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High-bandwidth wireless BCI demonstrated in humans for first time | Researchers with the BrainGate Consortium successfully demonstrated a high-bandwidth wireless brain-computer interface in two tetraplegic patients. The BrainGate wireless system uses a transmitter that sits on top of the user's head and wirelessly connects to an implant electrode array inside the motor cortex. It has a battery that lasts for 36 hours and it can continuously transmit data while operating. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code | A lawsuit filed by Tesla claims that Guangzhi Cao, a former engineer at Tesla, stole more than 300,000 files related to autopilot technology before leaving the company and joining Xiaopeng Motors Technology Company Ltd, a Chinese self-driving car startup. Xiaopeng has released a statement claiming they did not know about Cao's misconduct and were conducting an internal investigation on the matter. As Tesla is currently building a vehicle assembly facility in Shanghai, Xiaopeng is now a direct competitor in the world's largest electric vehicle market. Tesla has also filed a separate lawsuit against another four former employees and a US self-driving car startup, Zoox Inc, alleging the employees stole proprietary information and trade secrets for developing warehousing, logistics, and inventory control operations. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Netflix is reportedly testing 'N-Plus' service | Netflix N-Plus is a new service that wants to be an online space for users to learn more about Netflix shows and related media. Hints that the feature was in development were found in a survey sent out to some of its users. The survey suggested features for the service, including the ability to create custom playlists for TV series, list all music used in TV shows, or influence the development of a show pre-production. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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We tasted the first lab-grown sausage made without slaughtering any animals - here's what it was like | A startup called New Age Meats allowed a group of journalists and potential investors to taste its farm-free pork sausage. The pictures in the article look delicious, the sausage is actually made from fat and muscle cells generated from a single sample of a live pig named Jessie. A few things are preventing lab grown meat from getting mainstream adoption. Cost is a big one, the first cow cell patty cost $330,000 to produce in 2013, this cost is coming down quickly but it will still be 5-10 years before it is economically viable. Another is that most of these startups (including New Age Meats) are using fetal bovine serum (FBS), a standard and relatively inexpensive lab medium made from the blood of pregnant slaughtered cows to feed their cells. Eventually, the industry wants to move away from using this serum for ethical reasons. Finally, texture can get very complex for things like steak and chicken, it is much easier to mimic the texture of ground meat and sausage, doing steak or chicken could require much more advanced techniques. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Spotify is testing a less restrictive ad-supported tier costing $0.99 a month | Spotify Plus is a new subscription tier that still has ads, but lets users pick specific songs to listen to and skip as many songs as they want. It costs a tenth of Spotify Premium at $0.99 per month. Spotify is still testing the new tier and there is no guarantee that it will launch in its current form. The company has a history of testing new features years before they launch. Some features that have been tested in the past, such as stories for select playlists or visual quote cards for podcasts, have disappeared from the app. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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openpilot (GitHub Repo) | openpilot is an open-source driving agent. It is able to perform Adaptive Cruise Control and Lane Keeping Assist System for many selected models of vehicles. openpilot is about on par with Tesla Autopilot and GM Super Cruise. The codebase is designed so developers can quickly build prototypes to test. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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AT&T's 5G network goes live in 12 cities | AT&T launched its 5G network in 12 cities yesterday morning, making it the first wireless carrier to do so. It's not currently ready for consumer use, it's being tested by businesses right now to work out the kinks. When they demoed it at a conference earlier this month, it reached speeds of about 140Mbps. Theoretically they should eventually be able to get up to 1.2 Gbps. 5G will require a "5G compatible" data plan. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Researchers Say They Caught an iPhone Zero-Day Hack in the Wild | ZecOps, a San Francisco-based startup, recently revealed that it had discovered two zero-day exploits for iOS that were being used in the wild. The exploits will be patched in an upcoming release of iOS 13. One of the vulnerabilities could be triggered remotely, while the other required an additional vulnerability to be triggered remotely. They were used widely to target individuals working in companies. The hacks were discovered after ZecOps investigated a series of suspicious crashes on customers' iPhones. 🚀 Science & | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Ultra slow-mo camera can record light bouncing off mirrors | The MegaX camera is a single-photon avalanche diode-based image sensor that was used to film light bouncing between mirrors. It can film at 24,000 frames per second. As light isn't usually visible while in flight, the researchers had to focus on the photons from a laser pulse as they scattered off particles in the air. Machine learning algorithms were used to plot the 3D light path. The technique could be used in high-energy physics for fast image detection or in virtual and augmented reality for accurately recreating environments. A one-minute video that includes the clip of light bouncing between mirrors is available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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SpaceX successfully launches and lands its Starship prototype rocket | SpaceX successfully launched the 15th prototype of its Starship rocket in a test flight that landed upright as planned. A small fire broke out shortly after landing but it was contained. It is the first prototype to land intact. A 16-minute video showing the test launch is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Disney Over the Top: Bob Iger Bets the Company (and Hollywood's Future) | Disney is set to challenge Netflix with the launch of Disney+. Over the past two years, Bob Iger has prepared Disney for its streaming future. Iger invested $2.6 billion to acquire streaming technology, created a new direct-to-consumer division, cut ties with Netflix, and spent $71.3 billion to increase 21st Century Fox's production capabilities and content library. Disney+ will be available for $7 per month and will have nearly 500 Disney titles, more than 7,500 episodes of television, and a suite of original films. The company is projecting between 60 million and 90 million global subscribers by 2024. | 4Miscellaneous
