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Waymo says it will build self-driving cars in Michigan | Google's self-driving unit Waymo is now building a plant in Michigan to start building autonomous cars for their ride-sharing business. They want to expand their fleet to 20,000 vehicles by 2022, and will be spending $13.6 million on the facility, while the state will kick in an additional $8 million. The vehicles will be level 4 autonomous, meaning they can pilot themselves without a human driver under certain conditions. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Top 5 Things to Ask Your Future Employer Before Accepting an Offer | After passing interviews and receiving a job offer, an employee might still be in the dark about whether the job position is the right move for their career. In order to determine if a company is right for you, it’s best to try to engage with a current employee and ask them about their experience. Inquiring about the company’s open-source engagements, bug-fixing policies, code quality policies, testing and validation procedures, development pipelines, and career development opportunities can provide potential employees with the information they need to decide if a position is right for them. A new job is a commitment that can significantly impact a person’s future opportunities, so it is important to obtain the necessary information in order to make the right career choice. | 4Miscellaneous
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The era of fixing your own phone has nearly arrived | Google and Samsung have agreed to provide spare parts for their phones. The US made it legal to open up many devices for the purpose of repair last October. France's repairability scorecard system, which rates devices on how repairable they are, has had a significant effect on consumer choice. Studies on the system have shown that consumers are willing to give up on their favorite brand for products with a higher repairability score. Some types of repairs may still need to be done through the manufacturer. | 4Miscellaneous
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Archaeologists May Have Found The World’s Oldest Home | The oldest home in hominin history is the Wonderwerk Cave located in South Africa. The cave shows evidence of continuous occupation over several million years, with signs of the use of fire and precious artifacts found at the site. Its inhabitants were not fully human, and it may have been inhabited by more than one early human ancestor species. The cave was clearly a valued site in the past, and it is still a sacred place for locals today. | 4Miscellaneous
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The weird rise of cyber funerals | After we die, our physical affairs may be easily taken care of, but our digital footprint is much more difficult to remove. Specialist companies exist that provide ‘digital undertaking’ services, where the company will track down and remove information about the deceased, and failing to do so, will flood search engine results with false information to hide real information about the deceased. Social media companies such as Facebook have introduced features such as allowing a legacy contact to delete or memorialize a deceased person’s page. With the increasing amount of data that we volunteer to the internet, removing the information after we die is increasingly important. | 4Miscellaneous
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DeepMind’s new AI can perform over 600 tasks, from playing games to controlling robots | Gato is a general-purpose AI that can complete 604 different tasks, including captioning images, engaging in dialogue, and playing games. It performs 450 of those tasks better than an expert more than half the time. Gato only has 1.2 billion parameters, compared to GPT-3's more than 170 billion. It was designed to be able to handle any task if scaled up. The model still has the same weaknesses that other artificial intelligence models have, such as having biases and an inability to remember context. | 4Miscellaneous
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PM Starter Pack (Website) | The Product Management Starter Pack is a practical action plan on how to break into product management. Product management is one of the most in-demand fields in tech at the moment, but most advice on how to break into the field is quite general and beginners are usually left without an idea of how to start. The guide covers basic skills, how to demonstrate these skills, and advice on how to get into the product management job market. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Australia passes social media law penalising platforms for violent content | A new bill passed by the Australian government will make it an offense for service providers and hosting services to fail to notify the Australian Federal police regarding, or fail to remove, content which contains 'abhorrent violent conflict’. The Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material bill was met with opposition by the tech industry as it would punish companies for content uploaded by users. However, the aim of the bill was to make companies more responsible for the content that is hosted, as it seems that some companies do not care about hosting offensive content, even after requests for the content to be removed. | 4Miscellaneous
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Travellers refusing digital search now face $5000 Customs fine | New Zealand's Customs and Excise Act is now in effect, allowing New Zealand customs officials to demand travellers give up passwords, pin codes, etc. to access their electronic devices as long as they have a "reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing". It also allows customs officials to forcibly seize and forensically search a person's electronic devices as well as fine them $5000 if they don't comply. New Zealand's Council for Civil Liberties spokesperson Thomas Beagle believes that this new law is a violation of personal privacy, pointing out that "they don't have to tell you what the cause of that suspicion is, there's no way to challenge it." | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Easegress (GitHub Repo) | Easegress is a cloud-native traffic orchestration system. It features multiple protocols, rich routing rules, meaningful and readable statistics, simple integration with other systems, and much more. Examples are available in the repository. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years | Microsoft sank a data center off the coast of Orkney two years ago in an experiment to assess its performance and energy efficiency underwater. The data center had a lower failure rate than conventional data centers, with only eight out of 855 servers on board having failed after two years out on the bottom of the sea. This result may be because nitrogen was used in the capsule rather than oxygen as there were no humans on board. The cost of cooling data centers would be lower if they were underwater. Underwater locations are also more secure without having the large infrastructure costs of constructing a building. | 4Miscellaneous
