headline
stringlengths 8
699
| content
stringlengths 43
1.82k
| category
class label 5
classes |
|---|---|---|
US government reportedly in talks with tech companies on how to use location data in COVID-19 fight | The US government is in talks with tech companies to discuss how the data from smartphones can be used to combat the ongoing coronavirus epidemic. Location data can be used to help track the general spread of the infection. Data would be anonymized before being sent to any organization. One of the measures suggested by experts is to use location data to track contact with other people for someone who has a confirmed case of the virus. Naturally, many people are wary of a widespread effort to collect personal data, especially in a time of extreme duress. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Open Source Maintainer Sabotages Code to Wipe Russian, Belarusian Computers | A software developer who maintains a repository for a popular networking tool, node-ipc, recently updated the software to make it add a file containing a message of peace to users' desktops. While the developer claims that the update only added the file, users in Belarus and Russia reported that it overwrote files on their computers with a heart emoji. The reaction to the update was extremely negative. The developer is now being targeted by hackers. | 4Miscellaneous
|
SpaceX Rocket Makes Historic 3rd Launch Into Space with 64 Satellites On Board | SpaceX launched a record 64 small satellites into orbit at once today, on its record 19th launch of the year. It also launched the Falcon 9 for the third time, a record for reusability. The Elon Musk says that the Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket should be capable of at least 100 flights over its lifetime, and it should be able to launch, land and launch again within 24 hours as early as next year. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
TLDR Reader Survey
Hey guys, doing a quick end of year reader survey to get a better idea of who is reading TLDR, if you could take a second to fill it out I would really appreciate it! 🙏
Thanks for reading! If you enjoy TLDR I would really appreciate you spreading the word by forwarding this to your friends! 🙏
If you are just now finding out about TLDR, you can subscribe here!
Give feedback by replying here or messaging me on Twitter @tldrdan!
If you don't want to receive future editions of TLDR, please click here.
) | Hey guys, doing a quick end of year reader survey to get a better idea of who is reading TLDR, if you could take a second to fill it out I would really appreciate it! 🙏 | 4Miscellaneous
|
Zuckerberg Plans to Integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger | Facebook will be combining the infrastructure for WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. They will still be available as different apps, but their backends will be unified, with end to end encryption. This new infrastructure will support 2.6 billion users. Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center calls this change "a terrible outcome for internet users." Facebook wants to have this done by the end of the year or early 2020. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Thoughts on 2 Years as a Remote Robotics Consultant (11 minute read) | Working as a remote consultant presents unique challenges. As you only earn when you are working, time management is important. Short breaks caused by things such as switching tasks will have a large effect on efficiency. While Upwork takes a fee, it is usually a small price to pay for connecting to clients for long-term projects. When working with clients, treating every project as if it was your own will mean clients trust you more, but it might also mean that you might have to pull the plug on a project (and earn less) if it is impractical. Having a Mastermind group can help a lot in solving issues, especially if they can give honest feedback. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Cube.js (GitHub Repo) | Cube.js is an analytical API platform for building internal business intelligence tools and adding customer-facing analytics to existing applications. It was designed to work with serverless data warehouses and query engines. Cube.js can be used to quickly and easily create semantic API layers, manage access controls, aggregate data, and cache queries for real-time performance. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Giving GPT-3 a Turing Test (11 minute read) | GPT-3 is a general language model that is trained on a large amount of uncategorized text from the internet without any guidance. It tries to guess what text comes next given a prompt like a question, sentence, or description. While it can answer many normal questions and almost pass for a human, its performance starts to crack when you ask it abnormal questions. It always tries to answer a question, rather than saying it doesn't know the answer to a question. GPT-3 is still in a closed beta. A link to join the beta is available at the end of the article. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Japan's Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Successfully Deploys Landers to Asteroid Ryugu's Surface | Two Japanese probes have touched down on the asteroid Ryugu, and are now hopping around its surface inspecting the asteroid. Eventually, the probes will fire a small missile at the asteroid to create a crater in order to gather fresh samples from the inside. The probes will return to Earth in 2020. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Clean Architecture (GitHub Repo) | This repository contains notes on clean architecture. The notes cover programming paradigms, design principles, component principles, architecture fundamentals, and more. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote? (HackerNews Thread) | Many people dream of working remotely, ditching the office and working from home or while traveling. The thread creator asks for tips on convincing their company to let them work remotely, and the replies are full of personal anecdotes on how people were able to achieve their remote working goals. There is also some good advice in the thread regarding work culture and working remotely, because if one is not present in the office in a non-remote working culture, they are usually seen as an outsider. While it is possible to transition to working remotely, the general advice given is that it is better to find a position which is already remote-friendly. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Amazon continues work on mobile home robot as it preps new high-end Echo, says report | Rumors that Amazon was working on a wheeled home robot started in April last year. The project was reportedly named ‘Vesta’ and it is supposed to be a waist-high robot that can navigate with the help of an array of computer vision cameras. It will have Alexa built in and can be summoned with voice commands. Vesta was apparently meant to launch this year but there were issues with mass production. Amazon is also working on a high-end Echo device that will be released next year. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Beef Programming Language (GitHub Repo) | Beef is an open-source performance-oriented compiled programming language. Its syntax and many semantics were mostly derived from C# with some influence by Rust, Swift, and Go. It was designed to develop high-performance real-time applications, such as video games, while having low-level features that make it suitable for engine development. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Watch this wooden knife cut effortlessly through juicy, medium-well-done steak | Researchers from the University of Maryland have created wood materials 23 times harder than typical woods. They created a wooden knife and wooden nails using the material and found that the performance of both matched or exceeded that of their steel counterparts. The wooden nails were as sharp as commercial steel nails but with the added bonus of being rust-resistant. All of the main raw materials used to create the hardened wood are abundant and low cost. A short video showing a wooden knife cutting through a steak is available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Japanese convenience stores will use VR-controlled robots to stack shelves | FamilyMart in Japan is using robots to aid its in-store assistants to stack shelves during social distancing. The humanoid robots feature haptic sensors, stereo cameras, and binaural microphones. They are teleoperated by humans who control them using a virtual reality headset and haptic gloves. Japan has attempted other telepresence projects previously. One project involved staffing a restaurant with robots operated by people with physical disabilities. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Spotify will now let artists directly upload their music to the platform | Spotify has launched an invite-only beta program allowing indie artists to upload their music directly to the platform. Spotify will give 50% of Spotify's net revenue for songs uploaded this way to artists, in line with their existing deals (they give Universal Music 52-55% of revenue). Spotify has already been testing the feature for the past few months with artists like VIAA and Michael Brun. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
The NGINX Handbook (Website) | NGINX was released in 2004. It currently holds 35.3% of the market with a total of 419.6 million sites. There are a lot of existing codebases for NGINX, but a developer shouldn't just blindly copy and paste code. This book provides an introduction to NGINX and teaches the reader how to configure NGINX as a web server, proxy server, and load balancer from scratch. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
China unveils prototype maglev train with max speed of 373 mph | A new maglev train that can reach speeds of up to 600 km per hour is currently being tested in China and is expected to reach production stage in 2021. The train will be able to transport people from Beijing to Shanghai in just three and a half hours, compared to the current four and a half hour flight. Maglev trains move on a magnetically powered cushion of air, rather than using wheels that are in contact with a track. China and Japan currently have operational maglev trains, some of which can travel faster than the new design. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
CES 2022 Liveblog: The Gadgets Keep Coming at Tech’s Big Show (45 minute read) | CES 2022 is the first in-person CES in two years, but many attendees have still decided to stay home this year. This page contains live coverage of CES news, with photos, videos, and reports on many of the technologies introduced at the event. The page will be constantly updated during the event, so refresh it to see the latest news. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
How Scientists Grew Human Muscles in Pig Embryos, and Why It Matters for Organ Transplants | Scientists from the University of Minnesota recently unveiled two sets of chimeras. One was a group of piglets, each of which carried genes from two different pigs. The other was pig embryos that developed human muscles after being transplanted into surrogate pigs. This research could lead to ways to replace lost muscle and provide an unlimited supply of organs for transplantation. Organs produced by this method will have a low risk of being rejected by patients' immune systems as the genes for the human tissue can be sourced from the patient themselves. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Amazing video shows 10-story high-rise built in a day | A Chinese company recently assembled a 10-story residential high-rise in just under 29 hours. Broad Group makes prefabricated building modules that when folded have the same dimensions as a shipping container, making them easy to transport. Each module has a stainless steel structure that includes wiring, insulation, glazing, and ventilation systems. The modules can be stacked up to 200 stories high and they are ready to use once they are connected to power and water. A 5-minute video showing the residential building being put together is available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Was Amazon's Headquarters Contest a Bait-and-Switch? Critics Say Yes | Amazon critics are saying that the company's decision to split its second headquarters into two (one in New York and one in Washington DC) showed that the bidding process for HQ2 was a farce. Some believe that the decision was made long ago and that the bidding process was just a ruse to extract concessions and kickbacks. Others have been saying all along that HQ2 would be split into multiple locations that Amazon would again play against one another to strengthen its bargaining position. One critic says "It's tempting to roll your eyes at this soap opera, but Amazon will walk away from this stunt with a cache of incredibly valuable data. It's learned all kinds of things from the bidding cities like their future infrastructure plans that even their citizens are not privy to. Amazon will put this data to prodigious use in the coming years as it looks to expand its market power and sideline the competition." | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