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Uber argues its drivers aren’t core to its business, won’t reclassify them as employees | The Assembly Bill 5 in California uses an 'ABC test' to determine whether independent contractors qualify as employees, and if they do, employers are required to give them the same rights and benefits as employees. Uber has claimed that ride-share drivers aren't doing work that is core to its business, so they don't qualify as employees under the new law. The main business of Uber is to serve as a technology platform for different types of digital marketplaces. Uber is not concerned about an increase in lawsuits due to the new bill. It has partnered with Lyft to lobby to create a new classification for ride-share drivers so that drivers will still get more protections, just not the same ones as normal employees. If Uber was forced to reclassify drivers under AB5, it would likely start rostering drivers, meaning that drivers would have less flexibility on when they can work. | 4Miscellaneous
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Tesla deploys new Megapacks at ‘WindCharger’ project | Tesla's new Megapacks are an energy storage product for electric utility projects. Each Megapack has up to 3MWh of storage capacity and a 1.5MW inverter. They take up almost half the space and have a faster installation time compared to competing products. Canadian electric company TransAlta will be installing Megapacks in its Summerview Wind Farm. The Windcharger project will use nine Megapacks to help TransAlta's wind farm more efficiently use its power. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Pampy (GitHub Repo) | This is a small Python utility library that makes pattern matching readable and fast. The syntax is really elegant, the whole library is only 150 lines, and there's also a Javascript version. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Physicists just made a breakthrough: quantum states that last over 5 seconds | A team of researchers from the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago managed to maintain a quantum state for more than five seconds, a new record. They used a method called 'single shot readout', which uses precise laser pulses to add single electrons to qubits to extend their quantum states for longer. The system they developed is theoretically able to perform over 100 million quantum operations in the five seconds. Five seconds is long enough for light to travel around the world almost 40 times, so the advance brings the possibility of a distributed quantum internet closer to reality. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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A Tesla owner implanted the RFID chip from her Model 3’s keycard into her arm | Amie DD, a software engineer and self-described 'maker of things,' implanted the RFID tag from her Tesla Model 3 directly into her arm so that she could unlock and start her Model 3 without needing to remember her keys. The Model 3 can be unlocked with a smartphone, a car-shaped key fob, or a keycard. Amie removed the RFID tag from the keycard using acetone, encased it in a biopolymer, and went to a body-modification studio to have the chip implanted into her forearm. The implanted chip has a range of about an inch, and she hopes that the range will improve once the swelling in her arm goes down. | 4Miscellaneous
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GameStop Redditors Invest in Gorilla Conservation | Redditors from the subreddit WallStreetBets have banded together under the slogan 'Apes Together Strong' and donated over $350,000 to foundations that focus on ape conservation in under a week. The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, one of the foundations on the receiving end of these donations, will use the funds for its field programs, where they track, monitor, and study gorillas in their natural habitats. Members of the WallStreetBets subreddit previously garnered attention for causing the price of GameStop stock to skyrocket in January. | 4Miscellaneous
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MIT's Robotic Cheetah Taught Itself How to Run and Set a New Speed Record in the Process | Researchers at MIT CSAIL used artificial intelligence and simulations to train a robot to walk over a variety of terrains. The Mini Cheetah constantly monitors its movements and makes adjustments to its environments. It can make adaptations to compensate for damaged or over-stressed components. The robot can hit a top speed of 3.9 m/s, which is faster than the average human can run. A GIF of the robot running into a padded wall is available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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go-perfbook (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains a guide on best practices for writing high-performance Go code. The first section of the guide covers best practice in writing for any language, and the second section focuses on Go-specific techniques. The guide is available in English, Chinese, and Spanish. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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UK chancellor announces 2% 'digital services tax' on tech giants' revenues starting in April 2020 | The UK plans to levy a 2% tax on tech companies making over £500 million a year in global revenues. The tax will only be applied on advertising and streaming entertainment, not on product sales. The taxes will be rolled out in April 2020, and will generate about £400 million in revenue. The UK is also in talks with the rest of the G20 and OECD to discuss how best to tax tech giants. It is still possible that they will scrap this plan in favor of an international plan. UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond says "This shows we are serious about this reform. It is only right that these global giants pay their fair share." | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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How to build a nuclear warning for 10,000 years’ time | The Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) is a facility deep beneath the desert of New Mexico that contains the US military's most dangerous nuclear waste. It will be full sometime in the next 10 to 20 years, after which the facility will be buried and sealed with concrete and soil. There are multiple warning signs inside and outside of the facility and information about the WIPP will be stored in many archives around the world. The waste will remain lethal longer than Homo sapiens has walked across the surface of the planet. One of the biggest challenges the WIPP faces is telling future people about the danger of the site. Creating 'nuclear culture' that people can pass down through generations to teach others about the dangers of nuclear waste sites could potentially be one way to ensure that future generations stay informed about these places. | 4Miscellaneous
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The State of Ruby 3 Typing | Ruby 3 will ship with the ability to write type signatures for Ruby programs and will have built-in type signatures for the Ruby standard libraries. This will make type definitions in Ruby code portable between type checkers. The language and the library for type signatures for Ruby 3 will be called RBS. It features duck typing and non-uniformity. RBS will help developers by finding more bugs, giving IDEs a better understanding of the Ruby code, guided tuck typing, and more. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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The Worst-Faith Interpretations of Apple’s New Food Emoji | In honor of World Emoji Day, Apple has published a preview of the new emojis that will be released this fall. There will be four food emojis included with this update: a waffle, falafel, butter, and garlic. Food emojis have been used as euphemisms in the past. Possible euphemisms for the yet unreleased emojis are suggested. | 4Miscellaneous