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UseHooks.ts (GitHub Repo) | UseHooks.ts is a React hook library written in Typescript. It contains many useful code snippets that can be easily copied to the clipboard. A hosted version is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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The #NobelPrize committee couldn't reach Paul Milgrom to share the news that he won, so his fellow winner and neighbor Robert Wilson knocked on his door in the middle of the night (Twitter Thread) | Paul Milgrom, winner of this year's Nobel prize for economics, was uncontactable, so Robert Wilson, fellow winner and neighbor, knocked on his door to give him the news directly at 2:15 in the morning. Milgrom's wife, who was in Stockholm, received a notification on her phone from their security-camera, and she got to watch Wilson tell Milgrom that he had won the Nobel Prize live. The one-minute video is available in the original tweet. | 4Miscellaneous
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Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs, and other services go down in multiple countries | At 3.47 AM PT, Google experienced an authentication outage for around 45 minutes. Users experienced high error rates when trying to login to services during this period. The outage affected business operation times in multiple markets and led to a slight drop in pre-market trading for Alphabet. Coincidentally, Microsoft Outlook is also experiencing some problems. The unprecedented failure has reminded many of just how much Google affects their lives. | 4Miscellaneous
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A Bioartificial Pancreas Could Substantially Enhance Type-1 Diabetes Treatment | The convection enhanced microencapsulation device (ceMED) is an implanted device that houses insulin-secreting cells in a protective compartment, protecting them from the body's immune system response. It continually showers the cells in nutrients that improve cell loading capacity, cell survival, glucose sensitivity, and timely insulin secretion. The ceMED can affect blood sugar levels only two days after being implanted. There is still more work before the device is ready for mass production, but the device has the potential to become an autonomous system for managing Type-1 diabetes. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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SpaceX shifts resources to cybersecurity to address Starlink jamming | SpaceX has changed its priorities to cyber defense and overcoming signal jamming after some Starlink terminals near conflict areas were jammed for several hours at a time. It has rolled out updates that bypass the jamming and reduce power consumption, allowing terminals to be powered by a car cigarette lighter. Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system that is still working in some parts of Ukraine, making terminals possible targets for Russian forces. The change in focus for the company will cause slight delays for Starship and Starlink V2. | 4Miscellaneous
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How to Map Mouse Position in CSS | This article teaches you how to create a click-and-drag effect with pure CSS. Several examples of how to use the techniques taught in the article are available at the end. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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This super-tree could help feed the world and fight climate change | Pongamia is a tropical tree that can grow on just about any land without pesticides or irrigation while producing beans packed with protein and oil. | 4Miscellaneous
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SpaceX reports milestone for Starlink satellite links — and sparks a debate | All but three of the 60 Starlink broadband satellites launched last month are in contact with SpaceX’s network of ground stations. The company is now ready to start the next round of testing, which includes streaming videos and playing online games via satellite. Most of the satellites have reached their intended 550-kilometer altitude, with the others soon to join them. Two satellites will be intentionally deorbited to simulate an end-of-life disposal scenario. As it is the first satellite system to operate in the Ku-band and communicate with US ground stations, SpaceX is able to be the first to select the frequencies used for this purpose. Other companies have launched Ku-band satellites. However, as their ground stations were not based in the US, they were not able to claim ‘first choice’ status with the FCC. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Open Source CS (GitHub Repo) | This is a collection of classes from universities like Stanford, Princeton, and MIT that are available online through Coursera, EDX, and Udacity that can replicate the requirements for an undergraduate computer science degree. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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YouTube went down around the world, but it’s now fixed | YouTube experienced a worldwide outage for about an hour today. Videos stopped playing during the outage, but the service has since recovered. The outage affected other services that use the YouTube infrastructure. DownDetector recorded more than 280,000 user reports in less than an hour, and numerous users on Twitter reported the outage. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Microsoft launches Visual Studio Online public preview and ML.NET 1.4 | Microsoft has launched its Visual Studio Online public preview, shifting development from standard-issue development laptops to a web-based editor and cloud-hosted developer environments. It currently only supports Chrome and Chromium Edge. Developers can now go to Visual Studio Online to access remote environments from common templates, clone from a GitHub repo, and edit code in a browser. Visual Studio Online will allow developers to work from anywhere on any device. New environments can be created quickly, which cuts down setup time to just a couple of minutes. Visual Studio Online's environments are Azure-hosted. They can easily scale and developers pay for what they use down to the second. Self-hosted environments can be connected to use Visual Studio Online for free. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus are down. Here’s what we know | Facebook and all of its services went down today. Investigations revealed major DNS failures at Facebook. Cloudflare reported that all BGP routes for Facebook had been pulled, making Facebook's DNS and application servers unreachable. Some Facebook employees were unable to enter buildings due to badge access being down from the outage. A Reddit user claiming to be a Facebook employee reported that the problem was likely due to a configuration change that was pushed shortly before the outages began. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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aiosql (GitHub Repo) | aiosql allows developers to organize SQL statements in .sql files and load them into a Python application as methods to call. The project supports standard and asyncio based drivers for SQLite and PostgreSQL, with support for custom database drivers available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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What we can learn from “_why”, the long lost open source developer | _why was a prolific member of the Ruby community in the 00s. He mixed his art into programming and his programming into art and was everywhere online until he disappeared in August 2009. While his work has been maintained by others, it's not clear how much of his original code remains. This article tells the story of _why and the impact he had on the programming world. | 4Miscellaneous
