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Otto (GitHub Repo) | Otto is an intelligent chat application that can help machine learning engineers implement an idea with minimal domain knowledge. It received a third-place prize at the 2020 Facebook AI Challenge hackathon series. It features a beginner-friendly design, powerful machine learning tools, and an educational experience. A link to a working version is available | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Where the sun always shines: Putting solar in space | Caltech received over $100 million in August to foster the development of space-based power. A space-based solar panel would get 30 percent more photons than on the ground, and they're available 24/7. While the generating system will sometimes be at less optimal angles, the net power generated would still be significantly more than on Earth. This article discusses Caltech's design for its space-based power system, detailing the challenges in designing the system and how they were overcome. Caltech plans to do a space-based demo of the system by early 2023. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Apple will reduce App Store cut to 15 percent for most developers starting January 1st | Apple will reduce its App Store commission rate to 15 percent for developers who earn less than $1 million in annual sales per year from all of their apps. The new App Store Small Business Program will be available to the vast majority of iOS app developers. Last year, the App Store generated an estimated $50 billion in revenue. Apple did not reveal how much of its revenue will be affected by the reduced commission. The new small business program will begin on January 1. Developers will have to apply for the program. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Mani (GitHub Repo) | Mani is a CLI tool for managing multiple repositories. It can clone multiple repositories in one command and run custom or ad-hoc commands over multiple repositories. Mani is portable and it features declarative configuration, flexible filtering, and auto-completion support. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Botnet that hid for 18 months boasted some of the coolest tradecraft ever | A botnet group called UNC3524 has spent the past 18 months breaking into networks with unusual stealth. It uses a unique backdoor that runs on devices that don't support antivirus or endpoint detection. The backdoor uses file names and creation dates similar to legitimate files on the infected device and favors common Windows programming interfaces and tools over custom code. It also used an unusual method to connect to attacker-controlled infrastructure. Details about the botnet are available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Walking sharks discovered in the tropics | Researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia have discovered four new species of tropical sharks that use their fins to walk. The walking sharks were the top predator on reefs during low tides due to their ability to walk in very shallow water. At less than a meter long on average, the sharks are more of a threat to small crustaceans and mollusks than they are to humans. The walking sharks live in the coastal waters around northern Australia and the island of New Guinea. There are now a total of nine known types of walking shark. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Modern Node (GitHub Repo) | Modern Node is a pre-configured toolkit for modern node modules. Developers can test projects, format all files in a project with prettier-standard, lint files, and format and lint staged changes. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Facebook acquires neural interface startup CTRL-Labs for its mind-reading wristband | Facebook has acquired CTRL-Labs, a neural interface startup that makes a wristband capable of translating electrical signals from the brain into computer input. The deal is the most substantial acquisition Facebook has made since acquiring Oculus VR. CTRL-Labs' wristband will allow for the development of new ways of interacting with machines. The acquisition of CTRL-Labs represents Facebook's commitment to futuristic tech. It has recently been revealed that Facebook is designing two different models of AR glasses which are prime candidates for CTRL-Labs' interface technology. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Scientists: Octopuses Love to Fling Objects at Each Other | Octopuses will deliberately throw things at other octopuses, a behavior that hints at advanced social dynamics among the creatures. New footage showing a female octopus throwing silt at a male 10 times in a row after he attempted to mate with her led scientists to conclude that the behavior was intentional. Octopuses have been observed punching fish out of spite, so this is not the first time octopuses have been found to be moody. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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VS Code theme studio (Website) | VS Code theme studio helps you easily design, deploy, and share VS Code themes. A marketplace with existing themes is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Free Auth for any Project - Learn Authentication with FusionAuth (Sponsor) | Get authentication and authorization up and running in minutes for your side project or POC. User registration, SSO, MFA, and more. Download and learn it on your own. Free forever with FusionAuth Community! | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Elon Musk says Tesla will stop accepting bitcoin for car purchases, citing environmental concerns | Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using bitcoin due to concerns over the increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining. The price of bitcoin dropped 5% in the minutes following the announcement. Tesla had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin earlier this year and it has supported other cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin. The company is looking at other cryptocurrencies that use less energy per transaction. Tesla will not sell the bitcoin it already has. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Scientists have discovered a shape that blocks all sound–even your co-workers | A team at Boston University have created an ‘acoustic meta-material’ that is able to catch certain frequencies from the air and reflect it back to its source, effectively creating a sound barrier. The 3D-printed ring was mathematically designed and is completely open, which means that air and light can pass through it, but not sound. This design can be applied to HVAC systems, drones, MRI machines, and used to create quiet and visible office spaces. There is no limit to the possibilities for this material, but each application will need a tailored design. A 30 second video is available demonstrating the effectiveness of the material. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Pig Kidney Successfully Transplanted From Hog to Human | Doctors in New York City successfully transplanted a kidney grown in a pig to a brain-dead woman. The kidney functioned normally for 54 hours before the woman was removed from a ventilator and died. The procedure is the most significant xenotransplantation experiment ever done. Xenotransplantation could potentially help supply enough organs to patients for life-saving procedures. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Spotify Car Thing's wait-list signups surpass 2 million people | Spotify recently released new Car Things for purchase. Car Thing is a touchscreen and voice-enabled device that makes Spotify easier to navigate in cars. It was launched as a free, highly limited release in April. Users who were interested in a device had to sign up on a waitlist, which accumulated over 2 million preorders. Car Thing is currently only available to Spotify Premium members in the US. | 4Miscellaneous
