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The Boston Dynamics Robot Dog Got a Job on an Oil Rig | Boston Dynamics' Spot is known for its ability to walk around, open doors, climb steps, and even take clean dishes out of a dishwasher. An oil and gas company in Norway has just deployed a Spot robot to patrol a production vessel at the Skarv field in the Norwegian Sea. It will be tasked with running inspections, checking for hydrocarbon leaks, and putting together reports based on the data it collects. Spot will make offshore operations safer. Boston Dynamics has been leasing Spot robots commercially since September 2019 and has customers such as the Massachusetts police department. The robot has been promoted for use in construction, public safety, oil and gas applications, and even entertainment. | 4Miscellaneous
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What it feels like to be laid off on Zoom during this crisis | Many tech employees have been laid off due to the coronavirus outbreak, and the layoffs continue as the situation goes on. The tech industry has transitioned offline, using platforms like Zoom to hold meetings. Now the layoff announcements have moved to these virtual meeting rooms. Employees at TripActions joined a virtual meeting on Tuesday morning, along with around 100 other team members, and were told that they were being laid off. Companies are now downsizing in order to survive lockdowns. People are frustrated, especially at having to receive the news over virtual group meetings. | 4Miscellaneous
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Apple Researching Keyboards With Adaptive Displays on Each Key | Apple has been granted a patent for 'Electronic devices having keys with coherent fiber bundles'. The patent describes how each key on a keyboard could have a display connected via a coherent fiber bundle. This would mean that the whole keyboard could be reconfigured as needed, with the keys matching the key mapping without physical modifications. The displays could also indicate the current status of each key. This system doesn't interfere with the dome or scissor switches of physical keyboards, so Apple could theoretically use it with the current Magic Keyboard design. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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The world's most unlikely nature reserve: Wildlife is thriving in Chernobyl | 350,000 people were evacuated from Chernobyl 35 years ago after a nuclear disaster. The area may not be fit for humans for another 24,000 years, but endangered animals are thriving in the exclusion zone. Przewalski’s horses were almost extinct in the wild, but there is now a steadily growing population in Chernobyl. A 2-minute video showing the new wildlife around Chernobyl is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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BLAKE3 (GitHub Repo) | BLAKE3 is a cryptographic hash function that is fast, secure, highly parallelizable, capable of verified streaming and incremental updates, and more. It is not designed to be a password hashing algorithm. Benchmark results are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Uber is laying off 3,700 as rides plummet due to COVID-19 | Uber has disclosed plans to lay off 3,700 employees, about 14% of its workforce. The job cuts were in response to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Uber's bottom line has taken a massive hit as governments issue stay-at-home orders. The cuts will come from community operations and recruiting. Uber's CEO has agreed to waive his base salary for the rest of 2020. | 4Miscellaneous
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.gitignore.io (Website) | .gitignore.io is a service designed to help create .gitignore files for Git repositories. Users enter their operating system and language (and other specifications if required), and the site generates a template .gitignore file. A video tutorial is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Large chunks of a Chinese rocket missed New York City by about 15 minutes | China launched its Long March 5B rocket last week. The rocket has no second stage and so its large core stage fell back to the Earth after it separated from its payload. It is the largest vehicle to make an uncontrolled reentry into Earth's atmosphere since 1991. Some of the components of the rocket engine likely survived. China has previously shown a disregard for debris from its rocket launches. If the rocket had reentered the atmosphere 15 to 20 minutes earlier, it is possible the rocket's debris could have rained down on New York City. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Unreal Engine 5 is now available in Early Access | Unreal Engine 5 has been released in Early Access. The new build features Nanite, a virtualized micropolygon geometry system that creates games with massive amounts of geometric detail, Lumen, a fully dynamic global illumination solution, a new World Partition system, new animation tools, an enhanced editor UI and workflow, and much more. A 15-minute video showing off the new features of Unreal Engine 5 is available in the article. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Myopia correcting 'smart glasses' from Japan to be sold in Asia | Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings is planning to release a wearable device that can project an image onto the wearer's retina to correct the refractive error that causes nearsightedness. Wearing the device for 60 to 90 minutes a day can correct myopia. The company is still testing the device to see how long the effect lasts and how many days a user needs to wear the device to achieve a permanent correction for nearsightedness. The device will be available in Asian markets in the second half of the year. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Elon Musk's SpaceX will 'make its own laws on Mars' | Elon Musk revealed plans to create a self-sustaining city on Mars last week. It will likely use Starlink satellites for internet connectivity. According to the terms of Starlink's internet project, SpaceX will not recognize international law on Mars. The space company will adhere to a set of self-governing principles defined at the time of Martian settlement. The position is similar to a declaration put forward by the Earthlight Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to preparing for the expansion of humanity beyond Earth. | 4Miscellaneous
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A Niche American Car Becomes the Fastest Car Ever | The SSC Tuatara recently achieved a speed of 316.11 mph on a seven-mile strip of road near Las Vegas. SSC is a niche brand that was formed in 1998. It currently has 24 employees. Only 100 Tuataras will be produced. | 4Miscellaneous
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First Molecular Electronics Chip Developed – Realizes 50-Year-Old Goal | The first molecular electronics chip has been developed by Roswell Biotechnologies and a team of scientists. The chip uses single molecules as universal sensor elements to create a programmable biosensor with real-time single-molecule sensitivity and unlimited scalability in sensor pixel density. It will allow scientists to observe molecular communications and see how single molecules interact with each other. The chip will be able to help advance fields based on observing molecular interactions. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Pope Ponders Universal Basic Income as World Economy Withers | Pope Francis advocated for a form of universal basic income in a letter from the Vatican City on Sunday. As the world faces great anxiety and hardship, it might be time to acknowledge the hardships being felt by people everywhere. Markets around the world have been heavily affected by the coronavirus pandemic and millions of people are now feeling the significant economic strain. The Pope expressed hope that this event will lessen the idolatry of money. | 4Miscellaneous