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk is reportedly under SEC investigation over Dogecoin tweets | Elon Musk is reportedly under SEC scrutiny again over alleged cryptocurrency manipulation. In 2018, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Musk over a tweet, which resulted in Musk stepping down as Chairman of the board for Tesla. Tesla and Musk also each had to pay $20 million in fines. Musk has been talking a lot about cryptocurrency lately, and his tweets have been very influential over the value of some coins, particularly Dogecoin. | 4Miscellaneous
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Amazon acquires Selz, a Shopify competitor that helps small businesses build online stores | Amazon acquired Selz, a company that makes tools to help businesses launch online stores, on January 15. Shopify has become a significant competitor due to the pandemic. Amazon previously had a service similar to Shopify, but it shut down the project in 2015. Amazon's third-party marketplace has more than 2.5 million sellers, and it accounts for more than half of Amazon's e-commerce sales. Providing tools for businesses to quickly move their operations online could give Amazon a more competitive edge. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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A Senior Engineer's CheckList (16 minute read) | This is a checklist of tasks that can be applied to any software engineer but is targeted at senior engineers. Each task is sorted by effort, category, and its impact on one's career and company. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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The European Space Agency is building its own reusable rocket | The European Space Agency has announced plans to build its own reusable rocket engine. Last year, the French space agency CNES unveiled the Prometheus engine design. The ESA has now fully funded the project and aims to reduce the cost to produce the engine to a tenth of the cost compared to current options. Manufacturing has already been completed for several parts for the rocket and testing of some of the hardware components will soon begin in Germany. The ESA aims to complete the first combustion chamber model this month and assemble a full demonstration version of the engine for testing by 2021. | 4Miscellaneous
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A Self-Driving Bicycle Is Something To Marvel At | A YouTuber recently unveiled a self-driving bicycle that can hold itself perfectly upright even while balanced on a fence rail. It can drive itself without a rider using an onboard camera and LIDAR system. The 11-minute video showing off the bike is in the article. It is in Mandarin with no subtitles or translation. | 4Miscellaneous
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Quantum Machine Appears to Defy Universe’s Push for Disorder | Generally, disorder is increased as time goes on, for example, an ice cube placed in hot water will have its ordered crystal formation melt down into disordered water particles. When scientists performed an experiment where they held 51 rubidium atoms in a row with lasers, the basic assumption was that the atoms would become disordered, however, this was not the case. The atoms became disordered for a moment, but quickly reassembled themselves - this would be as if the melted ice reformed back into the original ice cube. The phenomenon has been dubbed ‘quantum many-body scarring’. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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New Chinese virus 'will have infected hundreds' | A new respiratory illness has emerged from China. The coronavirus is estimated to have infected around 1,700 people, and two people have died so far. Airports around the world have started screening for passengers originating from Wuhan. While the outbreak is centered in Wuhan, there have been two cases reported in Thailand and one in Japan. 3,400 people a day travel internationally through Wuhan International Airport. Chinese authorities claim that the virus was spread through infected animals at a seafood and wildlife market in Wuhan and that there have been no cases of the virus spreading from one person to another. Understanding how the virus spreads is crucial to assessing its threat. It is unlikely that the virus is only spread through animal exposure. Analysis of the new virus shows that the coronavirus is more related to SARS than any other human coronavirus. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Doing Stupid Stuff with GitHub Actions | GitHub actions is a CI/CD platform that can be used to automate things such as building, testing, and deploying code. It can be triggered by any GitHub event. There is a marketplace for developers to publish their actions, which is linked in the article. This article contains five actions that show how easy GitHub Actions is to work with. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Apple secures first states to support digital driver’s licenses, but privacy questions linger | Apple plans to support digital driver's licenses and state IDs in its iOS 15 update expected later this year. So far, only Arizona and Georgia have agreed to accept digital IDs, with six other states expected to follow. The TSA will be the first agency to accept digital IDs, as only a state ID is required for traveling by air within the US. The identity readers that the TSA will use are secure and don't require passengers to hand over or unlock their phones. Apple has been secretive about how it built this technology and what it gets out of it. | 4Miscellaneous
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Automagica (GitHub Repo) | Automagica is an open-source Smart Robotic Process Automation platform. Users can write cross-platform automation scripts using Python. Officially, only Windows is supported. Using Automagica, users can automate browsing/scraping, SAP, folder and file manipulation, and more. Natural Language scripts are supported. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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A complete guide to using CSS filters with SVGs (16 minute read) | CSS has several filters to help improve websites. These can be used to blur images, adjust contrast and saturation, change the hue, reduce opacity, and more. This article looks at how to use SVG filters. It includes an overview of SVGs and a list of 17 filter primitives. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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"Biologically inspired" A.I can beat the world's strictest internet censorship | Authoritarian governments are known for strictly censoring what their citizens can see on the internet in order to control their people and protect those in power. A new tool called Geneva uses AI to automatically detect bugs and gaps in a country's censorship system so users can view uncensored content. It uses a biologically inspired form of machine learning. Geneva tries different randomized algorithms to beat censorship algorithms. It keeps the effective algorithms and dumps the ones that don't work. Geneva allowed researchers to browse the internet uncensored in China, India, and Kazakhstan. Russia's system is more complicated, and researchers have not yet gained enough access to probe its censorship systems the same way they have in other countries. Geneva can be detected by looking for randomized data being transmitted that doesn't look like it was created by normal human activity. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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DeepMind says its new AI coding engine is as good as an average human programmer | AlphaCode is an AI system by DeepMind that can write computer programs at a competitive level. The research on AlphaCode is still in its early stages, but it was able to achieve a rank that placed it within the top 54% of human coders when tested against challenges on a competitive coding platform. While the challenges were not representative of the real-world challenges that developers face, AlphaCode's abilities could lead to tools that could make programming more accessible. AI coding systems are still far from ready to take over the work of human programmers as the code they produce is often buggy and can contain copyrighted material due to the way they are trained. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Amazon partners with Affirm to roll out first buy now, pay later option on the e-commerce site | Amazon has partnered with Affirm to offer installment payment options. Affirm is one of the best-known installment payment option providers, servicing more than 12,000 merchants. Some Amazon customers in the US will start seeing Affirm's ‘buy now, pay later’ checkout option on Friday, with a broader rollout in the coming months. Purchases of $50 or more will be allowed to be split into smaller, monthly installments. Neither company has said whether these loans will come with interest. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Moderna starts clinical trial of booster shot targeting omicron Covid variant | Moderna has started clinical trials to study the safety and effectiveness of a booster shot that specifically targets the omicron variant. The trial will have around 600 adult participants. Data on Moderna's current booster shot shows that while it weakens over time, the shot still provides some protection against the variant. Pfizer and BioNTech have also started trials on an omicron-specific vaccine with plans to have the vaccine ready by March. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Apple’s iCloud was down for several hours today | In the third major tech outage this week, Apple’s iCloud service was down for several hours today. Between 11 am ET and 3.28 pm, users could not access any of iCloud’s services, including Mail, Backup, or Find My iPhone. Gmail and Google drive also had issues earlier this week, and Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram experienced widespread outages yesterday. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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US Cyber Command attacked Russian troll farm on Election Day 2018 | The Internet Research Agency (IRA) is a private company linked with the Kremlin that is often used for disinformation campaigns. On Election day 2018 the US Cyber Command took the IRA completely offline in a rare offensive attack. Usually, the Pentagon’s cyber activity is defensive, as attacks against foreign governments may be interpreted as an act of war. However, as most cyber attacks are carried out via unofficial agencies against other unofficial agencies, there is usually little political blowback. Russian influence in US Elections via misinformation is a real threat, and identifying and interfering with this activity is the main priority for US Intelligence agencies. | 4Miscellaneous
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Google bans predatory payday loan apps from the Play Store | Google has banned apps on its Play Store which offer deceptive or harmful personal loans. Some of these apps offered loans where the annual percentage rate was 36 percent or higher. The new policy, which was implemented in August, is meant to protect users against exploitative terms. Apple does not have a similar policy. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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New UK Army 'Bug' Drones Can Spy on Targets 1.25 Miles Away | The UK army has acquired 30 small drones capable of spying on targets 2 km (1.25 miles) away. Called "Bugs", the drones weigh 196 grams and have a 40-minute battery life. The Bugs can fly in strong winds, delivering vital tactical intelligence even in the toughest weather. The information from drone surveillance can sometimes be misleading, with many cases in the past where the ground situation has been very different from what was reported, resulting in civilian casualties. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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A New Clip From NASA's Juno Probe Lets You 'Listen' to Jupiter's Moon | A 50-second audio track generated from NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter as it flew past Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons, was recently made available by the Southwest Research Institute. Juno carries an instrument that can tune into electric and magnetic radio waves, which researchers recorded and transformed into an audio track. Last year, researchers discovered that the clouds of Jupiter could, in theory, support life. The audio of Juno's Ganymede flyby is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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A New Hurricane-Resistant Floating Solar Farm Could Help Replace Fossil Fuels | The Demonstrator is a solar platform from SolarDuck that can withstand the hurricane forces experienced in and around Bermuda and Florida. It is optimized for natural harbors, estuaries, and other near-shore regions. These types of platforms could help power many significant communities around the equator, where there is constant sun but low wind, making wind power impractical. SolarDuck aims to eventually build a plant that can generate 10-MW, which will require 100 platforms connected together. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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DeepMind is developing one algorithm to rule them all (10 minute read) | DeepMind is trying to create a deep learning model that can learn how to emulate any algorithm to generate an algorithm-equivalent model that can work with real-world data. Algorithms possess fundamentally different qualities to deep learning methods. If deep learning methods could better mimic algorithms, the type of generalization seen with algorithms might become possible with deep learning. A network that could learn algorithms would be able to plug those algorithms together to form complex pipelines and programs. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Equifax was hacked by Chinese military officers, federal prosecutors say | The Department of Justice has announced the indictment of four members of China's military over the 2017 hack of Equifax. Using a vulnerability in the framework used by Equifax, the hackers obtained sensitive information such as names, social security numbers, birthdates, addresses, driver's license numbers, and sometimes even credit card numbers. Around 150 million Americans were affected by the attack. This is the second time the DOJ has indicted members of China's People's Liberation Army in an economic espionage case. There is no evidence that the stolen data has been used. People in the US are getting used to hearing about data breaches and should be more careful about managing the data that they give to companies. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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How to Detect Unused CSS or JavaScript | It can be a tedious task to remove redundant code, especially if it's a very large codebase with several modules in it. Chrome DevTools can be a very handy tool to use in this scenario. The coverage tab calculates the coverage of the code, giving you the Total Bytes, Unused Bytes, and Usage Visualization categorized by file type. This shows how much code belongs to functions that haven't been executed. Screenshots of the process are available in the article. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Samsung's Galaxy S10 and S10+ leaked yet again in new pictures | Samsung will be releasing the Galaxy S10 and S10+ in less than a month. Detailed pictures of the front, back, and sides are now available which show the dual-lens, hole-punch camera, sim card slot, USB-C port, headphone jack, and a new UI. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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GitHub is now free for teams | All of the core GitHub features are now free for everyone. Developers now have access to private repositories with unlimited collaborators. Paid plans are still available for advanced features, enterprise features, or personal support. The price of the paid Team plan is now $4 per user/month. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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2022 Developer Survey (Website) | Stack Overflow's annual survey explores how developers learn and level up, which tools they are using, and what they want. It provides insights into the attitudes, tools, and environments that are shaping the art and practice of software today. This site contains the results of the survey. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Everything we know so far about Apple’s rumored over-ear headphones | Apple has been rumored to be making its own over-ear headphones for over two years. More details about the project have been revealed in the last few weeks. The new headphones will be designed to complement the existing Beats and AirPods accessories. There will be a premium version with leather-like fabrics and a fitness-focused model with lighter, breathable materials with small perforations. The headphones will have a retro look with oval-shaped ear cups and touch controls for playback on the side. Users will be able to customize their headphones with a modular design, allowing them to swap out parts like the headband. The headphones will likely borrow the latest H1 chip from AirPods and will feature noise cancellation technology. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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AT&T Suspends Broadband Data Caps During Coronavirus Crisis | AT&T has suspended all broadband usage caps in preparation for millions of Americans self-isolating in order to slow the rate of COVID-19 expansion. Consumer groups and a coalition of Senators are pressuring other service providers to follow suit. Broadband caps and overage fees don't serve any real technical purpose and are a result of ISPs taking advantage of an uncompetitive market. Internet usage is expected to go up as people start using video-conferencing and other bandwidth-heavy applications while they work from home or try to entertain themselves for an unknown period of time. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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DeskGap (GitHub Repo) | DeskGap is a framework for building cross-platform desktop apps with web technologies using a bundled Node.js runtime. Instead of bundling a web-engine, DeskGap relies on the operating system’s own webview renderer. Development is still in its early stages, and the API does not have full functionality of other similar frameworks such as Electron. DeskGap runs on Mac OSX and Windows 10. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Zoom became Saturday Night Live’s breakout star in historic all digital, remote episode | Zoom hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live as the cast of the show was stuck working from home. The producers were limited in what they could do on the show, but they made it work by having actors filming skits from their homes and using Zoom backgrounds for visual gags. While the episode was one of SNL's most heartfelt, it is a reminder of how much work technology allows us to accomplish from home. 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. | 4Miscellaneous
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Microsoft says hackers were able to see some of its source code | Microsoft's systems were infiltrated by hackers who could view source code from a number of repositories. The hackers didn't have access to modify any code or systems. Microsoft says the culprit is a very sophisticated nation-state actor. The US government and cybersecurity officials have implicated Russia in the attack. A recent attack on SolarWinds exposed an extensive list of sensitive organizations. Microsoft assumes that adversaries can view its source code, so it doesn't rely on secrecy to keep its products secure. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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LG's latest CineBeam 4K projectors promise improved daytime viewing | LG's new CineBeam 4K projectors have upgrades that improve their daytime viewing capabilities. The HU710P peaks at 2,000 lumens of brightness and the HU715Q delivers a 2,500-lumen output. The HU715Q can produce a 100-inch picture from just 8.5 inches away. Both projectors feature three HDMI ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and support for AirPlay 2, HomeKit, and screen sharing. While they aren't cheap, the new brightness upgrades may make the projectors suitable as replacements for large-screen TVs. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Google still plans to kill Chrome's existing adblock APIs | Google’s plans to remove the APIs that content blocking extensions use will continue despite pushback from the developer community. It plans to replace the APIs with a more limited API which limits the number of filter requests that are possible. The changes will come when Google upgrades its Chrome extensions platform which will still be a few months away. Firefox now has the ability to block tracking scripts natively without any extensions required. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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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. | 4Miscellaneous