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. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Moon has more water ice than previously thought | UCLA space scientists have discovered thick ice deposits on the moon. New observations suggest that there may be a massive reservoir of frozen water beneath the surface of the moon. Due to the spin axes of the moon and Mercury, many areas never see the sun, so permanently shadowed regions have thick ice deposits. Both Mercury and the moon are covered by impact craters. When investigating the craters on Mercury, it was found that the craters near the poles were shallower, which was later found to be caused by the accumulation of ice deposits. The formation of the ice deposits on the moon suggests that the deposits may be older than the ice on Mercury. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Massive outage brought down most Apple services, including iCloud and iMessage | Apple experienced far-reaching network outages yesterday that affected many of its services. The outage affected both services used by customers and internal tools. Apple Store employees had to use pen and paper to keep the stores running during the outage. All services have been restored. A list of the affected services is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Amazon warehouse workers walk out in rising tide of COVID-19 protests | Amazon workers at a fulfillment center in New York have gone on strike to protest the company's response to COVID-19 infections among its warehouse employees. There is officially one confirmed case at the warehouse, but workers claim there have been at least 10 and that the company has failed to notify workers or properly clean the warehouse. They want Amazon to shut down the facility for two weeks for deep cleaning. So far, Amazon has only closed its facilities when forced to do so by government order or worker protest. The company has failed to report confirmed cases at its facilities several times. Amazon claims that it has taken appropriate measures, but employees believe it is not enough because the facilities are designed for people to work closely together. One of the organizers of the walkout has been fired for violating a 14-day quarantine after coming in contact with an employee diagnosed with COVID-19. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Apple launches Apple Business Essentials: Device management, storage, onsite repairs, and more for one monthly price | Apple Business Essentials is a new offering from Apple that combines device management, 24/7 phone support for IT and end-users, business iCloud support, and an option for onsite repairs for some businesses. IT departments will now be able to push apps and settings onto employees' devices when they sign in with their work credentials. A free beta is now available. The full service will launch in the spring of 2022. Pricing for the service will start at $2.99 per month per user. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Evernote Design (Curated Directory) | This is a huge curated list of design tools put together by the Evernote Design team. There are categories like design inspiration, gradient tools, wireframing tools, free icons, typography and more. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Announcing Flutter for Windows | Flutter is a cross-platform platform that compiles apps that take full advantage of hardware graphics into machine code. Windows support is now available. The Windows version can work with Windows modalities for internationalization and communicate with the Win32, COM, and Windows Runtime APIs. Several common plugins have been adapted to include Windows support, and community packages that add support for various Windows features are available. More details about Flutter Windows support, along with screenshots of Windows apps built with Flutter, are available in the article. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Coinbase files to go public confidentially and we’re hyped | Coinbase has filed to go public, likely debuting in early 2021. It is unknown whether Coinbase will pursue a traditional IPO or a direct listing. Coinbase has raised extensive capital while private, and while there has been some reporting about its historical growth, there is little information about its profits and operations. Cryptocurrencies have seen a recent surge of interest. Coinbase lost dozens of employees in 2020 after its CEO declared that the company would not participate in political matters not directly tied to the company's mission. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Facebook buys game studio BigBox VR | Facebook has acquired BigBox VR, the game studio that made Population: One, a popular Fortnite adaptation in virtual reality. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Many of the developers from Oculus Studios are still building titles for Valve's Steam store, but non-Facebook VR platforms seem to be shrinking. The Oculus Quest 2 has outsold all of Facebook's previous devices combined in its first few months. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
pg_graphql (GitHub Repo) | pg_graphql translates SQL schemas into GraphQL schemas, exposing each table as a pageable collection with relationships defined by the foreign keys. It keeps schema generation, query parsing, and all resolvers neatly contained in the database. Using pg_graphql, any programming language that can connect to PostgreSQL will be able to query the database via GraphQL with no additional servers, processors, or libraries. pg_graphql is in pre-alpha and under active development. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Walmart Robots To Begin Fulfilling Grocery Orders, Replacing Workers | Robots are being deployed in Walmart stores and they will be tasked with fulfilling online orders. The new robots are able to collect items about 10 times faster than a human worker. Walmart is transitioning into an increasingly automated model, and it is hiring fewer workers as a result. Brick and mortar retail stores are struggling against online-only sites. Walmart offers a service where customers can place orders online and have them delivered to their home or to the store parking lot. This system has issues, such as keeping track of stock, and using robots will significantly improve the service. Walmart already employs a fleet of robots that can scan store shelves three times faster than humans can. Brick and mortar companies have the added cost of maintaining a physical retail space, and so it makes sense that they will try to cut costs in order to remain competitive. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Amazon hit by extensive fraud with hackers siphoning merchant funds | Unidentified hackers were able to siphon funds from merchant accounts over six months on Amazon last year. The attack targeted about 100 accounts and transferred cash from loans and sales from merchant accounts into their own bank accounts at Barclays and Prepay Technologies. Amazon issued around $1 billion in loans in 2018, and it is unclear how much the hackers stole. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Fortnite splits into two different games tomorrow because of Epic and Apple’s fight | Fortnite players on iOS or macOS won't be able to play the new season when it arrives as the game is still banned from Apple's App Store. A judge has allowed Apple to leave Fortnite off the App Store but has prevented Apple from removing all of Epic's developer accounts, including the account linked with Epic's Unreal Engine. Any Apple device with Fortnite already installed can continue to run the app but won't be able to receive any updates for it. A court hearing on September 28 will make more permanent decisions on the case. Apple has said that it will bring Fortnite back to the App Store if Epic complies with the App Store guidelines. | 4Miscellaneous
|
