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These 3D-printed homes can be built for less than $4,000 in just 24 hours | New Start, an SF-based housing non-profit, and ICON, a construction-technology company that designs 3D printers, partnered to create the first permitted, 3D printed home in America. Printing the 350-square-foot house cost about $10,000 and took just 48 hours. They believe they can make a 600 to 800 square foot home in just 24 hours for $4,000 or less because this house was built with the printer running at only about 25% capacity. There are pictures of the house in the article, it actually looks very livable and cozy. The test run took place in Austin, Texas, but the team plans to build their first string of homes next year in El Salvador, a country whose rough terrain and frequent floods have made housing construction difficult. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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For the first time ever, travelers can join an expedition to the deepest spot in the oceans | The Challenger Deep is believed to be the deepest point in the world's oceans at a depth of 10,928 meters. A travel company and an undersea diving company have teamed up to offer paid spots to join an expedition to dive to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Until now, only seven people on Earth have visited Challenger Deep. Only three spots are available and they are offered on a first-come, first-serve basis at $750,000 each. The mission will take approximately eight days, with the divers spending up to four hours on the seafloor. No official date has been set for the mission yet. The submarine has been outfitted with comforts such as a 'Sky Bar' and a gym. No formal pre-departure training will be required. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Novel AI System Can Predict Seizures with 99.6% Accuracy Up to an Hour Before They Occur | An artificial intelligence system has been able to detect epileptic seizures in patients with 99.6 percent accuracy up to an hour before they occur. The system combines EEG technology and predictive modeling. It needs to be trained on each individual patient. Researchers are now working on customized hardware in order to make the technology more practical and comfortable for patients. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Pig to human heart transplants 'possible within three years' | On the 40th anniversary of the first successful heart transplant, the surgeon who pioneered heart transplantation in the UK announced that his protege will try to replace a human kidney with a pig's this year. If the operation is successful, the techniques used should be applicable to heart transplants as well. In May, a genetic therapy for treating heart attacks showed promise in pigs, regenerating areas that had been damaged. Millions of people in the UK live with high blood pressure, with an estimated 900,000 people living with heart disease. The pigs who received the genetic treatment showed almost complete recovery of cardiac function after a month. However, many of the pigs died in the experiments as the genes in the treatment expressed in an uncontrolled way. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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AI is sending people to jail—and getting it wrong | The US imprisons 2.2 million adults and has 4.5 million more in correctional facilities (that's 1 in 38 adult Americans). To reduce prison numbers without increasing crime, they are trying to use AI to predict who to let out, where to police, and how to identify suspects. Unfortunately, the AI is based on historical data and mostly targets low-income and minority communities and marks them as having high recidivism scores. Over 100 civil rights groups signed a statement against their use, but more states including California are adopting this tech. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Jacques Cousteau’s Grandson Wants to Build the International Space Station of the Sea (15 minute read) | Jacques Consteau was a legendary explorer and oceanographer who led a series of underwater habitat missions several decades ago. His grandson, Fabien, is leading a project to build the world's largest underwater research station. Proteus will be located at a depth of 60 feet in an area off the coast of Curaçao. The station will allow scientists to study the ocean for 10 to 12 hours a day, with continuous access to deeper waters. Divers staying at Proteus will be able to remain in underwater habitats for an indefinite amount of time without risking decompression sickness. Proteus will feature an opening at the bottom of the habitat that will allow divers to enter and exit through a pressurized chamber. Building the structure will present many challenges and cost an estimated $135 million. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Deep Learning Models (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains a collection of various deep learning architectures, models, and tips. Each topic is divided into subsections for TensorFlow and PyTorch in Jupyter Notebooks. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Bumble is opening a restaurant to go along with their dating app | Bumble is opening a cafe and restaurant in New York City called Bumble Brew. The venue will be a cafe during the day and an intimate restaurant and wine bar at night. It will start opening for breakfast on July 24 with plans of expanding its hours later in the summer. The restaurant was inspired by the success of the Bumble Hive pop-up spaces that the company used in 2017. It will feature an Italian-inspired menu. Bumble plans to host events and schedule programming at the establishment. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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TikTok is rolling out longer videos to everyone | TikTok will increase the maximum length of its videos to three minutes. It has been testing the new limit since December with select users, particularly in categories like cooking. TikTok has not said how the longer clips will affect its recommendation algorithm. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Alexa, Should We Trust You? (10 minute read) | By the end of this year, there will be 100 million smart speakers installed worldwide, with Amazon and Google pushing their speakers so hard that some analysts believe they might be losing money on each unit sold. Some people think that voice assistants are just a change in form factor, that we are just doing things that we would otherwise do with a screen, but the key difference is that we don't just communicate through them, we communicate with them. The author mentions telling her Google Assistant that she "was lonely", and the assistant responded "I wish I had arms so I could give you a hug. But for now, maybe a joke or some music might help." Voices are much more intimate than screens, and our evolution has not prepared us to fully grasp the idea that the thing that we are talking to is not really human. The advance of voice assistants should worry us a lot more than the advance of something like a smartphone, once they become emotionally savvy, they could wield an incredible amount of power over us. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Handsfree.js (GitHub Repo) | Handsfree.js allows developers to quickly integrate face, hand, and/or pose tracking to frontend projects. Examples of implementations are available in the repository. A browser extension is available for browsing the web hands-free using face and/or hand gestures. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Fetch API has landed into Node.js (Hacker News thread) | Fetch API is now available in Node.js. Fetch is a modern browser API for making HTTP requests that is promise-based and designed to give better options around CORS and handling responses. Adding Fetch to Node allows easier re-use of the same application code or libraries on frontend and backend. This thread contains replies from a Node core developer answering questions about the new changes. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Why Chinese sellers are quitting Amazon | Chinese sellers are leaving Amazon due to bans related to artificially inflated ratings. Sellers were repeatedly warned over manipulated reviews. The bans did not target sellers based on nationality. Sellers have been facing increasing costs and restrictions on the platform. Their attempts at gaming Amazon's system were unsuccessful and many have moved to other platforms. Amazon is still recruiting newer and smaller Chinese sellers, proving that Chinese exports are still important to the company. | 4Miscellaneous
