. Airborne wind is the wind that can be found 200 meters or more above the ground. Kite power technology is still in its infancy. Most companies are working on small pilot projects and none have scaled their technology to the range that would make them comparable to conventional wind turbines. This article talks about several approaches to kite power that companies are currently experimenting with and discusses the potential for the technology. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Humans probably can't live longer than 150 years, new research finds | New research from a Singapore-based biotech company explored how well the human body can recover from stress on its systems as it ages and found that the human body loses its ability to recover from stressors at some age between 120 and 150. The research looked at health data for large groups from the US, UK, and Russia. It showed that recovery rate is an important signature of aging. The research could lead to the development of drugs to slow the process and extend healthspan. It explains why current treatments can only improve the average but not the maximum lifespan. | 4Miscellaneous
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Biohackers are pirating a cheap version of a million-dollar gene therapy | An international team of biohackers is creating a pirated version of a million-dollar gene therapy. Glybera is a gene therapy that costs $1 million per treatment. It treats an inherited disease that affects the fat levels in blood. The biohackers developed the first prototype of their version of the gene therapy with less than $7,000. They will require help to complete the animal testing stage, which is much more expensive. Glybera uses viruses to deliver the genes, but the knock-off version uses minicircles, which are less efficient. Viruses are expensive to procure. While Glybera only requires one shot, the new treatment will likely require multiple injections over a six month period. The group is not ready for patients and the drug still requires further development. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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FAA gives approval for company to use swarms of drones to reforest burned areas | DroneSeed is a company that uses fleets of drones to reforest areas burned in wildfires. The Federal Aviation Administration has approved DroneSeed's heavy-lift drones for operation Beyond Visual Line of Sight in several states. DroneSeed is now allowed to begin reforesting an area once a fire is contained and airspace is clear. A swarm of five drones can reseed 25 to 50 acres each day. The drones are designed to drop tree seeds in places where they have a decent chance of survival. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Takeover.sh (GitHub Repo) | Takeover.sh is a script that will take control over a running Linux system remotely, allowing admins to log into an in-memory rescue environment. Users will be able to remotely unmount the root file system and replace a distro without needing to have physical access to a machine. It is recommended that the script is only run by people who know what they are doing as much of the script is experimental. The instructions are written ambiguously on purpose in order to prevent inexperienced users from being able to use the script. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Amazon’s new physical retail analytics service gives brands insights about product and ad performance | Amazon is launching a new physical retail store analytics service that will give brands anonymized insights about their products in stores that use Just Walk Out and Dash Cart technologies. Brands will have access to information about how their products are discovered, considered, and purchased, as well as data on how their products rank and perform. The data is aggregated and anonymized, and it doesn't contain any personal information. Shoppers can opt-out of data collection while using Just Walk Out or Dash Cart through Amazon's Store Analytics website. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Cold temperatures induce anti-inflammatory molecule that counters obesity | Cold temperatures can stimulate the release of a molecule that reverses obesity-related inflammation, resulting in reduced body weight in mice. | 4Miscellaneous
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SpaceX aims to provide internet coverage with Starlink constellation as soon as mid-2020 | SpaceX plans to offer Starlink's broadband services to customers in mid-2020. It will require six to eight launches of 60 satellites per launch to get the service up and running. SpaceX has applied for the ability to launch up to 42,000 satellites into orbit. 60 satellites were launched in May. Three of those satellites failed, and two satellites were taken out of orbit to prove that SpaceX had the ability to remove them if necessary. The remaining satellites appear to be working. Elon Musk recently sent a tweet using a connection provided by the Starlink system. SpaceX still needs to finish developing its user terminal and sort out pricing and distribution before it will be available to customers. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Flippy, the $30,000 automated robot fast-food cook, is now for sale with 'demand through the roof' | Miso Robotics has released its burger-flipping robot to the market for $US30,000, with options for a payment plan. Flippy is a robot that attaches to a rail and can move about a kitchen to cook. It can cook 19 items, including burgers and hash browns. This article contains a photo essay that explains how Flippy works. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Android 13 leaks: More Material You options, opt-in to app notifications | Android 13's first developer previews won't be out until at least March, but several sources have already begun leaking its new features. The update will expand on Android 12's dynamic theming system and change how apps will ask for permissions. It will also add a user account switcher on the lock screen, a QR code scanner, and per-app language settings. Google has stripped down developer previews in the past, so the first Android 13 development preview may not have all the final features. More details on the new features, including screenshots, are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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A first look at Microsoft’s new Windows 11 Android apps support | Microsoft has released the first preview of its Android app support in Windows 11 to testers in the Windows Insider program. Apps will be listed in the Microsoft Store, but users will be sent to Amazon's Appstore to get them installed or updated. The apps will run in a virtual machine side by side with other Windows apps. There are only 50 apps officially available with the preview. More details on the preview, including screenshots of the setup process and Android apps running on Windows, are available. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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snakeware (GitHub Repo) | snakeware is a Linux distro that boots the user directly into a Python interpreter. Python makes it easier for even beginners to contribute apps or other code to the distro. A link to a 3-minute video demo is available. The goal of the project is to eventually have a usable set of userspace apps and utilities written entirely in Python. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Website feedback and bug tracking that's visual, not vague (Sponsor) | BugHerd is the easiest way to track bugs and get actionable feedback for your website. It’s like sticky notes on a website. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Cerebras’s Giant Chip Will Smash Deep Learning’s Speed Barrier | One of the limitations of machine learning is the large amount of time it takes to train models. Some models can take up to six weeks to train, restricting the number of tests that data scientists can perform every year. A new chip by Cerebras is able to perform significantly better in both speed and efficiency compared with any other current system. The Wafer Scale Engine chip is 50 times the size of the largest GPU at 46,266 square millimeters. It has 1.2 trillion transistors, 400,000 processor cores, 18 gigabytes of SRAM, and interconnects capable of moving 100 million billion bits per second. Some of these chips have already been deployed. Previous attempts at creating wafer-scale chips have failed. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Google proposes new campus billed as a 'neighborhood' with homes and shops | Google has unveiled plans to build a new corporate campus in Mountain View, California. The 40-acre site will have a mix of office buildings, housing, shops, and public spaces. Google pledged $1 billion last year to help build 20,000 homes in the region over the next 10 years. Tech giants have faced criticism for contributing to higher rent prices in the Bay Area, which is one of the reasons Google is focused on housing. Google doesn't have much use for office space. Its workers aren't due back into offices until at least July 2021. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Facebook is working on a voice assistant to rival Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri | Facebook has been working on a voice assistant since early 2018. The project is lead by the company’s augmented and virtual reality division, which is also responsible for other projects such as the Oculus headsets. According to people familiar with the project, Facebook has been contacting vendors in the smart speaker supply chain, suggesting that the assistant will be used in the company’s Portal video chat smart speakers. The smart speaker market is currently dominated by Amazon and Google, who take up a combined 97% of the market. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Import Tracker (GitHub Repo) | Import Tracker is a Python package for tracking and managing optional dependencies. It enables developers to track and map each module within a project to the set of dependencies it relies on. Import Tracker prevents code from crashing when uninstalled imports are imported. It can programmatically determine the install_requires and extras_require arguments for setuptools.setup. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Darkness Visible, Finally: Astronomers Capture First Ever Image of a Black Hole | Astronomers have captured the first-ever image of a black hole, located in Messier 87, a galaxy around 55 million light-years away. The black hole is several billion times the size of our Sun and the picture shows it releasing a jet of energy 5,000 light-years into space. A telescope as big as Earth, combining data from radio telescopes located across the planet, was used to create the image. The data obtained was too large to transmit over the internet and needed to be physically transported by hard drives. From the image, scientists were able to calculate the size of the black hole. Observations of the black hole in Messier 87 will continue and the data will be used to confirm theories and hypotheses regarding black holes | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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At least $611 million stolen in massive cross-chain hack | Poly Network, a protocol for swapping tokens across multiple blockchains, has been hacked for $611 million. The assets stolen include Ethereum tokens, Binance Smart Chain tokens, and USDC. Tether has blacklisted the USDT on Ethereum that was stolen in the attack so they can no longer be moved. Binance is unable to control coins on its Smart Chain, but the exchange is working with security partners to proactively help. The root cause of the hack was likely a cryptography issue. | 4Miscellaneous
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China Quarantines Cash to Sanitize Old Bank Notes From Virus | Old banknotes are now being quarantined in China in order to fight the coronavirus outbreak. The transfer and allocation of old banknotes across provinces has been cut off between the cities most affected by the deadly outbreak. 600 billion yuan cash has been created for Hubei. Money is being sanitized with ultraviolet rays or heated up and locked up for 14 days in the most affected areas, and money from less risky areas is subject to a week of quarantine. Commercial lenders have been asked to separate cash from hospitals and food markets. Mobile payments have largely replaced banknotes in daily life in China, but older people still tend to prefer using bank notes for everyday transactions. | 4Miscellaneous
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Dynamic tattoos promise to warn wearers of health threats | Nanotech tattoos have been developed over the past few years. They can signal changes in a person's biochemistry, warn wearers of radiation exposure, or detect the presence of UV light. A tattoo that warns users to wear skin protection if there is too much UV light uses a UV-activated dye inside of a plastic nanocapsule. The nanocapsule is required to keep the body from cleaning out the ink. After they are applied, the tattoos are invisible until they are exposed to UV rays, at which point they turn blue. The scientists are also working on temperature-sensitive inks to use as thermometers. Wearable temporary electronic tattoos can be used for sensing electrophysiological signals as well as for controlling mobile devices. They are much less permanent than traditional tattoos, but they can use battery-powered electronics. Little is known about the safety of normal tattoo inks as the US FDA doesn't regulate them. More research is needed to understand the long-term effects of implants in the skin. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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