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The Hero Generator (Website). A hero image is a large web banner image and text, commonly placed in the front and center of a web page. The Hero Generator is a site that generates code for a hero image based on parameters that you set. Users can control the gradient overlay, gradient reduction, button radius, title spacing, button, and gradient colors, and upload custom images. The code for the generated hero image is available with just a click. |
Microsoft Mesh aims to bring holographic virtual collaboration to all . Microsoft Mesh is Microsoft's ambitious new attempt at unifying holographic virtual collaboration across multiple devices. With Mesh, users can meet in virtual spaces, share holograms, and create shared experiences, even if they are physically separated. Mesh can stream high-quality models from the cloud, allowing designers and engineers to collaborate with the same assets from anywhere in the world. It features cross-platform compatibility, so users can join meetings even without a VR headset. A 2-minute video from Microsoft about Mesh is available in the article. |
Starting with Michigan, Sidewalk Infrastructure is looking to build roads specifically for autonomous cars . Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners has launched a subsidiary called Cavnue to develop roadways for connected and autonomous vehicles. Cavnue will be working with major car manufacturers and technology startups on standards to develop the physical and digital infrastructure required to move autonomous vehicles out of pilot projects and into the real world. A 40-mile corridor between downtown Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan will be developed by Cavnue for autonomous vehicles. The corridor will include 12 Opportunity Zones where communities and small businesses will be able to connect to hubs in the region. |
New mRNA anti-tick vaccine may protect from more than just Lyme disease . A novel mRNA-based vaccine is being developed to help people resist tick bites. Animal tests showed that the vaccine helped immune systems recognize tick bites, resulting in parasites being dislodged before they could transmit any disease. Tick bites can transmit over a dozen diseases, so it makes sense to target ticks directly. It will still be years before human trials will begin, as scientists are still trying to figure out why the vaccine works in some animals and not others. |
Google confirms new Nest smart speaker with official photo and video . Google has confirmed that it is working on a new Nest smart speaker. The new speaker can stand vertically and looks like a cross between the Nest Mini and the larger Google Home Max. A 12-second teaser video is available in the article. |
Scientists develop 'artificial tongue' to detect fake whiskies . A team of scientists based in Scotland has created a device that can detect fake whiskeys and scotches. Called 'The Artificial Tongue', the technology works by measuring the wavelengths of light from special arrays which change depending on what liquids surround the arrays. Although the different drinks have similar chemical compositions, the way that the device is designed allows it to identify each drink as a separate entity. The technology could eventually be used to identify poisons, for quality control for production lines, and for the environmental monitoring of rivers. |
Subway is testing out a meatless meatball sub. Here's why . Subway will be testing a new Beyond Meatball Marinara sub at 685 restaurants in the United States and Canada next month. Made with Beyond Meat's plant-based protein, the sub will be available for a limited time and is targeted at flexitarian eaters who want to eat less meat for health or environmental reasons. Several other fast-food chains have already started serving meatless versions of their foods. Sales of plant-based foods have grown 11 percent in the last year and is predicted to grow into a $140 billion industry in the next decade. Beyond's revenue rose by 287 percent over the last year, to $67.3 million in the second quarter. Impossible Foods, one of Beyond's competitors, also saw a rise in demand, resulting in a product shortage earlier this year. |
Facebook pushes ahead with crypto wallet plan in bid to 'fix broken payment system' . Facebook is pushing ahead with its plans for a cryptocurrency-based payment system with Novi, a digital wallet that has secured licenses or approvals in nearly every state. The wallet will offer free peer-to-peer payments and earn profits from merchant services. Facebook's currency Diem, formally known as Libra, will be backed by a bank holding company and will have its value pegged to the US dollar. It will run on a permissioned-blockchain by the Diem Association. There are still many regulatory roadblocks to overcome before the system can be launched. |
Russia partners with China for lunar space station . Russia and China have agreed to build and work on an International Scientific Lunar Station orbiting the Moon. NASA, the ESA, Japan, and Canada are working together on the Lunar Gateway, another planned space station. Russia was not asked to be a part of the Lunar Gateway project. Cooperating with China was one of Russia's top priorities last year. It is unclear what specific contributions Russia will make. China has also held talks with France's space agency. |
Netflix lays off 300 more employees . Netflix has laid off around 300 people across a number of departments. The company also laid off 150 workers back in May. It has around 11,000 employees around the globe. Netflix's subscriber count dropped for the first time in the first quarter of 2022 and the company expects to lose as many as 2 million subscribers in the current quarter. It has earmarked around $17 billion for new content this year. |
Hong Kong protestors are once again using mesh networks to preempt an internet shutdown . As the Hong Kong protests continue, the possibility of an internet shutdown has led protestors to start using mesh networking technologies again. These networks played an important role during Hong Kong's 2014 democracy protests. Apps such as FireChat and Bridgefy link phones directly to each other through Bluetooth, allowing users to communicate through a network of devices rather than the internet. Private communication is encrypted, but public chat rooms are not. There are ways to monitor devices and identify them, and Bluetooth is not the most secure protocol. Bridgefy's CEO says that it's highly unlikely but not impossible for the government to trace messages to individual users, but users should still exercise caution. |