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SynthWave '84 - VS Code theme (GitHub Repo) | SynthWave ‘84 is a Visual Studio Code theme inspired by the music and the cover artwork of modern Synthwave bands like FM-84, Timecop 1983, and The Midnight. It is written in plain CSS. The base theme is installed like any other VS Code theme, but if users want to enable the extra glow feature, a little more work is required. Full instructions are available on the repository. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Froala Design Blocks (Bootstrap Components) | Froala has put out v2 of their popular Design Blocks library. It's a bunch of components built on Bootstrap that makes it really easy to make commonly used elements like login/signup forms, headers, pricing tables, testimonials, calls to action etc. It also comes with a simple website builder, that lets you build a quick site with the components and download the html (no signup required!). It's all open source, and there are Sketch/PSD files included for designers. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Facebook Banned Me for Life Because I Help People Use It Less | Unfollow Everything was a Chrome extension that helped Facebook users unfollow all their friends and pages on Facebook, resulting in an empty News Feed. The creator of the extension discovered that their Facebook use dramatically decreased after unfollowing everything. Unfollowing people and pages is not the same as unfriending them as you can still see what people are up to if you want to. After a few months, Facebook sent a cease and desist to the developer and deleted their Facebook and Instagram accounts. This experience highlights Facebook's anti-consumer behavior, showing how the platform acts to limit user choices. | 4Miscellaneous
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BytePS (GitHub Repo) | BytePS is a distributed training framework that supports TensorFlow, Keras, PyTorch, and MXNet. It can run on either TCP or RDMA networks. BytePS is high performing and can run at double the training speed compared with Horovod and NCCL. A step-by-step tutorial, as well as a best practice guide for optimal performance, is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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House Democrats are considering a bill to ban Facebook from the finance industry | A new bill dubbed the ‘Keep Big Tech Out of Finance Act’ is currently being considered by Democrats in Congress. The bill states that large platforms, tech companies with an annual global revenue of $25,000,000,000 or more, may not be affiliated with a financial institution. This would mean that Facebook would not be able to continue with its Libra cryptocurrency project. It is unclear how this will affect companies like PayPal if their annual revenue reaches $25 billion. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin expressed concerns over the Libra cryptocurrency, saying that it could be misused by money launderers and terrorist financiers. The bill has not yet been introduced to Congress, so its contents are not final. | 4Miscellaneous
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Neon (GitHub Repo) | Neon is a serverless alternative to AWS Aurora Postgres. It separates storage and compute to make on-demand scalability possible. Neon adjusts the number of resources dedicated to the compute according to the workload. It is fully compatible with Postgres. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Elon Musk Unveils SpaceX's New Starship, Designed To Fly To The Moon, Mars And Beyond | Since 2002, SpaceX has been working to make space travel cheaper and more accessible. Its Starship is a large vehicle that could theoretically carry people into space and land safely back on Earth. Starship will be able to return to space multiple times using a rapidly reusable orbital rocket. Spaceships need to become more like airplanes, with reusable vehicles, in order for them to be a viable form of transport. SpaceX plans to have more prototypes of Starship built in the next six months. A Japanese billionaire has announced that he has booked a trip as a private passenger with SpaceX for a voyage to the moon next year. SpaceX has partnered with NASA on the Commercial Crew Program to transport crew to and from the International Space Station. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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AI traffic light system could make traffic jams a distant memory | Researchers have developed an AI system that reads live camera footage and adopts traffic lights to keep traffic flowing and reduce congestion. The researchers used deep reinforcement learning to create the system, rewarding it when cars go through a junction and giving it negative feedback when cars have to wait or there is a jam. It was trained through simulations and significantly outperformed all other methods when tested. The program can be set up to view any traffic junction and can learn autonomously. The researchers hope to begin testing their system on real roads this year. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Cows wearing VR headsets might produce better milk | Moscow farmers strapped VR headsets to cows to see if it improved their mood and milk production. The cattle viewed simulated fields with pleasing landscapes via headsets that were adapted to the cows' heads. Tests showed that the headsets reduced the cows' anxiety and boosted their overall sentiment. Further study is still required to see whether the headsets affected the quality or volume of the cows' milk. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Valve Reveals Partnership with OpenBCI to Make VR Gaming More Immersive | Valve founder Gabe Newell thinks that brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) will be the future of entertainment and that it will be coming very soon. He says that by 2022, studios will have them in their test labs. BCI developers could one day create richer experiences than reality can provide. Valve has recently partnered with OpenBCI, a neurotech company that creates open-source, non-invasive BCI devices. OpenBCI had announced that it was making a BCI for VR/AR headsets back in November. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Golang for Node.js Developers (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains a guide for people who have Node.js knowledge that want to learn Go. Developers who know Go who want to learn Node.js may also benefit from the guide. It is assumed that users have gone through the Tour of Go tutorial. The guide will only introduce a high-level understanding of Go. Further work will be required to fully understand the language. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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PyScript (Website) | PyScript is a framework that allows developers to create Python applications in the browser using an HTML interface. Developers can run many popular Python packages and use Python with JavaScript. PyScript has readily available UI components and a flexible and extensible framework. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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This is my new favorite (free) | GitHub Actions is a continuous integration tool that also works as a general-purpose code execution platform. It is built into a website that people use to manage their everyday projects. Projects can be deployed and run using GitHub Actions. This tutorial will show you how to build a weather bot and deploy it using GitHub Actions. It will show you how to securely store environment variables, configure details within repositories, and more. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Facebook also hired human contractors to listen to audio from its Messenger app | Facebook hired third-party contractors to review and transcribe audio clips from users to ensure that conversations were being correctly transcribed in the Messenger app. The feature to transcribe voice clips to text in Messenger is turned off by default. Only those who had opted in to use the feature and the people who they were talking to while using voice to text translation had their anonymized audio clips reviewed for accuracy. According to the support page, the feature uses machine learning to transcribe audio. There is no mention of other human beings as part of the transcribing process. It was recently discovered that other companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon have been using human contractors to review audio from customers without their explicit consent. Amazon has since allowed users to opt-out, Apple has completely stopped the practice, and Google continues to defend the use of contractors. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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We Chat, They Watch: How International Users Unwittingly Build up WeChat’s Chinese Censorship Apparatus (32 minute read) | WeChat communications among non-China-registered accounts are monitored for content that is politically sensitive in China. This includes documents, images, and chat messages. It was previously thought that monitoring was reserved only for China-registered accounts. Content that is deemed politically sensitive is used to train WeChat's Chinese political censorship system. It is unknown whether other Chinese companies use customer data in similar ways. | 4Miscellaneous
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Flowy (GitHub Repo) | Flowy is a JavaScript library that can create WebApps with flowchart functionality. It supports responsive drag and drop, automatic snapping, block rearrangement, deleting blocks, and automatic block centering. A gif demo is available on the repository and a link to a working demo is provided. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Pixel will be able to stream Android apps to your Chromebook or PC | The first Android 13 Developer Preview built for Pixel phones includes two Cross Device service apps dedicated to connecting Pixels to other devices. The apps allow users to stream between a Pixel phone and a special web app. Apps can be interacted with as if they were natively open on the desktop. The feature generates an entirely separate virtual display rather than monitoring the phone's screen. Screenshots and videos showing the feature are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Snap To Release New Spectacles With Two Cameras For $350 | Snap is planning on releasing a two-camera, $350 version of its Spectacle glasses by the end of year. The new Spectacles will have a more premium frame made of aluminum and the two cameras will allow Spectacle owners to produce augmented reality and 3D effects in videos. Snap has ordered roughly 24,000 pairs of these new Spectacles. Despite its financial troubles, and the lukewarm reception of the first generation Spectacles, CEO Evan Spiegel still maintains that hardware is an important part of Snap's future, and that in a one or two decades, computing will be "actually overlaid on the world and not confined to a small screen on your phone." | 1Big Tech & Startups
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A new breakthrough could turn windows into active solar panels | A team of researchers has created perovskite cells with a conversion efficiency of 15.5% that allow more than 20% of visible light through. The technology will allow solar windows to reach glazing levels, making them more useful for real-world applications. The new cells display exceptional long-term stability when tested under constant illumination and heating, making them appealing candidates for scaled device manufacture. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Tesla has a secret lab trying to build its own battery cells to reduce dependence on Panasonic | Tesla has begun to manufacture its own battery cells in an effort to reduce dependence on Panasonic. This may mean that production costs will be lowered and current deals to share data and information with outside vendors or partners will be ended. Elon Musk has acknowledged that innovation has been limited at Tesla due to its current batteries. Musk has been trying to achieve vertical integration with all levels of manufacturing within Tesla. In the past month, Tesla has been posting job listings for engineers with experience in battery cell design, producing battery cells, and manufacturing processes to make batteries. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Dating app Bumble preparing for an IPO above $6 billion | Bumble is preparing for an Initial Public Offering early next year, possibly seeking a valuation of between $6 billion to $8 billion. No plans have been finalized and the timing of the IPO could change. The pandemic forced several companies to postpone their debuts earlier this year, but the US capital markets have made a stunning recovery. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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What’s Observability and Why does it matter? (Sponsor) | What’s Observability and Why does it matter? . Angry tweets are a fact of life if you run a business – but what if you could find problems before your customers do? Observability is the secret sauce to knowing what’s happening in your product from start to finish, in real-time. Learn more about Observability in the award-winning Beginner’s Guide to Observability from Splunk. Download for free. | 0Sponsor
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I charged $18,000 for a Static HTML Page | Ibrahim Diallo, a freelance web-designer who was used to hopping from project to project, talks about his experience where he was offered a fairly easy project at a large company. The project involved designing a static HTML page, a job which he estimated would take him only a few hours, but the company also wanted his exclusive attention to the project. After quoting the company 20 hours, he then spent most of his time waiting for the work to be sent to him. The project ended up taking seven weeks due to delays in receiving the required materials to complete it. After everything was done, Diallo calculated that if he went with his original quote, $1,500 for a 20 hour project, he would’ve ended up being paid a total of $5.35 an hour. In the end, he quoted the company for $18,000, the same rate he originally quoted, accounting for the extended time. A manager wrote back breaking down the actual time he worked and it resulted in a quote of $21,000, which he was asked to confirm. Diallo quickly confirmed the quote. | 4Miscellaneous