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Scientists develop 10-minute universal cancer test | Scientists have developed a test that detects traces of malignant cells in a patient's bloodstream anywhere in a patient's body in less than 10 minutes. It's super cheap and simple, and detects about 90 out of every 100 cases of cancer, so this could serve as routine check for cancer in the future. The trick is that cancer DNA and normal DNA stick to metal surfaces in different ways, so this test uses tiny gold nanoparticles to detect the cancer cells. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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NXNSAttack technique can be abused for large-scale DDoS attacks | NXNSAttack is a vulnerability in DNS servers that can be abused to launch DDoS attacks of massive proportions. The vulnerability impacts recursive DNS servers and the process of DNS delegation. Using NXNSAttack can amplify a simple DNS query from 2 to 1,620 times its initial size. This can cause the DNS server to crash, taking the target website offline. Patches have been released to resolve the issue. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About WebRTC (11 minute read) | WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a collection of APIs that allows for data to be transferred from peer-to-peer. It is used for streaming or P2P networks like Torrent. WebRTC still requires a server to connect peers, but the connection between peers is encrypted. This article explains how WebRTC works, covering only the core APIs. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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USS Portland Fires Laser Weapon, Downs Drone in First At-Sea Test | The USS Portland recently shot down a drone with a laser weapon during a test of one of the Navy's high-energy laser weapon systems. The Navy is currently developing and testing a portfolio of laser weapons, some of which are more powerful than the one mounted on Portland. Portland's laser is expected to ultimately become a 150-kilowatt laser weapon. The development of the laser required advances in spectral beam combining, a technique that takes many lasers of different wavelengths and combines them into a more powerful beam. A 14-second video of the weapons test is available. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Microsoft's HoloLens 2: A $3,500 Mixed Reality Headset for the Factory, Not the Living Room (15 minute read) | The new Hololens 2 from Microsoft comes with a load of new technology, which is not surprising since the last version was announced 4 years ago. The new design fixes many of the problems with the previous version. It has a wider field of view, higher definition, retina scanning for authentication, better hand gesture recognition, and many more features. The headset is designed for workers and not consumers, and will only be available for enterprise customers. A 7 minute video is available with plenty of footage showing the device in action. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amendment Issues | Julian Assange has been indicted on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents. The case against Assange could open the door to criminalizing activities which are crucial for American journalists who write about national security matters. Most of the charges against Assange are for obtaining the data, rather than publishing the data. The head of the Justice Department states that they are not targeting journalists for reporting information, but that the methods that Assange used to obtain the information were unlawful. While the Espionage Act could theoretically be used to prosecute journalists who publish secret government information, many legal scholars believe that to do so would violate the First Amendment. | 4Miscellaneous
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Scientists are searching for a mirror universe. It could be sitting right in front of you | An experiment conducted in Tennessee will attempt to open a portal to a parallel universe. In studies that examined how neutrons break down into protons, it was found that neutrons created in particle beams lasted 10 seconds longer than neutrons stored in laboratory bottle before breaking down. One possible explanation for the discrepancy was that the normal neutrons were crossing over into a ‘mirror world’, which meant that they were no longer detectable. In the experiment, scientists will shoot a beam of neutrons onto an impenetrable surface and see whether neutrons could be detected on the opposite side of the surface. If the mirror universe exists, some neutrons should be detected as they would be able to move past the surface by switching between universes. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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My experience getting a tech job with no degree or relevant work experience | This article details the experience of how a college dropout was able to land a tech job without a degree or relevant work experience. Being able to learn by yourself is a large part of the job, so early experiences with learning how to use computers were valuable. Many things can be learned online for free, but having a set curriculum, mentors, and groups to work with is very motivating and beneficial. Bootcamps can provide networks that lead to employment. | 4Miscellaneous
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This 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage (11 minute read) | In August last year, 22-year-old Sam Zeloof produced a chip with 1,200 transistors using salvaged and homemade equipment. Zeloof created his first chip in high school as a senior in 2018 and was making individual transistors a year before that. While the chips are far underpowered compared to chips from chip makers with multi-million dollar budgets, Zeloof managed to progress his technology faster than the semiconductor industry did in its early days. Zeloof believes that making chipmaking more accessible to inventors would benefit society. | 4Miscellaneous
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Former ADT employee admits he watched customers have sex for years through their cameras | A former ADT technician has pleaded guilty to accessing customers' home video feeds thousands of times over four and a half years. He did this by simply adding himself to the accounts, which let him watch the feeds at will. There were 220 victims, whose accounts were accessed on 9,600 occasions. The technician took note of which homes had attractive women and targeted those accounts. He was caught when a customer reported a suspicious email on their ADT Pulse account. | 4Miscellaneous
