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Elephants are evolving to be tuskless after decades of poaching pressure | Poachers have been hunting elephants for tusks for decades. Originally less than 4% of female elephants were born without tusks, but due to evolutionary pressure from poachers, 98% of female elephants in Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa are born without tusks. Males need tusks because they use them to fight over females. Tusks are still useful for females to strip bark from trees, so these new tuskless females may have to compensate by expanding their range to make up for their lack of foraging ability. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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How NASA's Mars Helicopter Will Reach the Red Planet's Surface | The Mars Helicopter Delivery System was created to help NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter safely navigate the final five inches from the Perseverance rover to the surface of Mars. Ingenuity weighs about four pounds and is packed with technology that makes stowing and deploying it a challenge, especially since powered controlled flight on Mars has never been attempted. Mission engineers decided to store the helicopter in Perseverance's belly. Two months after Perseverance lands, the rover will drop the Mars Helicopter Delivery System onto a suitable location, and six days later, the deployment process will begin. Once a good drop is confirmed, the helicopter will begin recharging its batteries with its solar panel, and then the flight test program will begin. If the technology is successful, the helicopters might be used in future missions to act as scouts, carry payloads, or investigate the environment. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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10 developers on what makes their games’ ‘hand-drawn’ (18 minute read) | Many games have taken on a hand-drawn art style over the years. Hand-drawn can mean a lot of different things to different people. In this article, 10 developers talk about what makes their games 'hand-drawn'. The developers discuss the process and techniques used to create the art in their games. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri's SF Home Got Swatted | Facebook's head of Instagram Adam Mosseri had both his homes swatted in November. These retaliatory attacks are spawned by anonymous trolls on dark-web forums. Authorities in New York City and San Francisco received multiple reports that people were being held hostage inside Mosseri's homes, resulting in hours-long standoffs at both locations, twice. Similar attacks involving other tech executives have happened around the Bay Area and Seattle in the last couple of years. Seattle has launched a registry for potential swatting victims. People who have signed up for the registry will receive a phone call by the police if they are reported to be involved in hostage situations or something similar. There are currently no federal laws against swatting, and attacks can be launched anonymously without much fear of getting caught. A swatting incident in 2017 left a 28-year-old man dead after he was shot by a policeman. | 4Miscellaneous
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Google is absorbing DeepMind’s health care unit to create an 'AI assistant for nurses and doctors' | Google is absorbing DeepMind's Health division into it's Google Health division. DeepMind currently has an app called Streams, which helps manage patients in hospitals in the UK. Google will be turning Streams into an "AI-powered assistant for nurses and doctors". DeepMind will continue to work on a number of ambitious research projects applying AI to healthcare, such as using AI to spot eye disease. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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ColossalAI (GitHub Repo) | ColossalAI is a unified deep learning system for large-scale parallel training. It supports data, pipeline, sequence, 1D, 2D, 2.5D, and 3D tensor parallelism and is extensible for new parallelism. ColossalAI provides tools to kickstart distributed training in a few lines. Benchmarking stats are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Uber Eats Is Doing Ghost Kitchens. Here’s How That Could Change Food Delivery | Traditional food delivery has always been seen as an add-on to the restaurant business, rather than as the whole business, but ‘ghost kitchens’ may change that. A ghost kitchen is where food is prepared specifically to be delivered to other locations, and a report by Bloomberg claims that Uber has been quietly leasing these spaces in Paris since 2018. This could create a significant change in the food industry. Food delivery is projected to increase by 12% per year for the next 5 years, and as one of the major food delivery platforms, Uber could control which restaurants have the most visibility on their platform. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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The robot revolution has arrived (23 minute read) | Robots are everywhere. They have been performing tasks for us and slowly replacing humans in the workforce even before the pandemic. Now, the need for robots to replace human workers seems like a medically wise decision. The workplace of the future will be an ecosystem where humans and robots work together to maximize efficiency. There are many examples of humans already working with robots, which are described in detail in the article. The aim of many robot developers is not to replace humans, but to fill a current need. | 4Miscellaneous
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Nasally-Injected Brain Drug Can Help Treat Depression in 20 Minutes | Getting drugs into the brain is challenging due to obstacles like systemic absorption, rapid drug degradation, axonal transportation, and invasive treatments. Japanese researchers have improved a drug known to exhibit therapeutic effects on depression so that it can be administered nasally and be effective within 20 minutes. The results were similar to using more invasive techniques. The breakthrough could have far-reaching implications for neuro-pharmaceutical research, nanobiotechnology, and genetic engineering. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, and remember everything you do | Ego4D is a research project at Facebook that is using first-person video data to train AI to develop skills such as episodic memory, forecasting, and audio-visual diarization. It could result in AI systems that can remember who said what when and answer questions such as 'where did I leave my keys?'. Facebook stresses that this is a research project rather than a commercial development. It partnered with 13 universities to record 3,205 hours of first-person footage for researchers to use to train AI systems. A 5-minute video from Facebook explaining Ego4D is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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A Giant Gator Invaded a Florida Golf Course During Hurricane Eta | A video of a massive alligator went viral on Twitter after it went for a walk on a golf course during hurricane Eta. The 12-second video is available in the article. While the exact size of the gator can't be determined from the videos, the largest gator on record in Florida is 14 feet, 3-1/2 inches long. It is unusual to see gators roaming during a storm as they tend to hunker down as storms move in. Golf courses are favorable habitats for gators as they provide ample amounts of water and there is prey such as birds and fish. | 4Miscellaneous