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Walt Disney Imagineering is developing walking animatronics | Disney's Imagineering team's newest robotic initiative is about building extreme Marvel and Star Wars characters such as The Incredible Hulk and Yoda. Project Kiwi aims to create advanced robotics to bring characters that humans can't believably play to life. Robots won't replace cast members, but park guests will soon be able to see non-human characters walking around. Some characters will be combinations of humans with animatronics. While iconic attractions will probably stay, their old animatronics will likely be replaced with more believable and mobile ones in the future. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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I test in prod (12 minute read) | Testing in production happens all the time, but many engineers don't admit to it. If they were honest about testing in production, then the whole experience could be a lot smoother, as safeguards and testing parameters could be put in place in case of failure. Once deployed, it is the systems that are being tested, rather than the code. Systems can have factors that cause instability that are hard to predict. Some bugs can't be found until the code has been deployed. It is important to manage risks by planning ahead for issues. Only production code represents reality, and testing in production is the only way to build high-quality programs. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Tesla confirms plan to open Supercharger network to other automakers next year | Tesla will open up its Supercharger network to other automakers by September 2022. The network is the most extensive electric vehicle fast-charging network in the world. It has over 25,000 Superchargers at over 2,700 stations globally. The decision to share the network will depend on how costs will be divided. Tesla uses a proprietary plug on its vehicles and charging stations in North America. It will be easier to open up its network in Europe, where there is a standard connector for the region. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Kyverno (GitHub Repo) | Kyverno is a policy engine designed for Kubernetes. It manages policies as Kubernetes resources and it is compatible with kubectl, kustomize, and Git. Kyverno can validate, mutate, and generate configurations using admission controls and background scans. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Five Easy to Miss PostgreSQL Query Performance Bottlenecks | Using common sense to write PostgreSQL queries can lead to performance issues. This article describes five examples of optimizing seemingly obvious queries. It covers searching by function call, searching by pattern, ordering by NULLS LAST, bloated null_indexes, and updating transaction scopes. Many issues with PostgreSQL only start emerging with a large enough dataset and traffic, so it is essential to monitor production performance to keep things running at an optimal speed. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Ryan Kaji, 9, earns $29.5m as this year's highest-paid YouTuber | Ryan Kaji, a nine-year-old boy who makes unboxing and review videos on YouTube, has held onto the title of highest-paid YouTuber for the third year running. Kaji made $29.5 million from his YouTube channel and a further estimated $200 million from branded toys and clothing. His family runs nine YouTube channels, with Ryan's World being the most popular with 41.7 million subscribers. Kaji and his family are facing the threat of a US FTC investigation over allegations that their videos' sponsors were not properly disclosed. The top ten biggest-earning YouTube stars earned a total of $211 million this year. A list of the top ten YouTube earners is available at the end of the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Researchers Create Soil Catalyst to Make Farming on Mars a Reality | Perchlorate is a dangerous chemical compound that is found in abundance in Martian soil. It is also used in rocket propellants and other explosives. The contaminant can cause thyroid and lung problems. Breaking down perchlorate on Mars could provide useful ingredients for rocket fuel and life support. A team of scientists has developed a bioinspired catalyst that can destroy 99 percent of perchlorate at ambient temperatures and pressures. Some microbes can break down perchlorate, but it can take weeks or months. The new catalyst can complete the process much faster and can work for very challenging concentrations. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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23 Alternative Career Paths that Software Developers Can Grow Into (28 minute read) | Being a software engineer doesn't just mean a lifetime of working in software development. Many other jobs require software development skills, for example, technical writing, developer marketing, and project management. This article has a list of 23 alternative career paths for software developers with each section describing the role and how to start getting into the field. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Payments giant Stripe debuts a credit card in its latest step into the financing fray | Stripe has launched the Stripe Corporate Card, a Visa credit card that is open to businesses that are incorporated in the US. There is no interest rate or fee to use the card, but customers are expected to pay their balance in full each month. Accounts will not be frozen for non-payment. Stripe's strategy is to bring more customers into its payment ecosystem in order to keep them from migrating to other services. Credit cards are a cornerstone of how many businesses operate. The credit card is funded by the same funding that Stripe Capital uses, and businesses will qualify for it based on their existing revenues on Stripe payment platforms. | 4Miscellaneous
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Google tells employees in Bay Area and other U.S. locations to return to offices in April | Google will start having employees in the Bay Area and several other US locations return to the office starting the week of April 4. The steady decline in cases means the company can officially begin the transition to the hybrid work week. Employees will return to the office based on local conditions. Most workers will come to the office three days a week and have two days of remote work. The company has dropped its mask and testing mandates for fully vaccinated employees and reopened its amenities. | 4Miscellaneous
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“It’s a bloodbath”: U.S. companies are pillaging Latin America’s tech talent | The demand for tech talent is making it difficult for Latin American tech companies to find developers. Many developers are being hired by US companies for much more than local companies can afford. Workers are more interested in working for large US companies than local startups, despite the boom in the Latin American startup ecosystem last year. Local startups have to hire non-English speakers or find other incentives, such as stock options, to attract employees. Some have even started hiring from other countries. | 4Miscellaneous