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Amazon will establish a new headquarters for its Kuiper satellite broadband project | Amazon has added a new HQ and R&D facility to its Kuiper project. Kuiper's aim is to provide internet connectivity to people who lack access. Other companies such as SpaceX, Google, and OneWeb are also launching satellites to provide global internet coverage. Kuiper has not released a timeline around deployment or availability for customers. Its new facilities are in Redmond, Washington, which is near Amazon's overall home base in Seattle. It will cover 219,000 square feet across two separate buildings. Kuiper team members will start moving into the new site sometime next year. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Amazon launches Amazon Care, a virtual medical clinic for employees | Amazon has launched a virtual health clinic with in-home follow-ups for Amazon employees and their families in Seattle. The Amazon Care clinic will offer a combination of telemedicine and in-person services. Employees and their families will be able to talk to a doctor or nurse using an app, and a nurse will be dispatched to their home if a follow-up is required. Prescriptions will be available via the app. Amazon will not have knowledge of employees' health conditions. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Pixel 4 gets automatic robocall screening, improved location accuracy, and more | Google has released a feature drop for Pixel devices, a more substantial update that contains helpful and fun features on top of the normal monthly updates to improve performance and security. Pixel 4's Call Screen feature is now able to detect robocalls and automatically hang up. Duo's camera has been updated so that it auto-frames faces (including automatically adjusting zoom if another person joins in-frame), and a new portrait filter is able to blur the background during calls. Users can also use a version of the new portrait filter in Google Photos. Google Maps has improved accuracy, and the new Google Assistant will be released in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Singapore, and Australia. The new assistant is able to work offline and processes speech at almost zero latency. All new Pixel phones will receive an update to memory management that will allow them to run multiple apps more efficiently at the same time. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Moderna Will Develop mRNA Vaccines for 15 of the World’s Worst Diseases | Moderna has announced plans to develop mRNA vaccines against 15 different pathogens. mRNA vaccines are essentially plug and play, so scientists can add in codes specific to the virus they hope to protect against without having to develop and manufacture an entirely new formula. They are also easy to scale in production at a relatively low cost, making it possible to screen multiple vaccine candidates with low resources. Moderna will prioritize viruses classified as persistent global health threats. It aims to have all 15 vaccines in clinical trials by 2025. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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The strange, sketchy emails a browser extension developer receives | Chrome extensions can be exploited in many ways, as can be seen in the numerous malware-ridden extensions that have spread over the past year. Up to 3 million devices were infected by malware identified in Chrome and Edge extensions in December 2020. Chrome updates extensions as soon as they pass the automated review, so any extension can suddenly become a Trojan horse. Extension developers are being contacted by companies to either sell their extensions or insert code into their extensions for payment. Examples of these requests are available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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Huawei: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with China’s tech giant | UK chip designer ARM has instructed its employees to stop working with Huawei in order to comply with US trade laws. ARM chips contain ‘US origin technology’, and as a consequence, the company is affected by the new trade ban against the Chinese tech giant. Huawei can continue to manufacture existing chips, but will not be able to receive assistance from ARM when developing components in the future. It is unclear whether ARM is acting on their own interpretation of the new laws or whether they had received direct advice from the Commerce Department. | 4Miscellaneous
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StreetComplete (GitHub Repo) | StreetComplete is an OpenStreetMap data editor for Android. It is designed for users who don't know OSM tagging schemes but still want to improve OSM data. The app uses quests and simple questions to help users fill in data. Data is automatically processed and uploaded directly to the OSM database. The app can be used offline. Screenshots are available in the repository. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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The Story Behind Nike's Amazing 3-D Air Max Billboard in Japan | Nike and creative collective CEKAI recently created a 3D advertisement on a billboard in Japan promoting Nike Air Max Day. This article features an interview with Nike Japan discussing the project, how the ad was created, and Nike Air Max Day. A video of the ad is available in the article. | 4Miscellaneous
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petite-vue (GitHub Repo) | petite-vue is a ~5.8kb alternative distribution of Vue that is optimized for progressive enhancement. It is compatible with the same template syntax and reactivity mental model as standard Vue. A section comparing petite-vue with standard Vue is available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Absolute Zero? A New Record Was Set for the Coldest Temperature Ever Recorded | A multi-organizational team of researchers from Germany and France has set a new record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in a lab at 38 picokelvins. While the experiment only lasted two seconds, it achieved much lower temperatures than previous attempts in experiments conducted on the International Space Station. The researchers believe that they can get even closer to absolute zero using the setup. The achievement could have wide-ranging implications for the field of particle physics. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Swift Weekly (Newsletter) | Swift Weekly is a great resource to keep up with the Swift ecosystem. It's sort of like TLDR for Swift, it has curated news, tutorials, talks, and open source libraries, if you're an iOS developer definitely check this out! | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Microsoft Surface roadmap revealed in new book — including mysterious ‘Andromeda’ device | Tech journalist Brad Sams' new book "Beneath a Surface" talks about Microsoft's hardware roadmap. Next spring Microsoft may unveil an "ambient computing" device, a device that can sense and respond to a user's presence. 2020's Surface will include a "modular design" to make the device super easy to upgrade in piecemeal fashion instead of having to buy a completely new one every couple of years. Finally, there's "Andromeda", a foldable, dual-screen device that could mark the company's re-entrance into the smartphone market, due later next year. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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FormKit (Website) | FormKit is a form-authoring framework for Vue developers. It makes building high-quality production-ready forms 10 times faster. FormKit features built-in validation, powerful form generation, theming, Tailwind support, and plugins. Interactive examples are available. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Amazon releases new images of HQ2 as it ramps up hiring in Virginia | Amazon has revealed images of its second headquarters in northern Virginia. It will hire 1,900 new employees at the site. Amazon plans to create 25,000 jobs in the area over the next decade. The campus will have space for retail shops and can serve as a place for public gatherings. Amazon hopes to begin construction in 2022 and finish in 2025. Renderings of the campus design are available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Walmart’s e-commerce chief is leaving to build “a city of the future” | Marc Lore created Jet.com and sold it to Walmart for $3 billion in a deal that involved him staying with the retail giant for five years to support its online business. He will be leaving the company early due to efforts last year to combine Walmart's e-commerce and physical store divisions into unified teams. Lore will remain an adviser to Walmart and has a close relationship with its CEO. His next project will be to build a city of the future supported by a reformed version of capitalism. | 4Miscellaneous