Scientists looking for aliens investigate radio beam 'from nearby star' . A narrow beam of radio waves appears to have come from Proxima Centauri. All other radio waves detected so far that have appeared to come from outer space have been attributed to human-made interference or natural sources, but scientists have yet to find a source for this signal. A shift in its frequency was consistent with the movement of a planet, adding to the mystery of the finding. There are at least two planets that orbit Proxima Centauri, one that is believed to be a rocky world where the temperature is right for water to flow and pool. |
Questions . This is a list of questions from the personal blog of Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe. A lot of interesting food for thought here, questions include "How do we help more experimental cities get started?", "What's the successor to the book? And how could books be improved?", "Why are programming environments still so primitive?" and more like that. |
Mastercard will allow banks on its payments network to provide cryptocurrency services . MasterCard has signed a deal with cryptocurrency firm Bakkt to make crypto options available to merchants and banks across its payments network. Banks on the network will be able to provide cryptocurrency rewards on credit and debit cards. Consumers will be able to convert their crypto to pay for purchases and hold digital assets through wallets on Bakkt's platform. The deal could significantly expand access to and adoption of cryptocurrencies, with more than 22,000 banks and financial institutions on the MasterCard network. |
How to use Jupyter Notebooks in 2020 . Data science is a rapidly changing industry. The need for production has grown throughout the years, evidenced by the rise in demand for machine learning engineers and data science software developers. Adoption of the Cloud is now necessary as datasets become larger. Jupyter has now grown, and we now have JupyterLab, new kernels for other languages, and third-party tooling. |
Products I Wish Existed, 2020 Edition (10 minute read). The new technologies that we have today have opened up new niches for startups to fill. Remote work is becoming more common, and ways of hiring these workers will need to evolve. New forms of social media will need to adapt to social trends. Companies have opportunities to provide governments with networking and surveillance technology, and there is a lot of opportunity for companies looking to help the planet. War is changing, and defense will need to start relying on software-based defense contractors. New discoveries in biotech will mean that new types of fertility and longevity treatments will soon be available. Different new types of healthcare services will be possible. |
Cog (GitHub Repo). Cog is a tool that packages machine learning models in a standard, production-ready container. It was developed to make it easier for researchers to ship machine learning models to production by making Docker more simple to set up. Cog generates Docker images with all the best practices and automatically sets up the correct CUDA/cuDNN/PyTorch/Tensorflow/Python combos. It can dynamically generate RESTful HTTP APIs using model types. |
Lyft bikes caught fire in Berkeley, San Jose before two reported in San Francisco . Four of Lyft's electric bikes have caught on fire, causing the company to disable all its electric bikes from the East Bay, San Francisco, and San Jose areas. The cause of the fires is under investigation, with Lyft claiming that at least one of the fires was caused by vandalism. With the electric bikes disabled, Lyft now only has 2,500 pedal-powered bikes throughout the Bay Area to serve its customers. Riders have been frustrated with the sudden rollback, as many had depended on the service. Lyft has no intention of re-introducing the bikes until they discover the cause of the fires and fix the problem. |
Breaking GitHub Private Pages for $35k . In the spring of last year, GitHub had two CTF bonuses posted as part of GitHub's private pages private bug bounty. One was for reading the flag at flag.private-org.github.io without user interaction, with a bonus for reading the flag from an account outside of the organization. The other was for reading the flag with user interaction. This article discusses how the vulnerabilities were discovered and exploited. GitHub paid out a total bounty of $35,000. |
YouTube reportedly discouraged employees from reporting fake, toxic videos . Company executives at YouTube care more about increasing views than the type of content that is being viewed, according to many employees. Employees have been suggesting solutions to moderate or remove certain types of content for years, but the company was more interested in reaching its goal of 1 billion hours of views per day. YouTube discouraged employees outside their small moderation team searching for videos with questionable content, as their liability would have increased if there was proof that staff was aware of these videos’ existence on the platform. At least 5 senior employees have left the company due to this issue. YouTube finally started taking action on this issue in late 2016 and started demonetizing some videos in 2017. |
Shenzhen lockdown shows tech is still reeling from COVID-19 . China has placed Shenzhen in lockdown for at least a week after new cases in the country jumped from 1,100 on Friday to 3,122 on Sunday. The city's 17.5 million residents will undergo mass testing. Tencent, Huawei, Oppo, GEM, and Foxconn have bases in the city. The restrictions will likely have an impact that will last for months. |
The Race to Redesign Sugar (25 minute read). Instead of finding new artificial sweeteners, some scientists are instead modifying the sugar molecule so that it tastes sweeter. DouxMatok, an Israeli startup, is selling sugar crystals that are modified to be sweeter so people can use 40 percent less and it will still taste as sweet as if they had used the usual amount of normal sugar. In taste tests, 74 percent of consumers preferred the modified sugar to the real thing. People around the world are becoming more aware of the health effects of consuming sugar, but the demand for sweet products is still high. Sugar isn't easy to replace, with the industry making several attempts at using artificial sweeteners without much success. |
Framework’s new laptop means the promise of modular gadgets might be coming true . Framework has released a new version of its ultra-repairable, upgradeable laptop. It features a 12th Gen Intel Core i5 or i7 chip, a more rigid top cover, and Wi-Fi 6E support. The new laptop's parts are completely backward-compatible with first-generation devices. Customers who purchased the first version of the laptop can upgrade their device without having to buy a new one. |
MicroK8s (GitHub Repo). MicroK8s is a single-package fully conformant lightweight Kubernetes that works on 42 flavors of Linux. It is small, simple, secure, current, and comprehensive. MicroK8s is perfect for developer workstations, IoT, Edge, and CI/CD. |
