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US Regulators Approve Roche's New And Faster COVID-19 Test | US regulators have given emergency approval for Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche's new COVID-19 diagnosis test. The test can be run in high volumes on fully automated equipment, providing results much faster than other tests available. Widespread testing is essential in the race to control the spread of the virus. Roche will have millions of tests available each month and it is committed to pushing its production capacity in order to deliver as many tests as possible. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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How futuristic floating wind turbines might ride the waves | Floating wind farms hold a lot of potential, but they have so far been too costly to deploy at a commercial scale. GE has received a $3 million award from the US Department of Energy to support a two-year project to solve some of the technical challenges of deploying floating wind farms. It has partnered with Glosten to develop advanced turbine controls that can automatically adjust to catch strong gales without tipping over. The turbines will allow the wind farms to maximize their power output, making them more profitable. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Zoom’s Immersive View could make video calls feel a bit more in-person | Zoom's new Immersive View will make video calls look more like an office meeting by placing meeting attendees in a realistic-looking location. The feature is available for calls with up to 25 participants. Calls with more attendees will show participants in a strip of video thumbnails at the top of the scene. Hosts can resize attendees and move them around. | 4Miscellaneous
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pattern.css (GitHub Repo) | pattern.css is a CSS only library of patterned backgrounds. It supports all modern browsers and developers have full color control. pattern.css is under 1KB when compressed. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Supreme Court deals Apple major setback in App Store antitrust case | The Supreme Court has ruled that iPhone users can pursue their antitrust lawsuit against Apple and its App Store. Apple charges a 30 percent commission on sales through the App Store. This charge is usually passed onto consumers. iPhone developers and users are claiming this system is an unfair abuse of Apple’s monopoly on the marketplace. Apple claims that it is up to developers to set prices for their apps and that their business in the App Store is fair. The results of this case may affect how all online marketplaces structure their business, and there may be millions of dollars of fines for Apple if they are found guilty of unfair practices. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Inside the future of online dating: AI swiping and concierge bots (11 minute read) | It is possible to automate Tinder with AI. There are many bots that are able to swipe based on your preferences and then carry the conversations for you. Some of these bots are available on GitHub and are linked in the article. Bots like these bring up ethical discussions about using AI in this way. People who meet using this method may have to have a difficult conversation later on in their relationship. The bots may have negative effects on people who find out that they were conversing with a program. They may also further the enabling of people with anxiety. Dating apps have already been shown to have the potential to be harmful to some users' mental health. In the future, these bots may serve as a type of concierge to help us find love. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Yaade (GitHub Repo) | Yaade is a collaborative API development environment. It is self-hosted, secure, and persistent and it features a dark mode default. Requests can be called on localhost as well as on remote servers. Screenshots are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Free Log4j Cloud Threat Hunting Assessment (Sponsor) | Free Log4j Cloud Threat Hunting Assessment . To help you quickly handle Log4j and other known or unknown threats, Lacework is offering a free, no obligation, 14-day Cloud Threat Hunting Assessment. Our cloud security experts will work with you to find all vulnerable systems across your entire cloud and container environments and continuously monitor for active signs of compromise — helping to reduce risk and better protect your business. | 0Sponsor
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These students figured out their tests were graded by AI — and the easy way to cheat | The assignment algorithm used on Edgenuity's platform can be easily fooled by entering a long answer followed by a string of related terms. Edgenuity is an education platform used by more than 20,000 schools, including 20 of the 25 largest school districts in the US. Short answer questions make up less than five percent of Edgenuity's course content, but exploiting the algorithm can still have a significant impact on results. Teachers can review students' work and override assigned grades, but it appears that most teachers are not changing assigned grades. | 4Miscellaneous
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US germ warfare research leads to new early Covid-19 test | Scientists working for DARPA have designed a new COVID-19 test that could potentially identify carriers before they become infectious and spread the disease. The blood-based test can detect the virus' presence as early as 24 hours after infection. It is expected to be put forward for emergency use approval by the FDA within a week. If approval is granted, the test should begin rolling out in the US in the second half of May. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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The World's Coldest Inhabited Place Is Burning Because of 'Zombie Fires' | Zombie fires are burning in Russia’s Oymyakon region, the world's coldest inhabited place. Zombie fires are fires that have stayed burning underground. They are linked to climate change. Fires burned through 18.16m hectares of forest in the region in May and the area saw its warmest-ever June this year. A video from the area showing smoke coming out from under snow and ice is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Engineers test a powered 'ankle exoskeleton' to make running easier | An ankle exoskeleton is a device that could potentially help people run longer and faster. It could potentially even serve as a new mode of transportation. A team of engineers at Stanford University created a motorized exoskeleton rig that reduces the energy cost of running and boosts speed. Its motors tug on a cable that runs through the back of the rig from the heel to the calf, pulling the foot upwards during the toe-off and extending the ankle at the end of every step. Testers report feeling like they can run forever while using the device. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Snapchat becomes the mobile HBO with 12 daily scripted Original shows | Snapchat is producing a dozen TV shows with top producers like the people who produce Keeping Up With the Kardashians and Friday Night Lights. The Discover tab will soon have a special section called "shows". The shows will be monetized with a few 6-second unskippable ads in each show. Snap believes that the original content could help them differentiate from Instagram and Facebook. The article contains a list of names and descriptions of the original shows. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Layout Parser (GitHub Repo) | Layout Parser is a tool for document image layout analysis tasks. It uses deep learning to analyze complex documents and process hierarchical structures in layouts. Layout Parser can be used to extract information from documents and convert the output into structured data. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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How fast are Linux pipes anyway? (23 minute read) | This article explores how Unix pipes are implemented by Linux. It begins by using a program with a throughput of around 3.5GiB/s and optimizes it until its performance is improved twentyfold. A basic knowledge of C is required. A GitHub repository that contains the code for the article is linked. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Swarm of mysterious radio bursts seen coming from deep space | Astronomers have detected 13 high-speed bursts of radio waves coming from deep space. These types of radio bursts were first detected in 2007, and all have come from outside the Milky Way. One of the new bursts is repeating, the second repeating burst ever to be detected. These were discovered by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, or CHIME, which was only running at partial capacity at the time. Researchers hope they will detect more now that CHIME is fully operational. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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SF, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn: 'Never seen anything like it' | The cost of rent in the San Francisco Bay Area plummeted in May due to layoffs and increased flexibility in working from home. Rent prices dropped by nearly 16% in Mountain View. While rent prices have dropped all across the country, the drop was most severe in the areas that have been most attractive to tech entrepreneurs and their investors. Many tech employees are now permanently allowed to work remotely, which means they are no longer required to live in these areas. A table showing the average rent and the percent change in rent prices between May 2019 and May 2020 in the Bay Area is available at the end of the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Watch Virgin Galactic launch Richard Branson to space | Richard Branson and three company employees flew to the edge of space on the morning of July 11. The event was livestreamed and featured Stephen Colbert as the host and a performance from Khalid. It was delayed by 90 minutes due to overnight weather over Spaceport America. Virgin Galactic has already sold roughly 600 tickets at around $250,000 each. Jeff Bezos will be flying to space on July 20. Virgin Galactic's livestream is available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Next generation of biotech food heading for grocery stores | Gene edited foods are expected to be in stores by early next year. Genetically modified (GMOs) basically means that a plant/animal is mixed with another species' DNA to introduce a specific trait (like GMO corn is resistant to pests and weed killers). Gene editing tools like CRISPR can alter foods more precisely by editing the DNA directly instead of mixing in foreign DNA. The industry is proceeding cautiously because there could be unintended consequences of editing a piece of DNA but the potential benefits are pretty huge (wheat with triple the fiber, mushrooms that don't go brown, pigs immune to viruses etc.). NC State professor Jennifer Kuzma says "we think it's going to really revolutionize the industry". | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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OpenAI begins allowing customers to fine-tune GPT-3 | OpenAI is now allowing developers to create custom versions of GPT-3. Developers can now train GPT-3 to recognize specific patterns for workloads like content generation, classification, and text summarization. The new fine-tuning capabilities are expected to lead to cost savings due to a higher frequency of higher-quality outputs from fine-tuned models. OpenAI has focused on making its API accessible to developers who might not have machine learning backgrounds. | 4Miscellaneous
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Jetoptera Just Reinvented Flight With 'Bladeless Fans on Steroids' | Jetoptera's J-2000 VTOL aircraft uses a fluidic propulsion system that is similar to the technology that powers bladeless fans. The system uses fluid dynamics to use a small flow of compressed air to suck in much larger flows of ambient air at ludicrous speeds. It can suck up 15 times the volume of air pulled through by the compressor. The design is lighter and uses significantly less fuel compared to small turbojets. Images of the design are available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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GM and Michelin will bring airless tires to passenger cars by 2024 | GM and Michelin have unveiled Uptis, a Unique Puncture-proof Tire System, which is an airless tire for passenger cars. A mix of composite rubber and fiberglass allows Uptis to operate at highway speeds. GM will start testing Uptis on a fleet of Chevy Bolts later this year. The airless tires will prevent blowouts and irregular wear, as well as reduce the need for environmentally harmful tire production. Cars, especially self-driving vehicles, will be able to operate around the clock without fear of a stray nail ruining a trip. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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I Am a Heroin User. I Do Not Have a Drug Problem (12 minute read) | Carl Hart, a neuroscientist and Ziff Professor of Psychology at Columbia University, says that the media's sensationalistic coverage of the opioid crisis exploits ignorance and fear to vilify certain members of society. More than 70 percent of drug users do not meet the health criteria for drug addiction. A typical drug user is likely to be a responsible professional who uses drugs for many reasons. This interview with Hart discusses the opioid crisis, drug use, addiction, and how society's views on drugs should be reviewed. | 4Miscellaneous
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UTM (GitHub Repo) | UTM is a full-featured virtual machine host of iOS which can run Windows, Android, Linux, and more on iPhones and iPads. It supports over 30 processor types and doesn't require a jailbreak. Users will be able to create, manage, and run VMs directly from their devices. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Artificial Photosynthesis Advance: Standalone Device Converts Sunlight, CO2 and Water Into Clean Fuel | A device developed at the University of Cambridge can convert sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water into oxygen and formic acid, without requiring any additional components or electricity. Formic acid is a storable fuel that can be either used directly or converted into hydrogen. Artificial photosynthesis is difficult to achieve without producing unwanted by-products. The new technique produces almost no by-products and uses a catalyst that is easy to make and relatively stable. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Google to offer checking accounts in partnership with banks starting next year | Google is moving into banking and personal financial services and will start offering checking accounts to customers starting next year. Project Cache will involve partnerships with banks and credit unions, with the banks handling all financial and compliance activities related to the accounts. Google intends to offer product advantages, such as loyalty programs, on top of the basic financial services. It is unclear whether or not there will be service fees involved. Google currently offers Google Pay and Google Wallet for payments and transfers between users. Project Cache, along with its other payment systems, will allow Google to view the financial data of its users, which for many is a good picture of their overall day-to-day lives. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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No Design Development (Website) | This website contains a collection of tools to help developers design websites without requiring any artistic ability. Developers can select resources from categories including Art, Fonts, Color, Generators, Inspiration, Videos, and more. Examples of resources include photo libraries, CSS generators, and logo makers. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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How Spotify Optimized the Largest Dataflow Job Ever for Wrapped 2020 (10 minute read) | This post discusses how Spotify optimized and sped up elements for its largest Dataflow Job for Wrapped 2020 using a technique called Sort Merge Bucket (SMB) join. SMB is an optimization that reduces shuffle by doing work upfront on the producer side. By adopting SMB, Spotify was able to perform extremely large joins that were previously impossible. SMB allowed Spotify to save on costs and opened up more ways for the company to optimize its workflows. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Google is crowdsourcing a map of Mexico’s street foods | Food stands line the streets of towns and cities across Mexico, accounting for almost 50% of total business in the country. These businesses operate overwhelmingly outside of Google Maps, which could become a problem as people's tastes are increasingly dictated by algorithms and user-generated reviews. A freelance data analyst started making custom maps for these stands and Google Mexico took notice. Google then proposed a project where it would crowdsource maps for all types of street stalls. Even though businesses are more visible when they are listed on Google Maps, many only see a slight uptick in business. | 4Miscellaneous
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Pfizer, BioNTech say Covid vaccine is more than 90% effective | Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective at preventing COVID-19 in those without evidence of prior infection. The FDA had set a threshold of 50% effectiveness for a vaccine to merit approval. There haven't been any serious safety concerns reported yet in a trial of 43,538 participants. US stock futures skyrocketed in response to the news, with some airline and cruise company stocks jumping up as much as 30%. The vaccine requires two doses, with protection achieved 28 days after the initial vaccination. It could be available as early as late December, and widely available by the third quarter of 2021. Pfizer expects to produce up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020, and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company (10 minute read) | Sahil Lavingia, an entrepreneur, reflects on his journey in building a startup and why it failed to become a billion-dollar company. As the second employee at Pinterest, he was able to quickly raise capital for his idea, Gumroad, but then problems with running the venture soon materialized. Lavingia’s successes and failures throughout the journey are analyzed, and the lessons he learned from the experience are shared in a mature, balanced way. | 4Miscellaneous
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First at-home COVID-19 testing kit authorized by the FDA | The US Food and Drug Administration has authorized LabCorp's at-home COVID-19 test kit. LabCorp will give first access to health care workers and first responders. The swab sample can be completed at home, but the sample will have to be sent to a lab for testing. It costs $119 per test. At-home testing removes the need for a clinician and lessens the need for extra personal protective equipment. The US is currently testing around 147,000 samples each day, which is still far below the number that experts say is required to control the outbreak. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Push-button installer of macOS on VirtualBox (GitHub Repo) | macos-guest-virtualbox.sh is a Bash script that installs macOS on a virtual guest machine on Virtualbox. It uses unmodified macOS installation files downloaded directly from Apple servers. Users will only need to follow the prompts to install macOS. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Cruisin’ Elon: Tesla boss Musk takes Cybertruck for a spin | Being the boss of a company has its perks, and it is no surprise that Elon Musk gets to be one of the first to take the Cybertruck out for a spin. Musk was seen cruising about Hawthorne, California in a Cybertruck recently. An Instagram user posted a video of an encounter, which Musk then retweeted. The video is a little blurry, but it shows what appears to be Musk driving a Cybertruck. One of the people in the video says 'Jay Leno and Elon'. It is linked in the article. The car taking the video barely comes up to the bottom of the Cybertruck's window. Everyone else will have to wait until at least the end of 2021 to have the driving experience Musk is having today. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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My deepfake DALL-E 2 vacation photos passed the Turing Test | After a trip to Roatan, Matt Bell decided to run an experiment with his Facebook friends to see whether they could tell the difference between his real vacation photos and images generated by DALL-E 2, OpenAI's image generating AI system. 19 out of the 23 people who participated in a survey at the end of the photo reel missed the fact that there was something different about the DALL-E images. There could be many factors contributing to the results, such as it being a casual Facebook post and the fact that people are unfamiliar with ocean environments, but the experiment shows how far DALL-E 2 has progressed. The collection of images used in the experiment is available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Scientists Have Identified the First ‘True’ Millipede | While the name millipede means 'thousand foot', no millipede has ever actually been seen with 1,000 legs, until now. A new species has been discovered with 1,306 legs. The previous record for the most legs on a millipede was 750. The new millipede was found over 196-feet below ground in Western Australia. It has no eyes, and its 95-millimeter long body is made up of 335 segments. A picture of the millipede is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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'Siri, I'm getting pulled over': A new shortcut for iPhones can automatically record the police | One of the big new features in iOS 12 is an app called Shortcuts, which allows power users to write scripts for their iPhones. There is now a script called Police that will activate the front facing camera and save the file to Dropbox if you just say the trigger phrase, for example "Hey Siri, I'm getting pulled over." | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Karpenter (GitHub Repo) | Karpenter is a node provisioning project built for Kubernetes. It watches for unschedulable pods, evaluates scheduling constraints requested by the pods, provisions nodes that meet the requirements of the pods, schedules the pods to run on the new nodes, and removes the nodes when they are no longer required. Multiple provisioners can be defined for cases like isolation, entitlements, and sharding. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Multi-Agent Hide and Seek (3 minute video) | AI-based agents were placed into a simple game of hide-and-seek, and after millions of training rounds, they created six distinct strategies and counterstrategies to play the game. The goal of the exercise was to see if simple rules and multi-agent competition can eventually lead to intelligent behavior. Agents were required to work together to manipulate the environment for a majority of scenarios. The hiders eventually developed solutions, which the seekers then had to overcome, leading to increasingly complex strategies from both teams. These behaviors were not explicitly incentivized and the agents' only goal was to win the game. The agents were trained using reinforcement learning, an algorithm inspired by how animals learn. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Chinese scientists discover gene associated with epilepsy | Scientists from South China's Guangdong province have discovered a gene responsible for epilepsy. UNC13B variants were found in eight unrelated families from 446 cases with partial epilepsy. Partial epilepsy can also be caused by trauma, infection, immune abnormalities, or neoplasm. A further analysis found that partial epilepsy caused by the gene variants can be clinically managed with antiepileptic therapy. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Exclusive: Messaging app Telegram moves to protect identity of Hong Kong protesters | Telegram will be releasing an update in the next few days which will allow users to disable the ability to be searched by phone number. Currently, users can find other users by searching for their phone numbers. In June, Telegram reported that it had experienced a state actor-sized cyber-attack and that China was the country of origin. It is likely that mainland Chinese and Hong Kong authorities are using the number-searching feature to identify protestors in Hong Kong. Protestors are using the Telegram app to communicate, with more than 100 group chats sharing information such as news on upcoming protests and tips on how to deal with tear gas. Nearly 900 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began three months ago. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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How Shein beat Amazon at its own game — and reinvented fast fashion (16 minute read) | Chinese clothing manufactures have been selling directly to international customers online over the last decade, bypassing retailers. These manufacturers use social media, online markets, and access to garment supply chains to accelerate trends and flood closets with cheap clothes. The market transformed people's consumption habits as Chinese apparel makers evolved to cater to their customers. This article looks at how these manufacturers reinvented fast fashion, with a focus on Shein, one of the world's largest fashion companies. | 4Miscellaneous
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Founders of Successful Tech Companies Are Mostly Middle-Aged | While some of the most famous entrepreneurs were young when they founded their companies, a study has found that the average age for the founders of the fastest-growing companies between 2007 and 2014 was 45. Previous studies have found that the owners of small businesses were likely to be in their late 30s and 40s, but most of these businesses tended to stay small. This new study focused on the best performing startups from a pool of 2.7 million business founders. While youth has advantages, such as the ability to take more risks and better problem-solving ability, experience gained from age seems to be more correlated with success. | 4Miscellaneous
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Optimus Ride’s Brooklyn self-driving shuttles begin picking up passengers this week | Optimus Ride is set to become the first commercial self-driving service in New York. It will be used in a restricted private commercial development, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which has 300 acres of space. The vehicles are fitted with six seats across three separate rows. Optimus Ride's shuttles have been running across a range of locations including Boston, California, and Massachusetts. It will still be a long time before fully autonomous driving can be mastered, but success in controlled environments on a smaller scale can bring in revenue while offering value to paying customers at the same time. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Paper-thin piano demonstrates the power of printed electronics and NFC | Prelonic Interactive Paper (PIP) is a technology that combines printed circuitry and NFC to create a new way to interact with mobile devices. Developed by Prelonic, an Austrian tech company, PIP can be used to make paper-thin interfaces. Prelonic created a piano keyboard using PIP technology, pairing it with a smartphone app to demonstrate how its technology can be used. A picture of the paper piano is available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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NASA Confirms Thousands of Massive, Ancient Volcanic Eruptions on Mars | NASA scientists have confirmed that a region of northern Mars called Arabia Terra experienced thousands of super-eruptions over a 500-million-year period about 4 billion years ago. Each eruption would have had a significant climate impact on the planet. While Mars has many types of volcanoes, the area has only one type of volcano. The discovery may lead to more knowledge about the geological processes that help shape planets and moons. | 4Miscellaneous
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Decrease recovery time with a single search (Sponsor) | Decrease recovery time with a single search . Search across all your repositories to find and resolve vulnerabilities in minutes, not days. Sourcegraph’s code intelligence platform enables developers to understand, fix, and automate across their entire codebase. Identifying & resolving security vulnerabilities is painful...but it doesn't have to be. Learn more. | 0Sponsor
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Twitter CEO sets aside $1 billion in Square equity for charity, coronavirus relief | Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square and Twitter, has set aside $1 billion of his Square equity to support relief efforts for COVID-19 and other causes once the pandemic is over. Dorsey will cash the shares over time and fund causes such as Universal Basic Income and girls' health and education. The money can be tracked by anyone through a public Google Doc that is linked in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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First autonomous X-ray-analyzing AI is cleared in the EU | Oxipit has received regulatory clearance in the EU for its artificial intelligence tool that can read chest X-rays without oversight from a radiologist. ChestLink scans chest X-rays and sends scans with potential problems to radiologists for review. The EU certification only signals that the tool meets safety standards. Oxipit plans to obtain FDA clearance in the US, which will require the company to prove its effectiveness as well. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Stupid solutions: Live server push without JS | MJPEG is a standard for sending a stream of JPEG frames as a video that is used by a lot of webcams, security cameras, and Raspberry Pi hacks. It can be made into a service that indefinitely waits for frames to stream. While it isn't the best way to do things, it's a good example of a fun hack that works quite well across browsers. There can also be some other potential applications for it, such as tracking data for when frames stop loading or serving ads without JS. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Here’s everything Apple announced at its ‘Spring Loaded’ event today | Apple just announced updates to its iMacs, iPad Pros, Apple TV, iPhones, and Podcast app. It also finally unveiled its long-rumored AirTag tracking device, which will launch at the end of the month. The new iMacs and iPad Pros will feature Apple's M1 chipset, providing significant performance improvements to both devices. The Apple TV will be powered by the A12 Bionic chip. It has a redesigned remote with a five-way click pad and an iPod-like scroll wheel. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini are getting a new purple color option. Apple's Podcast app has been redesigned, with options for paid subscriptions now available. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Artificial heartmaker Carmat to start sales after EU approval | Artificial heartmaker Carmat has received approval from the European Commission and will start selling its devices from the second quarter of this year. Carmat's devices give patients with end-stage biventricular heart failure an alternative to hospital stays. The artificial heart has not been approved as a permanent implant. Each device will cost up to 150,000 euros. Around 2,000 patients in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Britain with this specific condition are on waiting lists for a heart. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Scale your engineering team and grow as a leader (Sponsor) | The Unicorn CTO is a private membership for CTOs and engineering leaders that includes workshops, peer mentoring, online courses and events. Apply now using the code TLDR to get a one-month free trial! | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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It’s Time to Break Up Facebook (27 minute read) | Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, writes about his experience with Mark Zuckerberg and working on Facebook. While he believes that Zuckerberg is still the same person he was when they started Facebook, he says that this is what makes his new influence so dangerous. His focus on growth rather than security has had a huge impact on our society, and Zuckerberg's power is only increasing as the company grows and expands. Hughes believes that Zuckerberg should be held accountable for Facebook's many scandals and that the company needs to be broken up in order to control the amount of power that it holds. | 4Miscellaneous
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Endless AI-generated spam risks clogging up Google’s search results | Content marketing agency Fractl created a completely AI-generated blog using an open-source tool called Grover. Grover can easily generate fake news articles, as well as spot articles that were generated by itself and other AI. Fractl created the fake blog to bring attention to the fact that the internet will soon be flooded with AI-generated articles that will be targeted at Google search rankings. In the past, article spinners performed a similar task and Google was able to eventually block these sites from appearing in results, but blocking AI-generated content will be much more difficult. Google did not respond when asked about their plans on detecting AI-generated text. | 4Miscellaneous
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Hydrogen-powered passenger plane completes maiden flight in ‘world first’ | ZeroAvia's six-seater Piper M-class aircraft, a plane that was retrofitted with a device to convert it to using hydrogen fuel, completed its maiden flight this week. While ZeroAvia describes the trip as a world's first, other hydrogen-fuel cell passenger planes already exist. ZeroAvia hopes to start flying passengers on zero-emission flights very soon. Its next step is to carry out a flight of between 250 to 300 nautical miles using hydrogen-fuel cells, which ZeroAvia hopes to complete before the end of 2020. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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NASA is going back to Venus to discover why it became a runaway hothouse | NASA will send two spacecraft to explore Venus before the end of the decade. The DAVINCI+ mission will study how the planet's atmosphere formed and evolved and determine whether the planet ever had an ocean. It will also be able to return high-resolution pictures of the planet's geological features. The VERITAS mission will map the planet's surface to determine its history and understand why it developed so differently from Earth. It will also map infrared emissions from the planet's surface to map its rock types. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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This is Google’s Pixel 4 | Google just tweeted an image of the new Pixel 4, which is expected to be released in October. The image features design changes from renders that were released only a few days ago. For the first time ever, there is no rear fingerprint scanner present on the device. The image clearly shows two rear cameras and a third sensor of some kind on the back of the camera, as well as a tiny dot on the lower right of the camera module. Previous Pixel designs have been leaked extensively, so it appears that this time Google is trying to control the narrative surrounding the release of the Pixel 4. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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This new Tokyo café has robot waiters controlled remotely by disabled workers | The Dawn Avatar Robot Café in Tokyo features humanoid robots waiting on customers and serving food and drinks. It operates as an accessible business by creating job opportunities for disabled workers. The robots are operated remotely via the internet by people who can't leave the house for long periods of time. They are 120cm tall and have a camera, microphone, and speaker for communicating with customers. The robots can be controlled just through eye movement, so even people who are immobilized are able to work in the café. Photos of the robots and café are available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Simple Tensorflow Cookbook (GitHub Repo) | The Simple Tensorflow Cookbook contains general architectures and functions that are useful for Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and classification. GANs are unsupervised machine learning algorithms where a neural network aims to create a result, while another network tests to see whether the result is ‘correct’. Users can quickly develop neural networks using the code contained in the Tensorflow Cookbook. A quick description of how to use the code is provided along with diagrams of how each architecture works. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Facebook plans first smartwatch for next summer with two cameras, heart rate monitor | Facebook's smartwatch will feature two cameras on a detachable display. The device's front camera is designed for video calling and its back camera features a 1080p auto-focus lens. Facebook has contacted other companies to create accessories for attaching the device to things like backpacks. The watch will have LTE support, so it won't need a phone to work. It will come in black, white, and gold. Facebook plans to release the first version of the watch in the summer of 2022. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Introducing Plot Components: A new way to build HTML pages using Swift | Plot is a domain-specific language for writing type-safe HTML, XML, and RSS in Swift. It focuses on static site generation and Swift-based web development. Plot's latest update added a new API for building HTML components in a very SwiftUI-like way. This article introduces the new API with examples of how to use it. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Tesla can now scan for potholes and adjust vehicle suspension to avoid damage | Tesla's 2022.20 update enables Tesla vehicles to scan the road ahead for potholes and adjust the suspension for rough roads. The feature can be activated by selecting 'Comfort' under the Adaptive Suspension Damping setting. It will not affect Autopilot or Full Self-Driving, meaning that vehicles won't try to automatically steer around or avoid road damage. The update also includes a green light chime for vehicles equipped with the hardware 3.0 computer. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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The Rise of the Robot Reporter | Artificial intelligence is being used to generate content for news websites. The technology, which was first used in financial reporting, is being used to quickly generate articles which can then be edited and published by human reporters. The tool allows journalists to focus on more substantive work rather than having to worry about reporting on statistics and numbers. AI may also help journalists by identifying patterns and anomalies in data for further investigation. | 4Miscellaneous