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Mercury Parser - Extracting content from chaos (GitHub Repo) | Mercury Parser processes pages and returns a simple, clean output of all the important information in a categorized plain text format. Users can choose and edit which fields are important using JavaScript and CSS selectors. Mercury Parser is used in extensions such as Mercury Reader, which allows users to view sites in a ‘reading view’, removing the distraction that comes with differing page styles or ads. An example of the output is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Interviews.school (Website) | Interviews.school is a website to help developers prepare for software engineering interviews. It covers topics such as resumes, mock interviews, and algorithms. The site was created by an ex-Google software engineer who has had job offers from Google, Facebook, Uber, and Amazon. Each section has exercises and questions at the end to help the reader better understand the material. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Bayard (GitHub Repo) | Bayard is a full-text search and indexing server. It makes it easy for programmers to develop search applications with advanced features and high availability. Bayard features full-text searching/indexing, index replication, bringing up a cluster, and a command-line interface. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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MIT Wants to Replace Lights With Glowing Plants | MIT created light-emitting plants in 2017 and has been optimizing them to be able to be bright enough to illuminate a home or office workspace since. The plants are now able to be charged by a LED in just 10 seconds and last for several minutes. They use a specialized nanoparticle and an enzyme called luciferase to absorb light, store some of it, and emit it gradually. A type of light capacitor was created to make the plants glow longer. The glowing plants are able to photosynthesize without any interference from the nanoparticles. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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PgCat (GitHub Repo) | PgCat is a version of PgBouncer rewritten in Rust. PgBouncer is a lightweight connection pooler for PostgreSQL. PgCat features session and transaction modes, copy protocol support, query cancellation, round-robin load balancing of replicas, banlist and failover support, and sharding. It is still in alpha. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months (12 minute read) | This article details a software engineer's experience of working at Amazon. It includes an overview of the interview and hiring process and delves into what it is like working at the company. The experience could help inform others about the pros and cons of working for Amazon as an engineer, as well as provide clues on how to be successful in the company. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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When Tech Cafeterias Close, the Internet Gets Weird With Food | Facebook's employees were sent to work from home due to the pandemic. This resulted in Doordash blocking Facebook's VPN IP from making orders as too many of its employees were ordering from the IP at the same time. Many tech workers haven't needed to cook in a long time and this is causing a large spike in the use of delivery services. Workers are also sharing memes on social media about their lack of cooking skills. Some tech workers who do have cooking skills have started sharing the meals that they have made online. Overall, it is a strange time to be watching how the tech community continues to be social during this time of social distancing. | 4Miscellaneous
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Kobra (Website) | Kobra is a visual programming language for machine learning. It allows data scientists and engineers to build things quickly without having to write code or deal with programming concepts. Kobra can help people learn about machine learning without needing to learn how to code first. The beta is now available to try online. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Twitter accepts Elon Musk's buyout deal | Twitter's board has accepted Elon Musk's offer to buy the company. The board had considered fighting the hostile takeover by adopting a poison pill strategy. It had concerns over the sale price and Musk's ability to fund the deal. The board changed its mind after Musk's SEC filing which detailed his plans to finance the deal. Musk is exploring a tender offer to purchase Twitter shares directly from shareholders. Twitter's board members have been asked to preserve records related to Musk's bid for a potential congressional probe and subpoenas. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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The military is funding a "living pharmacy" scientists can stick inside you | NTRAIN (Normalizing Timing of Rhythms Across Internal Networks of Circadian Clocks) is a device that is currently being developed by researchers from Northwestern University for controlling the body's circadian clock to eliminate jetlag, fatigue, and gastrointestinal issues. The project is being funded by DARPA for use in soldiers as fatigue and diarrhea are two major problems for military personnel. NTRAIN will allow the wearer to control the timing and doses to administer targeted and personalized peptide therapy by shining a light on it. It uses genetically engineered cells to produce peptides from the body's resources. Installing the device will involve an incision and an outpatient procedure. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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This Robot Will Look For Signs Of Life On Jupiter’s Satellite Europa | The Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE) is a robot that was designed to explore Europa's glaciers. It successfully passed tests in the cold waters of Antarctica and will look for evidence of life under the frozen ice on Jupiter's satellite. The Europa Clipper is scheduled for launch in 2025, and it will scan Europa from different angles to map the satellite. Europa is one of the best candidates for extraterrestrial life in our solar system. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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The SpaceX Starship is a very big deal | The magnitude of the vision that Starship embodies is often overlooked. Starship is designed to launch with Super Heavy, both of which are designed to be fully reusable with low costs. The cost of launching materials with this setup could be reduced to 1000 times less than launches with Shuttle. It would be a profitable venture if it were to launch any payload currently in the market. SpaceX is looking to build dozens of Starships, and could potentially launch a million tonnes to orbit per year, far existing the current launch market of 500 tonnes per year. Starship is designed for building nations in space. It is capable of launching supplies, such as food, fuel, and heavy construction equipment, into space at an incredible rate at a low cost. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Scientists can now grow wood in a lab without cutting a single tree | Researchers from MIT have developed a technique to produce wood products of any shape or size. The technique involves giving stem cell-like properties to normal plant cells and using a gel-based medium enriched with nutrients and hormones to stimulate the cells into becoming wood. Using this technique, the scientists were able to grow wood at a rate twice that of regular trees. The team was able to 3D print custom-designed structures out of the cells cultured in the gel. The research could eventually lead to the end of deforestation. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Employee Activism Is Alive in Tech. It Stops Short of Organizing Unions | Tech workers have been participating in a lot of activism over the last few years, with some results. Google employees have affected how artificial intelligence is to be used, and employees from other companies have protested successfully to make changes to their workplace. However, employees have failed to organize unions. There are many factors preventing unionization from happening. Some employees may feel too close to their employers due to the small size of a company, or highly paid employees may see themselves as independent contractors with leverage who don’t need union support. Some tech companies have dismissed employees who tried to organize unions in the past. The culture in Silicon Valley is changing, and unions may be the best way to stop employees from being unfairly pressured by their companies. | 4Miscellaneous
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Google admits partners leaked more than 1,000 private conversations with Google Assistant | Google has admitted that a partner has leaked over 1,000 sound recordings of customer conversations to a Belgian news site, VRT. The recordings were supposed to be used to improve the quality of responses from smart devices. While the sound files were anonymized, VRT reported that the recordings contained enough private information to directly identify some of the people talking in them. Google says that this is a direct violation of its data security policies and that it is actively investigating the issue. It is possible to easily delete your Google Assistant voice history. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Google foils Roku’s YouTube TV ban, adds service to the main YouTube app | Roku recently removed the YouTube TV app from its store due to a disagreement with its contract with Google. As a response, Google has embedded the YouTube TV app into the YouTube app. The contract between Google and Roku for the YouTube app does not expire until December. Google has threatened to provide free streaming devices for their YouTube TV customers if Roku refuses to renew its deal under reasonable terms. The dispute is likely due to Google's AV1 video codec, which will require Roku to upgrade to more expensive chips. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Spotify Introduces New Podcast API | Spotify has released a new podcast API for developers. It will allow developers to explore all of the public data on Spotify, for example, show and episode titles, description, and art. Developers will be able to search through Spotify's catalog of over 700,000 podcasts. The API will allow apps to perform actions on behalf of users. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Facebook Messenger gets an unsend feature | In an update coming out today, Facebook Messenger users will be able to delete their messages after they have been sent. The new feature allows users to delete their messages within 10 minutes of sending them. Facebook had previously been criticized as Mark Zuckerberg (and possibly other executives) had been able to delete messages, unlike average users. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice | A study of a dirt sample from northwestern Greenland has revealed that most of Greenland was ice-free at some time within the last million years. The material for the study came from a Cold War military science project that was a cover-up for a secret nuclear missile storage facility. A fifteen-foot-long tube of dirt was retrieved from the bottom of the ice as part of the project in 1966. The sample was mostly ignored until it was accidentally rediscovered in 2017. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Inside the World’s Most Exclusive (and Strange) | The Alternative Propulsion Energy Conference (APEC) places scientists and engineers from various organizations together with fringe theorists and garage hobbyists with the goal of understanding gravity. It brings people together from diverse backgrounds to discuss how to reverse the effects of gravity. Open discussion on how to reverse gravity has drifted to the outer fringes of pseudoscience, and many researchers refuse to discuss the topic due to the risk to their reputations. This article takes a look at how APEC started and covers some of the topics discussed at the conference. | 4Miscellaneous
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IBM’s New Chip Technology Shows Off the Next Big Step in Moore’s Law | IBM has demonstrated a 2-nanometer chip making process for the first time. The new process yields around 50 billion transistors on a chip the size of a fingernail and makes chips that are 75 percent more efficient or 45 percent faster than 7-nm chips. Nanosheet, or gate-all-around transistors, are the long-awaited successors to today's FinFET transistors. They feature a layered channel surrounded by the gate on all sides, providing better control of current through the channel, preventing leakage, and boosting efficiency. It will likely take some time before the chips will be available on the market. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Watch crazy video of Tesla Model 3 autonomously picking up owner in parking lot | Tesla’s new Enhanced Summon mode has been rolled out to beta testers, who are reporting that the feature is a bit ‘hit or miss’ mostly due to the system being too cautious. The feature allows vehicle owners to get their cars to drive to their position or to a selected position as long as the owner is within 150m of their vehicle. Tesla vehicles already have a Summon feature, but this only allows owners to move their cars backward or forwards in their parking spaces. A video showing Enhanced Summon being used is available. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Elementz (GitHub Repo) | Elementz is a React component library for building apps. More than half of the library code is SCSS so it is easily customizable and smooth. It features a full Table component, Smooth Loading Skeleton wrappers with zero configuration, and more. Examples of its components are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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GM unveils a new electric vehicle platform and battery in bid to take on Tesla | General Motors showcased its electric vehicle strategy to investors on Wednesday, along with an all-new modular electric vehicle platform called Ultium. The platform is designed to be flexible and multifaceted, allowing it to be built into a variety of vehicle types and shapes. Ultium also features an improved battery pack that is unique due to its large-format, pouch-style cells, which allow them to be stacked vertically or horizontally inside a battery pack. The batteries will supply power ranging from 50 to 200 kWh, allowing for a driving range of over 400 miles. Aluminum is used in the batteries, reducing cobalt content by 70 percent. GM is planning to release 20 electric nameplates by 2023 across all four of its brands. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Google Interview Problems: Ratio Finder (26 minute read) | This article is part of a series that discusses interview questions that have been asked at Google in the past, with the other articles discussing dynamic programming, matrix exponentiation, and query synonymity. Interview questions should be designed so employers can make a decision of whether a candidate is worth hiring. The Ratio Finder question was chosen because it was a little easier, but still showed the candidates' strengths and weaknesses. Candidates were asked to design a system to convert between two units, for example, hands to light-years. While many will start thinking of a solution to the problem, strong candidates would think about how the program could fail. The success of the candidates depends on their ability to plan forward for potential problems, how complete the solution is, and what ideas they have to improve the code design. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Scientists Have Successfully Recorded Data to DNA in a Few Short Minutes | Scientists have utilized a novel enzymatic system to synthesize DNA into data in minutes rather than hours or days. The method synthesizes completely new DNA instead of copying a template. It uses an enzyme that can be directly manipulated. The method could be a potential solution to the explosive growth in data storage needs. It could also have applications in brain research. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Libra (GitHub Repo) | Libra is a machine learning API designed for non-technical users. It can be used to build machine learning models using natural language queries. Demos and examples are available in the repository. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Google brings its Duplex AI restaurant booking assistant to 43 states | Google’s Duplex AI wowed the audience at least year’s I/O and is set to be launched in 43 states this week. The Duplex AI will allow Pixel 3 owners to make bookings at restaurants that accept reservations but don’t have an online booking system using Google Assistant. Duplex AI will roll out on Android and iOS in the next few weeks as Google continues to develop the program through user feedback. A video is available demonstrating the Duplex AI being used, showing the experience for both the user and the restaurant. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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SQLite-New (GitHub Repo) | SQLite-New is an open-source browser for SQLite database files. Users can create, define, modify and delete database files, tables, indexes, and records. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, and a compiled binary is available for Windows. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Early Decision | Tech Incubator YCombinator has announced that it will be accepting Early Decision applicants (like colleges) where you can apply early in the fall for entrance into next summer's batch of startups. This is designed with undergrads, grad students and postdocs in mind as they commonly decide what to do next year early in the fall, but the application is open to anyone. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Mozilla says paid subscription service is coming to Firefox | Premium features, such as a VPN service and cloud storage, will soon be available in Firefox for a monthly subscription fee. The subscription service will be available in October, one year after Mozilla first started limited testing on a VPN subscription offering. Mozilla aims to diversify its income sources so that it is less dependent on income from search companies. Existing features will remain free for all users. The free, high-performing, private-by-default Firefox browser will continue to be the core service offering from Mozilla. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Microsoft's Chromium-based Edge browser rolls out through Windows Update | Microsoft Edge was first released in 2015 to replace Internet Explorer. Last year, Microsoft rebuilt the browser with Google's Chromium framework. The complete version is now available as part of Windows Update. It features improved compatibility with websites, better performance, and the ability to run extensions. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Cloudflare Registrar (Early Access Signup) | Cloudflare is launching its own domain registrar. The great thing about this is that they aren't charging anything above the ICANN registration fees, meaning these domains are as cheap as you'll ever find (for example a .com domain is just $8.03/year using this service). You can sign up for early access through this link. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Facebook creates exec team to work on Mark Zuckerberg's vision for a digital universe | Facebook will create a product team to work on the metaverse. The team will be part of Facebook's Reality Labs. Tech companies have started to increasingly discuss building a metaverse as a successor technology to smartphones. The metaverse will use augmented and virtual reality technologies, which is why Facebook has invested heavily in AR and VR. Mark Zuckerberg hopes that Facebook will be viewed as a metaverse company in the future. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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RealtimeApp (GitHub Repo) | RealtimeApp allows developers to deploy a Full-Stack Realtime App in seconds using Serverless Components. A serverless stack such as RealtimeApp should be considered for software that needs to be delivered with low overhead. Developers only need to provide front and back-end code to deploy their software. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Super Wealthy Fund Mysterious Lab to Unlock Immortality | Altos Labs is a biological reprogramming tech company. It has received major funding from the uber-wealthy, including Jeff Bezos. The company has hired some of the world's top scientists with big salaries and given them free rein on their anti-aging research. There are no hard goals or deadlines for Altos' researchers. The company says that its aim is to understand rejuvenation and to create 'great science'. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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The World's Second Largest Wikipedia Is Written Almost Entirely by One Bot | Wikipedia's English edition recently surpassed six million articles. The Cebuano edition is the second-largest edition of Wikipedia, with over 5.37 million articles. There are only approximately 16.5 million speakers of the language in the Philippines. The Cebuano edition was mostly written by a bot called Lsjbot. All but five of the edition's top 35 editors are bots, with no humans in the top 10. An analysis revealed that a majority of the articles written by the bot were well constructed. The automatic creation of articles is controversial as the software is not perfect and will generate mistakes. There is now a range of content creation bots, and some can work to augment writing, rather than just generate text. | 4Miscellaneous
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Los Angeles Uber drivers join cities across the U.S. in strike ahead of much-anticipated IPO | Uber, who is about to launch one of the tech world's most anticipated Initial Public Offerings, faced a protest from their drivers just days before the sale. Drivers across 10 cities in the US, as well as in some European locations such as London, protested against unfair pay and a lack of transparency. Passengers did not seem to notice much difference during the protest as they were still able to hail rides without much difficulty, but the goal of the protest was so legislators would take notice. A change in legislation may affect the company's value and sale price, which the protestors are trying to use as leverage against the company. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Larry Tesler, the Apple employee who invented cut, copy and paste, dies at 74 | Larry Tesler, one of the first computer scientists who worked at Apple, has passed away at the age of 74. Tesler created computerized cut, copy, and paste. He studied computer science at Stanford University and worked at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Tesler helped find a hippie commune in rural Oregon in 1970. He was passionate about modeless computing, a type of computing where users don't have to switch constantly between different input states. Tesler met Steve Jobs in late 1979 while working at Xerox. A few months later, he was working for Apple on the Apple Lisa project. He left Apple in 1997 and later worked at Amazon, Yahoo!, and then as a freelancer. | 4Miscellaneous
