Tech roundup 73: a journal published by a bot

Gooooooood morning, Information highway!!! Hey, this is not a test, this is a tech roundup. Time to rock it from the Delta to the DMZ.

AI, bots and robots

• The pandemic is bringing us closer to our robot takeout future
• ‘Spot’: A Robot That Could Help Doctors Remotely Treat Covid-19 Patients
• Some school districts plan to end the year early, call remote learning too tough
• Using Reinforcement Learning in the Algorithmic Trading Problem
  The development of reinforced learning methods has extended application to
  many areas including algorithmic trading. In this paper trading on the stock
  exchange is interpreted into a game with a Markov property consisting of
  states, actions, and rewards. A system for trading the fixed volume of a
  financial instrument is proposed and experimentally tested; this is based on
  the asynchronous advantage actor-critic method with the use of several neural
  network architectures. The application of recurrent layers in this approach is
  investigated. The experiments were performed on real anonymized data. The best
  architecture demonstrated a trading str
• Moxie, a Social Robot That Helps Kids with Social-Emotional Learning
• Cliqz, privacy oriented search engine and browser shuts down – Learnings
• Introduction to Support Vector Machines in Machine Learning

Blockchain and decentralization

• Key Visualizer: Observe distributed databases to discover the unknowns
• Plan9 – A Distributed Operating System
• PyTorch Distributed Training
• Debugging Distributed Systems
• Paxos vs. Raft: Have we reached consensus on distributed consensus?
  Distributed consensus is a fundamental primitive for constructing
  fault-tolerant, strongly-consistent distributed systems. Though many
  distributed consensus algorithms have been proposed, just two dominate
  production systems: Paxos, the traditional, famously subtle, algorithm; and
  Raft, a more recent algorithm positioned as a more understandable alternative
  to Paxos.
  In this paper, we consider the question of which algorithm, Paxos or Raft, is
  the better solution to distributed consensus? We analyse both to determine
  exactly how they differ by describing a simplified Paxos algorithm using Raft’s
  terminology and pragmatic abstractions.
  We
• IPFS 0.5
  A peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol to make the web faster, safer, and more open.
• Resources for understanding cryptocurrency and blockchain technology
• Distributed transactions are Not Micro-services
• Gitcoin Grants Round 5 Retrospective

Cloud and architecture

• Keystone: A lightweight multi-architecture assembler framework
• Opting in to Preview Builds with AWS ALBs
• Zoom taps Oracle for cloud deal, passing over Amazon, Microsoft
  The Covid-19 pandemic has pushed many companies and schools to remote work, which allowed Zoom to emerge as a key player. The videoconferencing software company last week surpassed 300 million daily users, up from 200 million in just weeks.
• List of Serverless Functions for JAMstack Apps
• IoT Dashboard – A live dashboard companion for AWS IoT
• Matching Binary Patterns with Erlang
• Rob Pike interview: “Go has indeed become the language of cloud infrastructure“
  Rob Pike, the co-author of the Go programming language, speaks about a career spanning four decades, and the evolution of Go over the last ten years.
• Failed SaaS Post-Mortem: Validate Your Pricing Model (Like I Didn’t)
  I just spent about three weeks bootstrapping a SaaS as a solo founder. For context, you can read my description of it here , and I’ve talked about the…
• Google wants Australia to remove civil penalties from CLOUD Act-readying Bill
• Serverless CI/CD on the AWS Cloud
• How 3+ failures led to a $150k/month SaaS

Development and languages

• A ‘MacBook SE’ could destroy Chromebooks and Windows laptops in one fell swoop
• Maybe visual programming is the answer, maybe not
• Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python
• Python 2 Is Dead
• Metaprogramming in Flat Assembler
• Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government’s contact tracing app
• GitLand: A Multiplayer game controlled using GitHub
• SICP written for Python
• GitQlient – a multi-platform GUI-oriented Git client written with Qt
  GitQlient, pronounced as git+client (/gɪtˈklaɪənt/) is a multi-platform Git client originally forked from QGit. Nowadays it just keeps some old functionality to store the data that is used to later paint the repo tree.
• A syntax highlighter for Git and diff output, written in Rust
  A syntax-highlighter for git and diff output. Contribute to dandavison/delta development by creating an account on GitHub.
• Why can’t programmers design software?
• Google Credential Provider for Windows
• Better C – A subset of D Programming Language
• DigitalOcean VPC
  Simplicity yields productivity, and that’s why many developers have brought DigitalOcean into the workplace. Thousands of startups and small businesses have already chosen to run critical applications on DigitalOcean. Still, many more businesses tell us that they’d gladly migrate to our cloud if we could help them better
• Programming Idioms
• Vidgear – A complete, cross-platform video processing Python framework
• WebWormHole: Send files quickly using WebRTC
• Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years
• Quantum JavaScript
• HashiCorp Vault Is Overhyped, as Mozilla SOPS with KMS and Git Is Underrated
• Modern and Cross Platform Stack for WebRTC
  The Open Source, Cross Platform Stack for Real-time Media and Data Communication. – Pion
• Git Branch Naming Conventions
• Joy (Programming Language)

Quote of the week

Search all the parks in all your cities; you’ll find no statues of committees.