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HyperUI (Website) | This site contains a collection of free Tailwind CSS components. The size of each component can be adjusted. Categories include alerts, buttons, carts, forms, tables, tags, and much more. The code for each component can be easily viewed and copied. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Google is giving Android on tablets another shot | Google has released a developer preview for Android 12L, a new version of Android designed for larger screens like tablets and foldables. The public version will arrive early next year. Android 12L features a two-column layout for the notification shade and lockscreen on wider screens, a taskbar that simplifies the process of launching things in split-screen mode, an API for developers to make apps aware of hinges, and much more. Screenshots from the preview are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Russia Plans to Cut Off Some Internet Access Next Week | Russia planned a test of its RuNet program on December 23. The test temporarily shut off many of its citizens' internet access. RuNet aims to help the government better control internal digital traffic, launch cyber and information attacks against other nations, and track and censor dissidents. The test evaluated RuNet's ability to intercept subscriber traffic, reveal information about subscribers, and block communication services. Results from the test will help the government assess its ability to control key internet nodes should a crisis develop. Experts are concerned that other countries may attempt to create isolated domestic internets to control citizens. Some countries already suspend internet access as a means of control, but Russia's solution will allow communication and business to continue on the Kremlin's terms. | 4Miscellaneous
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Nike uses AR to help you find the right fit for your sneakers | A new feature on the Nike app will be available in July. Nike Fit will measure feet size down to the millimeter by using AR technology. According to industry research, up to 60 percent of people wear the wrong shoe sizes. With Nike Fit, customers can get suggestions for shoe designs straight from the app to order online directly. Store consultants will also be able to make recommendations after scanning a QR code from the customer's phone. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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ZTE announces the world’s first phone with a behind-the-screen camera | ZTE has unveiled the ZTE Axon 20 5G, a device with a behind-the-screen camera. The under-display camera works by thinning out the pixels above the display to allow light to reach the camera. ZTE claims the camera is completely invisible, and an unboxing video seems to support this claim. The phone has a 6.92-inch 2460x1080 OLED display, a Snapdragon 765G SoC processor, 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, and a 4220 mAh battery. The phone costs around $321 US in China. It is unlikely to be sold in the US as ZTE is banned in the country. | 4Miscellaneous
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Inside the Pentagon's Secret UFO Program (21 minute read) | An investigation into what the US government knows about UFOs has confirmed that UFOs are undoubtedly real. The US Navy has captured footage of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and the Pentagon has secretly funded research into UFOs. A report in 2009 covered plans for studying UAPs and any biological organisms recovered from one, plans to create a medical physiological UAP effects program, a possible UAP landing report, sighting and witness reports, and much more. One of the difficulties in finding information about the government's UAP programs is that each department is wrapped in layers of secrecy. There are many mysterious companies with large government research contracts. A quick summary timeline of publicly known UFO programs in the US is available. | 4Miscellaneous
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Texas Instruments makes it harder to run programs on its calculators | Texas Instruments' graphing calculators are known for their ability to run assembly and C-based programs, but the latest firmware update for the TI-84 Plus CE and TI-83 Premium CE models will disable the feature. Users who install OS 5.6 or OS 5.5 on their devices will lose access to any apps that depend on the feature and they will not be able to roll back the firmware. Texas Instruments states that the change was implemented to reduce cheating. This change reduces the amount of control programmers have over their calculator apps on the device. | 4Miscellaneous
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Microsoft’s AI generates voices that sing in Chinese and English | Researchers at Zhejiang University and Microsoft have developed an AI that can generate singing voices in multiple languages. Deepsinger was trained using data from music websites. It can generate songs in Chinese, Cantonese, and English. The resulting voices are high quality in terms of both pitch accuracy and voice naturalness. A sample from Deepsinger is available in the article. Technology like this has already caused issues in the music industry, with Jay-Z's Roc Nation label recently filing copyright notices against videos that used AI to make him rap a Billy Joel song. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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2020 Startup Themes | It is easier than ever for entrepreneurs to develop and pitch new products. As giants like Facebook and Google become more profit-driven, lowering the quality of user experience as a result, the field is ripe for competitors to join the market. Software development is becoming simpler and more easily accessible, and new types of software will need to be developed as the industry evolves. Some software has already been banned in countries due to political reasons, and this is likely to become a larger issue in the future. Privacy is an increasingly growing sector, but adoption is still slow. AI is on the rise, and it is beginning to be able to complete more and more complicated tasks. Radio technology is becoming cheaper and more accessible, with new types of detection technology currently being developed. The office is changing, with remote teams becoming common. More startups are focusing on the environment and redesigning industries to become sustainable. | 4Miscellaneous
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Amazon announces its first fully autonomous mobile warehouse robot | Amazon has unveiled Proteus, its first fully autonomous mobile robot. The robot is designed to move large carts throughout Amazon's warehouses. It can safely navigate around humans. Proteus robots feature advanced safety, perception, and navigation technology. A video of the robot stopping when a human steps in front of it is available in the article. Amazon also announced a robotic arm that can lift and move packages and a camera system that can scan barcodes. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Airbyte (GitHub Repo) | Airbyte is a new open-source standard for syncing data from applications, APIs, and databases to warehouses. It features a full-grade scheduler, real-time monitoring, easy extensibility, and more. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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OpenAI’s $100M startup fund will make ‘big early bets’ with Microsoft as partner | The OpenAI Startup Fund is a new $100 million startup fund for investing in early-stage AI companies that tackle major problems. It plans to only invest in a small number of companies. The fund will look for companies that take on issues like healthcare, climate change, and education. It may also consider companies that focus on productivity. Companies who are selected for funding will receive early access to new OpenAI systems and Azure resources from Microsoft. Microsoft is one of the partners and investors in the fund. | 4Miscellaneous