How Miami Seduced Silicon Valley (27 minute read) | Miami is rebranding itself to attract tech companies and startups. Many tech investors, cryptocurrency bulls, new-media tycoons, start-up founders, and other wanna-be billionaires have been buying up property in the city. Miami was the top migration destination for homebuyers in the US in July, while San Francisco had the largest homeowner exodus. This article discusses how Miami is making itself more attractive to investors and the impact that this migration has had on the city and the tech industry. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Tesla reveals revolutionary new wiring architecture to help robots build upcoming cars like Model Y | Traditional wiring for vehicles is inefficient, and due to its lack of rigidity, assembly is difficult to automate and usually requires using human hands. Tesla has redesigned the wiring architecture for its cars, enabling more robot automation during manufacturing while using fewer materials. The Model 3 has about 1.5 kilometers of wiring harnesses, and the new design will bring this down to just 100 meters starting with the Model Y. Tesla has released drawings of its new design with its patent application, which are available to view on the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Nvidia turns to liquid cooling to reduce big tech’s energy use | Nvidia has announced a plan for reducing the energy use of data centers by using liquid-cooled graphics cards. Its liquid-cooled version of its A100 compute card consumes 30% less power than the air-cooled version. The company plans to support liquid cooling in its high-performance data center GPUs for the foreseeable future. Liquid-cooling lowers power consumption while also taking up significantly less room. Nvidia's liquid-cooled cards will be incorporated into data center servers later this year. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Adobe Photoshop's 'Super Resolution' Made My Jaw Hit the Floor | Super Resolution is a new feature in Adobe Camera Raw that uses machine learning to upsize images to four times their original size. It works better with higher resolution images, but it still does an amazing job on smaller files. Anyone with lower resolution cameras can now output large image files for prints. Examples of Super Resolution-enhanced images are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
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". | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
London HIV patient becomes world's second AIDS cure hope | An HIV-positive man in London is the second person in the world to be cleared of the virus after a bone-marrow transplant from an HIV-resistant donor. The operation was performed three years ago, and highly-sensitive tests conducted recently could not detect any trace of the virus in the patient. While the treatment was successful in this patient, many doctors say that this treatment is not a viable way of treating all patients. Donors with the specific HIV-resistant gene are required, and then these donors have to match with the patients, which reduces the number of viable treatments to a very low number. Scientists are now looking into gene therapies for the potential treatment of the disease. | 4Miscellaneous
|
VIP cheatsheets for Stanford's CS 230 Deep Learning (Github Repo) | Really great cheatsheets made by Stanford CS graduate students for their deep learning class, these have simple explanations and diagrams of convolutional neural networks, deep learning tips and tricks, recurrent neural networks, and other deep learning concepts. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Hackers release a new jailbreak tool for almost every iPhone | An iPhone hacking team has released a new jailbreak tool for almost every iPhone. The tool uses the same vulnerability that Apple said was under active attack last month. It works on iOS 11 to iOS 14.3. The vulnerability was fixed in iOS 14.4. Jailbreaking makes devices more vulnerable to attacks. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Genie (GitHub Repo) | Genie is a full-stack web framework for developing modern web applications. It features a powerful router, websockets, templating, plugins, ORM support, and more. Examples of packages and apps made with Genie are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Great Barrier Reef: Scientists find reef taller than Empire State Building | A 500m high coral reef has been found north of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. It is the first such discovery in 120 years. Scientists used an underwater robot called SuBastian to explore the reef. The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef, but it has lost more than half of its corals since 1995 due to climate change. The new reef is detached from the Great Barrier Reef. At 1.5km wide, it is one of seven other tall reefs in the region. 3D maps of the reef are available in the article. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Reddit files to take the company public | Reddit has started the process of going public by filing a confidential S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company has been rumored to be considering an IPO for some time. It made $100 million in ad revenue in the second quarter of 2021, an almost 200 percent increase from last year. Reddit plans to double its staff by the end of 2021 to around 1,400 employees. The site has around 52 million daily users with more than 100,000 active subreddits. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Change your MAC address with a shell script | When you spoof your MAC address, previous access points that you have connected to will think that you are on a new and unique device. This article shows how to change a MAC address on macOS, and wraps up the steps into a shell script. A link to an article with the steps for changing MAC address on Windows is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Feathr (GitHub Repo) | Feathr is an enterprise-grade, high-performance feature store. It was built to simplify machine learning feature management and improve developer productivity. Feathr can be used to define features, compute them for training, deploy them in production, and share them across teams. It can significantly reduce the time required to add new features to model training workflows and improve runtime performance. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Hyperconsole (Web Tool) | This is a nifty web tool that allows you to quickly import any javascript library into Chrome DevTools so you can quickly play around with them. Here's a gif showing the tool in action: https://imgur.com/6BnAFjh | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Ask HN: Is your company considering inflation in this year's comp review cycle? (HackerNews Thread) | Companies often give raises that are lower than the rate of inflation, despite employees receiving excellent performance ratings. This can cause employee dissatisfaction, especially when they realize that they can get paid more by switching jobs. This HackerNews thread discusses annual raises, what people usually get and expect, why companies might not consider inflation when calculating raises, job-hopping, and more. Many times budgets and other factors restrict managers' abilities to give higher raises and the salary may still be acceptable without a significant raise. | 4Miscellaneous
|