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Delivery Drivers Are Using Grey Market Apps to Make Their Jobs Suck Less | Gojek is Indonesia's equivalent of Postmates, Apple Pay, Venmo, and Uber. It operates in more than 200 cities in South East Asia. Some delivery drivers are using unofficial apps to filter orders and spoof their GPS location to make their jobs easier. App developers charge monthly membership fees for ongoing support and access to online groups. Gojek has banned the use of these apps and it runs campaigns to discourage drivers from using them. The company has adopted some features originally created by unauthorized apps, but not all features passed their test trials. | 4Miscellaneous
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Work with APIs? Get better API observability in minutes (Sponsor) | Postman and New Relic have teamed up to help you get real-time visibility into your API performance in context of your other application performance metrics. Don't know where to start? The New Relic & Postman quickstart gets you up and running in minutes, for free. Learn more. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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“Expert” hackers used 11 0-days to infect Windows, iOS, and Android users | Google researchers have discovered a team of advanced hackers who have exploited at least 11 0-day vulnerabilities over nine months. The hackers used compromised websites to infect fully patched devices running Windows, iOS, and Android. Google security researchers described the group as 'highly sophisticated'. While people should still keep their software updated and avoid suspicious websites, neither of those things would have helped the victims hacked by this group. | 4Miscellaneous
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Livebook (GitHub Repo) | Livebook is a web app for writing interactive and collaborative code notebooks. Notebooks can be saved and shared. As code is run in a specific order, future Livebook users see the same output. A 30-minute video introduction to Livebook's features is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Ask HN: What are the signs that you have a great manager? (Hacker News Thread) | A software engineer, relatively new to the industry at 2.5 years of experience, asks for people’s opinions on what makes someone a great manager after hearing the saying that ‘people leave managers, not jobs’. Replies talk about how great managers are people who serve their employees, for example, getting them the resources they need to complete their work, shielding employees from upper management and filtering only relevant information, and facilitating their professional development to the point of encouraging them to move up into other positions. Great management is, unfortunately, harder to notice as it means everything is running smoothly and employees are less likely to comment on their management. | 4Miscellaneous
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Dark Lightning: Uncovering the Strongest Energy Discharge on Earth | Dark lightning are bursts of gamma rays that can happen during thunderstorms. When it was first detected, scientists thought the gamma rays were coming from space, but later observations confirmed that they came from a terrestrial phenomenon. Dark lightning could be dangerous to people traveling on a plane during a thunderstorm, but pilots tend to evade storms and dark lightning is rare, only occurring once for every thousand visible lightning bolts. It usually dissipates before becoming dangerous to living things on Earth. The only way to tell if passengers are exposed to dark lightning is by flying with radiation detectors on board. | 4Miscellaneous
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My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer (10 minute read) | Becoming financially independent as an average engineer with a five-figure salary can be possible through financial discipline and investment planning. This article documents the experience of someone who achieved their goal of financial independence working in tech while living and working in San Francisco and New York. It includes a table with their income, expenses, and savings each year and tips on how to achieve similar results. | 4Miscellaneous
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Exclusive: AI Just Controlled a Military Plane for the First Time Ever | On December 15, the US Air Force flew a U-2 spy plane with an AI copilot in California. It is the first time that AI has controlled a US military system. The US military has boosted its digital capabilities significantly in the last three years, building commercially-inspired development teams, coding clouds, and a combat internet that downed a cruise missile. The AI was based on an AI that has previously dominated chess, Go, and video games without prior knowledge of their rules. The software was designed to allow operators to restrict the AI's options. It was given final decision authority for the mission, with no pilot override. | 4Miscellaneous
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"Turbo-charged" coral to breathe new life into the Great Barrier Reef | Severe bleaching events have led to the widespread death of coral in the Great Barrier Reef. Researchers at Australia's Southern Cross University are planning to put millions of 'turbo-charged' coral babies into the reef's most degraded areas. Scientists collected millions of coral sperm and eggs during the most recent mass spawning event and co-cultured the coral larvae with a type of algae called zooxanthellae. This greatly increased the chances of the coral surviving. The algae gives the coral the potential to acquire more energy and possess higher thermal tolerance. If this technique is successful, it could serve as a blueprint for reef restoration efforts around the world. Scaling the operation will require a lot of work. The current method is only able to patch up small parts of a reef, rather than whole kilometers. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Why do bats have such bizarrely long lifespans? | For most mammals, as the size of the mammal goes up, its metabolism slows down and its longevity increases. There are exceptions to this rule, including humans. 18 out of 19 species of mammals that live longer than humans given their body size are bats. Bats maintain the ends of their chromosomes to prevent cells from slipping into senescence while managing to keep cells from turning cancerous. They have genes that repair DNA damage and recycle damaged components, as well as genes that help stop cells from dividing. Bats don't seem to have an increase in inflammation as they age. The adaptations could be a product of bats evolving flight. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Microsoft planning ‘sweeping visual rejuvenation of Windows’ | Microsoft recently posted a job listing for a software engineering role in the Windows Core User Experiences team. The listing suggested that the company could be planning big user interface changes for Windows. These changes would include overhauls to the Start menu, File Explorer, and built-in apps. Microsoft is also working on improving its tablet mode experience. | 4Miscellaneous