Production company aims to film space reality TV show, with the winner flying to orbit . Space Hero Inc is a production company that plans to produce a reality TV show competition where the prize is a trip to the International Space Station. It is working with aerospace company Axiom Space to help broker the trip for the winner. Contestants around the world will train for space travel and then the winner will receive a 10-day trip to the space station. The trip will be televised from launch to return. Axiom hasn't selected a launch provider for the mission yet. Both SpaceX and Boeing's vehicles are possible candidates. NASA is planning to fly Tom Cruise to the space station to film a movie. It also plans to begin filming ads on the ISS in the next few months. |
Manage Your Next Project With Basecamp (Sponsor). Basecamp is the all-in-one toolkit for working remotely. Organize teams, projects, schedules, files, and everything else your team needs. Try managing your next project with Basecamp. We’ll even give you one free month to try it.Try Basecamp Today |
JsQuery (GitHub Repo). JsQuery is a PostgreSQL extension that adds a json query language with GIN indexing support. It features a way to search in nested objects and arrays and more comparison operators with indexes support. |
Google Duo video chat is now available on the web . Google Duo now works on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, but Microsoft Edge appears to not be supported. Users can make phone calls directly from their browser to other users who are registered with the Google Duo service. The video chat service has proven to be popular and has outlived Google Allo, which was launched alongside it. OnePlus has announced deep integration of Google Duo in its phones. |
Uber Is Said to File for an IPO as It Races Lyft to a Public Debut . Uber confidentially filed papers for their IPO last Thursday. The company is expected to IPO at a $120 billion valuation in the first half of next year. Last August, Toyota invested $500 million in Uber at a valuation of $76 billion. Uber lost $1.07 billion in the just the third quarter of 2018. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is focused on cutting unprofitable business segments, and has already sold off Uber's operations in Russia and Southeast Asia. |
Report: One-third of tech workers admit to working only 3 to 4 hours a day . A recent survey found that, out of the employees from the 42 tech companies who participated, 31% of them were only putting in three to four hours of work a day. The survey did not measure productivity, which can vary widely between people. Some companies are reportedly working their employees harder, but others report significantly less work. The pandemic has not impacted everyone equally. |
a18n (GitHub Repo). a18n is an automated I18n tool for JavaScript, TypeScript, and React. It wraps and extracts text in js/ts/jsx/tsx files using AST manipulation. A GIF demo is available in the repository. |
Spotify Unwrapped: How we brought you a decade of data . Spotify Wrapped is one of Spotify's largest marketing and social campaigns of the year. Every year, users see a detailed breakdown of their listening habits. The Wrapped team consists of many sub-teams that are responsible for marketing, legal, design, data, frontend, and backend engineering. In 2019, the team processed around five times the amount of data compared to 2018's Wrapped campaign at a fraction of the cost. This was achieved through optimizing the architecture so it could read, process, and validate data quickly and effectively. The system was designed so that group-by key operations were reduced, and the output data from yearly jobs was used for some metrics. As the summaries were broken down into smaller data stories and workflows, Spotify was able to create a more flexible system that allowed for quick iteration and exploration. |
Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage on June 1st, 2021 . From June next year, Google Photos will start charging for storage once users pass the 15 GB mark. All photos and documents uploaded before the change will not count towards the cap. Pixel owners will be able to continue uploading high-quality photos for free without limits. Users who want more storage can purchase Google One, which offers storage across Google's suite of apps, as well as a VPN for Android at some of its higher tiers. If users are inactive for two years and don't respond to Google's multiple warning emails, they risk having their account data deleted. |
These Scientists Just Completed a 3D ‘Google Earth’ for the Brain . The Julich-Brain is a probabilistic map of human brains that accounts for individual differences using a computational framework. It is dynamic, continually changing to incorporate more recent brain mapping results. The Julich-Brain is essentially a neuromapping API that could unite previous brain mapping methods with more modern methods. The map currently has data from over 24,000 sections from 23 postmortem brains covering most years of adulthood at the cellular level. Using a probabilistic map is far more precise than using the brain's visible landmarks as these landmarks can differ between people. |
Prisma (GitHub Repo). Prisma is an ORM that makes it easy for two services with incompatible types to communicate. It can be used in any Node.js or TypeScript backend application. Prisma provides a clean and type-safe API for submitting database queries that return plain JavaScript objects. |
Scientists Reveal World’s First 3D-Printed, Marbled Wagyu Beef . Scientists from Osaka University have manufactured the world's first 3D-printed Wagyu beef. Wagyu beef is one of the most expensive meats in the world due to its high marble content, with visible layers of intramuscular fat that give it rich flavors and a distinctive texture. 3D-printing the beef was an extremely difficult feat. The scientists used a special method that involved a technique inspired by Japanese Kintaro candy. The team did not say how much the beef costs to produce or how long it would take for the product to reach the market. A diagram showing the 3D-printed meat and its structure is available. |
Humans Can Regrow Cartilage in Joints Just Like Salamanders . Scientists have discovered that humans have the ability to regenerate cartilage in their joints, similar to how salamanders and zebrafish are able to regrow limbs. The discovery could lead to new methods of repairing joint tissues as well as the possibility of growing new limbs. In order to make the discovery, scientists developed a method of measuring the age of proteins and found that cartilage was older as it moved up the human body. Cartilage is young in the ankles, middle-aged in the knees, and oldest in the hips. The position of the cartilage are correlated with how animals regenerate limbs. Limb repair is moderated by microRNA in animals. MicroRNA is also found in humans, and the scientists believe that they can use it to create medicines for treating joints. |