The First Human Images by the World's First Total-body Scanner Are Here | Researchers at UC Davis have created a medical imaging scanner called EXPLORER, which captures 3D pictures/videos of the entire human body. It's 40 times faster than a PET scan and uses 40 times less radiation. You can rotate them around and see all of the organs inside. There's a 10-second video inside that shows a sample scan, it's actually pretty incredible. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
How To Contribute To Open-Source Projects As A Beginner | This article explains how to make contributions to open source projects. It steps the developer through each step, from forking the repository and cloning the project, to committing the changes and opening pull requests. It is important to read the code of conduct and contribution guidelines before contributing to a project. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Samsung updates its Galaxy Book Pro line with 1080p webcams | Samsung has announced the Galaxy Book 2 Pro, Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360, and Galaxy Book 2 360. The Pro models will come in 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch sizes, starting at $1,049.99 for the Pro and $1,249.99 for the Pro 360. The Pro 360 will be a 2-in-1 convertible with a touchscreen and S Pen support. Samsung's Galaxy Tab S8 can be used as a secondary screen alongside the new laptops. The devices will start shipping on April 1. Many more details and photos of the devices are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Apple Researching Keyboards With Adaptive Displays on Each Key | Apple has been granted a patent for 'Electronic devices having keys with coherent fiber bundles'. The patent describes how each key on a keyboard could have a display connected via a coherent fiber bundle. This would mean that the whole keyboard could be reconfigured as needed, with the keys matching the key mapping without physical modifications. The displays could also indicate the current status of each key. This system doesn't interfere with the dome or scissor switches of physical keyboards, so Apple could theoretically use it with the current Magic Keyboard design. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Contemporary Installations Where Art Meets Engineering | Art installations are a genre of contemporary art that lets users interact with art in a way that would not be possible with classic paintings and sculptures. When combined with engineering, these artworks evolve into both a visual and physical experience. This article contains nine examples, with photos and videos, of art installations that masterfully combine art and engineering. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Ask HN: How is the remote vs in-person trend looking? (Hacker News Thread) | This Hacker News thread discusses current trends in remote vs in-person work. People are getting more fully-remote job offers from recruiters, even if they are looking for in-person work. There is a big difference between working remotely for a small startup or company compared to large companies. Software engineers are in very high demand, so many are able to pick and choose which positions they want to take. | 4Miscellaneous
|
This startup says its AI can better spot a healthy embryo — and improve IVF success | An Israeli startup called Embryonics is using AI to improve the odds of success during in vitro fertilization. The company will use the software to analyze which embryos are most likely to survive, as well as for improving hormonal stimulation. Every woman who goes through IVF or fertility preservation has to be injected with hormones for up to two weeks to induce the ovaries to produce numerous eggs. The process at the moment requires a lot of trial and error, which the company hopes to remove with the use of AI. It is still in the very early stages of research, so it is unknown whether the project will succeed. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Project Fi is now Google Fi, and it will work with iPhones and most Android devices | Project Fi (now renamed Google Fi) is Google's cell service, which piggy-backs off T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular's networks and allows users to dynamically switch between those networks based on which has the best signal in any given location. Until today, the service had only been available for a few phones (Google Pixel and a few others that Google sells). Now, the service is available for iPhone, Samsung, and most other Android users. It costs $20 for a phone line plus $10 per gig of data capped at $60/month. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
AI system outperforms experts in spotting breast cancer | An AI system has outperformed expert radiologists in detecting breast cancer in mammograms. The system was able to detect cancers that the radiologists missed while ignoring features that radiologists falsely flagged as possible tumors. Developed by Google Health, the software could help ease the burden on health services as radiologists are in short supply. One in eight women is diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, and there are many cases of misdiagnosis. AI could help assist radiologists in making a diagnosis, acting as a second opinion. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Sherloq (GitHub Repo) | Sherloq is a digital image forensic toolset. It features various algorithms that aid in determining if an image is forged or not. Screenshots showing results from different types of analyses are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
A wide range of routers are under attack by new, unusually sophisticated malware | A hacking group has spent almost two years infecting a wide range of routers with malware that takes full control of connected devices. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Neural Network Intelligence (GitHub Repo) | Neural Network Intelligence (NNI) is a toolkit to help users automate Feature Engineering, Neural Architecture Search, Hyperparameter Tuning, and Model Compression. It was designed so that researchers and data scientists could try different AutoML algorithms and environments for their models. NNI comes with a command-line tool and a WebUI. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Uber lays off 3,000 people in second big round of cuts | Uber has laid off 3,000 workers in addition to the 3,700 workers that it let go earlier this month. Uber drivers are not directly affected. The pandemic has caused Uber's rides business to go down by 80 percent compared to last year. Losses were offset slightly by strong demand for Uber Eats but this did not come close to covering expenses. Uber has estimated that it will spend another $110 to $140 million in severance packages and $65 to $80 million on expenses related to shutting down 45 office locations. The cuts will reduce Uber's overhead by more than $1 billion. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Amazon's Prime Video Cinema hub to corral new theater releases | As everybody goes into lockdown, Hollywood is preparing to release movies to stream on the home market months earlier than planned. Some movies will be released to stream on the same day as their planned theatrical releases. These movies will be released to services such as Amazon, Apple, Fandango, Google Play, Vudu, and YouTube. They will be available to rent for 48 hours. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Uber jumps into Europe's rapid grocery delivery market with 15-minute service in Paris | Uber and Carrefour have created a service in Paris that ships essential items to customers in as little as 15 minutes. Customers will be able to order from a catalog of almost 2,000 daily essentials through the UberEats app. The service will use small warehouses to fulfill orders rather than sending couriers to Carrefour stores. Europe has seen a flood of grocery startups since the pandemic. Uber has a similar deal with GoPuff in the US. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Facebook senior software engineer interview: the only post you’ll need to read | This post aims to prepare you for a job interview at Facebook. The interview process consists of one or two phone interviews and a final on-site interview. The on-site interview consists of a behavioral component, a coding section, and system/product design interviews. Big tech companies are not pedantic on language, but there are many reasons to choose Python. Making a study plan for what to study is important. The article includes the author's study plan. To prepare for system interviews, take a look at any system or service, and ask yourself how you would build it. Practice coding problems to prepare for coding interviews. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
San Francisco bans cashless stores | San Francisco has become the third city or state to ban cashless stores, citing that cashless stores unfairly discriminate against economically disadvantaged people. The ban exempts pop-up stores, rideshare companies, online stores, and food trucks, as they may not have the capabilities to accept cash as payment. While the city acknowledges the future will probably be cashless, many citizens are not yet ready for the transition. Many citizens still do not have bank accounts, let alone the cards that will allow them to live in a cashless society. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Tokyo installed see-through public toilets in a park to let people inspect their cleanliness before using them, at which point the glass turns opaque | Tokyo has installed see-through bathroom facilities in two of the city's public parks. The bathrooms are made out of smart glass that turns opaque when the stalls are locked. The use of public toilets in Japan is limited due to negative stereotypes. The new bathrooms are part of a project to redesign Tokyo's public bathrooms so that they can be used by anyone. Video of the new bathrooms is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Facebook Teases Ray-Ban Smartglasses Recording In New Video | Andrew Bosworth, VP of AR and VR at Facebook, recently tweeted a video that appears to be filmed hands-free from his perspective. The tweet included a sunglasses emoji, possibly hinting at Facebook's upcoming Ray-Ban smartglasses. It is likely the video was recorded using the smartglasses. The glasses will be Facebook's next major hardware launch. They will likely be revealed at the Facebook Connect developer conference in October. The video posted by Bosworth is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Twitter told its 5,000 employees to work from home because of the coronavirus | Twitter has told its employees around the world to work from home in response to the recent coronavirus outbreak. Facebook has also given its employees permission to work from home if they choose to. Twitter’s US offices will still be open if employees need to come to work in person. The virus has affected the tech industry heavily, with dropping values in stocks, canceled conferences and events, and some employees falling ill. Twitter has already banned non-critical business travel within the company. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
The next big breakthrough in AI will come from hardware, not software | The next big breakthrough in AI will happen through hardware advances. While general architectures allow many types of computations, they are not optimized for specific computation types. Some manufacturers are working on in-memory processing systems to more closely simulate neuronal processing models, but these computations are less general, so there needs to be a large established use case for them to make these chips profitably. Many architectures are still evolving quickly so manufacturers may be reluctant to mass manufacture designs. It will still take some time for the industry to mature. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Bpytop (Github Repo) | Bpytop is a resource monitor for Linux/OSX/FreeBSD that shows usage and stats for processor, memory, disk, network, and processes. It has a game inspired menu system, full mouse support, the ability to show detailed stats for selected processes, and more. All bashtop themes are supported. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Google's officially done making its own tablets | Google has shut down the development of its tablet devices and has started to reassign its employees to work in other areas. The Pixel Slate was released in 2018 and Google had been working on two smaller-sized tablets. Pixel phones and the Pixelbook won’t be affected by this decision. In fact, a new Pixelbook may be revealed before the end of the year. The Pixel Slate will continue receiving regular software updates until 2024 as promised, and the Chrome OS team will continue to focus on both laptops and tablets. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Deepkit Framework (GitHub Repo) | Deepkit Framework is a high-performance TypeScript framework for enterprise applications. It is currently in an alpha state but it is already being used in production. Some public APIs are subject to change. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Why “No Code”? | The movement to 'no code' has gained momentum over the last couple of years. No code is an ideal where business logic, and even entire applications, can be written without having the training of a software developer. Software developers can be expensive, and the work that is outputted is usually slow, highly variable, and requires ongoing maintenance. The need for software is clear, but developing it is expensive and risky. While the idea of being able to create software using business logic in plain language form sounds great, there are some fundamental flaws with the concept. Programming languages have been attempting to simplify programming since early in the industry, but the reality is that abstract code is required for many applications. Simple syntax removes a lot of expression and flexibility. Many programs can change 'coding' into a series of configurations, but these programs have very specific applications and are not suitable for general use. They also take away a lot of flexibility with the logic. 