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A New 0.4-MM-Thick 'Paper Battery' Can Power a Small Fan for 45 Minutes | Scientists from Singapore have developed paper-thin biodegradable zinc batteries. The batteries are made up of electrodes screen-printed onto both sides of a sheet of hydrogel-reinforced cellulose paper, coated with a layer of gold foil. They are flexible and about 0.4mm thick. When buried in soil, the batteries will break down completely within a month. The batteries could potentially be used to power wearables, foldable smartphones, and biomedical sensors. A video demonstrating the various properties of the batteries is available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Amazon details new warehouse robots, 'Ernie' and 'Bert' | Amazon is testing out two new robots, Ernie and Bert, to try to reduce strenuous movements for workers. The robots are designed to allow workers to focus on tasks while minimizing their potential for injury. Ernie helps remove items from a robotic shelf, and Bert can navigate independently and deliver items around facilities for workers. Amazon recently set a goal to reduce recordable incident rates in half by 2025, with plans to invest more than $300 million into safety projects this year. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Magic Grid (GitHub Repo) | This is an open source Javascript library for dynamic grid layouts. This makes it easy to have a bunch of grid items that aren't the same height, and it automatically reshuffles the tiles when a window is increased or decreased in size. Looks really cool if you're building any sort of directory style website with a lot of pictures. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Apple reportedly planning three iPhones for 2019, one with new triple-camera system | Apple will unveil three new iPhones this year, one with an LCD screen that will be a successor to the iPhone XR. The high end phone will have 3 rear cameras to compete with new multi-camera Android phones. They are considering going OLED-only for their 2020 iPhones which could raise prices. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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These Scientists Just Completed a 3D ‘Google Earth’ for the Brain | The Julich-Brain is a probabilistic map of human brains that accounts for individual differences using a computational framework. It is dynamic, continually changing to incorporate more recent brain mapping results. The Julich-Brain is essentially a neuromapping API that could unite previous brain mapping methods with more modern methods. The map currently has data from over 24,000 sections from 23 postmortem brains covering most years of adulthood at the cellular level. Using a probabilistic map is far more precise than using the brain's visible landmarks as these landmarks can differ between people. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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KeyDB (GitHub Repo) | KeyDB is a high-performance fork of Redis, an in-memory database, which focuses on multithreading, memory efficiency, and high throughput. It can perform twice as many queries per second as Redis, with 60% lower latency. KeyDB was created as the developers of Redis have stated that they will not support multithreading and the KeyDB team wanted open-source implementations of features from proprietary modules. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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This Tech Conference Is Being Held on an Animal Crossing Island | A free tech conference called Deserted Island DevOps was held on April 30th. The event was held inside the game Animal Crossing and it was streamed live on Twitch.tv. Speakers held talks on an Animal Crossing island build specifically for the conference. More than 1,000 people registered for the event, | 4Miscellaneous
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Neural net-generated memes are one of the best uses of AI on the internet | A website from Imgflip automatically generates captions for memes using a neural network. Users can pick from 48 meme templates and they can generate as many captions as they want. The neural network was trained using images uploaded to Imgflip's meme maker. Memes containing profanity were not filtered out of the training data, so the generated memes may contain adult language. A link to the generator and examples of generated memes are available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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How Circle could create a U.S.-backed digital currency | Circle has announced its intention to become a fully regulated bank. Its aim is to become a narrow bank that places all deposits on reserve at the central bank. If this were achieved, USDC would become a cryptocurrency fully backed by the Federal Reserve. Circle would profit off the interest that the Fed pays on bank reserves. Previous attempts by other companies to do narrow banking in the US have failed as the Fed doesn't like the idea. Circle has yet to initiate the process of applying to be a bank. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Endnotes on 2020: Crypto and Beyond (20 minute read) | 2020 was a good year to ponder how we should re-evaluate our models of the world. As the 'real world' shut down, the internet became supercharged. The internet has introduced a different type of value to the economy. A lot of older laws and ways of looking at things need to catch up to current technologies. This article discusses Vitalik Buterin's thoughts on the changing role of economics, digital nationalism, the importance of culture, big business, and more. | 4Miscellaneous
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Does Bionic Reading actually work? Test for yourself! | Bionic Reading is a typographical technology that is supposed to increase reading speed. It involves bolding the first few letters of each word. The system claims to deliver faster reading speed with no loss of comprehension. A study of the system found that Bionic Reading slightly increased reading speed, but there was not enough evidence to suggest that the difference in reading speed was significant. It also lowered comprehension. A link for readers to test out Bionic Reading for themselves is available at the end of the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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The world's first underwater roundabout is opening in the Faroe Islands | The first underwater roundabout will soon open below the Atlantic Ocean, linking up two of the Faroe Islands. It lies at the end of an 11km-long tunnel which cuts the travel time between the two islands down from more than an hour to just 16 minutes. With its jellyfish-shaped design, the roundabout is set to be a tourist attraction in its own right. Construction of the tunnel started in 2016 and it will open on December 19. Cars will be charged a toll for each one-way journey, or commuters can pay for a yearly subscription. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Pfizer’s announcement shows the promise of gene-based vaccines | The announcement from Pfizer and BioNTech this week regarding their vaccine is good news for other coronavirus vaccines based on the same genetic technology. Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine is a gene-based vaccine, based on mRNA that contains instructions for our cells to carry out. Gene-based vaccines are relatively simple to develop and manufacture. However, the FDA has never approved its use in humans. The data from the studies still needs to be reviewed and the vaccine has still not yet been approved, but in theory, they should be very effective. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Exclusive: Google asked 5,600 employees about remote work. This is what they learned | Google conducted a two year study on remote work and has released findings on how to make the most out of distributed teams. The researchers found that remote workers were usually as productive as office teams. However, a few optimizations to the team would help productivity and morale, such as scheduling convenient meeting times, developing real relationships between the team, using the right team communication platforms, and making sure that clear expectations are set. These changes would help remote employees feel less frustrated and disconnected from their teams. | 4Miscellaneous