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So Long TNT, There's a New Explosive in Town | Bis-oxadiazole is a new explosive chemical that is less toxic to produce and more explosive than TNT. TNT has been used for more than 100 years as it can be liquified and poured into molds and shells to produce bombs. However, manufacturing it produces a lot of waste that can harm the environment and the workers that produce it. It is commonly combined with other chemicals to increase its explosiveness. Bis-oxadiazole has a melting point around that of TNT, with residue from manufacturing that will decompose much more easily in the environment. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Scientists Are Contemplating a 1,000-Year Space Mission to Save Humanity (15 minute read) | Climate change threatens to make our planet unlivable by the end of the century. Other factors can also eventually make Earth uninhabitable, so planning for a potential escape from the planet is a necessary response to the potential threats. Mars is the most obvious destination, with many space missions already focusing on the planet. Other possible planets exist, but they are light-years away. A journey to one of these planets would take several generations to complete. The problems involved with such a journey are broad, involving fields such as biology, sociology, engineering, physics, and more. Life during the journey will be extremely limited for those on board, so there may be ethical concerns with such a project. The research into inter-generational space travel may reveal ways that we can improve or prolong life on our own planet. | 4Miscellaneous
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New Yubico security keys let you use fingerprints instead of passwords | Yubico just announced its new YubiKey Bio Series, its first hardware security key to offer fingerprint logins. The new key supports the latest FIDO2/WebAuthn and U2Fopen authentication standards. It comes in both USB Type-A and USB Type-C models. The key works with OSes that support WebAuthn and browsers based on Chromium. It is crush resistant and water resistant. Yubico promises the key will work out of the box with various enterprise-facing platforms. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Fortnite’s Marshmello concert was a bizarre and exciting glimpse of the future | A concert was held in the popular game Fortnite, and it was an interesting experience for millions of users in attendance. Users were transported to a special concert location in the game, where EDM producer Marshmello played a live 10 minute set. Epic games was able to create a new virtual experience that brought together millions of players to enjoy the visually impressive event - which then turned into a killing field as soon as it ended. | 4Miscellaneous
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BleedingTooth: Linux Bluetooth Zero-Click Remote Code Execution (27 minute read) | This blog post describes the process of discovering high severity vulnerabilities in the Linux Bluetooth stack and then chaining them into a remote code execution exploit targeting Ubuntu systems. The exploit allows unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges on vulnerable devices within short distances. As a result of this discovery, the Bluetooth High Speed feature is now disabled by default. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Here’s everything new in Android 13 Developer Preview 2 | This article looks at all of Android 13 Developer Preview 2's new features and every single change. It lists out the features along with screenshots and short notes. A link to a step-by-step guide on how to install Android 13 DP2 is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Go Developer Roadmap (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains a roadmap for people who are looking to become a Go developer in 2019. It gives a general landscape of how one should learn the language and answers the question of ‘what’s next’ if developers are stuck after learning certain skills. The roadmap categorizes skills according to importance, so developers can focus on just the core skills or delve deeper into topics if they wish. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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How Blockchains Work | Blockchains are a type of ledger. Miners make calculations and add messages to the blockchain over time. The messages are hashed to protect the ordering and contents of messages. These hash ledgers are tamper-resistant as the contents of later entries depend on the contents of earlier entries. Bitcoin uses a distributed system with no owner. Instead of a central authority, many miners compete to write a new message to the blockchain, each with their own copy of the ledger. | 4Miscellaneous
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Twitter wants you to retweet with TikTok-like reaction videos | Twitter is testing a new feature that allows people to post video reactions to tweets, similar to TikTok's video reply feature. The test is limited to iOS for now. Users with the feature will see an option to react with a Tweet Take in the retweet menu. Instagram also added its own version of TikTok's video replies last month. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Image Deduplicator (GitHub Repo) | Image Deduplicator is a python package that is able to find exact or near duplicates of images in an image collection. It uses a combination of hashing algorithms and convolutional neural networks. An evaluation framework is provided to judge the quality of deduplication for a given dataset. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Fastest-growing black hole in the universe eats the equivalent of one sun per day | The black hole known as J2157 consumes gas and dust equivalent in mass to the sun every day, making it the fastest-growing black hole in the universe. J2157 is 8,000 times larger than the supermassive black hole found at the heart of the Milky Way, or 34 billion times the mass of our Sun. It is classed as a quasi-stellar radio source, meaning that it is extremely bright. As it is very far away, scientists are only just now observing its gravitational influence from 1.2 billion years ago. It has likely grown since then. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Tesla's full self-driving Autopilot beta coming in 'a month or so' | Elon Musk recently announced that Tesla will release a private beta of the full self-driving version of its Autopilot software in the coming months. Musk is currently driving a bleeding edge, alpha build of the Autopilot. Tesla engineers had to overhaul major parts of the Autopilot, even changing how the system sees the world. The system now labels 3D video rather than 2D images, taking information from all eight of its cameras simultaneously. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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What I Wish I Knew About Onboarding Effectively (10 minute read) | Onboarding into a new role can be scary. The first few months are the most important. This article provides some guidelines for tech workers in mid to senior roles for onboarding effectively. It discusses mindsets as well as a structure for planning out the first 100 days. Investing in learning and relationships can help with making good decisions and shipping early wins, which leads to building trust and strong relationships. | 4Miscellaneous
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The great rebalancing: working from home fuels rise of the 'secondary city' | The number of Americans working from home skyrocketed between February to May. Studies have shown that most workers report being equally or more effective since working from home, and most intend to continue with it in some form post-pandemic. A permanent change in work culture will have far-reaching repercussions. As people are required to commute less, they may move further away from cities. Cities will likely become less congested, and towns and rural areas will likely have an opportunity to grow. | 4Miscellaneous