        — David Ogilvy

Enterprises

• French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk
• Autopilot: Workload Autoscaling at Google
• Intellectual Alchemists
• Google Will Require Proof of Identity from All Advertisers
• A Fight Against Amazon Becomes a State Matter in Quebec
• AMD vs. Intel 2020: Who Makes the Best CPUs?
• ‘Expert Twitter’ Only Goes So Far – Bring Back Blogs
• Germany flips to Apple-Google approach on smartphone contact tracing
  Germany changed course on Sunday over which type of smartphone technology it wanted to use to trace coronavirus infections, backing an approach supported by Apple and Google along with a growing number of other European countries.
• Beware of the GIF: Account Takeover Vulnerability in Microsoft Teams
• Google inserts links to its Duo video chat app when users text about Zoom
• I Spent $6M on Google Ads Last Year
• How to avoid Amazon: guide to online shopping
  Amazon is now making up to £8,800 a second, while concerns persist about its tax affairs, treatment of staff and effect on small retailers. Here’s how to buy everything from technology to beauty to books without it
• NHS rejects Apple-Google coronavirus app plan
• Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use
• Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries
  Update, 4/27: Twitter has now officially announced that they are killing off SMS in most countries. The Verge covers the story as well. View alternate options for receiving DansDeals alerts here. We are currently looking into other options for SMS alerts. @jack @Twitter You’re contradicting yourself. If SMS is insecure, then why use it for …
• Google Research Football
• Google Pixel Buds
• The Anti-Amazon Alliance
  Google Shopping is changing its model, suggesting Google is joining the Anti-Amazon Alliance; 3rd-party merchants should do the same.
• Amazon is holding over 4.2M dollars, suffocating our business
  Can someone please help us here?! My partner and I have been selling on Amazon since 2013 with outstanding metrics. Our average net sales are over $1 million/month and we are by no means new or small sellers. We started shipping a lot more than usual Merchant Fulfilled orders because of the situation with FBA, so the system flagged our account for a “velocity review” and they are now holding all of our funds — over $4.2 million dollars. We’ve sent Amazon multiple emails to multiple department…
• Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2020 Results
• MsQuic – QUIC Implementation from Microsoft
• WhatsApp eyes lending feature in India as Amazon rolls out Pay Later to tens of
• Google Meet premium video conferencing is now free for everyone
  To help businesses, schools, and others navigate remote work and life, we’re making our premium video conferencing solution free for all.
• A thread of RTL(right-to-left)-language-induced GUI bugs
• Tesla Q1 2020 Update
• Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone
• ‘Publisher’ Google ordered to pay $40k in damages for defaming Melbourne lawyer
• Intel’s flagship 10th-gen desktop CPU has 10 cores, reaches 5.3GHz
• Stripe responded to my concerns about user tracking
• Amazon.com Announces First Quarter Results
• Quantum scientist John Martinis explains why he resigned from Google
• Nvidia Releases Low-Cost, Open-Source Ventilator Design
• US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor
• Elon Musk tweet wipes $14bn off Tesla’s value
• A synthetic control causal analysis of Musk’s tweet on Tesla stock price

Other news

• Millions of Credit-Card Customers Can’t Pay Their Bills
  Credit-card debt kept many consumers afloat. Now that the debt bubble is bursting, lenders and borrowers alike are preparing for pain.
• A Graduate Course in Applied Cryptography
• Formal Verification Creates Hacker-Proof Code
• Quantifying and Time Tracking My Reading
• Why a Data-Security Expert Fears U.S. Voting Will Be Hacked
• US Air Force Space Security Challenge 2020: Hack-a-Sat
• My Love and Hate Relationship with Hackathons
• Packaging LXD for Arch Linux
• FT journalist suspended over claims of Zoom eavesdropping
• Tmux for Mere Mortals
  Tmux is great. Tmux defaults are not. How to make use of a brilliant tool without breaking your fingers?
• Lessons Learned from Dealing with an iMac’s Dead SSD
• Debugging a Linux Kernel Bug
  This outlines the whole debugging process of a Linux kernel bug we found during an incident and demonstrates how we worked with Linux kernel open source community.
• CEO of SoftBank-backed Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth
• Legislation proposes paying Americans $2k a month
• German state bailing Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with $10B
• Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
  A prototype Raspberry Pi dashboard to save me talking to my smart assistant.
• SSH hacks – a little sanity for remote workers
  A few of our favorite SSH tricks and tips sure to improve your daily experience.
• SoftBank to write down WeWork by $6.6B, compounding portfolio misery
  SoftBank Group Corp said it sees a loss of around 700 billion yen ($6.6 billion) for the year ended March on the portion of its WeWork investment held outside the Vision Fund, as the virus compounds woes at one of the firm’s biggest bets.
• Quantum autoencoders to denoise quantum measurements
• Building a scripting language and bytecode interpreter for education
• Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education
  Forecast declines in enrollment and revenue have triggered spending cuts and salary freezes. “The world order has changed,” said a Northeastern University official.
• Daily Math Practice for grades 1 to 4
• Grab Asks Staff to Take No-Pay Leave to Cut Costs
• Linux touchpad like a MacBook: April 2020 update
• Save your Linux machine – Recovering your root password and more
• New bill threatens journalists’ ability to protect sources

Autor: Javi López G.

Arquitecto/desarrollador, creativo, buscador de nuevas soluciones y modelos de negocio, crítico constructivo y ex muchas cosas Lee todas las entradas de Javi López G.