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The Men Who Try to Hack Tinder to Score Hotter Women | Tinder has an algorithm that determines who shows up as a potential match. The details of this algorithm aren't public, but people have attempted to game the system to get a better experience on the app. There is a desirability score based on the Elo rating system, which is used to rank the skills of chess players. The more right swipes a person receives, the higher their score. This is moderated by how attractive the person who swiped right was. Users can pay in order to gain features in the app that help them match with people better. Discussions on the Tinder subreddit suggest that users can gain a better rating by being pickier and more interactive with matches. Other tricks include resetting the Tinder account or changing locations. | 4Miscellaneous
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What the f*ck Python! (GitHub Repo) | Python is a high-level and interpreter-based programming language that provides many features for the programmer's comfort. Some of the uses for these features might not be obvious at first. This repository contains examples of these features, explanations for how they work, and other interesting tidbits about Python. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Experimental drug holds promise for treating the coronavirus | At least two hospitalized patients diagnosed with COVID-19 have quickly recovered after receiving a drug called remdesivir. Remdesivir has also shown promise in treating MERS, another type of coronavirus. The drug appeared to have an immediate effect, but it is too early to tell whether it was due to the drug or whether the patient would have recovered anyway. Remdesivir is now in clinical trials, with results expected in late April. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Exclusive: Amazon Confirms First Known Coronavirus Case in an American Warehouse | Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Queens, New York, have been informed that a coworker had tested positive for COVID-19. This may impact Amazon's operations significantly at a time when many people are stuck at home and ordering products online. Amazon is already struggling to meet demand. Two office workers at Amazon's Seattle headquarters were also diagnosed with the disease. The Queens facility is deep cleaned daily and is now temporarily closed. Employees at the facility were sent home with full pay. | 4Miscellaneous
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Watch as choked up executive tells 3,500 rideshare employees they are being laid off effective immediately over a three-minute ZOOM call | Thousands of Uber employees were laid off during a three-minute Zoom call last week. Uber's business has dropped by more than half and there is no longer enough work for many frontline customer support employees. Employees will continue to stay on Uber's payroll until the date on their severance packages. Uber expects to pay out around $20 million in costs for severance and related charges. A link to a recording of the call is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Carbon dating, the archaeological workhorse, is getting a major reboot | Radiocarbon dating is about to be recalibrated using new data from around the world. The last calibration update was in 2013. This new update will extend the time frame for radiocarbon dating back to 55,000 years ago. The amount of carbon-14, the natural radioactive carbon used in carbon dating, varies over time and location. As a result, conversion tables are used to match up calendar dates with radiocarbon dates in different regions. The update will mean many objects and events will be more accurately dated, giving us a clearer view of our planet's history. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Not-paid (GitHub Repo) | Not-paid is a script for web designers to add to their websites just in case clients refuse to pay for work. Users simply set a due date for payment and then add the code to the head tag of the site, and once the due date is over the site will become increasingly opaque until it disappears altogether. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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AI-designed protein awakens silenced genes, one by one | Researchers have developed a method to turn on individual dormant genes by combining CRISPR technology with a protein designed by artificial intelligence. The technique disables the chemical switches that silence the genes so that they can be expressed. It will allow researchers to understand the role of individual genes in various stages of development. The approach can control gene activity without permanently changing the genome. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Sony’s Funimation acquires anime streaming service Crunchyroll for $1.175 billion | Sony Picture Entertainment Inc. has bought Crunchyroll through Funimation, its American anime distributor. The deal is estimated to be worth $1.175 billion. By adding Crunchyroll to its portfolio, Sony will achieve more influence over Japan's anime industry. Sony has been involved in anime production for decades and it has been strengthening its portfolio of international streaming services through acquisitions over the last five years. Crunchyroll has been growing its brand successfully in recent years, launching a yearly convention in 2017, creating its own games publishing label in 2018, and purchasing the European branch of Viz media in 2019. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Iran’s Insoluble Paradox of Cutting Off the Internet | Recent unrest in Iran has resulted in internet blackouts over the weekend. The Iranian government has denied a cover-up after an airliner was shot down last week. There was a drop in Iran's international internet access on Saturday and Sunday, and a drop in connectivity at Tehran's Sharif University on Monday ahead of any new demonstrations. Iran has used internet blackouts as a form of control during other periods of civil unrest. There is a high cost to the country's economy every time the internet is disconnected. Iran lost $1.5 billion within four days during a blackout in November. The blackouts are causing more Iranians to be aware of their oppression from their government and the power of the internet. | 4Miscellaneous