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And Co (Desktop App & Chrome Extension) | This is a free desktop app/chrome extension put out by the freelance marketplace Fiverr, which basically gives you everything you need to run a freelance business. It has features for invoicing, proposals, contracts, time and expense tracking, and more. If you're a freelancer, definitely take a look at this, I'm kind of surprised that something this fully featured is free. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Irish-developed kit confirms infection in 15 minutes | An Irish company has developed COVID-19 testing kits that can provide results within 15 minutes. Current testing kits require four hours for results. The new test uses lateral flow technology to detect the coronavirus within a drop of blood. Being able to test patients for the virus quickly is key to combating it. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Google Lens 'multisearch' lets you ask questions about photos, now in beta on Android and iOS | Google Lens now lets users ask questions about photos. Multisearch allows users to start searches with an image and then add text to modify the search. While the tool can perform many types of searches, its best results are for shopping queries. Google Lens multisearch is now available in beta for users in the US on Android and iOS. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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AutoX launches its RoboTaxi service in Shanghai, competing with Didi’s pilot program | AutoX has publicly launched its self-driving taxi service in Shanghai. RoboTaxi will start with a fleet of 100 vehicles in the Jiading District. Customers can book rides through AutoNavi or Letzgo. AutoX is the third company to hold a permit for driverless robotaxis in California. Didi, China's largest ride-hailing platform, launched its own robotaxi pilot program in Shanghai at the end of June. it plans to deploy more than one million autonomous vehicles by 2030. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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DARPA Is Building a $10 Million, Open Source, Secure Voting System | Since 2017, DARPA has been working on developing secure hardware that would be impervious to most software attacks that exist today, and designing tools to build that hardware. In order to demonstrate their work, they had to find a real-world application that people would be interested in, and voting was an obvious choice. Galois, an Oregon-based firm, will work with DARPA to develop a fully open-source voting system that will be presented at Def Con and universities to be tested. The aim is not to create a commercially available voting system, but to create a methodology that can be used by others to build a voting system that is completely secure. DARPA’s new hardware modifies existing CPU designs to make them secure and may change the way that CPUs are architectured in the future. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Meta has built an AI supercomputer it says will be world’s fastest by end of 2022 | Meta's new AI Research SuperCluster will be one of the world's fastest AI supercomputers. Development on the supercomputer is expected to complete later this year. It will be used to train a range of systems across Meta's businesses and design experiences for the metaverse. AI supercomputers require much less accuracy than traditional supercomputers, so they can not be directly compared. While theoretical performance numbers can be impressive, it is common for supercomputers to run at less than 25% of their peak performance during real-world applications. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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A Brain Stimulation Experiment Relieved Depression in Nearly All of Its Participants | An unblinded experiment at Stanford University and Palo Alto University showed overwhelmingly positive results in treating patients with chronic depression. The technique used in the experiment involved directing hundreds of intense magnetic pulses to a specific part of the brain for a few minutes per day over six weeks. While the results are promising, the sample size of the study was small and the participants knew the aim of the experiment. The basis of the treatment has already been approved as a therapy for major depression by the FDA. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Shrimp made from algae that looks and tastes like the real thing (4 minute video) | This is a cool video from a company called New Wave Foods, showing off their shrimp replacement product made from algae that definitely looks (and supposedly smells and tastes) like real shrimp! | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Disney Plus surpasses 50 million subscribers | Disney Plus now has more than 50 million subscribers. It gained more than 22 million subscribers in the last two months. The streaming service rolled out to international territories recently. Netflix has 167 million subscribers and Hulu has 30 million subscribers. Disney has planned releases throughout the year, including three highly-anticipated series from Marvel and Lucasfilm. Science & | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Samsung’s new TV remote uses radio waves from your router to stay charged | Samsung's new Eco Remote can harvest RF waves and convert them into energy. It can also be charged from both indoor and outdoor light, as well as over USB-C. A white model will be introduced this year. Samsung estimates that switching to solar-powered remotes could prevent 99 million batteries from being discarded over the course of seven years. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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This AI Uses Your Brain Activity to Create Fake Faces It Knows You’ll Find Attractive | A new AI developed by a team from the University of Helsinki and Copenhagen University can generate images of fake faces that an individual finds attractive by learning that person's preferences. The AI was trained by monitoring the person's brain activity as they viewed a series of AI-generated faces. Faces generated by the system were rated as attractive 87 percent of the time. The remaining 13 percent of the times the faces were 'too perfect' or there was something odd with the AI-generated image. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Analysis: Coronavirus has temporarily reduced China’s CO2 emissions by a quarter | The impact of the coronavirus on China's energy demand and emissions is only beginning to be felt, with CO2 emissions dropping significantly during and after the Chinese New Year holiday. Coal use is reporting daily data at a four-year low, oil refinery operating rates in Shandong are at the lowest level since 2015, levels of NO2 air pollution over China are down 36% compared to the same period last year, and domestic flights are down 70% compared to last month. Overall, the virus has contributed to reductions of 15%-40% in output across key industrial sectors, wiping out a quarter or more of the country's CO2 emissions over the past two weeks. Shutdowns of a week or more are not uncommon in China, and the reduction would only really reduce annual figures by around one percent, as emissions catch up rapidly after a shutdown. The only way for the reduced levels could be maintained is if there is less demand from China after restrictions are lifted. Many people and businesses have been affected financially due to the shutdown, and demand may drop significantly as things start to return to the new normal. | 4Miscellaneous