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Tesla’s new Boombox feature will let car owners fart at unsuspecting neighbors | Tesla has rolled out its 2020.48.26 firmware update, which gives Tesla owners the ability to play sounds from the speakers on the outside of their cars, if they have them. There are several default sounds to choose from, or owners can upload up to five custom sounds. Tesla cars manufactured after September 1st, 2019 have the outer speakers built-in. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires the speakers so that electric cars can emit noise to alert pedestrians. An 11-minute video covering the new firmware update is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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SpaceX plans its first commercial spacewalk for this year | The Polaris Program is an initiative that will include up to three crewed SpaceX flights. The first mission, Polaris Dawn, is planned for Q4 2022 and should include the first commercial spacewalk. Polaris Dawn will aim for the highest-ever Earth orbit, conduct health research, and test laser-based Starlink communication. Inspiration4 leader Jared Isaacman will return as mission commander. There are still many details to work out and delays are likely. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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How to design better APIs | This article contains 15 tips on how to design better APIs. It covers basic security considerations, HTTP methods, implementing authentication, requests and responses, and more. All tips are language-agnostic. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Twitter is launching a Tor service for more secure and private tweeting | Twitter has launched a Tor version of its site. Tor is a privacy-protecting and censorship-evading network. Tor sites, also known as 'onion' sites, can only be accessed while using Tor Browser or a similar tool. Twitter’s onion site will provide more layers of protection over accessing the ordinary website through Tor. Creating a Tor service will help fix functionality issues for Tor users, who are frequently incorrectly flagged as botnets. A link to Twitter's Tor service is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Wearing someone else's face: Hyper-realistic masks to go on sale in Japan | A Japanese retailer has produced a hyper-realistic human face mask. They cost 98,000 yen ($950) each. The masks are based on real human faces. The retailer plans to add more faces to the lineup. Pictures of the masks are available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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How to learn D3.js (Website) | D3.js is a collection of small modules that allows developers to create amazing data visualizations on the web. This introduction explains how to use D3 to grab and manipulate data, manipulate the DOM, draw SVG shapes, convert data to the physical domain, and deal with formatting and visualizations. It contains additional resources for further education. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Seoul to become the first city to enter the Metaverse. What will it look like? | Metaverse Seoul will be a virtual communication ecosystem for Seoul that will include economic, cultural, tourism, educational, and civic services. People will be able to attend events, meet city officials, visit tourist attractions, and more inside Metaverse Seoul. It will be implemented in three stages from next year. Seoul has invested KRW 3.9 billion into the project. | 4Miscellaneous
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RISC-V AI Chips Will Be Everywhere | RISC-V is a free and open-source computer instruction set architecture introduced in 2010. For many years, it was assumed that general-purpose computer architectures would never keep up with GPUs and other purpose-built architectures for machine learning and AI. Esperanto Technologies has created a RISC-V AI processor intended to compete against powerful GPUs in AI-recommendation systems. There will be 25 million RISC-V AI chips produced in 2027, worth $291 billion in revenue. Intel is creating a $1 billion fund to help drive further adoption of RISC-V. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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TikTok tests letting US users to apply for jobs with video resumes | TikTok is expanding into job recruitment with a pilot program that allows people in the US to apply for jobs by uploading videos to the platform using the #TikTokResumes hashtag. Approximately three dozen companies are taking part in the pilot. Applicants have until July 31 to apply for the first set of jobs. A link to TikTok's dedicated resumes website is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Apple buys Intel’s smartphone modem business | Apple has bought Intel's smartphone modem business for $1 billion. The deal includes the acquisition of intellectual property, equipment, and around 2,200 Intel employees. Intel will continue to develop 5G modems for non-smartphone devices. This deal means that Apple will soon be able to produce its own custom hardware for its smartphones. Apple currently relies on Qualcomm for its hardware, a relationship that has caused problems in the past. Qualcomm requires customers to agree to high patent royalty fees before supplying hardware. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Twitter adopts ‘poison pill’ plan to shield itself from Elon Musk takeover | Twitter's board has unanimously approved a plan to allow existing shareholders to buy stocks at a substantial discount in order to prevent Elon Musk's hostile takeover attempt. The 'poison pill' tactic will go into effect if a shareholder acquires more than 15% of the company without approval by the board before April 2023. Other parties have expressed interest in buying Twitter. Musk is facing legal action over his Twitter purchase for failing to disclose the buy before the required deadline to do so. He is also facing a number of investigations by the SEC for other investment activities. | 4Miscellaneous
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Advanced photonic radar captures images down to the centimeter scale | Researchers from Sydney have developed an advanced photonic radar system that can measure objects down to centimeters. It generates high bandwidth signals that allow it to detect small objects more precisely. In tests, the system was able to image objects measuring just 3 x 4 cm as they moved on a rotating plate. The radar can be used as a non-invasive way to monitor patient vital signs. It is small enough to fit into smartphones. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Uber lays off another ~350 across Eats, self-driving and other departments | In what it says is its third and final phase of layoffs, Uber has let go of around another 350 employees. This includes employees from Eats, performance marketing, Advanced Technologies Group, and recruiting, as well as various teams within the global rides and platform departments. Some employees were asked to relocate. The layoffs represented about one percent of the company's workforce. More than 70 percent of the layoffs were staff in the US and Canada. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Genetic testing firm 23andMe is going public via a SPAC backed by Richard Branson | 23andMe will go public via a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) backed by Richard Branson. The deal values 23andMe at $3.5 billion. It is expected to close in the second quarter, after which the company will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange. SPACs have grown in popularity over the last year as they are seen as a less-risky option compared to traditional IPOs and they give newer companies access to larger amounts of capital. The funds from the sale will let 23andMe expand into developing therapeutics. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Samsung's New Upcycling Program Allows You To Turn an Old Galaxy Phone Into a New IoT Device | Samsung is trying to help people convert old phones into new IoT devices with its new Galaxy Upcycling at Home service for users in the US, UK, and South Korea. Users can access the feature through the SmartThings app. The app gives old phones the ability to perform as a light and sound sensor, and as a hub to control other devices. The program aims to reduce the number of phones sitting in landfills by making the process of repurposing an old phone easier. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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UI Design Trend of 2021 | Glassmorphism is the new UI Design Trend of 2021. Neumorphism, the design trend for 2020, had issues with accessibility, which Glassmorphism improves on significantly. This article contains a tutorial on how to use Figma to create a design using Glassmorphism. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Researchers Have Successfully Made First-Ever Robotic Arm That Can Be Controlled By Your Mind | Researchers have successfully made a robotic arm that can continually track and follow a computer cursor controlled by one’s thoughts. It uses a non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) developed at Carnegie Mellon University. Previous versions of BCIs have required invasive procedures to get high-resolution signals. The new approach to building BCIs improved BCI learning by nearly 60 percent for traditional tasks and continuous tracking of a computer cursor by over 500 percent. It has been tested on 68 able-bodied human subjects and the team plans to conduct clinical trials on patients in the near future. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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I relearned typing to save my wrists | After experiencing severe wrist pain that limited their ability to type for extended periods, Gregory Witek switched to using an ergonomic keyboard and Colemak layout. Software developers mostly don't work in dangerous environments, but there are still health concerns with the profession related to being sedentary and constant exposure to screens. This article discusses issues with the ergonomics of most keyboards, how ergonomic keyboards work, the process of switching keyboard styles, and the benefits of the change. | 4Miscellaneous
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Woman is first to receive cornea made from ‘reprogrammed’ stem cells | A Japanese woman in her forties is the first in the world to have her cornea repaired using reprogrammed stem cells. The woman had a disease that meant that her cornea could not be repaired naturally. The disease causes blurriness in vision and can lead to blindness. Corneal cells were created from induced pluripotent stem cells and implanted in the patient. Her cornea has remained clear and her vision has improved since the transplant a month ago. Cornea transplants usually require tissue from donors who have died, and the waiting lists are long. The Japanese health ministry has allowed four of these operations for testing, and the scientists are hoping that the procedure will be available in clinics in the next five years. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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LG’s new V60 ThinQ 5G shows steady evolution for a company in need of big change | LG has revealed its third dual-screen smartphone, the V60 ThinQ 5G. It features Qualcomm's latest processor, 5G data, 8K video, a hi-fi headphone jack, dual-screens, and more. The screens are 6.8-inch FHD+ OLED panels and the hinge can be rotated to any angle, turning the phone into a mini-laptop of sorts. Users will be able to use Google apps in the wide-view mode that spans both displays at once. When held horizontally, one display can be used as a full-screen keyboard. The phone is best suited for multitasking with different apps on each screen, for example, ride-share drivers can run Uber and Lyft apps at the same time on each screen. Pricing and availability has not been announced yet, but it is expected to be released in spring. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Developer Roadmaps (Website) | This site contains step by step guides and paths to learning different tools and technologies. It includes guides for becoming a frontend developer, backend developer, DevOps, full-stack developer, or a QA engineer. Users can contribute to the project or request changes and additional information. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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OpenStreetMap is Having a Moment (11 minute read) | OpenStreetMap is a project to build an open map of the world, with over 1.5 million individuals contributing data to the free web map since 2005. It is used by services such as Snap Maps, Apple Maps, and Bing Maps. The project receives significant funding from corporations, and corporate teams are responsible for 75% of road editing activity in areas where their companies operate. Some members of the OSM community feel that the project is being irreversibly adulterated by corporate actors. Companies are likely motivated to contribute to the project as an act of avoiding paying Google for their mapping services. While in some cases, corporate intrusion can be bad, in this situation, it seems that all parties are aiming for the same goal. | 4Miscellaneous
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Researchers demonstrate in-chip water cooling | Processor development has reached a bottleneck due to hardware limitations. Chips are producing large amounts of heat and cooling systems have not caught up yet. A team of researchers in Switzerland have designed a chip and a cooling system that features on-chip liquid channels placed next to the hottest parts of the chip. The researchers estimate that if the technology was adopted across all chips, it could drop the energy needed for cooling down to less than a percentage of its current values. An 18-second video is available showing an animated diagram of how the water flows through the system. | 4Miscellaneous
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Chinese vlogger who used filter to look younger caught in live-stream glitch | A technical glitch has revealed that a popular Chinese vlogger is actually a middle-aged woman, rather than the young glamorous girl that she portrayed. This has sparked discussions about standards of beauty across the country's social media platforms. With more than 100,000 followers, the vlogger solicited gifts from her fans, with some fans giving her more than US $14,533. After the revelation, many fans stopped following her and withdrew their transactions. The use of face filters during live-streaming is common in China. Live-streamers in China are discouraged from broadcasting publicly and are extremely restricted in what they can say. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Meta brings 3D avatars to Instagram, rolls out new options for Facebook and Messenger | Meta is bringing its 3D avatars to Instagram and rolling out an update to Facebook and Messenger avatars. The update adds Cochlear implants, over-the-ear hearing aids, wheelchairs, and more facial shapes. Users can use the same avatar across all Meta platforms. Meta has partnered with the NFL to allow fans' avatars to wear shirts supporting their favorite team in the Super Bowl until February 28. Meta is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings on February 2. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Netflix Reportedly Hiring Executive For Expansion Into Video Games | Netflix is looking to do more with interactive entertainment after the success it found with Bandersnatch. The company has approached several veteran game industry executives to help with its expansion into video games. It is considering a bundle game service similar to Apple's online subscription. The Stranger Things game wasn't exceptionally successful, but future games from Netflix might fare better with a gaming executive on board. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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The State of Developer Ecosystem 2019 | JetBrains polled almost 7,000 developers at the beginning of 2019 to identify the State of Developer Ecosystem. The poll found that while Java was the most popular programming language, JavaScript was the most used language, and Python was the most studied programming language. Windows is still the most popular development environment. Web back-end development was most common for people who write code for a living and as a hobby. Android development was far more popular than iOS development, but many developers preferred to use cross-platform mobile frameworks such as React Native. More detailed information is available on the site, as well as some extra data on the demographics of the survey respondents. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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PayPal is exploring a stock-trading platform for its U.S. customers | PayPal is exploring ways to let users trade individual stocks. The company recently hired brokerage industry veteran Rich Hagen to lead a previously unreported division at PayPal called 'Invest at PayPal' and explore opportunities in the consumer investment business. Business has been good for trading platforms, with more than 10 million new individual investors entering the market in the first half of this year. It is unlikely that the service will roll out this year due to the lengthy application process. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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1st private space crew paying $55M each to fly to station | The first private space station crew will be three men who are paying $55 million each for the experience. They will spend eight days at the International Space Station, after spending one or two days aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Russia has been selling rides to the ISS since 2011. Other companies like Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are also planning to take paying customers up to space. The crew will get 15 weeks of training and they will have to pass medical tests before the flight. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Engineers Are Building Huge Salt Caves to Store Huge Amounts of Hydrogen | Scientists are using salt mines to store large quantities of hydrogen for energy. A project that involves a huge system of caves in Utah will be operational by 2025 and initially have enough energy to power 150,000 households. Hydrogen energy is hindered by logistical problems such as storage. Salt mines provide a good medium to store hydrogen energy and a location that is easy for transport to nearby municipalities. Hydrogen can be converted into water and then reconverted to electricity when required by using hydrogen electrolyzers powered by renewable energy sources. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Beijing approves plan for Greater Bay Area to rival San Francisco's Silicon Valley in the United States | China has greenlighted a technology-driven economic zone called the Greater Bay Area that will link Hong Kong, Macau, and nine other cities including Shenzhen and Guangzhou into a giant science and IT hub about the size of San Francisco and Tokyo combined. It's part of China's plan to integrate expertise in finance, manufacturing and technology, and to grow Hong Kong. Hong Kong's chief executive says "Our Bay Area has been described by some as combining Silicon Valley with New York City." | 4Miscellaneous
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Warner Music Signed an Algorithm to a Record Deal — What Happens Next?Warner Music has purchased 600 short tracks on 20 albums that were created by an algorithm in a deal that has people debating about the future of music. Endel is an app that creates soundscapes based on personalized data, such as a user’s location, time, and the weather. All 600 tracks were created ‘with a click of a button’ using Endel’s algorithm, and the company even hired a third party to name the tracks. Warner Music is known for investing in AI music products. As the market for ambient music increases, it makes sense for music labels to try to dominate these genres, especially if they can do it cheaply and easily. ) | Warner Music has purchased 600 short tracks on 20 albums that were created by an algorithm in a deal that has people debating about the future of music. Endel is an app that creates soundscapes based on personalized data, such as a user’s location, time, and the weather. All 600 tracks were created ‘with a click of a button’ using Endel’s algorithm, and the company even hired a third party to name the tracks. Warner Music is known for investing in AI music products. As the market for ambient music increases, it makes sense for music labels to try to dominate these genres, especially if they can do it cheaply and easily. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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DeepMind Demonstration (Tweet) | DeepMind will be demonstrating their StarCraft playing AI and discussing StarCraft 2 as an environment for AI research at 6:00pm GMT Thursday. There is a link to their YouTube channel in this tweet, they will be livestreaming the demonstration. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Slang (Programming Language) | This is the Github Repo for a new programming language called Slang. This is really cool, it allows you to program sounds in your browser using really simple syntax. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Even your boss wants to quit | A report by Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence found that C-suite executives are feeling as frazzled and depressed as the workers who report to them. | 4Miscellaneous
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Alphabet is putting its prototype robots to work cleaning up around Google’s offices | Alphabet's Everyday Robots Project team has released some of its prototype machines onto Google's Bay Area campuses to carry out light custodial tasks. The robots are essentially arms on wheels that feature a multipurpose gripper. They have a head with cameras and sensors, including a spinning LIDAR unit for navigation. Alphabet aims to create robots that can manipulate never-before-seen objects in novel settings. GIFs that show the robots performing some tasks are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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China's state-run press agency has created an 'AI anchor' to read the news | China's state-run press agency Xinhua has created an AI news anchor by using footage of human news anchors, then using machine learning techniques to animate parts of the mouth and face along with speech synthesis to make the host say whatever they want. Now, these "anchors" can "work 24 hours a day on its official website and various social media platforms, reducing news production costs and improving efficiency." | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Portugal Makes it Illegal for Your Boss to Text You After Work | Employers could face penalties for contacting employees outside work hours, according to new laws passed by the Portuguese parliament on Friday. The laws were introduced following the expansion of home working during the pandemic. Employers who contact employees after work will be forced to pay for increased expenses as a result of working from home. Employers are also banned from monitoring workers at home. Workers will be required to meet with their employers every two months to stop isolation. | 4Miscellaneous