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Bitcoin plunges 26%, its sharpest selloff in 7 years | Bitcoin has plummeted by 26% in its worst daily selloff in seven years. The digital currency has lost nearly a third of its value in the past five days. While many people believed that crypto investments were immune to the current stock market volatility, the recent downturn is evidence that the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the markets. Bitcoin passed the $10,000 mark in early February. Despite the downturn, it is still up by over 50% over the past 12 months. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Laser pincers generate antimatter by recreating neutron star conditions | A team of physicists has outlined a new way to create antimatter by reproducing the conditions near a neutron star using lasers. Antimatter is like regular matter except that its particles have the opposite charge. Much is still unknown about it due to its scarcity and instability. The new method involves firing two powerful lasers at a plastic block in a pincer motion, causing clouds of electrons to shoot off and collide with electrons coming the other way from the other laser. This causes a reaction that creates antimatter, which can then be focused using magnetic fields. The concept has yet to be tested, but simulations show that the principle is feasible. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Kamikaze Bacteria: Dying Bacteria Self-Sacrifice to Save their Colony | Bacteria have several strategies for surviving antibiotics, including developing genetic resistance, hiding in protective biofilm, or delaying their own growth. Scientists at Princeton and California State University-Northridge have found a new tactic that involves bacteria self-sacrificing themselves to save others. The scientists found that some bacteria would absorb large amounts of antibiotics so that other bacteria can survive. Identifying this behavior has potentially paved the way for research into new ways to develop antibiotics that can specifically target cells that aren't already dying. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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fontpreview (GitHub Repo) | fontpreview is a command-line tool for searching and previewing local fonts. It uses a fuzzy search provided by fzf. fontpreview is highly customizable and can be configured through command-line flags or using environment variables. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Dating app Bumble gives workers the week off to recover from burnout | Bumble's 700 employees were given this week off as paid vacation to help them with burnout. The week off is in addition to the company's normal vacation allowance. Bumble was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in February, raising $2.2 million in its initial public offering. It has been a busy year for the company. Social media management platform Hootsuite also made a similar announcement recently, but it will stagger schedules for staff so that customers don't experience interruptions in their services. | 4Miscellaneous
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Facebook skirts Apple’s App Store fees with custom subscription links for creators | Facebook creators will soon be able to share custom web links to direct their fans to pay for subscriptions using Facebook's native payments system. The subscription feature is available in 27 countries to creators who meet certain eligibility requirements. Creators will receive all of the subscription money minus taxes if users sign up through the custom web link, as opposed to using Apple's in-app subscription. Apple takes a 30% cut of all in-app transactions processed through its system. Facebook is not charging creators for subscription transactions until at least 2023, and it will start paying creators a bonus of up to $20 for every new subscriber who signs up using their custom web link. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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NASA is offering private companies up to $2.6 billion to get the US back to the moon's surface | NASA is offering $2.6 billion in contracts to nine American companies to get back to the moon's surface by 2022. The idea is to use these contracts as an incentive to drive private sector competition and get the cost of space travel down for everyone. Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, says "When we go to the moon, we want to be one customer of many customers in a robust marketplace between the Earth and the moon." NASA has bigger goals, they want to figure out how to get useful resources on the Moon back to Earth and build a permanent lunar space station to launch further deep space exploration. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Markdown-Tag (GitHub Repo) | Markdown-Tag adds support to any website for adding markdown anywhere with a simple tag. Users just have to include a script at the bottom of their HTML documents and then they can add markdown or markdown with GitHub styling. The GitHub-flavored markdown syntax is still not 100% correct. Examples and demos are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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You can now deepfake yourself into a celebrity with just a few clicks | A new iPhone app called Impressions lets you create deepfakes of celebrities with just a few clicks. Example videos are available in the article. Users just need to film and upload a short video. The video is then processed on a server and the deepfake video is returned in a few minutes. Impressions stores user videos until they are deleted from the app. Impressions plans to eventually use user-uploaded videos to develop deepfake detection models in the future. | 4Miscellaneous
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direnv (GitHub Repo) | direnv is an extension for shell that adds the ability to load and unload environment variables depending on the current directory. It supports hooks for all common shells. direnv is language agnostic. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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It’s About Time! The Future is Built on InfluxDB (Sponsor) | Join tech leaders on May 17 at 9am PT (4pm GMT) online as they discuss how time series unlocks the potential of IoT and moves the world of application and software forward. Save your spot! | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Apple denies favoring its own apps over competitors’ in App Store search results | Apple claims that it doesn't favor its own apps in the App Store's search results. However, less popular Apple apps often rank higher than better-reviewed software from competing developers. For example, in the books and map categories, even though Apple's offerings are far less popular than their competitors, its apps rank highest. Apple has suggested in the past that all apps under two stars should be removed from the store, but this idea was never realized as it would mean removing Apple's own Podcasts app, which had less than two stars at the time. Many of Apple's apps no longer have ratings attached. Apple has been facing controversy against its App Store business as users and developers are finding its practices to be unfair. | 4Miscellaneous