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The biggest announcements from Google’s Pixel 6 event | Google has finally revealed its Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones. Both phones will feature Google's Tensor processor, a 50-megapixel camera, and an ultra-wide camera. The Pro has a telephoto camera that upgrades the selfie camera with a wider lens and higher resolution. The Tensor processor is competitive with Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon processors, but with added machine learning capabilities. Pixel owners will be able to quickly access Snapchat's camera using a special button on the back of the device. A Pixel Pass service is available that will allow people to purchase a Pixel device along with some Google subscription services for a monthly plan cost. More announcements are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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AwesomeXSS (GitHub Repo) | This repository is a collection of XSS resources. It contains a library of challenges, resources, tools, and code. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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France asks search engines and app stores to remove Wish | Several French ministers have asked the main search engines and mobile app stores operating in France to hide Wish's website and mobile app in the country. The e-commerce platform was found to sell counterfeit and unsafe products. If the tech companies comply, Wish will still be available for people who already have the app, but it will disappear from search results and app stores. If Wish implements the proper changes to comply with French regulation, then the administration may consider lifting the shadowban. | 4Miscellaneous
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Using GPU to Improve JavaScript Performance | GPU.js is a JavaScript acceleration library that can be used for general-purpose computations on GPUs using JavaScript. It can fall back onto the regular JavaScript engine if there is no GPU on the device. This article is an introduction on how to use GPU.js. It includes examples and benchmarking results. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Massive groups of fish create waves to deter predators | A type of freshwater fish called sulfur mollies have the ability to work together in groups to create waves. The behavior is used to protect the fish from predatory birds. It was easy for scientists to study as the fish react to humans in the same way. There can be hundreds of thousands of fish participating in a single fish wave. The waves can be repeated for up to two minutes at a frequency of every three to four seconds. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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NVIDIA Releases Open-Source GPU Kernel Modules | NVIDIA is now publishing Linux GPU kernel modules as open-source starting with the R515 driver release. This will significantly improve the experience of using Nvidia GPUs in Linux. It will also improve Nvidia GPU driver quality and security. Nvidia plans to publish a snapshot of the source code for each new driver release on GitHub. More details about the R515 release and what it means for users, developers, and Nvidia partners are available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Microsoft previews free Visual Studio Code for the Web | Visual Studio Code for the Web is a free web-based code editor that can be used to view code and make and commit lightweight changes. While the desktop version is also free and much more capable, the web version is convenient and can be used on more devices. VS Code for the Web can be converted to GitHub Codespaces instances for when a full remote environment is required. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Eavesdropping on the Brain with 10,000 Electrodes (11 minute read) | Neuropixels is a device that can record activity from firing neurons inside the brain. The device has the potential to deliver faster insights into a wide range of behaviors and enable better treatments for brain disorders. This article discusses the development of the device. Developing Neuropixels was challenging as engineers needed to place electrodes directly in contact with neurons anywhere in the brain, which is a soft and easily damaged organ. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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This ugly AF t-shirt blocks facial recognition technology | Surveillance algorithms work by recognizing characteristics in an image, drawing a 'bounding box' around them, and then assigning a label to that object. Scientists have discovered a way to use colorful, pixelated patterns on t-shirts to confuse the technology into thinking you don't exist. AI classification and labeling systems get confused when it sees the patterns on the clothing, making the wearer 64% less likely to be detected. Make-up can also be used to throw off facial recognition algorithms | 4Miscellaneous
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We Need a PBS for Social Media | Social media has become a place where false information is allowed to spread, resulting in damage to our society and culture. These companies operate on the same basic model where they try to occupy as much attention as possible in order to collect data from their customers, which they then sell. Nonprofit public media was created 50 years ago to ensure that a medium will always exist to be used for the public interest. A public social media product would not have to increase engagement and would allow people to focus more on the community and its members. There would be no brand accounts as the network would be for people only. Smaller networks, such as Discord and Mastodon, have been successful as they provide something that the larger social networks do not have, a safer community with less noise. While large social networks have benefitted our society greatly, these platforms extract a price, and it would be a lot healthier if there were more options available. | 4Miscellaneous
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Microsoft tests Super-Duper Secure Mode for Edge | Super Duper Secure Mode is a new feature being tested by Microsoft's Edge Vulnerability Research team. It makes Edge more secure without negatively impacting performance by removing Just-In-Time compilation from the V8 processing pipeline, reducing the attack surface that can be used to hack into Edge systems. JITs exist to optimize JavaScript performance, but Microsoft's researchers did not see much of a change in performance by disabling it. Disabling the JIT would mean less frequent security updates and fewer emergency patches for users. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Everything Google Announced at I/O 2019 That Matters (10 minute read) | Google announced a series of updates to its product range at its I/O conference. All Google Home devices have now been rebranded as Nest devices. Alarms in Google Nest Hub (previously Google Home) can now be stopped just by saying the word ‘stop’. Maps now has an incognito mode, and Pixel users will start seeing augmented reality walking directions in the app. Google will now let users opt to automatically remove data at certain intervals. New Pixel phones were announced at $399 for the Pixel 3a and $479 for the Pixel 3a XL, with both phones boasting a 30 hour long battery life. Google Assistant has received a massive speed boost and features a new driving mode that provides less distraction for drivers. Android Q will have a live caption capability that works on videos offline and it will also feature a dark mode. Other improvements to AR features and Duplex were also announced. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Dangerous viruses 'hitchhike' on microplastics to survive in freshwater | A team of researchers proved that viruses can survive and remain contagious by attaching themselves to plastics in water. Microplastics are everywhere, including in our food, drinking water, and air. They are able to shield themselves from damaging elements such as UV light by attaching to microplastic surfaces. The discovery questions the impact on human health that microplastics have. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Yuval Noah Harari: the world after coronavirus (10 minute read) | Humanity is now facing perhaps the biggest crisis of our generation, and the decisions that people and governments make in the next few weeks will probably shape the world for years to come. Unlike 50 years ago, governments couldn't track entire populations. It is now possible to do so, and COVID-19 might push this technology forward so that it becomes standard governmental procedure. Governments can theoretically track citizens' temperature and blood pressure through their smartphones and use the data to create containment strategies. This could be extremely useful during the coronavirus outbreak, but governments will probably hold onto these powers afterwards. While the technology could be helpful, other less-intrusive strategies such as increasing hand-washing would be more effective. A global policy on epidemics to get countries to cooperate on an agreed plan would be the most effective measure to prevent another outbreak like this from occurring. | 4Miscellaneous
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Apple will delist App Store apps that haven’t been updated recently | Apple plans to remove apps on its App Store that haven't been recently updated. Developers have 30 days to submit an update for approval. The policy is intended to make it easier for customers to find apps that fit their needs. Apps that are removed from the App Store due to this policy will remain fully functional for users who already have the app installed. Google has also announced similar plans. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Target announces launch of its curated, third-party marketplace, Target+ | Target will begin to offer products from third parties, similar to Walmart and Amazon, except that the products available will be carefully curated to avoid controversy and to ensure quality. Sellers will have to be approached by Target in order to sell items on Target+ as there is no public application process. Target and Walmart’s recent announcements that they will carry third-party products may hurt Amazon as their brick-and-mortar presence is much higher than Amazon’s. | 4Miscellaneous
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Elon Musk's Boring Company is reportedly pitching freight tunnels | The Boring Company wants to build freight-focused tunnels for moving shipping containers underground on battery-powered freight carriers. It is unclear how many clients the idea has been pitched to. The company has envisioned freight almost from the beginning, so it is mostly just a shift in focus from its commuter plans. Its Las Vegas Convention Center Loop system did not turn out as hoped. The larger freight tunnels might be more attractive to clients. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Why DRY is the most over-rated programming principle | Don't Repeat Yourself advises people to consolidate logic into a central place. | 4Miscellaneous
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Instacart’s Gig Workers Are Planning a Massive, Nationwide Strike | Instacart gig workers will refuse to accept orders until Instacart increases their pay by $5 an order, provides free safety gear, and expands paid sick leave to include workers with pre-existing conditions who have been advised by their doctors not to work at this time. The strike will last until Instacart agrees to their terms. Instacart corporate employees have full benefits and do not have to work in the front lines, while the gig workers have no guarantees or protections. Like many other companies that depend on gig workers, Instacart has offered two weeks of paid sick leave if a worker tests positive, but the offer only lasts until April 8, before the worst of the pandemic is set to hit. Many workers live paycheck to paycheck, so this may force workers to work while sick. Instacart plans to hire an additional 300,000 gig workers in the next three months. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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TXQR (GitHub Repo) | Ok this is really cool, TXQR is a protocol that lets you transfer data via animated QR codes. There's a demo gif in the readme where they transfer a picture of a duck using a QR code scan. It can transfer files at up to 25kB/s so it seems like you could probably send some pretty big files with this. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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MIT Researchers Make New Chips That Work On Light | Lightelligence is a startup from MIT that makes high-speed optical chips with low power consumption and low latency. Its processors have orders of magnitude better performance than standard architectures. The chips generate very little heat due to their low power consumption. Servers for computationally intensive AI processing take up a huge chunk of data center capacity, so there is a lucrative market for chips that reduce running costs while increasing computational capability. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Hyperion's hydrogen-electric XP-1 supercar is capable of 220 MPH | Hyperion has revealed its XP-1 hydrogen-electric supercar at the New York Auto Show. 300 vehicles will be released starting in early 2022. The vehicle uses a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Power Module instead of a lithium-ion battery. It features air blades on its sides that work as both aerodynamic structures and as solar panels. Hyperion promises over 1,000 miles per recharge, with the refueling process taking less than five minutes. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Kedro (GitHub Repo) | Kedro is a Python framework for creating reproducible, maintainable, and modular data science code. It uses concepts like modularity, separation of concerns, and versioning and applies them to machine-learning code. Kedro features project templates, a data catalog, pipeline abstraction, coding standards, and flexible deployment. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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US Army trials augmented reality goggles for dogs | The US Army has unveiled augmented reality goggles designed for combat dogs to let them receive orders at a distance. Soldiers usually direct their dogs using hand signals or laser pointers, which requires the handler to be close by. Using the AR goggles, the dogs can be directed via visual indicators and the handler can see what the dog sees through a remote video feed. Military dogs are already trained to wear goggles as protection. The project is still in its early research stages, but the results are extremely promising. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Sockly (GitHub Repo) | Sockly is an easy way to work with an API over WebSockets or a WebRTC data channel. It can be used on any p2p application on the web that uses WebSockets or RTCDataChannel. Sockly creates a proxy that intercepts property gets/sets and method calls. It then handles the underlying message passing with the other end of the socket. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Google reportedly abandoned a cloud computing product for the Chinese market | Google has abandoned plans for a cloud computing product designed for the Chinese market and other politically controversial countries. The project, codenamed 'Isolated Region', was intended for countries that required control over the flow of data within their borders. It was created so that governments and companies in restricted regions could move data on servers separate to Google's central cloud computing systems and network infrastructure. The project was shut down after conversations and input from government stakeholders. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet | Elon Musk sent a tweet through an internet connection provided by Starlink's constellation of broadband satellites. The aim of Starlink is to provide global high-speed stable broadband connectivity. Earlier this month, SpaceX applied to put up to 30,000 extra satellites into orbit, on top of the previously planned 12,000. SpaceX is preparing for strong demand for its Starlink service. There are currently around 60 operational satellites in the network. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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TikTok inks licensing deal with Merlin to use music from independent labels in videos and new Resso streaming service | TikTok has been building a new music streaming service to compete against Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. It recently announced a licensing deal with Merlin, a global agency that represents hundreds of thousands of artists, to use the labels' music legally on TikTok anywhere that the app is available. TikTok has secured deals with other major labels but has been restricted from going public on the details. The licensing deal with Merlin covers TikTok's upcoming music subscription service, Resso. Resso was first spotted in the wild as a test app in India and Indonesia. Despite being one of the most popular apps, TikTok still struggles to gain revenue, and a music streaming app is one way for it to generate revenue. It has been working on ways to become independent from China as it continues to face regulatory scrutiny for its acquisition by ByteDance. | 4Miscellaneous
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Toshi (GitHub Repo) | Toshi is an open source full-text search engine written in Rust (it's a competitor to Elasticsearch). It works on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Entropic (GitHub Repo) | Entropic is a package registry that is designed to be self-hosting and will proactively mirror all dependencies so that each instance is self-sufficient. It is designed so that installs are not dependent on resources that may vanish. All packages published to Entropic are public and can have a list of maintainers specified by the owner. The project is still very new and is only over a month old. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Looking Through Mojo Vision’s Newest AR Contact Lens | Mojo Vision is a company that makes Augmented Reality contact lenses. Its lenses are still in safety testing and there is still more work to be done before Mojo can apply for US FDA approval to sell to consumers. Their full-color microLED displays can display images in 3D at a resolution of 14,000 pixels per inch. The contacts have a built-in battery and a custom 5Ghz radio. This article features an interview with the senior vice president of Mojo Vision about the company's newest AR contacts. Pictures of the AR contacts are available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Harvard scientists will soon send chemicals into the atmosphere to test whether a last-ditch planet-hacking plan could keep Earth habitable | Harvard scientists are testing a radical plan to combat global warming: in 2019 they will spray particles into a small part of the sky to help reflect some of the sun's rays back into space. This sort of thing has been observed to work in nature, when Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991 in the Philippines, it released enough sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to bring down the planet's temperature by 0.5 degrees Celsius for 1.5 years. Skeptics say solar geoengineering could harm the ozone layer, disrupt wildlife ecosystems, and lead to military use of weather-altering tech. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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China's Hypersonic Vehicle Can 'Park' In Orbit, Warns a Space Force Official | China's new hypersonic weapon system is an orbital device that can stay in space for an extended period of time. A test was conducted in October where a hypersonic vehicle fired a missile that exceeded the speed of sound by at least fivefold. The system orbited the planet and dropped off a hypersonic glide vehicle that glided back to China to hit a target. China denies that it is using an orbital weapon system and that the test was a routine test of reusable spacecraft. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Google Stadia’s salvaged future as a back-end cloud service is here | Google Stadia launched in 2019 and things haven't been great for the gaming service since. The company shut down its first-party studio before it could ever develop a game and several key executives have left the struggling division. A recent blog post hints that Google wants to pivot the service into a Google Cloud Gaming Platform. It will allow other companies to release games through Google's technology. AT&T recently released a Batman game powered by Stadia technology for its Wireless customers. | 4Miscellaneous
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Temporal: getting started with JavaScript’s new date time API (14 minute read) | The Temporal date time API is a proposed replacement to JavaScript's current date time API. Temporal features support for time zones, non-Gregorian calendars, and specialized classes for Temporal values. All objects are immutable, and January is month 1. This blog post is a guide on how to get started with Temporal. It goes through the basics, covers the classes of the API and how they fit together, and ends with a comprehensive section with examples. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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JS Cloudimage 360 View (GitHub Repo) | JS Cloudimage 360 View is a tool that creates a 360 degree view virtual tour of a product. Adding images to a page is simple and there is a large list of options to use to customize the view. Responsive integration and lazy loading are available through plugins. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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JsQuery (GitHub Repo) | JsQuery is a PostgreSQL extension that adds a json query language with GIN indexing support. It features a way to search in nested objects and arrays and more comparison operators with indexes support. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Microsoft is now submerging servers into liquid baths | Microsoft is submerging its servers in liquid to improve their performance and energy efficiency. The technique uses a specially designed non-conductive fluorocarbon-based fluid which creates a closed-loop cooling system that requires no energy. Most data centers are currently air-cooled, which uses a lot of water. The technique should improve server reliability as the fluid displaces oxygen and humidity, both of which create corrosion. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Google Flights Offering Price Guarantee | Google Flights is offering a price guarantee for a limited time, between August 13 and September 2, 2019. Some flights will start showing a price guarantee badge, and if a booking is made and the price drops, Google will refund the difference in price if it's between $5 and $500. Using price estimating algorithms, Google is offering the guarantee on flights where it is confident that the prices shown are the lowest available before the flight departs. If prices drop, Google will alert the customer and deposit the difference back into their bank account. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Avvvatars (GitHub Repo) | Avvvatars is a library for creating unique avatar placeholders. It generates avatars based on string inputs. The avatars are customizable and can be in the form of text or shapes. A live demo is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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The US military is getting serious about nuclear thermal propulsion | Nuclear propulsion has long been theorized as the fastest practical means of getting around the Solar System. A nuclear thermal engine would theoretically heat a propellant which in turn would expand through a rocket nozzle and provide thrust. No such engine has ever been successfully developed. DARPA has recently announced that it plans to have a flyable nuclear thermal propulsion system ready for a demonstration in 2025. The development of these types of engines is now possible with recent new technologies such as the ability to manufacture refractory metals and advancements in supercomputing. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Plants Appear to Be Breaking Biochemistry Rules by Making 'Secret Decisions' | Scientists from Australia have discovered that plants can control how much carbon from photosynthesis they keep to build biomass by using metabolic channels. They can choose to burn pyruvate and release carbon or use it to build phospholipids, plant oils, amino acids, or other biomass building blocks. Plants can track the source of the pyruvate and choose to either release it or hold onto it for other purposes. The ability to make decisions breaks the normal rules of biochemistry. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Push Notifications, WebXR, and better PWA support coming to iOS | The iOS 15.4 beta has added icon support in the Web App Manifest, Web Push, and many APIs, such as WebXL for AR and VR. Most of the changes were unannounced. This article gives a detailed overview of the changes and what they mean for developers. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Scientists use loudspeakers to make dead coral reefs sound healthy, and fish flock to them | Scientists have used a process called 'acoustic enrichment' to attract fish back to dead coral reefs. Coral reefs have been dying due to climate change, overfishing, and pollution. Degraded reefs have a better chance of recovering if they have robust populations of fish. In an experiment, scientists played recordings from a healthy reef in patches of dead coral. The areas where these recordings were played had twice as many fish compared to patches where no sound was played. Fish that had migrated to the area tended to stay. The new fish populations included species from all parts of the food chain. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Fuzzilli (GitHub Repo) | Fuzzilli is a guided fuzzer for dynamic language interpreters that uses a custom intermediate language, FuzzIL. The output can then be translated to JavaScript. Currently, only JavaScriptCore, Spidermonkey, and v8 are supported. The fuzzer is implemented is Swift, with some parts implemented in C. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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microStudio (Website) | microStudio is an integrated video game development environment. It includes all the tools required to create a video game, including a sprite editor, a map editor, and a code editor. microStudio is run online and several people can work on the same project with instant synchronization. Games can be easily installed on smartphones and tablets. There are demo games available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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First Fully Automated Indoor Farm Being Built In Ohio | 80 Acres Farms plans to construct an automated indoor farm in a suburb of Cincinnati. The farm will produce leafy greens, microgreens, kale and herbs for retailers such as Whole Foods. The indoor farm will include artificial intelligence, robotics, sensors and other tools to monitor the produce around the clock. The farm will use vertical farming to stack crops vertically on top of one another to save space, and a closed loop hydroponic delivery system to recycle water so it will use 95% less water than traditional farms. Because the environment is fully controlled and light is provided through energy-efficient LED lights, the farm will be able to produce food 365 days a year. This is a proof of concept so humans will be involved on a limited basis, but if it is successful, 80 Acres Farms plans to expand across the country and potentially the world. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Radix Colors (Website) | Radix Colors is a color system for designing websites and apps. It features multiple combinations that are guaranteed to pass WCAG contrast ratio, dark mode, and transparent variants for UI components that need to blend into colored backgrounds. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Shenzhen lockdown shows tech is still reeling from COVID-19 | China has placed Shenzhen in lockdown for at least a week after new cases in the country jumped from 1,100 on Friday to 3,122 on Sunday. The city's 17.5 million residents will undergo mass testing. Tencent, Huawei, Oppo, GEM, and Foxconn have bases in the city. The restrictions will likely have an impact that will last for months. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Netflix confirms it killed AirPlay support, won’t let you beam shows to Apple TVs anymore | Netflix has suddenly discontinued AirPlay support with little explanation. Apple has partnered with most of the major TV brands to allow AirPlay 2 to send video directly to TVs without an Apple TV, and Netflix claims that it can’t deliver its service due to restrictions in the AirPlay 2 software stopping Netflix from identifying the type of TV it would be displayed on. Netflix denied that this was a business competition play against Apple. They have also recently declined to be part of Apple TV+, preferring to stay a competitor. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Coinbase’s bouncing QR code Super Bowl ad was so popular it crashed the app | Coinbase's Super Bowl ad was so popular its app temporarily crashed. The 60-second ad featured a colorful bouncing QR code that brought viewers to a promotional website with a limited time offer. New users signing up to the site before February 15 receive $15 worth of free Bitcoin as well as an entry into a $3 million giveaway. Many other crypto companies also used the Super Bowl to promote services, NFTs, and projects. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Amazon is testing its Scout delivery robots in Georgia and Tennessee | Amazon's Scout robots are battery-powered bots that can navigate around city streets, dodging objects on the sidewalks, to deliver packages to customers. The robots will start to deliver orders to customers in Atlanta, Georgia, and Franklin, Tennessee soon. Amazon has been testing the robots since last year. The robots will be accompanied by a human and make deliveries Monday through Friday during daylight hours. There won't be any additional cost for Scout deliveries. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Private Equity Is Going to Ruin the .Org Domain System and Screw Nonprofits | The Public Interest Registry, the agency that manages the .org domain, announced last week that it will be selling itself to private equity firm Ethos Capital. Internet experts and activists are concerned about the sale despite the Internet Society stating that the deal is a good thing for the future of .org. The deal will provide funding and resources for the Internet Society to continue to make the internet more open, accessible, and secure. ICANN has recently made the controversial decision to lift .org fee price caps. PIR had previously stated that it would not raise prices unreasonably and that it had no specific plans to impose rate hikes. However, the new owners are free to make price changes as they see fit. | 4Miscellaneous
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A New Quantum Computing Method Is 2,500 Percent More Efficient | Q-CTRL has discovered a way to reduce computational errors in quantum systems. The new method increases the likelihood of quantum algorithms succeeding by 2,500%. It uses specialized software to alter quantum logic gates. It can be used on any quantum system, so we could see more breakthroughs in the industry soon. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Google publishes largest ever high-resolution map of brain connectivity | Scientists from Google and the Janelia Research Campus in Virginia have published a 3D model that traces 20 million synapses connecting around 25,000 neurons in the brain of a fruit fly. A milestone in the field of connectomics, the map is the largest high-resolution map of brain connectivity in any animal. Connectomics has yet to produce any major breakthroughs, but it helps link physical parts of the brain to specific behaviors. Some scientists believe that creating connectomes is a waste of resources. The fruit fly connectome was created by processing images using an algorithm. Scientists then spent hundreds of thousands of hours verifying the connectome. Fruit fly brains contain around 100,000 neurons, while human brains contain roughly 86 billion. The data is available for anyone to view and download. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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‘Every message was copied to the police’: the inside story of the most daring surveillance sting in history (18 minute read) | An0m was a special device that was supposed to have the most secure messaging service in the world. The phones sold for $1,700 with a $1,250 annual subscription. Almost 10,000 devices were sold around the world. The devices were actually created by the Australian Federal Police and the FBI, who read all the messages that were sent on the devices, resulting in more than 800 arrests worldwide. This article tells the story of how the phones were made and the details of the operation. | 4Miscellaneous
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Apple just dismissed more than 200 employees from Project Titan, its autonomous vehicle group | Apple fired over 200 employees from Project Titan, its self driving car project. It looks like Apple's car ambitions have been dialed back from having their own car to just focusing on software. They seem to be doubling down on healthcare instead, with Tim Cook saying "I believe, if you zoom out into the future, and you look back, and you ask the question, 'What was Apple's greatest contribution to mankind?' it will be about health." | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Uber can now track your flight so a ride home is ready when you land | Uber customers can now book rides up to 30 days in advance. Uber Black and Uber Black SUV customers will also have the option of putting their flight information into the app to automatically adjust reservations if flights are early or delayed. Drivers will wait up to 60 minutes for no additional cost. Uber Reserve is available at more than 20 airports across the US. A list of the airports where Uber Reserve operates is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy (20 minute read) | Every moment, companies are tracking the movements of millions of mobile phones and storing them in gigantic data files. One of these files holds more than 50 billion location pings from more than 12 million Americans over several months between 2016 and 2017. People who have access to this data can see every place that an individual has been. The dataset discussed in the article is just a small sample of what is collected. This kind of precise, always-on human tracking gives governments and corporations huge amounts of power, and it is perfectly legal to collect and sell all this information. The data is only policed through internal company policies and the decency of individual employees. People are placing blind faith in companies who claim that the data they collect is secure and only shared with vetted partners. Even if companies are acting with the highest moral standards, data can be stolen. | 4Miscellaneous
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Watch the Awe-Inspiring Video of Southern Lights From the ISS | French astronaut Thomas Pesquet recently released a time-lapse video of the Southern Lights captured during a routine mission aboard the ISS. The Southern Lights are less popular compared to their northern counterpart as Antarctica is largely uninhabited and limited in spotting sites. They are caused by the same phenomenon. Pesquet has been lucky in spotting auroras on his current stint on the ISS. The article contains the video and pictures of auroras from space captured by Pesquet. | 4Miscellaneous
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GameSnacks brings quick, casual games to any device | Many games don't load well on low memory devices and 2G or 3G networks. Google has introduced GameSnacks to address this issue. GameSnacks games are fast, easy to play, and available on any device that connects to the internet. It will be available for people in Indonesia through Gojek. GameSnacks achieves fast performance through reducing the size of the initially-loaded HTML page by compressing elements and waiting to load them when necessary. Google has reached out to developers to contact the GameSnacks team if they want to create games and apps for the platform. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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British Air Force Set A World Record For First Flight Using Only Synthetic Fuel | Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) set a Guinness World Record for completing the world's first flight powered only by synthetic fuel. Synthetic fuel is made by capturing carbon dioxide from the air and converting it to fuel by adding hydrogen molecules from water. It delivers the same energy density as fossil fuels without adding to carbon emissions, and it can be used in conventional engines without modifications. The RAF plans to become a net-zero force by 2040. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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TikTok’s live video push continues with new features for creators and viewers | TikTok announced new live video features for both creators and viewers, including scheduled events, picture-in-picture support for mobile, and group livestreams with two users. Viewers will be able to register and receive notifications for Live Events. A countdown timer sticker will be available for creators to use to promote their upcoming streams. There is now a comment filter. Creators can designate moderators who can ban and mute misbehaving viewers. Users will be able to easily find and browse livestreams with the new dedicated Live button. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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MKBHD says yes to Google Glass, no to the metaverse | This article features an interview with Marques Brownlee, a YouTube tech reviewer, where he talks about his transition to TikTok, his views on the metaverse, and why the Google Glass deserves a redemption arc. | 4Miscellaneous
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London’s Crossrail Is a $21 Billion Test of Virtual Modeling (16 minute read) | Crossrail is currently the biggest engineering project in Europe. The network started construction in 2009 and fully opened in 2019. It carries an estimated 200 million passengers every year across its 40 stations. Crossrail was built using many technologies. The entire network was designed in a 3D virtual environment, which is used to help monitor every part of the network. Everything in the system was engineered to reduce energy use, improve safety, and streamline operations. This article details how Crossrail was built and explains some of the technology behind the network. | 4Miscellaneous
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Countdown to Mars 2020: NASA rover makes final journey before July launch | NASA's Mars 2020 rover has been moved from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California to the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was packed in a large shipping container with the license plate 'HND SGHT'. The rover was carried over 2,300 miles across the country by a pair of Air Force C-17 Globemaster cargo planes. It will start its journey to Mars in July 2020, beginning at the Jezero crater, a potential hotbed of evidence for life on the planet. The Mars Helicopter will accompany the rover to Mars and will be the first to fly on another world. NASA is currently storing the rover in the same processing facility that housed Curiosity. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Backdoor for Windows, macOS, and Linux went undetected until now | A new backdoor written from scratch for systems running Windows, macOS, or Linux has been uncovered. SysJoker is estimated to have been released in the second half of last year. It remained undetected by virtually all malware scanning engines until recently. Several factors indicate that it was developed by an advanced threat actor with significant resources. SysJoker is likely after specific targets with the goal of espionage and a possibility of a ransomware attack in later stages. | 4Miscellaneous
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Smart rich text editor with collaborative editing (Sponsor) | Smart rich text editor with collaborative editing . CKEditor 5 is an ultra-modern JavaScript rich text editor with native support for Webpack, Angular, React, and Vue.js. Easily add a customized editor with collaborative editing to your application, with a slick user experience like Medium or Google Docs. | 0Sponsor
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Glorious Demo (Github Repo) | This is a cool open source tool that makes it really easy to create an animated demo of your code in action. Very nifty, you can create a nice demo in just 5 to 10 lines of code. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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unplugin-icons (GitHub Repo) | unplugin-icons features thousands of on-demand icons as components. It uses Iconify as its icon data source. unplugin-icons works with all major build tools and frameworks and the icons can be customized and even animated. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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What China Can Teach the U.S. About Artificial Intelligence | America's freewheeling intellectual environment makes it particularly good at visionary research and moonshot projects. However, AI is now more about implementation than research, and here China's abundant data, hypercompetitive business landscape, and strong central government with great AI ambitions will give it a big advantage over the US. The US misunderstands each of these three dimensions. China's advantage in data comes not only from its larger population, but also from the amount of access companies and the government have to user data. For example, on WeChat, users can buy groceries, book doctor's appointments, manage their electricity and water utilities, and take out microloans. There are no US companies with that level of integration into users' lives. In Silicon Valley there is a sort of stigma about copying, but in China, they are much more pragmatic, with hundreds of copycats emerging the second a startup begins to find traction. Finally the Chinese government understands that AI's influence will be felt not only in the digital world but also the physical one. It is ready to embed sensors in roads, remove red tape in medical research, etc. to get ahead in the AI race. These are things that are harder to do in a two party state like the US, where any misstep can be ammo for the opposition party. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Front End Interview Handbook (GitHub Website) | The Front End Interview Handbook contains a collection of questions that a developer might be asked during a front-end job interview. It is divided into three sections - HTML Questions, CSS Questions, and Javascript Questions. Each section includes linked references. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Wing will test drone delivery in the US with Walgreens and FedEx | Wing will be launching a test program in Virginia with Walgreens, FedEx, and Sugar Magnolia. It will deliver snacks, over-the-counter medicines, and other selected packages. Only 22,000 people in Montgomery County will be eligible as Wing continues to figure out what works and what doesn't. When customers place an order, Wing's delivery drones head to a specific delivery location, where a human operator hooks a package onto the drone. The drone cruises at about 60-70 mph to the delivery location, where it lowers the package to the ground to be released. Packages can be up to 3 lbs. Delivery during the test phase will be free, and the first delivery will begin next month. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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npm is joining GitHub | GitHub has signed an agreement to acquire npm, a critical part of the JavaScript world. It is home to over 1.3 million packages with 75 billion downloads a month. npm will still be always available and always free. The npm team will now seek to invest in the registry infrastructure and platform, improve the core npm experience, and engage with the community. GitHub and npm integration will improve the security of the open-source software supply chain and allow users to trace changes from a GitHub pull request to the npm package version that fixed it. npm Pro, Teams, and Enterprise customers who host private registries will continue to receive support and will be able to move packages over to GitHub Packages later in the year. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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24-Hour Solar Energy: Molten Salt Makes It Possible, and Prices Are Falling Fast (10 minute read) | A solar plant in the Nevada desert is making solar energy an affordable, carbon-free, 24-hour energy source by heating molten salt to 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit, storing it in a giant insulated tank, and then using it to make steam to run a turbine. These salt-powered towers are much cheaper than the equivalent amount of lithium-ion batteries. A new plant to be built in Australia will generate electricity at just over 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. The technology is still relatively new, but if it proves to be reliable, it is poised to take off. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Microsoft to shut down LinkedIn in China | Microsoft will shut down its local version of LinkedIn in China due to a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements. A Chinese regulator told LinkedIn in March to better regulate its content as some users had published prohibited content on their profiles. Microsoft will launch a new job site called InJobs that will not include a social feed or allow users to share posts or articles. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer (40 minute read) | Career development doesn't stop once you become a Senior Software Engineer. It is useful to assess your growth and find ways to continue growing. This article discusses growth from a Senior Software Engineer's perspective and covers both the mental aspects as well as some practical aspects of continual career development. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Waymo is now allowed to transport passengers in its self-driving vehicles on California roads | Alphabet's self-driving venture, Waymo, has officially been given permission to transport passengers in its robotaxis by the California Public Utilities Commission. The initial pilot program will allow Waymo employees to hail vehicles and bring guests on rides within a specific South Bay territory. Certain restrictions on the permit issued to Waymo include not allowing the company to charge for the rides and a requirement for a safety driver to be behind the wheel. The permit will allow Waymo to hire third-party safety drivers. Waymo has confirmed that all safety drivers will go through a proprietary driver training program. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Level 4 aerial autonomy: Drones can now fly themselves | Exyn Technologies, a company that develops autonomous drone technology for industry and defense, recently demonstrated level 4 autonomy in an aerial system. Its drones are now capable of free-flight exploration of complex spaces at speeds of up to two meters per second. The company will roll out its new level 4 autonomous capabilities in the next few months. A 1-minute video that shows one of Exyn's drones autonomously mapping out an area is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Annual Smart Speaker IQ Test | These guys tested four smart speakers, Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana, with 800 questions each. Google Asssistant won with 88% of questions correctly answered vs. Siri at 75%, Alexa at 73%, and Cortana at 63%. The questions were in 5 categories: local, commerce, navigation, information, and command. Google Assistant was the best at every one except for commands (where Siri was the best). Siri and Google were head and shoulders above the rest in Local and Navigation in particular, due to their proprietary maps data. Siri has greatly improved over the past year, where it answered only 52% of questions correctly. | 4Miscellaneous
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‘It’s the right thing to do’: the 300,000 volunteer hackers coming together to fight Russia | Around 300,000 people have signed up to a Telegram group called the IT Army of Ukraine. The group is run by the Ukrainian government. People in the group have been disrupting Russian web services, targeting the websites of the Kremlin and the Duma as well as state-owned media services, several banks, and an energy company. Russia has attempted to mitigate the attacks by filtering access to certain websites, causing further disruption. This article tells the story of some of the group's participants. The original tweet from Ukraine's vice prime minister asking for help is embedded in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Scripts (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains five small scripts to make life better. The scripts can help generate ssh keys from passwords, bypass AMSI for VBA, send text to speech using the Windows Speech interface, automate Excel, and load shellcode with SYLK. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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TikTok is testing a ‘Watch History’ so you can finally find that video you saw | TikTok is testing a new Watch History feature. The option will appear under the 'Content and Activity' section in settings. There are few details available about the feature. Users have created workarounds to TikTok's lack of a watch history, but the new feature will make finding watched videos significantly easier. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Microsoft orchestrates coordinated takedown of Necurs botnet | Necurs is one of the largest spam and malware botnets known to date, infecting more than nine million computers worldwide. Microsoft recently announced a coordinated takedown of Necurs. Necurs used a domain generation algorithm to generate random domain names to host the botnet's command-and-control servers that bots connected to in order to receive new commands. Microsoft cracked the algorithm and predicted over six million domains that the botnet would create in the next 25 months. These domains were all blocked to prevent the Necurs team from registering them. Microsoft's legal team obtained a court order granting Microsoft control over existing Necurs domains that were being hosted in the US. It is now working with ISPs and CERT teams to notify people who have been affected by the malware. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Elon Musk unveils Neuralink’s plans for brain-reading ‘threads’ and a robot to insert them | Elon Musk has shown off some of the technology that his company Neuralink has been developing for the last few years. Neuralink’s goal is to develop devices that can be implanted in paralyzed humans, allowing them to control devices with their thoughts. The company has developed thread sensors that are thinner than a human hair and can provide high-resolution signals from the brain. A robot was created in order to implant this device, as the threads were difficult to implant with current technology. Neuralink is also developing a custom chip that can read, clean up, and amplify signals from the brain. The aim is to eventually create a wireless version that can be implanted in a safe and non-invasive procedure, similar to Lasik. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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