'No code' will still have its uses, such as putting together proof-of-concepts for projects, but it is likely that software developers will still be needed for most software development scenarios. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Twitter woos back developers with an app platform | Twitter is launching a test that will see developers' apps directly promoted on its platform at the moment they may be useful to the end user. Users will be prompted to use third-party services that provide more functionality when accessing Twitter's built-in tools via the web app. The new feature will help users discover apps that may improve their experience on the platform. Developers on the platform are expecting an influx of new users from the experiment. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Airbnb will start designing houses in 2019 | Airbnb has launched an initiative called Backyard, that will "design and prototype new ways of building and sharing homes". The project will concentrate on using sophisticated manufacturing techniques, smart-home technologies, and insight from the Airbnb community to design the homes of the future. Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia says "Backyard isn't a house, it's an initiative to rethink the home". | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Pizzly (GitHub Repo) | Pizzly provides a simple and fast way to integrate an API into an app. It provides developers with a dashboard, an auth service, a proxy, a JS library, and its own API to help with their API integrations. Pizzly supports more than 50 APIs out-of-the-box, including Gmail, GitHub, Google Sheets, Zoom, Trello, Reddit, and more. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
New coronavirus losing potency, top Italian doctor says | A senior Italian doctor says that the new coronavirus has lost its potency, claiming that recent swabs were returning results with viral concentrations that were infinitesimally smaller than the ones carried out over the past few months. Italy has the third-highest death toll in the world from COVID-19, with the sixth-highest global tally of cases. Infections and fatalities have fallen steadily in May and the country is looking to unwind some of its most rigid lockdown restrictions. The doctor claims that other experts were too alarmist about the prospect of a second wave of infections and that politicians need to start getting the country back to normal. A member of the health ministry stated that Italians should maintain maximum caution pending scientific evidence to support the thesis that the threat of the virus has disappeared. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Meet the musicians who compose in Mario Paint | 'Mario Paint Composer' is a genre that you can search for on YouTube. Using Mario Paint to create songs involves having to use a very unusual set of in-game tools. Starting in 2013, the trend has now evolved so that most composers aren't even using the original music maker anymore. Instead, they are using a custom program that mimics Mario Paint's compositional capabilities with a few extra features added. Early players had to find creative methods to create specific sounds in the original game. The trend died down soon after it began, and most videos and resources are old. There are still small, active Mario Paint communities on Discord. Members of the community feel that the restrictions that the game imposes on its players force them to be more creative, making composing songs inside the game fun and challenging. | 4Miscellaneous
|
PRESENTA Lib (GitHub Repo) | PRESENTA Lib is a JavaScript library for building web presentations from config objects. It focuses on letting people work on content while allowing customizations. Full documentation is linked. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Every Programmer Should Know (GitHub Repo) | A collection of things every software developer should know. | 4Miscellaneous
|
5D Optical Disc Could Store 500TB for Billions of Years | 5D optical storage has a data density 10,000 times that of a Blu-ray disc. It uses three layers of nanoscale dots in a glass disc to encode data. A 5D disc could theoretically remain readable after 13.8 billion years. Writing to these discs is usually a slow process, but a new technique developed at the University of Southampton speeds up the process significantly without impacting the reliability of the data. The technique has a maximum data rate of approximately 230 kilobytes per second. All that is needed to read the stored data is a microscope and a polarizer. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
The next big thing in podcasts is talking back | Spotify recently gave all its Anchor creators the ability to make polls and Q&As and is testing interactive ads. Other platforms are also trying different ways to allow podcast listeners to interact with content. Podcasting apps in China are surprisingly interactive, with listeners being allowed to build listening circles and discussion groups. The challenge with interactive audio is that listeners are usually not using their devices. Being able to interact with podcasters and a community helps increase the chances of listeners returning. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Spotify’s Car Thing debuts as a limited release for selected US users | Car Thing is a Spotify-only voice-controlled device for cars. It enables users to listen to Spotify without built-in infotainment systems or phone connections. Car Thing is only available for select Spotify premium users in the US. Users can sign up to a waitlist, but Spotify has not announced how many units it will be testing. Images of the device are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Amazon debuts Showroom, a visual shopping experience for home furnishings | Amazon has launched Showroom, a visual design tool that lets you put furniture and decorations into a virtual living room. You can tweak the wall color, flooring, and any of the items in the room. When you're done you can add all of the items to your cart in one click. Amazon says "The result is a photorealistic rendering of a room that answers the question: 'How will this all look together?'" | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
wachy (GitHub Site) | wachy is a dynamic tracing profiler for Linux. It uses eBPF to dynamically instrument binaries with minimal overhead. wachy can provide accurate function latencies and latency histograms and features powerful runtime filtering. A video demo is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Walmart unveils an AI-powered store of the future, now open to the public | Walmart has revealed its new ‘store of the future’ which will operate out of a Walmart Neighborhood Market in Levittown, N.Y. The new store concept will use emerging technologies, such as AI-enabled cameras and interactive displays. Unlike Amazon Go stores, Walmart’s new Intelligent Retail Lab (IRL) stores will be larger and staffed by more than 100 employees. The AI cameras will be used to monitor stock levels rather than how many items a customer has selected. Walmart aims to use technology to aid employees in the store rather than as a way to replace employees. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|