Architects Are Playing With the Future of Design in Video Games . Games are built on code. Code is written to define the physics and possibilities of a game, and it is used to create a visual world that players can exist in. In the real world, objects and materials have set physical properties, but in games, these can be altered to whatever the programmers want it to be. Games could be a good place to train architects. Architects can be free to build whatever they want to while also testing out concepts in controlled environments. Building in games requires understanding, and sometimes writing, the rules which certain materials have to follow, and this could result in more creative uses of materials in the real world. |
Amazon built an Alexa cuckoo clock and wants your help backing new projects like this one . Amazon's 'Built It' program is a Kickstarter-like effort where customers can choose to back a product, and if there is enough support within 30 days, Amazon will build it. Customers will only be charged if the product is developed and ships. Prices are raised once the product has been released. There are currently three concepts available, and more ideas are coming. |
ReScript – the language after TypeScript? (16 minute read). ReScript is a language that was created in 2016 and it is still in active development. It is relatively easy to learn for JavaScript and TypeScript developers and it comes with an excellent type system, high performance, and concepts from functional programming. This article looks at ReScript and its use cases, as well as the limitations of the language. |
Kool (Website). Kool is a development environment that makes using Docker for local development faster and easier. It supports all languages and frameworks. Kool is suitable for teams of all sizes and experience. |
Gene Editing Can Change The Social Behavior of Animals in Unexpected Ways . Scientists used CRISPR to knock out a receptor that is acted on by the hormone vasopressin in hamsters. Vasopressin is linked to social actions, and the team expected that knocking out the receptor would reduce social communication and aggressive behavior. The opposite happened, and the hamsters showed much higher levels of social communication and aggression. The results mean that scientists need to start thinking about the actions of receptors across entire regions of the brain and not just in specific regions. |
Yelp lays off 1,000 employees and furloughs 1,100 more . Yelp has laid off 1,000 employees in order to cut expenses. An additional 1,100 employees are on unpaid leave until further notice. Yelp had considered cutting costs in different ways, including reducing server costs and deprioritizing projects. Its executives had already accepted 20-30% pay cuts. The business is based on recommending the best local businesses, but most businesses are now closed. |
How often do people actually copy and paste from Stack Overflow? Now we know . Stack Overflow recently analyzed how users copy data from its site. One in every four users copies something within five minutes of visiting a Stack Overflow page. A majority of copies come from users with zero reputation. Non-accepted answers are copied more, but there is higher knowledge reuse from accepted answers. Higher scored posts are copied more. |
This ‘smart’ face mask can translate what you say into eight languages . Donut Robotics in Japan has developed a face mask that can translate what the wearer is saying into eight different languages. The C-FACE Smart Mask works by connecting to a smartphone app to translate words into text messages or speech. It will be available in Japan in September for around $40 per mask. The company plans to sell the masks in China, the US, and Europe. |
Amazon’s automated checkouts land in airports via Cibo Express . Cibo express has confirmed its first check-out free store at Newark Liberty airport. The store will use Amazon's Just Walk Out cashier-less technology. Just Walk Out uses the technology used in Amazon Go supermarkets to allow customers to pick up items and just walk out, with payments debited directly to their credit cards. It meshes computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning technologies to accomplish this feat. Cashier-less stores are more efficient than traditional stores, making them attractive for airport environments where travelers are pressed for time. |
Instacart workers are organizing national boycott to reinstate a default 10 percent tip . Instacart workers will be holding a protest against the company next week in order to push for the reinstatement of a 10 percent default tip on all orders. They plan to start a social media campaign to encourage customers to #DeleteInstacart until the company restores the 10 percent tip. Workers claim that Instacart has lowered pay steadily over the last few years, reducing the default tips from 10 percent to 5 percent in 2016. It introduced an earnings structure in 2018 that resulted in less pay for most of its laborers. Workers' tips were being factored into their minimum payments, but Instacart reversed the policy after widespread criticism. Instacart later eliminated its bonus program. An IPO may be on the horizon for Instacart, which had a valuation of around $8 billion last year. |
🚀 What's new in Azure Cosmos DB? (Sponsor). Want to learn about Azure Cosmos DB? Learn how you can get started with Microsoft Azure's planet scale, geo-replicated, schema-agnostic, and horizontally scalable NoSQL database. Join us for our free, virtual developer event on April 19-20 for the second Azure Cosmos DB Conf! |
A new type of killer T-cell can stop attacks on healthy tissue . A new form of human T cell that suppresses attacks on healthy tissues has been discovered. T cells play a significant role in the adaptive immune response. The new T cells may be capable of killing other T cells. They were first discovered in mice, but a new study confirms that the cells also exist in humans. Enhancing the number of these T cells in the body could aid in the treatment of infections and autoimmune diseases. |