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Breaking GitHub Private Pages for $35k | In the spring of last year, GitHub had two CTF bonuses posted as part of GitHub's private pages private bug bounty. One was for reading the flag at flag.private-org.github.io without user interaction, with a bonus for reading the flag from an account outside of the organization. The other was for reading the flag with user interaction. This article discusses how the vulnerabilities were discovered and exploited. GitHub paid out a total bounty of $35,000. | 4Miscellaneous
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Keyframes (Website) | Keyframes is a visual tool that can generate CSS. It has a visual timeline editor similar to video-editing software that can be used to create animations. Developers can create shadow effects and select colors using the Keyframes interface. The generated CSS code can be copied to the clipboard with a click. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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The dispassionate developer | The software development industry has a culture that depends on developers being passionate and self-motivated, and this can be detrimental to workers. Programmers are expected to keep up with the latest technology and development in their own time, and many developers spend a significant amount of their own time and resources to keep their skills relevant so they are employable. Most companies won't pay for skill development, since they don't have to. There is nothing wrong with being a passionate developer, but if you are one, beware of people trying to take advantage of you. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Artificial Intelligence is Helping Old Video Games Look Likes New | AI upscaling is the name of the technique where AI is used to convert low-quality images into higher quality images. It is able to produce drastically improved graphics and has been used to make older, lower resolution games look new. Creating the right algorithm takes time and effort, but a single modder is able to upgrade the graphics in a game within a few weeks of work. AI Upscaling uses Generative Adversarial Networks to train algorithms to tell the difference between low-quality and high-quality images. The generated images are not perfect, and many require post-processing. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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The first perovskite solar cell with a commercially viable lifetime is here | Researchers from Princeton University have built perovskite solar cells that last long enough to be commercially viable. Perovskite solar cells are highly efficient and low-cost, but they are also fragile, with the first perovskite solar cells developed lasting barely minutes. The team developed a new technique for testing how solar devices will perform in the long term. The new perovskite solar cells can run at or above 80% of their peak efficiency for 30 years in a city like Princeton. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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A “no math” (but seven-part) | Quantum mechanics have entered into our everyday experience with modern technology, and the importance of quantum effects will only grow in the decades to come. This article is part of a seven-part series that introduces quantum mechanics and explains how it applies to our everyday world. The series promises no maths, no philosophy, and only experimentally verified information. This part of the series answers the deceptively simple question, "How do particles move?" | 4Miscellaneous
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‘Infinite leverage’ — some Robinhood users have been trading with unlimited borrowed money | A bug in the Robinhood stock-trading app has allowed users to trade with 'infinite leverage'. Using Robinhood Gold, users can borrow money to buy stocks. The glitch allowed users to overstate the amount of money users had in their accounts to borrow against. One user claimed they were able to take a $1,000,000 position in stock using only a $4,000 deposit. Robinhood is aware of the issue and is communicating directly with customers. The company has a $7.6 billion valuation with 6 million users. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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2020 Machine Learning Roadmap (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains a roadmap that connects the most important concepts in machine learning, how to learn them, and what tools to use to perform them. It covers the types of problems machine learning solves, the processes to solve these problems, the tools used to build the solution, and the mathematics behind machine learning. Extra resources are also provided. An interactive version and a feature-length film video walkthrough is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Down on the Farm That Harvests Metal From Plants | There are about 700 known plants in the world that thrive in metal-rich soils that other plants can’t grow in. The plants collect metals with roots that act practically like magnets, hoarding the metals to 'ridiculous' levels. These plants could be used as a partial substitute for traditional mining and smelting. Phytomining won't be able to fully replace traditional mining, but it can be used to make toxic soils productive and as a way to clean up former mines and waste while collecting revenue. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Coronavirus: Are there two strains and is one more deadly? | An analysis of 103 cases of the new coronavirus has revealed that there are two strains of the virus, an L-type and an S-type. Viruses constantly mutate, and there are small changes every time the virus infects a new host. Both are involved in the current global outbreak. The L-type, which is more prevalent and thus probably more aggressive, is likely to have evolved from the S-type. Scientists have not identified differences in the viruses yet other than its infection rates. It is important to know how many strains of the virus exist when developing vaccines, as the vaccines will have to be able to target all strains of the virus. Some scientists say that the changes in the virus have been trivial so far and that there is no evidence that the disease has gotten any worse. It is expected that new strains will evolve as people develop immunity to the old strains. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Tesla smart home HVAC: Elon Musk considers the new product again | Elon Musk has been discussing making new smart home HVAC systems for a while, and now the coronavirus outbreak is making the CEO revisit the idea. Tesla has developed HVAC systems and HEPA systems for a few of its vehicles already. According to Tesla, its systems can remove at least 99.97% of fine particulate matter and gaseous pollutants, as well as bacteria, viruses, pollen, and mold spores. Musk has also talked about collecting and utilizing the condensed water produced from these systems, rather than just throwing it away like other similar systems. | 4Miscellaneous