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No more needles? | Doctors use blood samples to check for biomarkers of disease. These biomarkers are also found in the dense liquid medium that surrounds our cells, but in much smaller quantities. A new ultrabright fluorescence nano label that can detect these biomarkers in low concentrations has allowed scientists to create a microneedle patch that can inform doctors about what's going on inside our bodies, without unnecessary trips to the hospital, and with much less discomfort. The patches only go about 400 microns deep, too shallow to touch the sensory nerves. There will be a lot of applications for this technology, but for now, the scientists are working on determining clinical cut-offs for biomarker levels. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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MIT unveils new 'blackest black' material and makes a diamond disappear | MIT has developed a new carbon nanotube material that captures 99.96 percent of incoming light, making it the blackest material on record. An artist at MIT coated a $2 million natural yellow diamond in the material and it will be on exhibit at the New York Stock Exchange until November 25. Super-dark carbon nanotube materials have applications for optical equipment and aerospace technologies. The new material will be available to artists for non-commercial pursuits. The previous blackest material, Vantablack, can only be used by British sculptor Anish Kapoor, who has exclusive rights to it. There will be no catchy name for the new material. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Tedium (Newsletter) | This is a newsletter about the long tail of the internet. It's full of weird, quirky stuff you won't find anywhere else, like what happens when "lost" films and television shows become found once again, hardcore use cases for Google, etc. Curated by Ernie Smith, who some of you might remember from ShortFormBlog on Tumblr. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Self driving cars are fun! | Self-driving cars have reached Level 2 autonomy. Tesla has been developing and shipping Level 2 driver assistance systems. It takes 70,000 GPU hours to train Tesla's Autopilot system with all its neural networks. Tesla's Autopilot is a system of 48 neural networks. Simpler models can be made with self-generated driving data, data from external datasets, and a high-end mobile phone. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Codextended (GitHub Repo) | Codextended is a suite of extensions that aims to make Swift’s Codable API easier to use. While Codable is great, it becomes increasingly verbose once customization is introduced into the project. Codextended simplifies the code required and it is completely compatible with vanilla Codable code. Only one file is required for Codextended to be added to an Xcode project. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Meta is launching Horizon Worlds on web and mobile | Meta is working on web and mobile versions of Horizon Worlds. It is also considering creating versions for game consoles. There aren't many details about the web and mobile versions of the virtual reality platform except that creators will only be charged a 25% fee for purchases on the web platform compared to 47.5% in VR. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Driverless Cars Should Spare Young People Over Old in Unavoidable Accidents, Massive Survey Finds | MIT researchers surveyed 2 million people in 233 countries about who a driverless car should kill if it must make a decision (and tragedy is unavoidable). People generally preferred to save humans over animals, young over old, and more people over fewer (in Asia, they preferred to save the old over the young). People generally preferred to save pedestrians instead of passengers (unless they were jaywalkers). There's a list of made up characters that were ranked, the highest priority characters to save were stroller, girl, and boy, while the lowest priority characters were dog, criminal, and cat (criminals are less popular than dogs and more popular than cats). | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Infrared Radiation From Our Hands Could Be the Future of Encryption | Chinese engineers have developed a method for using the infrared radiation emitted from the human hand to secure data. The human hand radiates infrared light, and each finger can serve as an independent infrared light source. As fingerprints are unique, they can be used as a non-copyable encryption key. Using human components as IR light sources could provide more flexibility in the way we control engineered systems. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Tailwind CSS v3.0 | Tailwind CSS v3.0 is now available. It includes improvements to build times, colors, effects, layouts, styling, and much more. Developers can use Tailwind Play now to try out the latest features. A list of major changes, along with a summary description of the changes, is available in the article. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Couchbase Capella DB as a service - flexible, full-featured, and fully managed (Sponsor) | Capella is an enterprise-grade, scalable JSON document and key-value database, with SQL access and built-in full-text search, eventing, and analytics to easily support your many use cases. Try it for free & be up & running in 3 minutes—no credit card required. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Programmable Blocks Tease Self-Assembling Space Structures | Scientists at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed modular robotic cubes that use embedded electromagnets to move called ElectroVoxels. The cubes have wires embedded into their edges and can attract or repel each other depending on their configuration. They can be programmed and easily and cheaply manufactured. The ElectroVoxels could be used effectively in space as reconfigurable robots or to help build temporary structures. Pictures of the ElectroVoxels are available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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YouTube is once again the most popular social media platform | YouTube and Facebook are the most dominant social media platforms in the US. YouTube's user base grew from 73 percent of adults in 2019 to 81 percent in 2021. Facebook's share of users remained at 69 percent over the same period. The only other platform to see statistically significant growth since 2019 was Reddit. While growth has slowed down, users still report using social media frequently throughout the day. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Huawei dev team sends a buggy HKSP patch with backdoor to Linux Foundation | Last week, the Huawei development team submitted a patch to the Linux Foundation that contained a backdoor. Huawei Kernel Self Protection is a kernel protection tool that is supposed to introduce security-hardening options to the Linux kernel. Huawei denied involvement with the patch and blamed employees for including the vulnerability. Many tech companies have contributed code to the Linux Foundation in the past. However, this is the first time Huawei has contributed to the Linux kernel project. | 4Miscellaneous
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Subsets and Splits