Here’s everything Apple just announced at its iPhone 12 event (10 minute read). Apple has announced the new range of iPhones. All the new iPhones have 5G capability. The new iPhone 12 has a new case design and it features Apple's A14 chip, two camera lenses, and magnets on its back. The iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max feature a LiDAR sensor that will give the phone better AR capabilities and better quality low-light images. They will also feature an additional camera telephoto lens aimed at serious photographers. The iPhone 12 Pro will have a 6.1-inch screen and start at $999, and the iPhone 12 Pro Max will have a 6.7-inch display and will cost $1,099 for the basic model. An iPhone 12 Mini was announced. It will have a 5.4-inch screen and will be priced starting at $699. The new iPhones won't include a charger or headphones in the box. A new MagSafe charger was announced that can charge the iPhone and Apple Watch at the same time. More announcements are in the article. |
NASA Astronauts Go On Spacewalk to Upgrade the Space Station (YouTube Video). In this 5.5 hour video, NASA astronauts are observed upgrading the nickel-hydrogen batteries with more powerful lithium-ion ones on the International Space Station. Viewers can hear the audio communication between the astronauts and NASA, and there is also additional commentary to explain what is occurring. The video shows the mission from many viewpoints, including from the point of view of the astronauts. |
NASA’s Ingenuity—the First Ever Off-World Helicopter—Is Set for a ‘Wright Brothers Moment’ on Mars . NASA's Perseverance rover will be carrying a four-pound helicopter in its belly. Named Ingenuity, it will attempt up to five powered flights on Mars. The first flight will replicate test flights previously conducted on Earth. After that, Ingenuity will start testing its limits, eventually flying up to 150 feet away on its final test. Each trip will last about 90 seconds from takeoff to landing, which is the maximum time available due to Ingenuity's battery capacity. Mars' atmosphere is less than 1 percent the density of Earth's atmosphere, so Ingenuity's blades have to spin 10 times faster than helicopters on Earth to create an upward lift. It will take a whole Martian day to recharge between flights. |
Google's Night Sight for Pixel phones will amaze you . Google has used algorithms to create night sight, a feature for the Google Pixel that brightens pictures taken in low light settings so that it looks like all of your pictures are well lit. Basically it uses machine learning to replace flash on your camera. There are before and after pictures in the article, and they are seriously incredible. |
How JPEG Compression Works . JPEG, created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group in 1992, is the most used digital image format in the world. It uses lossy compression, so information is lost in the process, while maintaining good image quality. This article breaks down how JPEGs work, explaining in detail the maths and algorithms behind the image format. |
What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up? . This is an article written by Jeff Atwood, former CEO of Stack Overflow. He says that Stack Overflow isn't a discussion forum, it's meant to be more like a wiki. The goal of SO is not "answer my question" but rather "let's collaboratively build an artifact that will benefit future coders". It is meant to have a slightly-anxiety inducing competitive system of peer review by design. The fact that your answer can be poked, prodded, edited, flagged, closed, opened, upvoted, downvoted, and more makes you show your best work when posting. A less competitive system would lead to low effort answers. Stack Overflow is meant for professional and enthusiast programmers and not beginners and students. It is not meant to be good at one on one mentoring, collaboration, and tutorials. If you're like me and sometimes you go on Stack Overflow and think "damn these people are mean" this article explains a lot of the rationale behind that. |
China is building a GitHub alternative called Gitee . Chinese companies have grown due to the technological decoupling between the US and China. Many Chinese companies heavily relied on US-based services and have had to redevelop their own versions. While GitHub is still available in China, the developer community is wary of the effects of political conflict. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has chosen Gitee to be China's open-source hosting platform. GitHub has previously hinted at plans at opening a subsidiary in China and Tencent has backed local rival Coding.net. |
Exclusive: Here’s a first look at some more upcoming features in Android 12 (12 minute read). The first Android 12 developer preview was released nearly two months ago. An unreleased build was recently leaked, containing new code and features not previously seen in the public developer previews. This article covers some of the changes, including videos and screenshots where available. The new changes include improvements to scrolling screenshots, new emojis, enhanced notification permissions, and much more. |
Cut JS Debug Time in Half Using Airbrake (Sponsor). Airbrake can tell you exactly where an error is in your app, right down to the line of broken code. Plus, it will show you exactly what happened leading up to the error, including clicks, keypresses, navigational updates, and more. Click here to learn more about this cool Airbrake feature! |
Linux Mint introduces its own take on the Chromium web browser . Linux Mint now has its own version of the Chromium web browser. Maintaining Chromium was a significant time investment for the Ubuntu Desktop Team, so they switched to using Snap to distribute Chromium. This resulted in security issues that Mint developers felt they needed to fix. In June, Mint cut Snap and the Snap-based Chromium from their distro. Up-to-date builds of Chromium are finally now available for Mint users. There was a delay as Mint needed to automate the process of detecting, packaging, and compiling new versions of the browser. |
Niantic CEO shares teaser image of AR glasses device . John Hanke, CEO of Niantic, recently posted a cropped image on Twitter of what could be a first-party head-mounted wearable. The company has been actively investing in the Augmented Reality hardware space and has been working with Qualcomm on its XR hardware platform. Niantic also recently announced an AR title based on Pikmin and the company showed off a proof-of-concept version of Pokemon Go running on Microsoft's HoloLens 2 earlier this month. |
Successful study of Swedish vaccine candidate against diarrhea . An oral vaccine against enterotoxigenic E.coli (ETEC) bacteria has been developed by the University of Gothenburg. ETEC is the primary cause of diarrhea, leading to the illness and death of many children and travelers in low-middle income countries. The vaccine consists of inactivated E.coli bacteria that express high levels of protective antigens, and the ETEC-based B subunit protein LCTBA. It is given as a drink. When tested in children, it was shown to produce immune responses in over 80 percent of children two to five years of age, and over 50 percent of infants six to 11 months of age. Only a few mild to moderate adverse reactions were observed in the test groups. |