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Raspberry Pi 4 (8GB) | The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just released a Raspberry Pi 4 B with 8GB of RAM for $75. It is identical to the Raspberry Pi 4 B in every way except for the RAM capacity. A 64-bit version of Debian Linux for Raspberry Pi is in the works that will be able to take advantage of the extra RAM to improve performance. The new 8GB Pi has a switch-mode power supply that provides more power for the RAM. Benchmark tests show little difference in performance between the 4GB and 8GB models | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Writing sustainable Python scripts | Python is a great language for writing standalone scripts that can accomplish many tasks in just a dozen to a few hundred lines of code. While it is easy to write useful code, it can also be easy to forget to make the code readable for yourself and future developers. It is helpful to encode documentation, add command-line arguments, enable logging, and include tests in the code so that it is fully annotated and easily understood. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Amazon's Prime Video Cinema hub to corral new theater releases | As everybody goes into lockdown, Hollywood is preparing to release movies to stream on the home market months earlier than planned. Some movies will be released to stream on the same day as their planned theatrical releases. These movies will be released to services such as Amazon, Apple, Fandango, Google Play, Vudu, and YouTube. They will be available to rent for 48 hours. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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LG Display shows off a versatile lineup of transparent OLED screens at CES 2022 | LG Display has unveiled several new concepts that will be on display at CES 2022. The OLED Shelf consists of two transparent OLED displays mounted on top of each other to display art or media on top of shelves. Show Window is a set of four displays that can be used to play media in shop windows. The Shopping Managing Showcase is a display for luxurious department stores to display items and graphics that highlight certain parts of the products. Smart Window is a transparent OLED screen for video calls or presentations in the office. Pictures of some of the concepts are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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AR Cut & Paste (Twitter Thread) | AR Cut & Paste is an AR+ML prototype that can cut elements from surroundings using a smartphone and then paste the element into Photoshop. A 43-second video demo is available that shows the software in action. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Silero Models (GitHub Repo) | Silero Models are pre-trained enterprise-grade speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and text-enhancement models made simple. They provide quality comparable to Google's technology. Benchmark results and examples are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Clipchamp is Microsoft’s new video editing app for Windows 11 | Microsoft will be preinstalling Clipchamp on all new Windows 11 devices. Clipchamp is a browser-based video editing app that supports trimming, splitting, transitions, filters, screen recording, text-to-speech, and more. Microsoft is also rolling out updates for Search and updated designs and names for some apps in Windows 11. The features will roll out gradually over many months. | 4Miscellaneous
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Microsoft hologram speaking Japanese (2 minute video) | In this video, a presenter demonstrates Microsoft's Mixed Reality studio's ability to generate a hologram. The presenter's hologram speaks Japanese to demonstrate a new neural text-to-speech engine that creates speech in a different language using the speaker's voice. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Jet Engine Powered Trucks Easily Clock Over 350 MPH | Trucks powered by jet engines can routinely cross 350 mph. They can even beat planes after giving them a head start. This article gives a brief history of jet engine powered trucks. It includes several videos of the trucks in action. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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simdjson : Parsing gigabytes of JSON per second (GitHub Repo) | JSON documents are everywhere on the internet, and this C++ library is able to parse gigabytes of JSON data in seconds. simdjson uses fewer instructions compared to RapidJSON and sajson, while still fully validating the document. The parser creates an immutable DOM file which can later be accessed. There are instructions on installation and use, as well as performance comparisons with other JSON parsers. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Exclusive: Apple Arcade hands-on with early access trial games on Mac (10 minute read) | Apple has released an early access version of the Apple Arcade aimed at Apple employees for $0.49 per month to test until its iOS 13 launch later in fall. The arcade currently features six games, all still in development. Way of the Turtle is a puzzle platformer featuring a newly-married turtle trying to find his lost wife. Down in Bermuda is a point-and-click style adventure game. Sneaky Sasquatch is a stealth-based action/adventure game. Hot Lava is a first-person action game which is also available on Steam in beta. Kings of the Castle is another action/adventure game, and Frogger in Toy Town is a 3D version of the traditional Frogger game. Apple Arcade will allow subscribers access to over 100 games on demand. | 4Miscellaneous
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Introducing the Android Game Development Kit | The Android Game Development Kit (AGDK) is a range of tools and libraries for developing, optimizing, and delivering high-quality Android games. The libraries were built and tested with performance in mind using C or C++ APIs and they work across many different Android versions. A 16-minute video that introduces the AGDK is available in the article. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Elon Musk says that NASA is free to share all SpaceX IP with “anyone it wants” | Elon Musk has stated clearly that NASA is free to share all of SpaceX's intellectual property with anyone that it wants during an event at SpaceX HQ where NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine was present. The event discussed the current state of SpaceX's commercial crew launch program and the next steps. SpaceX is working on its third major iteration of the Crew Dragon parachute which will ensure the Crew Capsule's safe return to Earth. Bridenstine responded that NASA appreciated the offer to share SpaceX's IP freely, but that the agency has limits on who they should share information with. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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HQ Trivia is back less than two months after the app was shut down | HQ Trivia has returned two months after the app was shut down. The company was acquired by a private investor. Episodes will start to air more regularly in the future, but the schedule is still being figured out. HQ Trivia was a live interactive quiz app that gave out cash prizes. It was very popular, but it faced a series of incidents that led to its demise. Co-founder Rus Yusupov negotiated a deal to bring the app back that involved paying severance to the 25 employees at HQ and paying out players who still had cash winnings pending. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Spotify is in talks to buy Gimlet for more than $200 million. That’s a big deal for the podcasting world | After an unsuccessful attempt at entering into the streaming video market, Spotify is now in talks to acquire Gimlet, the podcast content creator that first introduced the show ‘Homecoming’. While Spotify has bought other companies before, this is the first time Spotify has bought a content creator and distributor. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Ask HN : How to get back in employment market after working on side projects? (Hacker News Thread) | Taking time off work for side projects can mean that you end up with a gap in your resume that future employers might be curious about. Spending time with side projects doesn't mean you're not working, and work that you do for yourself isn't less valuable than work that a boss tells you to do. Treat the side projects as a business and discuss what problems the business solved. People in tech are usually familiar with working on side projects, so they likely relate to your experience. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry? (Hacker News Thread) | People leave the tech industry for many reasons. The idea of working long hours in indoor environments doesn't appeal to a lot of people, and for many, it is just a way to put food on the table. A lot of people from the tech industry work many years to find that they would enjoy working in a less stressful position, with more control over their time and life. While people might have left the tech industry, they still return to tech forums like Hacker News as tech remains their main hobby. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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NASA’s Juno spacecraft finds just how deep Jupiter’s Great Red Spot goes | NASA’s Juno spacecraft has revealed that Jupiter's iconic Great Red Spot extends hundreds of miles into the planet. The storm's diameter is about 10,000 miles wide and between 186 and 310 miles deep. It is so large that the Juno spacecraft was able to measure the small perturbations in gravity produced by the storm as it passed over. These gravity signals were combined with previous microwave measurements to calculate the depth of the storm. While the storm is deep, it is not nearly as deep as some of the surrounding jet streams which extend up to 1,800 miles into the planet. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Inside the subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters | r/LossPrevention is a subreddit where members discuss shoplifting prevention to battle crime. | 4Miscellaneous
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Voice AI is scary good now. Video game actors hate it | A game modder recently released a The Witcher 3 PC mod that uses AI to generate brand-new lines for the characters. Companies are increasing their use of AI voices in game development and it is making voice actors in the industry nervous. Game companies use AI voices for testing purposes and for scenarios where it is impossible to record in advance, for example, when the dialogue requires details generated from players' choices. The ethics of the technology are also complicated, as no one can prohibit synthesizing any voice. A two-minute video showing scenes from the fan-made mod is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Tinder created an interactive show. Gen Z loves it | Swipe Night is a new four-part video series that was released by Tinder this month. An episode aired every Sunday during October in the US and was only available for 6 hours. During each episode, users were able to make choices by swiping left or right. These choices affected the rest of the story. Users were matched with other users depending on the choices they made. Matches on Tinder jumped 26 percent as a result, and messages increased by 12 percent. Tinder is planning an international rollout of the series in February 2020. The plot of the story centers around an apocalyptic scenario where a comet is set to destroy Earth in three hours. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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MindGeek: The secretive owner of Pornhub and RedTube (13 minute read) | MindGeek is the company behind some of the world's largest porn sites. Despite its size, it is relatively unknown as it tries to keep itself out of the spotlight. This article discusses the many controversies that the company has been involved in over the years, including how it built its empire on stolen content, how it forced many production studios and performers out of business, its handling of content takedown requests, and more. MindGeek boasts access to big data on the next level, allowing its employees to uncover user habits overnight that might take other companies months to find. Around 15 terabytes of data is uploaded to its sites every day. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Spotify launches its lightweight listening app Stations in the US | Spotify Stations has launched in the US. Stations is designed for users who wish to have a more radio-like experience rather than having to build their own music playlists. The app keeps things minimalist, with a scrollable list of playlists and tools to customize playlists. Free users will hear ads and won’t be able to skip tracks, unlike premium users, who will have a skippable, ad-free experience. Playlists will customize to the user over time, and users can speed up the process by letting the app know who their favorite artists are. Stations is currently only available in Australia and the US. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Indonesia Plans To Move Its Capital Out Of Jakarta, A City That's Sinking | Indonesia has announced plans to move its capital out of Java, Indonesia’s main island. The current capital city, Jakarta, struggles with pollution, traffic gridlock, and is also sinking. The sinking is mostly due to the extraction of groundwater in the city, which has caused change to the ground levels and polluted surface water resources. While the location of the new capital city has not yet been announced, the government has stated that it is looking for a location on the eastern side of Indonesia. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Amazon rolls out in-store pickup for products ordered from local retailers | Local Selling is a new set of services from Amazon that allows local and regional retailers to offer both in-store pickup and fast delivery to nearby customers. Items that are eligible for store pick-up will have a special tab on the item page. Customers will have five days to collect their orders. Delivery will be facilitated by the business itself. Amazon Local Selling is now available for many retailers, with more to be added later this year and during 2022. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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End to Aids in sight as huge study finds drugs stop HIV transmission | A large scale study has found that antiretroviral drugs which suppressed HIV infections in patients also prevented the virus from spreading to other people. This means that if everyone with HIV went under the same treatment, the virus could possibly be eradicated. The study tracked almost 1,000 male couples where one party was infected with HIV, and while 15 patients contracted the virus, it was through contact with partners that were not involved in the study. In 2017, around 40 million people were infected with HIV worldwide, with around 21.7 million of these people being on antiretroviral treatments. Many people with HIV remain undiagnosed due to lack of access to care and the fear or stigma around contracting the virus. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Writing a "bare metal" operating system for Raspberry Pi 4 (GitHub Repo) | Operating systems help us interact with machines by drawing on screens, processing inputs, working with hardware, and much more. This repository is the beginning of a tutorial on how to write an operating system for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, a low-cost device used by millions of people around the world. An interest in hardware is recommended. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Amazon's own 'Machine Learning University' now available to all developers | Amazon has opened up the curriculum it uses to train its own engineers and data scientists in machine learning to the public. It has 30 courses with 45 hours of videos and labs targeted at developers, data scientists, data platform engineers, and business professionals. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Scientists develop an 'iron-air' battery that stores electricity for days | Form Energy has developed iron air batteries that can store electricity for days at a fraction of the cost of lithium-ion batteries. The batteries are made using iron, one of the most common elements on Earth. They convert iron into rust and back to store and discharge energy. The batteries are too heavy to use in electric cars. Form Energy plans to stack thousands of the washing-machine sized batteries into vast warehouses to store energy from renewable systems. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Rulex (Website) | Rulex is a portable regular expression language. It transpiles Rulex expressions into normal regular expressions. Rulex supports Unicode, number ranges, and variables. It provides error messages that are informative. Examples are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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DeepDream: How Alexander Mordvintsev Excavated the Computer’s Hidden Layers | Google engineers are allowed to spend up to 20 percent of their time on some other Google-related project, which is what allowed Alexander Mordvintsev time to develop DeepDream. DeepDream was created by Mordvintsev after he was inspired to inspect what happened between the layers of a convolutional neural network trained to identify things in images. The results were unique, with the neural network generating images that had portions of the items the network was trained on blended into the original image. | 4Miscellaneous
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Meta warns employees of ‘serious times’ in internal memo listing key product bets | An internal memo at Meta outlines the company's priorities and challenges to its business going forward. Privacy changes are affecting Meta's ad business. Meta will deepen its investments in metaverse products, AI, messaging, Reels, monetization, and meeting new privacy requirements. Its teams will have to prioritize more ruthlessly without the help of new staff or budgets. A full copy of the memo is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Apple's "game-changing" VR headset coming out in January | Apple's VR/AR headset will be released in January 2023, according to Apple insider Ming-Chi Kuo. The mixed reality headset will be the most complicated product Apple has ever designed. It will be a premium product with very high-fidelity displays, Apple silicon power, and a very hefty price tag. The launch of the headset will likely lead to rapid growth in the industry. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Troubleshoot your applications faster with OpenTelemetry and New Relic One (Sponsor) | Troubleshoot your applications faster with OpenTelemetry and New Relic One . OpenTelemetry is an open standard for collecting and exporting data from your services. With tracing already stable and metrics stability fast approaching, learn how to get started with OpenTelemetry for your services and start analyzing your telemetry in New Relic One. | 0Sponsor
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Google Robots.txt Parser and Matcher Library (GitHub Repo) | The Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP) is a standard that allows websites to set rules on which URLs may be accessed by automated clients through a standard text file. As it has been the standard for the past 25 years, there have been many different implementations of parsing the robots.txt file. This repository aims to standardize the parsing process by presenting the code that the Googlebot crawler uses. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Venom Bot (GitHub Repo) | Venom Bot is a system for creating WhatsApp bots. It can send text, images, video, audio, and docs, and interact with other WhatsApp functions. Venom supports sentence recognition based on artificial intelligence and all types of design architecture for WhatsApp. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Real-world photos confirm Samsung’s next flagship phone is called the Galaxy S20 | The next Samsung flagship phone will be the Galaxy S20. XDA Developers published pictures of the new Galaxy S20 Plus, with the startup screen confirming the new name. The new screen has a hole-punch cutout similar to the selfie camera hole in the Galaxy Note 10, and the screen is flatter and less curved on the sides. Samsung's newest device is rumored to contain a regular wide lens, an ultra-wide lens, a macro lens, and a portrait camera. The entire line of Galaxy S20 devices will be announced at Samsung's Unpacked event on February 11. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Build live video products in minutes (Sponsor) | Build live video products in minutes . api.stream is engineered for one purpose – to make it easy to build live streaming tools on world-class architecture. Flexible implementation options with clear documentation – whether adding new features to existing products, automating workflows, or launching an entirely new broadcast suite. As pioneers of cloud-native video, our global architecture has delivered for tech giants including Microsoft, Twitch, and Nvidia. Learn more. | 0Sponsor
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Custom 3D-printed heart valves fit perfectly | Over the next few decades, the demand for heart surgery to repair damage to the valves is set to rise due to an aging population, lack of physical exercise, and poor diet. 3D-printed heart valves are able to be tailored more precisely to a patient compared to current heart valve implants. Using computer tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, researchers can create a digital model and computer simulation to calculate the forces acting on an implant. Unlike traditional transplant methods, using the printed valves will not require a life-long regimen of immunosuppressants or anticoagulants. The method is also cheaper, faster, and the implants last at least as long as the current transplant methods. It will be at least 10 years before the new artificial heart valves will be able to be used in treatments as they have to first go through exhaustive clinical trials. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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