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Brython (GitHub Repo) | Brython is an implementation of Python 3 that runs in the browser. It supports the main syntax of Python 3 and many modules of the CPython distribution. Brython includes libraries to interact with DOM elements and events and with existing JavaScript libraries. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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How io_uring and eBPF Will Revolutionize Programming in Linux (20 minute read) | Two revolutionary new interfaces, eBPF and io_uring, were added to Linux in 2019. The Linux kernel previously only offered blocking system calls to deal with file descriptors, but as devices have gotten faster, this became an increasingly urgent issue. io_uring is an interface that was designed to be truly flexible, extensible, asynchronous, and compatible with any kind of I/O. It offers some advanced features such as file and buffer registration, polling, and linked operations. eBPF allows users to execute arbitrary code in the Linux kernel, enabling advanced tooling and debugging. These two new features allow developers to design apps that can truly take advantage of large multicore multiprocessor systems and µsecond-scale storage I/O latencies. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Virgil (GitHub Repo) | Virgil is a programming language designed for fast, dependency-free programs. It can produce standalone native executables, WebAssembly modules, and JARs for the JVM. Virgil is a statically-typed language that features classes, functions, tuples, type parameters, and algebraic data types. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Data-thieving hackers strike again, stealing EA source code and police data | EA Games and the Presque Isle Police Department in Maine have both been hit by a ransomware attack. The hackers stole 780GB of source code and tools for FIFA 21 from EA. No player data was stolen. EA is working with law enforcement on the case. The Presque Isle Police Department refused to pay its ransom and 200GB of data was published on a website hosted on the dark web. The data includes emails, police reports, witness statements, files documenting cases, and personal information belonging to victims and defendants. | 4Miscellaneous
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Volvo to test full-size driverless bus in Singapore | Singapore is ranked No. 2 globally in openness and preparedness for autonomic vehicles and will begin testing on a full-sized autonomous electric bus later this year. The bus, developed by Volvo, will start testing within the next few weeks or months and will be initially used on a university campus. It is hoped that further testing can be done on public roads after regulatory approvals in the next few years. The city-state aims to deploy autonomous buses in three different districts by 2022. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Why “No Code”? | The movement to 'no code' has gained momentum over the last couple of years. No code is an ideal where business logic, and even entire applications, can be written without having the training of a software developer. Software developers can be expensive, and the work that is outputted is usually slow, highly variable, and requires ongoing maintenance. The need for software is clear, but developing it is expensive and risky. While the idea of being able to create software using business logic in plain language form sounds great, there are some fundamental flaws with the concept. Programming languages have been attempting to simplify programming since early in the industry, but the reality is that abstract code is required for many applications. Simple syntax removes a lot of expression and flexibility. Many programs can change 'coding' into a series of configurations, but these programs have very specific applications and are not suitable for general use. They also take away a lot of flexibility with the logic. 'No code' will still have its uses, such as putting together proof-of-concepts for projects, but it is likely that software developers will still be needed for most software development scenarios. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Advent of Code 2018 (Coding Challenge) | The annual Advent of Code coding challenge is underway, there's one coding puzzle each day until Christmas. It's pretty relaxed and really well set up, you can use any programming language you want, and if you want to take it seriously there's a leaderboard as well. If you're a redditor, you can also check out their subreddit (it's fairly active) at /r/adventofcode. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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McDonald’s deploys 700 AI-powered menu boards | McDonald’s posted better-than-expected Q2 results in the US, partly due to sales of bacon and Donut Sticks. They also used competitions between employees and other promotions to increase efficiency within the company and attract more customers. Going forward, McDonald’s will be deploying AI-powered menu boards at 700 restaurants. The menu boards will use AI to suggest and upsell products based on trending items, the time of day, and the weather. These menus will eventually be added to apps and kiosks. There is pressure from customers and advocacy groups for McDonald’s to introduce a plant-based meat option, similar to Burger King’s new Impossible Whopper, which will be available country-wide by the end of 2019. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Zuckerberg tells Facebook employees they are now 'Metamates' | Facebook employees, who have been colloquially known as 'Facebookers', will now be known as 'Metamates'. The change comes after an all-hands meeting detailing the company's new direction. Facebook is not the only company that uses these types of phrases to refer to its employees. The new nickname for workers comes with new company values such as being direct and respectful of colleagues. | 4Miscellaneous
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Tesla wants to make every home a distributed power plant | Elon Musk thinks that a distributed electricity grid system provides a better path to net-zero emissions. Previous research suggests that the US could reach a zero-carbon grid by more than doubling its transmission capacity. The setup Musk suggests is riddled with bureaucratic and logistical challenges. Tesla updated its website last week to require customers to purchase a solar and energy storage system together, rather than as separate items. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Scientists Discover the Long-Lost Continent ‘Balkanatolia’ | Balkanatolia is a landmass that existed 40 million years ago between the Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas. Fossil records suggest that it helped Asian mammals migrate into Europe. The temporary land bridge paved the way for an extinction event known as the Grande Coupure that reshaped the fauna of Europe around 34 million years ago. Scientists are still uncovering fossils to understand the wildlife and geographic significance of Balkanatolia. | 4Miscellaneous