Scientists develop the most heat-resistant material ever created . A group of scientists has developed a ceramic material that breaks the record for the compound with the highest known melting point. Its combination of physical, mechanical, and thermal properties make the material suitable for use in most heat-loaded components of aircraft. The material, hafnium carbonitride, has a melting point that exceeds 4,000 degrees celsius. The team has planned further experiments to find out the exact melting point of the material. |
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. |
Amazon to give Prime customers one-day shipping, cutting free delivery time in half . Amazon has started to roll out free one-day delivery for some customers, and the service is expected to be available to all Prime customers soon. Two-day delivery has been available for years and is one of the main selling points for the Prime subscription. During a conference call related to Amazon’s quarterly earnings report, CFO Brian Olsavsky explained that Amazon will be investing heavily to achieve this goal. Amazon expects that this project will take time and investors will have an update on their progress by the end of Q2. |
Genetically-engineered pigs to be reared to fight disease . Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) is a disease that costs the US and Europe about $2.5 billion in lost revenue every year. Vaccines have mostly failed to stop the spread of the virus. Researchers from Edinburgh University's Roslin Institute have genetically engineered pigs that can resist the disease. Critics of the research say it will discourage farmers from improving the welfare of their livestock. |
LG claims its ‘Real Folding Window’ beats folding glass, will ship in 2023 . LG's Real Folding Window is a new material that is as hard as glass while being foldable. The new material can make folding screens that last longer and with a less noticeable crease than current folding devices. It should work on tablets, laptops, and rollable-screen phones. The new material could unlock a lot more phone designs as screens will be able to fold outwards. LG plans to commercialize the tech in 2023. |
Japan is building a 60-foot-tall, walking Gundam robot . The construction of a 60-foot-tall walking Gundam robot will start in Yokohama in October this year. Gundam first aired in 1979, leaving an indelible mark on Japanese culture and the world of animation. Sales of Gundam miniature figurines approached half a billion back in 2015. This is the fourth full-size Gundam attraction that designer Masaki Kawahara has worked on. The robot will weigh around 25 tons and have 24 degrees of motion. Building the robot will stretch the limits of common motor, materials, and actuator technologies. It will be developed using the open-source Robot Operating System and Gazebo simulation software. A full-scale virtual copy of the robot will be released so that aspiring programmers can play with it and develop their own actions and poses. The seven-minute press conference announcement video is linked at the bottom of the article. |
Netflix is bringing an audio-only mode to its Android app . Netflix is rolling out an audio-only mode to its Android app users. Users who have the feature will now see a new Video Off button at the top of the full-screen video player. There is a new Audio Only option in settings that lets users choose when they want to default to the mode. Screenshots from the Netflix Android app are available in the article. |
Amazon’s Android apps come to the latest Windows 11 beta . Microsoft has announced the first preview for Android apps on Windows 11. 50 Android apps will be available to Windows 11 users in the US soon, with more to follow in the coming months. Android apps running on Windows 11 will have basic integration with the rest of the operating system, including access to features like the Action Center and Clipboard. The system requirements for running Android apps are higher than the requirements for only running Windows 11. |
SoftBank Notches a $6.5 Billion Loss on Plunging WeWork and Uber Valuations . Masayoshi Son has disclosed the extent of SoftBank Group Corp.'s losses on WeWork and Uber Technologies Inc. SoftBank reported its first quarterly operating loss in 14 years at around $6.5 billion, with $4.6 billion in losses attributed to WeWork. Son's $100 billion Vision Fund had contributed over $14 billion in mostly paper gains over the past two years, but its high exposure to businesses that prioritize growth over profitability is starting to have a negative effect. Despite the hits, SoftBank has still made money for its investors. SoftBank continued to invest more money into WeWork in a deal that included making WeWork's founder Adam Neumann resign from the company's board. Analysts are concerned with Son's investment strategy due to WeWork's poor performance. |
Melody (GitHub Repo). Melody is a language that compiles to regular expressions. It converts readable code into regex. Melody supports the JavaScript implementation of regular expressions. Examples are available. |
It’s About Time! The Future is Built on InfluxDB (Sponsor). Join tech leaders on May 17 at 9am PT (4pm GMT) online as they discuss how time series unlocks the potential of IoT and moves the world of application and software forward. Save your spot! |
Microsoft Opens Edge Addons Store for Submissions . The Microsoft Edge Addons store is now fully open. Developers can submit their addons for the web browser through the Partner Center Developer Dashboard. Edge is now built on Google's Chromium web engine. Applications built for Chromium will be functional with Edge without any code changes required. Existing EdgeHTML-based extensions can be automatically migrated to the Chromium base. |
Tesla rides Model 3's popularity to its first profit in two years . Tesla just had its first profitable quarter since 2016, earning $311 million in profit. This is due mostly to the popularity of the Model 3 and Tesla's ability to fix its old production issues. There are still 455,000 people on the Model 3 waitlist (Tesla shipped 56,065 Model 3s this quarter). Due to an SEC settlement regarding Elon Musk's tweets, the company is still looking for a replacement chairman of the board. Tesla is also planning on opening a Gigafactory to build Model 3s in Shanghai in 2019 to avoid the 40% tariff caused by the US-China trade war. Elon Musk also said that he has signed off on the final prototype of the Model Y, a crossover SUV that Tesla plans on building in 2020. Musk says he's personally most excited about the Tesla pickup, which he claims will feature "some next level stuff". |