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Pirated Academic Database Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’ | Handshake is a decentralized domain name server that can point browsers to websites even if their domain names have been taken down. Site owners can claim their domain names by placing them on the Handshake marketplace and then bidding for them. Services like this are a significant help in the fight for the decentralized web. Internet access is increasingly policed by a few companies that can switch off their services at will. Sci-Hub, a site that hosts a pirated database of academic papers, kept getting repeated domain name revocations. It is now accessible through Handshake's service portals, as well as through NextDNS. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Coinbase Cloud (Website) | Coinbase Cloud is a full suite of blockchain development services. It offers APIs and blockchain infrastructure to help developers create crypto apps or businesses. Coinbase Cloud can interact with the Coinbase exchange, help businesses accept crypto payments, run nodes, standardize integrations between blockchains, and more. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Dopefolio (GitHub Repo) | Dopefolio is a multipage portfolio template for developers. It is easy to set up, free to use, and can run without any additional frameworks or libraries. A playground demo is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Impossible Foods launches chicken substitute in U.S. restaurants, announces grocery release | Impossible Foods has launched its meatless chicken nuggets in restaurants. Impossible Chicken Nuggets will be available in supermarkets by the end of the month. The nuggets use soy as their main protein source. Impossible estimates that the nuggets use 48 percent less land, 43 percent less water, and generate a third less greenhouse gas emissions than real chicken nuggets during production. The nuggets contain 40 percent less saturated fat and 25 percent less sodium than chicken nuggets. | 4Miscellaneous
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Scientists Used CRISPR to Engineer a New ‘Superbug’ That’s Invincible to All Viruses | All of life is made from a combination of 64 DNA codons which are translated into 20 amino acids by tRNA. Viruses use the same code to use a host cell's machinery to build the proteins it needs to reproduce. A team of scientists used CRISPR to replace redundant codons in the E. Coli bacterial genome with their synonyms. They also replaced the cells' natural tRNA with synthetic versions to read the new codons. As a result, viruses were unable to use the cells' machinery to reproduce, making the cells resistant to being hijacked by almost any viral invader. The results of the study have countless implications for the biotechnology and medicine industries. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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AI - The No Bullshit Approach (20 minute read) | What we currently call AI are computer programs. Deep learning is not magic and it is just another way to construct computer programs. Programs can be manually written, generated from high-level logical specifications, or generated based on data. Commercial AI looks at solving problems with the technology that is available to us. The scientific approach should ideally aim to build a system that could develop high-level symbolic representations and be able to spontaneously manipulate these symbols. Many AI researchers are not interested in solving this problem, with most of the field focused on enjoying AI's success in non-critical applications. | 4Miscellaneous
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NASA simulation shows kaleidoscope of sunsets on other worlds | Geronimo Villaneuva, a planetary scientist from NASA, created a collection of sunset simulations while making a computer modeling tool for a possible future mission to Uranus. The simulation can display the known sky colors of Uranus, Earth, Venus, Mars, and Titan, showing the Sun setting from the perspective of someone standing on these worlds. The simulations have been implemented into the Planetary Spectrum Generator, an online tool that helps scientists replicate how light is transferred through the atmospheres of planets, exoplanets, moons, and comets. Videos of the simulations are available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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I bought 300 emoji domain names from Kazakhstan and built an email service (10 minute read) | Mailoji is an email address service with emoji domain names. This blog post follows the story of how Mailoji was developed, from getting the domains and setting up the email service, to scaling, marketing, and launch. Mailoji currently has 300 emoji domains to choose from. | 4Miscellaneous
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Y Combinator announces Launch YC, a way for its portfolio to shout to the public | Launch YC is a platform where people can sort accelerator startups by industry, batch, and launch date. Standing out within a batch is harder than ever. Launch offers startups a way to get in front of early customers and investors. Y Combinator founders currently participating in an accelerator batch can announce via Launch before Demo Day. Launch is currently only for recently-backed YC Companies and product updates from YC Alumni. | 4Miscellaneous
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Campus is closed, so college students are rebuilding their schools in Minecraft | University of Pennsylvania students recreated their campus in Minecraft after being told that their college commencement would be held online. Students report it being a rewarding experience to be able to recreate the campus they are graduating from, allowing them a chance to properly finish out their experience. Minecraft servers and creations are now being shared on Discord, Facebook, and Reddit. Minecraft has become a place where students can log in and process the sudden loss of an on-campus community. In May, there will be in-game graduations on a server specifically created to host Class of 2020 graduations for students from hundreds of different universities. At least 278 institutions have signed up so far. | 4Miscellaneous
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Geologists Discover Largest Underwater Volcano, Explain Weird Hum Heard Around the World | Scientists have recorded the largest ever underwater volcanic eruption after investigating a weird seismic event off the coast of Africa. Researchers were trying to determine the source of a seismic hum that could be heard across the world when they discovered the volcano forming in the Indian Ocean. It is unknown whether the volcano is completely new or whether it has formed on top of older volcanic structure. A nearby French Island, Mayotte, has sunk 13 centimeters and moved about 10 centimeters to the east as a result of the volcano. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Neural implant lets paralyzed person type by imagining writing | A team of researchers used neural implants to enable a paralyzed person to type using their imagination. The implants were placed in the premotor cortex, an area that is thought to be involved in forming the intentions to perform movements. Catching the signals for intentions produced clearer results than trying to catch the signals for the movements themselves. The researchers trained a neural network to estimate the probability of a signal corresponding to each letter, resulting in a system that could type at roughly 90 characters per minute with an error rate of about 5 percent. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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