Elon Musk says that NASA is free to share all SpaceX IP with “anyone it wants” | Elon Musk has stated clearly that NASA is free to share all of SpaceX's intellectual property with anyone that it wants during an event at SpaceX HQ where NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine was present. The event discussed the current state of SpaceX's commercial crew launch program and the next steps. SpaceX is working on its third major iteration of the Crew Dragon parachute which will ensure the Crew Capsule's safe return to Earth. Bridenstine responded that NASA appreciated the offer to share SpaceX's IP freely, but that the agency has limits on who they should share information with. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
The Google Incentive Mismatch: Problems with Promotion-Oriented Cultures | This article discusses the problems with promo-culture and suggests alternatives. Engineers at big companies tend to be focused on getting to the next level of their careers. This can mean more money, responsibility, respect, and a feeling of progress. Promo-culture can result in a lot of abandoned projects as people focus on their next advancement rather than working on a product. It can mean that engineers have to choose between doing what's best for users or what's best for their careers. | 4Miscellaneous
|
Hactivists say they hacked Belarus rail system to stop Russian military buildup | A group of hacktivists called the Cyber Partisans have infected the network of Belarus' state-run railroad system with ransomware. The group will return Belarus Railway's systems to normal if the government releases 50 political prisoners and promises to prevent Russian troops from entering Belarus to use its ground for the attacks on Ukraine. Russia has been sending military equipment and personnel into Belarus using rail. The hack has disrupted ticketing, scheduling, and freight trains. Screenshots from Belarus Railway's private network are available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
|
What’s next for the popular programming language R? | Languages evolve over time, and programming languages are not exempt from this rule. R has changed significantly in the last few years. Older users would barely recognize how the language is typically used today. Hadley Wickham is R's most important developer. He built 'tidyverse', a set of popular data analysis and visualization libraries which has become the standard for new learners. Wickham has seen many changes in R in the last decade, for example, the R community has grown more welcoming, and the introduction of R Markdown has allowed code to be presented more easily. He sees Python and R as having separate use cases and both being powerful in their own areas. Wickham hopes that R and Python will continue to grow together and for R to fit more seamlessly into the data science workflow. R will continue to be developed so that it can handle cutting edge data science, with a focus on its visualization capabilities. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Google Fi turns 6 and gets a new unlimited plan | Google Fi is celebrating its sixth year by launching a new plan with unlimited calls and texts in the US, plus unlimited data and texting in the US, Canada, and Mexico. The Simply Unlimited plan has free international calls to more than 50 countries, with international data in more than 200 destinations. It includes 100GB of Google One cloud storage. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
YouTube TV finally goes nationwide almost two years after launch | YouTube TV is launching nationwide, it's now available in 98% of US households. All viewers will have access to at least three out of the four major broadcasters (ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC) depending on their location, most will have all four. The subscription is meant to replace cable, and costs $40/month. There's a link inside to check if it's available for your zip code. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Meena is Google’s attempt at making true conversational AI | Conversational AI is a term for AI that can interpret human words, speak to people, or carry out tasks or computations with natural language. The best-known AI assistants today are not exactly conversational. Google has revealed Meena, a conversational neural network with 2.6 billion parameters that can handle multiturn dialogue. Google developed a Sensibleness and Specificity Average metric to measure the ability of a conversational agent to maintain responses in a conversation that make sense and are specific. Humans rank around 86 percent on the SSA, and Meena scores around 79 percent. Google claims that Meena is the best AI agent built for conversation and available online today. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Why Epic is burning its own cash to cook Apple | Fortnite may be free to download, but its in-app purchases helped Epic earn an estimated $1 billion in 2020. Apple takes a 30 percent cut of all transactions on the App Store for larger developers. iOS customers accounted for $700 million in revenue for Epic in the two years it was available. Epic wants to build an online haven called the metaverse, where superhero IPs owned by different companies can interact. It is burning cash fighting Apple now as the company is set to make much more as it expands. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
inlets (GitHub Repo) | inlets combines a reverse proxy and websocket tunnels in order to expose your internal endpoints to the internet via an exit-node. It is open-source and can dynamically bind and discover local services to DNS entries and a public IP address over its websocket tunnel using automated TLS certificates. A video demo is available on the repository. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Basque (GitHub Repo) | Basque is a game engine for top-down 2D games. It features map editing, sprite sheet animations, the ability to add background music, collision detection, and some frame-rate limiting. There are two GIFs that show quick snippets of Basque in action. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Facebook launches its Bitmoji-like avatars in the US | Facebook has rolled out customizable avatars in the US. The feature was released internationally last year. Avatars allows people to express themselves through a virtual lookalike. They can be used in comments, stories, and in Messenger. Users can customize the avatar's hairstyles, complexions, outfits, and more. The feature can be accessed through the sticker tab in Facebook's comment composer or in Messenger. | 1Big Tech & Startups
|
Nerve transfer surgery restores hand mobility in tetraplegic patients (3 second video) | Doctors performed a series of nerve transfers, sometimes combined with tendon transfers, to attempt to restore mobility in the upper limbs of patients who had recently suffered from cervical spinal cord injury. This video shows a patient moving their arm and picking up a water bottle from a high position and moving it towards their mouth. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
|