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Opera now has a game engine to go with its gamer-focused browser | Opera has acquired YoYo Games, a British team best known for GameMaker Studio 2, a popular platform for novice game developers. The company launched Opera GX, a gamer-focused web browser in 2019, and it plans to create a new division called Opera Gaming by combining the Opera GX and GameMaker teams. It is unknown what the company's end goal is, but it says, for now, it will improve GameMaker across all platforms. | 4Miscellaneous
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Fish Eggs Can Survive a Journey Through Both Ends of a Duck | A recent study on the role of ducks in dispersing fish eggs has found that some eggs remain viable after being eaten and pooped out by waterfowl. The researchers fed eight captive ducks roughly 500 eggs each from two invasive species of carp. Six of the ducks passed living eggs in their feces, and three fish successfully hatched. A single carp can lay up to 1.5 million eggs several times a year. Even a tiny percentage of surviving eggs is significant and helps explain how fish sometimes seem to appear out of nowhere in isolated bodies of water. | 4Miscellaneous
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Google’s new Chrome extension lets you link directly to specific text on a page | Link To Text Fragment is a new Chrome Extension that can generate URLs to specific text on a webpage. Users simply need to highlight and right click text and the 'Copy Link to Selected Text' option will be available. A new feature in Chromium called Text Fragments allows extra linking information in a URL after a #. The extension simplifies the creation process as some URLs can become long and difficult to manually create. Text Fragments are not yet supported in all browsers. | 4Miscellaneous
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Game Design Curriculum (Website) | URF Academy is an interactive game design workshop for high school students around the world. This page contains the curriculum guide for the entry-level course. The entry-level course teaches the fundamental elements of game design using a framework and interactive workshops. In the course, students learn core game design concepts and create a paper prototype of a multiplayer game. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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instant.page (GitHub Repo) | instant.page allows web developers to preload pages for users once it detects that a link is about to be clicked. Whenever a user's mouse hovers over a link for 65ms on desktop or 90ms on mobile, it begins to download data for the next page. This creates an effect where the next page appears to load instantly. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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NFT makers are trying to build the next Disney (16 minute read) | NFTs could change the media industry. People who own NFTs can increase their NFT's value by creating content around it. Content creators will be able to buy into worlds and expand on the property and create a universe. The rights that a buyer gets with the purchase of an NFT depend on the contract that is in the NFT. Some NFTs are essentially just trading cards, while others give more intellectual property rights over characters. This article provides an in-depth look at the NFT scene and how it is changing the media industry. It provides examples of different collections and how the projects handle ownership. | 4Miscellaneous
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You can now practice firing someone in virtual reality | Virtual reality is gaining momentum as a training tool, allowing people to practice doing things that would be impossible otherwise. It is being used to train new employees at places like Walmart and Chipotle, and some offices are starting to use the technology to train for soft management skills such as interviewing, communication, and selling. Talespin, a company that offers VR training for the workplace, has characters that help train for office situations, such as firing an employee. The characters currently run with certain scripts and triggers, so the training might be limited as the skills might not transfer if people know they aren't training with a real person. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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rga (GitHub Repo) | rga is a tool that allows for regex searching across a multitude of file types. It wraps ripgrep and enables search in pdf, docx, sqlite, jpg, movie subtitles, and more. Different adapters are available to extend the functionality of rga, for example, it can search extra metadata/chapters and subtitles from movies using the ffmpeg adapter. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Facebook’s underground obituary pages | In Brazil, Facebook groups that feature profiles of dead people have gained popularity, with some groups growing to more than 160,000 users. While these groups may appear macabre, they are complex spaces where people process loss. The posts in these groups usually follow a standard format, with a link of the deceased person’s profile and a description of the person. Brazil has experienced the world's second-deadliest Covid-19 outbreak, and over 200,000 people have died. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Synthetic Celebrity: Cloning A Billion Digital Selves For Fun And Profit | Reface is a platform for making deepfake videos using celebrity likenesses. It has grown to three million active users from 10,000 in just six weeks. The company has been working on technology that enables near-infinite content personalization using anyone's face and body. Reface focuses on the fun aspect of creating deepfakes, with intentionally lower quality videos and techniques embedded in the videos to help identify them as deepfakes in case anyone tries to pass off one of its videos as real. The company aims to eventually allow people to license their likenesses for brands. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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A Whistle-Stop Tour of 4 New CSS Color Features | An upcoming change to CSS will bring new color models and new functions that map color models differently. This article discusses the new changes and how they will affect how colors are set and displayed. The new features include Display-P3, which allows developers to take advantage of modern monitors that can display more vibrant colors, relative color syntax, and the ability to define custom CSS color spaces. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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pytailwindcss (GitHub Repo) | pytailwindcss is a standalone Tailwind CSS CLI interface that is ideal for Tailwind projects that don't need Node.js or npm. It contains the full power of Tailwind CLI in a self-contained executable without Node.js. While users can still customize Tailwind CSS and use all official Tailwind CSS plug-ins, they will not be able to install plugins or additional dependencies for their setups without Node.js. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Tesla launches Solarglass (Solar Roof V3) | Tesla has launched Solarglass, the third version of its Solar Roof tiles. Starting at $34,000, the new tiles are now cheaper and more appealing than a concrete tile roof with solar panels. The launch of Tesla's Solar Roof Tiles has been much slower than expected, with limited installations and delayed volume production. Production was delayed in order to make changes that would make the tiles cheaper and more durable. Tesla's Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo will be able to produce 1,000 roofs per week. The biggest difference with Solarglass is the ease of installation. Installation time has been reduced to only five to seven days. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Pixel 4 screen leak shows off large forehead bezel | New photos of Google's Pixel 4 have been leaked, showing that the device will have a large bezel on the top of the phone. The images show that the bezel will cover a variety of sensors and front-facing cameras. It is rumored that the Pixel 4 will come with a radar-based motion sensing technology called Project Soli, which requires more space, explaining the bezel. The Pixel 4 was announced in June after images were leaked onto the internet. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Scientists Just Discovered That Platypus Fur Glows Green Under UV Light | Scientists have discovered that platypus fur glows in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet light. Biofluorescence is rare in nature, but the scientists were inspired to look for it in platypus after it was found in the fur of New World flying squirrels while studying lichens with a blacklight. Monotremes branched off from the marsupial-placental lineage more than 150 million years ago. The presence of biofluorescent fur in platypus shows how deep in the mammalian tree the trait of biofluorescent fur is. | 4Miscellaneous
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The Wall of Technical Debt | Technical debt is used to describe software design choices that turn out to be suboptimal, no longer valid, or just plain wrong. All aspects of development can suffer from technical debt, such as architecture, documentation, tests, and domain models. It can cause problems in the future with maintaining and upgrading code, but it can also help developers quickly build inexpensive tests. Managing technical debt is key to making sure it doesn't affect your business negatively. This may involve making the debt visible, constantly reevaluating decisions, making compromises, and communicating priorities clearly. It's always best to try to convert intangibles into numbers that others can understand. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Samsung’s leaked Galaxy Chromebook 2 is oranger than ever | Images of Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Chromebook 2 have leaked, showing off a bright orange coloring in an otherwise similar-looking design. There are minor adjustments to the port layout and keyboard. Details about the internal specs have yet to be released. One of the leaked images is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job? (Hacker News Thread) | This is a thread containing advice, warnings, and success stories about building profitable side projects/startups while working a full time job. Lots of interesting niche projects in there for inspiration. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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'Hey, Disney' voice assistant comes to Disneyland in 2022 | Disneyland hotel rooms will have 'Hey, Disney' available alongside Alexa on their Echo speakers starting sometime in 2022. The feature will handle requests ranging from amenities through to stories and jokes. MagicBand+ wearables are also coming in 2022. The wristbands will allow guests to enter the park, make purchases, and otherwise go touch-free. They will also have haptic feedback and gesture controls to enliven experiences in certain areas. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Lidar helps uncover an ancient, kilometer-long Mayan structure | Lidar is becoming increasingly useful in archaeology as it can reveal structures within hours that would've otherwise taken months to discover with other methods. Using lidar, a team from the University of Arizona scanned forests in the Tabasco region of Mexico and found an enormous Mayan structure that was more than 3,000 years old. The lidar produced large-scale, low-resolution images of the area which are available to view in the article. A seven-second video is available showing an aerial view of the site. | 4Miscellaneous
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NASA Discovers a Rare Metal Asteroid That’s Worth $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 | NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered an asteroid that is made almost entirely of metals. It is believed to be the dead core of a planet that failed to form. '16 Psyche' is located in the Solar System's main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It measures 140 miles across and its metal content could be worth 10,000 times the global economy as of 2019. The NASA Discovery Mission Psyche will launch in 2022 and head towards the asteroid. It will arrive near the asteroid in early 2026. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Ground-Penetrating Radar Reveals Entire Ancient Roman City | Archaeologists were able to preliminarily map the entire underground city of Falerii Novi, an ancient Roman city, using ground-penetrating radar. The 28 billion data points collected in the project to generate the full map are still being processed. Researchers were able to document the locations of buildings, monuments, passageways, and even water pipes without having to dig. Falerii Novi is well documented in historical accounts. It has an unorthodox layout compared to other ancient Roman cities. Images of the city are available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Sri Lanka to Construct 100 MW of Floating Solar Projects in Maduru Oya Reservoir | The government of Sri Lanka has approved a proposal to build a photovoltaic farm in the Maduru Oya Reservoir. A call has been made by the government for international contractors to provide competitive proposals to build the solar farm, which will cover 4% of the reservoir’s surface area. The Sri Lankan government has approved several solar initiatives recently and they aim to install 200 MW of solar projects by 2020, and 1,000 MW of solar projects by 2025. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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PySyft (Github Repo) | This is an open source Python library for encrypted, privacy preserving deep learning. It's built on top of PyTorch, and decouples private data from model training. There are Jupyter notebooks in the examples/tutorials folder that walk you through federated learning and training models on encrypted, decentralized data sources. Really awesome stuff, it's put out by OpenMined, which is an organization that creates tools for privacy-preserving AI. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Facebook staff discussed selling API access to apps in 2012-2014 | Sealed court documents that Wall Street Journal reporters reviewed show that after a poor IPO in 2012, Facebook was brainstorming ways of increasing revenue and discussed yanking API access to all apps except those who wanted to pay $250k/year for user data. They also considered offering Tinder extended access to user "friend" data in exchange for Tinder's trademark on "Moments". It's not clear how high level these discussions were, but if they were between high level executives, it could potentially contradict statements made by Mark Zuckerberg before Congress that "I can't be clearer on this topic: We don't sell data." | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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How to SSH Properly (13 minute read) | SSH is the de facto tool for *nix server administration. It is secure and there is a lot of support to make it easy to use. There are different levels of security in SSH. Using SSH certificates is more secure than using a password or SSH keys, and they can be configured with just a few extra steps. A bastion host is a server which is specifically designed to be the only gateway for access to your infrastructure. Using SSH certificates, bastion hosts, and 2-factor authentication, you can easily improve the security of your SSH infrastructure while giving users the flexibility to keep using the tools that they're familiar with. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Open-Source Leg: The quest to create a bionic limb that anyone can build | The Open-Source Leg is a collaborative project to bring researchers together to create an open-source bionic leg. One of the biggest challenges in developing bionic technology is that many groups are working separately on a solution, all in secret. Research teams usually have to design systems from scratch if they want to build anything, resulting in slow development. Open-Source Leg could eventually become the most common hardware system for prostheses control. It has a simple and portable design that is economical, scalable, and customizable. | 4Miscellaneous
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Upptime (GitHub Repo) | Upptime is an uptime monitor and status page powered by GitHub Actions, Issues, and Pages. It checks your website every 5 minutes to make sure it's up and creates incident reports if an endpoint is down. Screenshots are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Google reportedly keeps tabs on usage of rival Android apps to develop competitors | Google employees reportedly have access to a program known as 'Android Lockbox' that allows them to see data on how Android users interact with non-Google apps and services. The program is apparently used to keep tabs on rival services. Google is currently facing an antitrust investigation in almost every US state. The investigations are focused on the company's search and ad businesses. Google stated that it is open about its data collection activities and that users have control over the usage of their data. | 4Miscellaneous
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3D printing company Desktop Metal will now use wood to print | Forust is a new tool from Desktop Metal that uses wood to 3D print objects. The technology uses cellulose and lignin, which are both byproducts of the paper and wood industries. Desktop Metal’s list of products include architectural accents, home products, and furniture pieces. The company recently acquired new technology from Figur Machine Tools for $3.5 million. Desktop Metal announced plans to go public in 2020. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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A solar-powered rocket might be our ticket to interstellar space | The John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory solar simulator is a tool that can shine with the intensity of 20 Suns. Using the solar simulator, researchers were able to demonstrate solar thermal propulsion using helium. The concept still has a long way to go before it can be used on a mission. Solar thermal propulsion could potentially help us reach past the edge of the Solar System. By using the heat of the sun, solar thermal propulsion can power spacecraft more efficiently than chemical rockets. One of the biggest barriers to making this technology a reality is handling the extreme temperatures involved. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Instacart workers are organizing national boycott to reinstate a default 10 percent tip | Instacart workers will be holding a protest against the company next week in order to push for the reinstatement of a 10 percent default tip on all orders. They plan to start a social media campaign to encourage customers to #DeleteInstacart until the company restores the 10 percent tip. Workers claim that Instacart has lowered pay steadily over the last few years, reducing the default tips from 10 percent to 5 percent in 2016. It introduced an earnings structure in 2018 that resulted in less pay for most of its laborers. Workers' tips were being factored into their minimum payments, but Instacart reversed the policy after widespread criticism. Instacart later eliminated its bonus program. An IPO may be on the horizon for Instacart, which had a valuation of around $8 billion last year. | 4Miscellaneous
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Ciphey (GitHub Repo) | Ciphey is a fully automated decryption tool. It uses natural language processing and artificial intelligence to determine the type of encryption used and to detect when the text is decrypted. Over 20 types of encryptions and multiple languages are supported. It is much faster and simpler to use compared to similar tools. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Ten Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (23 minute read) | Most people don't negotiate, or if they do, they only do so enough to tell themselves that they did. Negotiation is a skill that can be learned just like any other. This article discusses the negotiating process and how to succeed in job negotiations. It teaches readers how to ask for what they want so they can have more successful careers and earn what they deserve. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Reddit experiments with livesteaming | Over the weekend, Reddit users started speculating what the cryptic messages on a new subreddit, /r/pan, could mean. It has now been revealed that /r/pan is a subreddit where users can post live stream videos. The Public Access Network subreddit is a weeklong experiment to test out Reddit's live-streaming features. There are strict rules for the subreddit. It is limited to 100 concurrent streams of 30 minutes each, and the content is monitored so that NSFW, dangerous or illegal activity, and 'quarantine eligible' content will be shut down. The streams are rear-facing camera by default to discourage selfie streams. Users will be able to upvote or downvote streams just like normal threads on Reddit. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Starter Workflows (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains templates for on-boarding a new user into GitHub Actions. The templates are written in YAML and cover solutions for continuous integration and automation. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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New mystery AWS product ‘Infinidash’ goes viral — despite being entirely fictional | Developer educator Joe Nash wondered whether merely mentioning a new AWS product on Twitter would be enough to see it appear in job ads. After tweeting out this idea, AWS Infinidash was born. The idea went viral, with many developers tweeting about the fake product and making songs, blog posts, service integrations, and explainer videos. Three days after Nash's tweet, Signal posted a job ad for a Server Engineer that required Infinidash experience. Examples of some of the content created for Infinidash are available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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The JavaScript Developer's Reading List (GitHub Repo) | There is a lot of material out there for learning JavaScript and this can be a bit overwhelming. This repository contains a curated list of web development and JavaScript books and articles that have been recommended by developers. The owner of the repository is mainly focused on using React, GraphQL, and JavaScript, as it is the stack they are most familiar with. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Apple Hiring Engineers to Develop 6G Wireless | Apple recently posted job ads looking for wireless system research engineers for current and next-generation networks. The people hired for the positions will research and design 5G wireless communication systems for radio access networks. 6G isn't expected to be rolled out until around 2030, but Apple wants to be involved in the earliest stages of development. Apple currently relies heavily on Qualcomm for its 5G modems. It started development on its first custom modem last year. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Uber sues California over the gig-worker law. Now what? | Ride-hailing and delivery drivers from Uber and Postmates are suing the state of California over a law that is set to take effect today. AB 5 introduces a test for determining when a worker must be classified as an employee and therefore be entitled to minimum wage and benefits. This law has severe implications for the business models of companies that rely on contractors. The lawsuit is an attempt to get lawmakers to rethink the law to create a better solution. Some workers want to remain classified as independent contractors due to the schedule flexibility it provides them. Experts believe that it is likely the lawsuit will be unsuccessful. Workers from many industries are affected by this law, including truck drivers, freelance journalists, and musicians. Some of these groups have also filed lawsuits. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Airbnb plans to confidentially file for IPO this month | Airbnb is planning to submit a confidential filing with the SEC to go public this month, with shares trading by the end of the year. The company's plans to go public have been delayed due to the pandemic. It has laid off a quarter of its employees to cut costs. Airbnb's 2020 revenue will be less than half of its 2019 earnings. Its valuation has dropped to $18 billion from $31 billion in 2017. The company has raised $2 billion in funds since April to get through the crisis. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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awesome-web-effect (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains a collection of cool web page effects. The effects can be simply inserted into any page. Categories include mouse effects, background decorations, image effects, SVG animations, and more. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Advanced NLP with spaCy: A free online course (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains an online course which can also be used as a framework to build other online courses. The course will teach students how to use spaCy to build advanced natural language understanding systems using rule-based and machine learning approaches. It features the use of slides, interactive code exercises, multiple-choice questions, and is completely customizable using Markdown with custom elements. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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How I Created A $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe | Payment.co is an app built on top of the Stripe payment gateway to allow people to easily collect payments in person without barriers or card readers. It started in 2015 and currently processes $70 million in volume annually, taking in a 1% service fee on every charge. Ryan Scherf, the founder of payment.co, originally went to school to become a developer but transitioned later into design. In 2013, Scherf was approached by someone who had an idea for an app that was built on top of Stripe, and they launched Paid in 2013. After some success, Payment was launched. Scherf and his partner spent little on marketing or launching their product. They have since grown the company by building features based on customer feedback. Payment.co has no support team - Scherf does all of the support. There is still only one true employee in the company, but Scherf hires several contractors. Scherf's advice for other entrepreneurs is that there is no perfect time to start a company and that entrepreneurs should learn how to build products themselves, rather than saving money to get someone else to build it. | 4Miscellaneous
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hue.tools (Website) | hue.tools is a toolbox for working with colors. It features color mixing, blending, conversion, modification, detailed information, and more. hue.tools was built with TypeScript, Svelte, SvelteKit, and Tailwind. The tool can output in multiple formats, including HEX, RGB, HSL, HSV, HSI, and LAB. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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SpaceX now offers Starlink for RVs for remote travels | SpaceX now offers Starlink for RVs, campers, and other large vehicles. The antenna is too big for cars to use. The service will provide high-speed, low latency internet in areas marked 'available' on Starlink's map. Regions on the waitlist will experience notably slower speeds during peak hours. The service is not designed for use while in motion. It will be available for most of the US and some areas of Canada, South America, the UK, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. | 4Miscellaneous
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On its second attempt, SpaceX sends Dragon soaring to the ISS | SpaceX delivered its Dragon spacecraft into orbit on the tenth Falcon 9 launch of 2019. Falcon 9 has now been launched 76 times. It will soon become the US booster with the most launch experience, surpassing the Atlas V. Falcon 9's first stage landed safely on a drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Aside from delivering supplies to the ISS, the Dragon will also fly a thermal demonstration for another unnamed customer. A 30-minute video of the CRS-19 launch is available to view on the page. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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CRISPR tomatoes genetically engineered to be richer in vitamin D | Researchers at the John Innes Center have genetically engineered tomatoes to provide a new source of vitamin D. Tomato leaves contain very low levels of a vitamin D precursor. The researchers used CRISPR technology to switch off a specific enzyme that normally converts the precursor into other molecules, which allowed the precursor to accumulate in the flesh, peel, and leaves at much higher levels. This resulted in tomatoes that contained as much vitamin D as two eggs. The technique could be used in other plants, like aubergines or potatoes, as they have similar biochemical pathways. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Google Duplex rolling out to non-Pixel, iOS devices in the US | Google Duplex is currently available in 44 US states on Pixel devices and will soon be available on non-Pixel and iOS devices. The rollout will likely happen in stages as Google continues to test the platform. Google Duplex allows users to make restaurant bookings using Google Assistant. It calls restaurants on your behalf and organizes the booking before emailing you a confirmation and setting a calendar event on your phone. A video is available demonstrating how Google Duplex works. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Describe programming in only six words (Twitter thread) | @MIT_CSAIL asks followers to describe programming in six words. A 1-minute video was also posted with MIT researchers attempting to describe their jobs. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Backup Driver Of Autonomous Uber SUV Charged With Negligent Homicide In Arizona | In 2018, Elaine Herzberg was killed by a Volvo SUV outfitted with an Uber self-driving system. The driver behind the wheel, Rafaela Vasquez, has been charged with negligent homicide. Vasquez pleaded not guilty to the charge and has been released with an ankle monitor. Her trial is set for February 21. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the likely cause of the crash was inattention from Vasquez, with dashcam footage showing Vasquez spending nearly a third of the trip looking towards her phone. While Uber was not criminally liable in Herzberg's death, the company failed to implement countermeasures to control operator disengagement, and the SUV's sensor systems failed to correctly categorize Herzberg or predict her path. | 4Miscellaneous
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CRISPR is being used to treat a patient with a dangerous blood disease | Beta thalassemia is a genetic disease that leaves the patient dependent on blood transfusions as they are not able to produce hemoglobin normally. A treatment using CRISPR technology will extract bone marrow stem cells from the patient, activate a gene that will produce hemoglobin (fetal hemoglobin), and then reinfuse the cells back into the bloodstream. Theoretically, this will cure the patient with one treatment. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Friday Frontend (Newsletter) | I really love this newsletter, it's essentially TLDR for front end design (as you might have guessed, it comes out on Fridays). Curated by Kevin Ball, founder of Zendev. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Disney’s Developed Movie-Quality Face-Swapping Technology That Promises to Change Filmmaking | Disney researchers have released a study where they used several innovations and approaches to automate face-swaps to produce results with enough quality and resolution to be used for actual film production. A four-minute video that demonstrates the technology is available in the article. The new algorithm works by first modifying the videos to make it easier for alternate faces to be swapped in. This technology could be used to significantly lower the costs of film and TV production especially in scenarios where stunt doubles are used. However, it may also present new problems as it could be used to create a new wave of extremely high-quality deep fakes. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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One-liner for running queries against CSV files with SQLite | This article discusses using SQLite to run queries against CSV files from the command line. It covers the different output modes available. Links to tools that provide a similar function are provided. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Facebook launches Portal TV, a $149 video chat set-top box | Facebook has released a new line of Portal devices, including a device that turns any TV into a video chat device. The $149 Portal TV allows people to watch videos simultaneously while video chatting. A new 8-inch Portal Mini is now available at $129. Older portal devices have dropped in price. Portal devices lack video apps such as Netflix and HBO. When Portal launched, people were unsure about bringing Facebook surveillance technology inside their homes, but so far the response from consumers has been positive. Portal devices display a message on launch that informs users that their voice clips may be reviewed by humans. WhatsApp integration is now available for Portal devices. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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ARWES (Website) | Arwes is a web framework for building science fiction and cyberpunk styled user interfaces for web applications. It is built on top of React, JSS, Anime, and Howler. The website itself is a demo. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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LinkedIn cuts 960 jobs as pandemic puts the brakes on corporate hiring | LinkedIn reported on Tuesday that it would cut about 960 jobs due to the sustained impact that the coronavirus pandemic is having on the demand for its recruitment products. The company helps employers assess a candidate's suitability for roles, and employees use the platform to find new jobs. Sales and hiring roles will be cut and the company will provide at least 10 weeks of severance pay as well as health insurance for a year for US employees. Employees affected by the job cuts will also be allowed to keep company-issued equipment to help them work from home while making career transitions. No other layoffs are planned. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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T-Mobile Confirms It Was Hacked | T-Mobile has confirmed that hackers gained access to its systems. A post was made recently on an underground forum offering to sell private data from T-Mobile customers, including Social Security Numbers, phone numbers, addresses, driver license information, and more. The seller claims that 100 million people had their data compromised in the breach. They are offering data on 30 million people for 6 bitcoin. The entry point used to gain access to the data has been closed. T-Mobile is coordinating with law enforcement to investigate the issue. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Amazon’s Wheel of Time show is finally revealed in its first trailer | Amazon has released the first trailer for The Wheel of Time series. It establishes some of the basic tenets of Robert Jordan's world, with a specific focus on Moiraine Damodred. The trailer shows the five central characters that Moiraine ends up mentoring through the series. Various locations from the story are teased. The trailer is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Headquarters | Amazon has canceled its plans to build a new headquarters in New York City after heavy resistance by lawmakers, progressive activists, and union leaders. Groups opposing the deal contended that the government should not provide the tech giant with the up to $3 billion dollars in incentives that it had promised. Amazon decided that dealing with the heavy resistance would not be beneficial to the company in the long term, however, it has decided that it will still continue growth in its existing branches in the city regardless of government subsidies. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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How I Might Have Hacked Any Microsoft Account | Until recently, hackers could change the password of any Microsoft account by sending all of the possible security codes concurrently. To do so wouldn't be easy for anyone, as it would require a lot of computing resources and thousands of IP addresses. This article follows how the vulnerability was discovered. It was reported to Microsoft and patched in November. A $50,000 bounty was rewarded for reporting the issue. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Announcing Flutter 2 | Flutter 2 is now available. It has been broadened from a mobile framework to a portable framework, allowing developers to make apps for a variety of different platforms, including desktops, foldables, and embedded devices, with little or no change. Existing flutter apps can now grow to target desktop and web without a rewrite. Flutter 2 has production-quality support for the web. There are over 15,000 packages for Flutter. Flutter has an open-source toolkit for building apps. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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White Castle becomes the first fast food chain to test out the robot fry cook, Flippy, from Miso Robotics | White Castle will start trialing Miso Robotic's Flippy robot to reduce human contact with food, increase the quality of its meals, and to reduce the amount of waste produced in the kitchen. Flippy will be tested in the Chicago area starting September, and if the trial is successful, White Castle plans to bring the robot to kitchens across the country. Miso Robotics usually charges $30,000 to install each system and then another $15,000 per year, but White Castle aims to bring the costs down significantly. White Castle executives have taken pay cuts to retain staff, and there are no plans yet to replace staff with the robot. A 45-second video of Flippy in action is available. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Scientists Find Vital Genes Evolving in Genome’s Junkyard | Scientists had previously thought that essential genes were frozen in time, not evolving. Experiments have shown that the genes guiding the development of the body plans in fruit flies and mice can be swapped out because they are so similar. However, a new study has found that a large class of genes in fruit flies essential for survival are evolving extremely rapidly. The genes' ability to keep changing could be the key to their essential nature. The results also mean that gene scientists could be looking in the wrong place for important genes relevant to a variety of medical conditions and biological mysteries. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Thousands Of Swedes Are Inserting Microchips Under Their Skin | Over 4,000 Swedish people have opted in to being microchipped, and the biggest microchip company Biohax International says that it can't keep up with demand. Microchips the size of a grain of rice are inserted into users' hands for just $180, and allow users to enter homes, offices, and gyms by swiping their hands against chip readers.They can also store contact details, social media profiles, and etickets for events and trips. One user says "The chip basically solves my problems. I see no problem for it becoming mainstream. I think it's something that can seriously make people's lives better." | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Facebook Groups are being revamped to look like Discord | Meta is testing a new left-aligned sidebar and channels list for Groups. | 4Miscellaneous
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The UAE is Using Drones to Control Dubai's Weather | The United Arab Emirates often sees high temperatures and little rainfall. It has invested $15 million in nine different rain-enhancement projects. One of those projects involves using drones to jump-start rain production through cloud seeding, a process where clouds are zapped with an electric charge, charging the droplets inside. The technique makes the droplets inside the clouds big enough to fall out, creating rain. Potentially carcinogenic chemicals are sometimes used in cloud seeding. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Long-awaited accelerator ready to explore origins of elements | The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University can create rare isotopes of elements. It can potentially produce hundreds of isotopes that have never been synthesized before. FRIB started construction in 2014 and cost $942 million. The facility will hold its official inauguration today. FRIB will allow scientists to discover how many neutrons can be added to a nucleus and how this changes the interactions inside the nucleus. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Mario on Vim (GitHub Repo) | This is an implementation of the classic Mario game in Vim. It requires the vim-game_engine plugin to work. A GIF demo is available in the repository. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Hackers behind the world’s deadliest code are probing US power firms | A group called Xenotime, who had been targeting oil and gas facilities in the Middle East, are now setting their eyes on electrical utilities in the US and Asia. Cybersecurity firm Dragos claim they have evidence that Xenotime has been attempting to steal login credentials from employees since the end of 2018. The group had previously installed malicious code in a Saudi petrochemical plant in 2017 that disabled safety mechanisms designed to prevent serious industrial accidents. No evidence has been presented yet confirming that Xenotime has been able to successfully penetrate any US-based systems. | 4Miscellaneous
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This intrepid robot is the Wall-E of the deep sea (10 minute read) | The Benthic Rover II is a robot that is designed to prowl the ocean floor to search for clues on how the deep ocean processes carbon. It is serviced and dropped into the water off the coast of Southern California once a year, transmitting its data to a floating glider that travels on the ocean surface near the rover. The rover helped scientists realize that the ocean floor was not sequestering away as much carbon as previously thought. Having more rovers would help scientists further understand what is happening in other areas to form a more complete picture, but the rovers are expensive and difficult to operate and maintain. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Facebook will pay you to let it track what you do on your phone | Facebook has launched a new app called Study that will allow it to monitor users’ phone use. The app will monitor which apps are installed in a user’s phone, the time spent using these apps, what the apps are being used for, the country the user is in, and more. It won’t be able to monitor private data such as passwords, messages, or browser history. Facebook has recently been accused of monitoring user data unethically through its Facebook Research app that was targeted at teens, which was shut down in January. The launch of Study shows the importance of the data that Facebook was obtaining through the Research app, and that they are trying to find more ethical ways of collecting that data. Facebook Study will financially compensate users for providing the data, but there have been no announcements about how much users will get paid for using the app. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Paladin publicly launches Knighthawk, a first response drone for cities | The Knighthawk is a drone designed for emergency response personnel. It has a 10x optical zoom camera, a thermal camera, and 55 minutes of flight time. 911 operators can place a pin on a map to direct the drone to sites within seconds of a call being made. No special hardware needs to be installed in the city for the drones to process their surroundings. The FAA has strict rules around visual line of sight for drone operators, so the company behind the Knighthawk has to collect extensive data to get operating waivers, which it has done so far for the two cities it works with. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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