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Apple will reportedly release films in theaters weeks before they come to Apple TV Plus | Apple may be rolling out some of its biggest original films in theaters before they become available on Apple TV Plus. The films will be distributed via boutique distributors and will be available on Apple TV Plus just a few weeks after the theater release. Apple's films are all possible Oscar contenders this year. Netflix has never given a movie a 12-week theater release and has never had a movie play in a major national theater chain. Apple's strategy of releasing movies in theaters first may help it attract talent. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Checklist Design (Website) | Checklist Design is a collection of the best UX and UI practices. The page lists topics regarding different types of pages and page components. Each topic has features that should appear on every page, additional options for these features, and also resources for further research into best practices. Many topics are still being written, and suggestions for the page can be tweeted directly to the page owner. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Elon Musk won’t join Twitter board, can thus exceed 14.9% ownership cap | Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has announced that Elon Musk won't be joining Twitter's board of directors. If Musk had joined the board, he would have been barred from owning more than 14.9% of the company during his time on the board and for 90 days after. There is a high likelihood that Musk will take a more hostile stance toward Twitter and increase his active stake in the company. Musk recently tweeted a series of criticisms, suggestions, and jokes about the social media platform. He has since deleted most of the tweets except for one that asks whether Twitter is dying. | 4Miscellaneous
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Stripe built a payments powerhouse by focusing on e-commerce. Now it's following its customers into bricks and mortar. | Popular online payments service Stripe is now offering brick and mortar stores a way to collect payments, charging a 2.7% + 5 cents fee on each payment collected with Stripe Terminal (an in person payment platform). Warby Parker and Glossier are already planning to use the solution, and Stripe believes that its technology will be a key differentiator. Cofounder John Collison says "The question we started asking ourselves was, 'Can we make the offline world as simple as the online word?' and we think it's very much possible." | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Microsoft and GitHub Workers Support 996.ICU (GitHub Repo) | Workers in China are often illegally forced to work long hours. 996.ICU refers to the 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week work schedule which causes workers to end up in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Microsoft and GitHub workers have released a public statement in this repository regarding their support for the 996.ICU movement, which is already being censored by companies like Tencent and Alibaba. People can support the 996.ICU movement by going to the original repository and ‘starring’ it. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Google Chrome's new Journeys feature helps you find that tab you just lost | Journeys is a new feature in Google Chrome that groups items in a user's search and browsing history by subject or topic. Users will see an option to resume their research when typing related words into the search bar. The option will show a list of relevant sites from their history. It will show sites with the most interaction at the top. The feature will only group search history on individual devices. It will roll out with the next update. | 4Miscellaneous
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React-Location (GitHub Repo) | React-Location is a router for client-side React applications. It features asynchronous routing, a deeply integrated search params API, route filtering and ranking, and more. A sandbox example is available on the main website. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Hate Needles? This Robot Delivers Vaccines Without Them | Cobi is a versatile robotics platform that can create completely automated robots. The company recently revealed a version of the robot that can deliver injections using a high-pressure fluid jet to demonstrate the technology. Cobi can be programmed for use in the cleantech and hospitality industries. It will still be a few years before the robot will be ready to go to market. A video showing a person receiving an injection from the robot is available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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LG developing sliding doors made of transparent OLED displays | LG, in partnership with Swedish manufacturer Assa Abloy Entrance Systems, has announced that it is developing automatic sliding doors with built-in transparent OLED displays. The company unveiled a range of transparent signage early last year, and they are now being used for real-world applications, for example, in the windows of subway carriages in China and for the displays in Panasonic and Xiaomi's transparent OLED TVs. Samsung had experimented with transparent OLED displays in the past, but it has stopped developing the technology. LG did not announce a release date for its high-end doors. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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dorking - how to find anything on the Internet | 'Dorking' is the term for using search engines to find very specific data. It can be used to find emails, webpages, files, coupons, SEO keywords, potential vulnerabilities, and more. This page contains a quick guide to dorking, with examples that can be copied and pasted directly into Google. A list of useful operators (components of a search query that narrow the results down) is available at the end of the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Google.com dark mode is rolling out to everyone | Google.com is rolling out a dark mode to every user over the next few weeks. It can be switched on through the Google.com settings under a new 'Appearance' section if the feature has been enabled on the account. Screenshots of the new mode are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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DNA Gets Artificial Upgrade to Store Humanity's Boundless Digital Data | DNA can store a lot of data for a very long time. A gram of DNA can store several petabytes of data. DNA uses a system of four molecules called nucleotides to encode its information. A team of scientists added another seven nucleotides to DNA to increase its storage capacity. The method they used was able to encode and decode information perfectly over many trials. The decoding part of their method is universal, so it can be generalized to many other applications. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Use FusionAuth for Your Side Project - Free Auth (Sponsor) | Does your side project need login/registration? Get auth up and running in 5min. SSO, MFA, and more right out of the box. Best part? It's free forever! (unlimited users, no CC or subscription required) Get started today! | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Beast (GitHub Repo) | Beast is a build system designed for the purpose of power, speed, and productivity. | 4Miscellaneous
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FuzzBench (GitHub Repo) | FuzzBench is a free service that evaluates fuzzers on a variety of real-world benchmarks. It was designed to make fuzzing research easier to evaluate and adopt. Fuzzbench features an easy-to-use API, benchmarks from real-world projects, and a reporting library. A sample report is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Travis Kalanick severs all ties with Uber, departing board and selling all his shares | Travis Kalanick, former Uber CEO and co-founder, has sold all his stock in the company and will step down from the board effective December 31. His stake in the company was estimated to be worth around $2.5 billion. Kalanick will be launching CloudKitchens, a startup that rents out space to restauranteurs for delivery-based businesses. Uber has yet to find a replacement for Kalanick. Kalanick has been selling his shares in Uber since the company's stock lockup period expired last month. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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