CyberDog is a new ominous-looking robot from Xiaomi . Xiaomi has unveiled a quadrupedal robot called CyberDog. The open-source robot can respond to voice commands and navigate semi-autonomously. It can perform backflips and trot along at speeds of 3.2m/s. Xiaomi will first release 1,000 units to Xiaomi Fans, engineers, and robotic enthusiasts for 9,999 Yuan, or roughly $1,540. It is unclear if the price will remain the same for subsequent releases. The release of CyberDog signals how accessible robotics technology has become. |
Introducing the Internet Bill of Rights . Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative from California, has drafted an "Internet Bill of Rights" to provide a broad set of user-friendly principles under which tech companies should operate. Users should have access to and knowlege of all data tech companies have and how the data is used. Opt-in should be the default for information collection. Data should be portable from one network to another. The list also includes net neutrality, affordable and clear pricing for internet service, and transparency and accountability for protecting privacy and personal data. This is not current legislation, it's just an early version of a long term vision for the internet. |
On Apple's Piss-Poor Documentation (10 minute read). Apple provides developers with tools, many of which are fairly straightforward to use. However, sometimes developers run into problems that require documentation, and that's when they find out how bad Apple's documentation is. There could be many reasons as to why Apple might have bad documentation, but it is definitely a problem that should be fixed. |
Describe programming in only six words (Twitter thread). @MIT_CSAIL asks followers to describe programming in six words. A 1-minute video was also posted with MIT researchers attempting to describe their jobs. |
The Booming Underground Market for Bots That Steal Your 2FA Codes . Hackers who obtain username and password data may sometimes need to also bypass two-factor authentication. There are a growing number of services that help hackers bypass this barrier by using automated bots. When a hacker is ready to enter an account, they can activate a bot that calls the victim and convinces them to reply with a legitimate two-factor code that the hacker sends at the same time. The bots can cost a few hundred a month to hire, with vendors boasting thousands of subscribers. |
StackGres (GitHub Repo). StackGres is a fully-featured platform for running PostgreSQL on Kubernetes. It comes with a carefully selected and tuned set of surrounding PostgreSQL components. StackGres features high availability, connection pooling, automated backups, monitoring, centralized logging, and a fully-featured management web console. |
RETRO Is Blazingly Fast . RETRO models are 25x smaller than the competition, leading to huge savings in training and inference costs. |
'Protecting rioters': China warns Apple over app that tracks Hong Kong police . China has accused Apple of endorsing and protecting protestors in Hong Kong because of an app in its App Store that tracks the movement of police in the city. HKmap.live is an app that crowdsources the location of police and anti-government protestors and displays the information as hotspots on a map. It was originally rejected by Apple, but the decision was reversed and it was approved on October 4. The app is the most downloaded app in the iOS App Store under the Travel category for Hong Kong. People's Daily, a Chinese Communist party mouthpiece, has criticized Apple's decision to distribute the app and allowing an unofficial anthem sung by protestors to be available for download in the Apple Music store. The protests are now in their 18th week. China has targeted other foreign companies over their support of Hong Kong's protestors, including NBA's Houston Rockets and Tiffany & Co. |
Fyne (GitHub Repo). Fyne is a UI toolkit and app API written in Go. It uses OpenGL to provide cross-platform graphics. Fyne is built entirely using vector graphics, so it will scale to any size, and developers can switch between two default themes, light and dark. There are examples of Fyne available in a separate repository. |
Odyssey (GitHub Repo). Odyssey is an advanced multi-threaded PostgreSQL connection pooler and request router. It features multi-threaded processing, advanced transactional pooling, defined connection pools, support for many security and authentication methods, and more. Odyssey currently only runs on Linux. |
CPython on WASM (GitHub Repo). This repository contains build scripts and configurations for building CPython for Emscripten. Emscripten can compile code into WebAssembly and run it on the web, Node.js, or other WASM runtimes. It has been used to convert many real-world codebases to WebAssembly, including Unreal Engine 4 and the Unity engine. |
Lessons From A Tech Job Search (13 minute read). This article details the process of searching for a job in tech. It follows the author through the application, screening, interview, and negotiation processes, breaking down each process and how to prepare for them. The article specifies the companies that the author applied to and interviewed for so readers have a better picture of what specific companies are like. |
Methane converted into methanol at room temperature – just add light . Researchers have developed a new technique to convert methane to methanol by using a metal-organic framework (MOF) as a catalyst. The technique involves mixing methane and oxygen into water and then pumping it through the MOF catalyst. Exposing the catalyst to sunlight triggers a reaction that converts the gas into liquid methanol, which can be easily extracted and converted into valuable products. The technique could reduce methane emissions and the environmental footprint of methanol production. |
Genetically Engineered 'Supertrees' Capture More Carbon . Living Carbon is a San Francisco-based startup that is genetically engineering trees to capture and store more carbon. Its goal is to combat the effects of climate change without needing to take up land that could otherwise be used for agriculture. Fewer trees would need to be planted if they were able to absorb and retain more carbon. There are still many factors to consider before the trees become a reality, such as the environmental impact the trees will have and whether the modifications make the trees more vulnerable to disease. |
Launching the Front-End Tooling Survey 2019 . FreeCodeCamp has launched their 2019 front-end tooling survey, which seeks to discover common knowledge and usage levels of common front-end tools. Last years survey found that React and Vue.js were growing significantly in importance in front-end development. This year’s survey has a focus on CSS-in-JS tools, as well as some questions regarding performance and accessibility tools and features. The survey is open now and will close at the end of April. |