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CodeSwing (GitHub Repo) | CodeSwing is an interactive coding environment for VS Code that allows developers to have a traditional web playground directly within their highly-personalized editors. Developers can view a live preview of their web apps as they type, without compiling or bundling anything. Demos and examples are available in the repository. | 3Programming, Design & Data Science
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Brilliant Planet plans cheap, gigaton-scale carbon capture using algae | Brilliant Planet is a company that has a carbon capture and sequestration model that can scale up to billions of tons per year. The method involves pumping seawater into low-cost coastal desert land and then using the pools of seawater to grow algae. It could potentially capture two billion tons of carbon per year, about 5.5% of humanity's annual global carbon emissions. The company is aiming for a cost of around $50-$100 per ton, which is significantly cheaper than other current options. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Hologram-like device animates objects using ultrasound waves | A device that produces 3D animated objects that can talk to and interact with people has been unveiled by researchers in Sussex. The device uses ultrasound waves to levitate a polystyrene bead and move it around at high speeds to trace shapes in the air. LEDs that are built into the display shine light onto the bead to create color. The bead moves at speeds approaching 20 mph. By manipulating the ultrasonic field, the scientists can make the objects produce sounds and allow users to interact with the objects. The current prototype is able to make 3D objects inside a 10cm-wide cube of air. This technology has the potential to improve 3D printing, as it may be possible to levitate different materials to be dropped into place. The ultrasound waves are able to create precise patterns, so objects feel just as rich and dynamic as they appear on the display. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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This robot can melt and re-form its legs to change how it walks | A 3D-printed robot created by Jianguo Zhao at Colorado State University is able to melt and reshape it’s 4 limbs in order to change the way it moves. A wire inside each of its legs heats up the plastic within 10 seconds and allows it to switch between different leg positions. This improves the robot’s capability with adding to its cost, weight, or complexity. There is a link to a video that shows the robot in action. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Cloud Security Webinar Series: From Frustration to Automation (Sponsor) | Cloud Security Webinar Series: From Frustration to Automation . Join our new 3 part webinar series and see how a data-driven approach can prevent zero-day events and provide a 342% ROI! | 0Sponsor
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My Third Year as a Solo Developer (13 minute read) | In the first two years of working on his own business, Michael Lynch earned less than $10k total. His goal for the third year was to earn $20k, but he exceeded the goal by earning $63k in revenue by the end of the year. This article follows his projects throughout the third year, documenting the successes, failures, and lessons learned. | 4Miscellaneous
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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. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Reddit app revamp adds a Discover Tab for finding communities, new navigation | Reddit has launched the first major change to its mobile app in two years. It has added a new Discover Tab and a revamped navigation system. Reddit has over 100,000 active communities, but many are under-exposed. The changes will make it easier to discover lesser-known communities. Reddit will use users' existing subscriptions to make recommendations. It will not use demographic data for the Discover Tab. The feature will not recommend NSFW, banned, or quarantined communities. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Alphabet’s Loon balloons will provide internet to remote parts of the Amazon next year | Loon is a company owned by Alphabet which makes high-altitude balloons that can provide mobile internet. The company has signed a commercial agreement with Internet Para Todos Perú to provide internet to parts of the Amazon rainforest starting in 2020. It will initially provide service to an area where nearly 200,000 people live. Peru will be the first country in Latin America to use high-altitude balloons to provide internet connectivity on a sustained, non-emergency basis. Loon has two other commercial contracts, one with Telkom Kenya and one with Telesat, a Canadian satellite company. | 2Science and Futuristic Technology
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Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect? (Hacker News Thread) | This is a big Hacker News thread with over 500 comments on old software that people miss. Get ready for a trip down memory lane, featuring a surprising amount of love for Windows Phone! | 4Miscellaneous
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Twitter takes on Facebook Groups with invite-only Communities | Twitter has launched Communities, a feature that allows its users to form niche groups around specific interests. Users can tweet directly to other members once they join a Community. Each Community will have its own moderators that can set rules and invite or remove people. Anyone can apply to create their own community. The feature is invite-only for now as Twitter works on ways for people to discover and join Communities they want to be part of. A GIF demoing the feature is available in the article. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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Disney+ streaming service will be available starting Nov. 12 | Disney has revealed some of the originals it plans to create for its upcoming Disney+ streaming service, which will be available starting November 12. For 7 bucks a month, subscribers will be able to watch exclusive original content, including Marvel and Star Wars series, Pixar shorts, movies, documentaries, and more. Other content owned by Disney will be available as well, including all the episodes of The Simpsons. Disney will continue to release movies in theatres ahead of their appearance on the streaming service. However, some movies, such as Frozen II, will be exclusively released on Disney+. | 1Big Tech & Startups
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