Netflix Lands 'Seinfeld' Rights in $500M-Plus Deal After Losing 'Friends' and 'The Office' . Netflix has landed a five-year deal with Sony to broadcast Seinfeld globally starting in 2021. The deal will bring Seinfeld's global streaming rights under one roof for the first time. Netflix has recently lost two other classic NBC comedies, Friends and The Office. It is estimated that Netflix users in the US watched 85 billion minutes of The Office and Friends in 2018. The exact terms of the Netflix-Sony deal aren't public, except that it will be available worldwide on Netflix in 4K. |
Google Allegedly Infiltrated by "Cult-Like Religious Sect" . A group called the Fellowship of Friends may be controlling the hiring at Google. The group believes that most people exist in a state of 'waking sleep' and its founder claims to have been contacted by angelic incarnations of deceased art figures. The group allegedly built its influence by running a hiring agency that hired contractors from the sect. A previous case in 2008 awarded an employee $6.5 million in damages for failing to be promoted for not being a Fellowship member. |
'Smile with your eyes': How to beat South Korea's AI hiring bots and land a job . Top Korean firms are rolling out artificial intelligence in hiring, and job seekers are learning how to beat the bots. Career consultants are now offering classes on how to handle recruitment screening by computers. These systems use facial recognition technology to analyze potential employees, so job seekers have to learn techniques, such as smiling with their eyes, in order to deal with the AI. Nearly a quarter of the top 131 corporations in Korea currently use or have plans to use AI in hiring. AI video interviews analyze people's emotional responses to questions and also their performance in a certain set of tasks. Some tests don't really have a correct answer, as the goal is only to analyze behavior. Many students are feeling disheartened with the introduction of AI as they feel like they are underprepared for these types of interviews, and they are concerned because the systems can easily detect if they make something up. |
Ex-Facebook engineer posts YouTube videos mocking the culture and joking about how he was fired . Former Facebook software engineer Patrick Shyu runs a YouTube channel called TechLead which has over 500,000 subscribers. He has posted six videos making fun of Facebook since he was dismissed on August 26. In these videos, he criticizes the work culture, calling it a popularity contest where ideas and projects are driven by likes and comments rather than logic. Shyu had been working at Facebook since May 2018 and had previously worked at Google for four years. He currently makes well over $500,000 through his YouTube videos. |
Oxford spinoff demonstrates world-first hypersonic "projectile fusion" . First Light Fusion is celebrating its first confirmed fusion reaction. The company's approach to fusion involves firing a projectile from a railgun at a falling target in a process designed to generate pressure levels high enough to create shockwaves that cause small deuterium fuel pellets to implode and start fusion reactions. The technique was inspired by the pistol shrimp, which can snap its claws so fast that the water around them is vaporized, creating shockwaves and bubble cavities that heat to tens of thousands of degrees. First Light is working towards creating a pilot plant in the 2030s. Many more details about the technology, including a video showing the reactor design, are available in the article. |
Google launches a slew of Search updates . Google has released several improvements that use AI to enhance its search engine, Google Lens, and other Search-related tools. Users can now hum songs for Google Assistant to find the name of songs. The 'did you mean' feature has been improved, now using a deep neural net with 680 million parameters to better understand context. Search is now integrated with various data sources, so users can generate graphs with certain data straight from the search bar. The system now points to specific paragraphs in articles that answers users' questions. Advanced search is available for videos as well. Google Lens can now read text out loud and solve equations. Maps can now display crowd information in AR. More details are in the article, along with a 36-minute long presentation from Google about the updates. |
Tesla Model S caught on video bursting into flames seemingly on its own when parked . A first generation Tesla Model S was caught on camera as it burst into flames in China. Security footage shows that the vehicle was parked and unattended when a fire started on the underside of the car, where the battery is. The car was not charging at the time. Tesla is investigating the incident. The fire destroyed the car and damaged the vehicles next to it. |
Digital Overload: Average Adult Will Spend 34 Years Of Their Life Staring At Screens . The results from a poll of 2,000 British adults found that the average person will spend 34 years looking at phones, computers, or televisions. Over half of respondents to the survey reported eye strain, but four out of 10 people said they would rarely stop to rest their vision. The average adult starts looking at a screen within 20 minutes of getting out of bed, with almost a third switching on a device within five minutes. More time is being spent in front of PCs than TVs. It is recommended that people take a break from looking at their screens every 20 minutes, look away for 20 seconds, and focus on something that is at least 20 feet away. |
Amazon's search could push customers toward in-house products . Amazon directed search traffic towards products that were more profitable for the company by tweaking its product-search algorithm. Employees were pressured to make sure that Amazon products were placed higher on the search results, resulting in more visibility and sales. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are all being invested as part of a federal anti-trust probe. Apple recently changed its algorithms so that its apps are no longer displayed first in results. Google has been fined $2.7 billion by the EU for promoting its own products in search results. While Amazon has tried to justify its algorithm, it is unclear whether regulators will agree. |
Fig (GitHub Repo). Fig adds apps, shortcuts, and autocomplete to iTerm2 and the native Terminal on macOS. It pops up subcommands, options, and contextually relevant arguments as you type. A GIF demo is available in the repository. |
Blocks (GitHub Repo). Blocks is a JSX-based page builder for creating websites without writing code. It comes with built-in components that are designed and implemented with Theme UI. The editor reads and writes production-ready React code. A GIF demo is available. |