Gooooooood morning, Citizens!!! 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
- Robot gripper looks like a wilted flower, but can lift 100 times its weight
Weird-looking robots are the best robots. - An entrepreneur has built a one-metre-long stretch of motorway in Romania
An entrepreneur builds a one-metre-long stretch of motorway to protest about poor road infrastructure. - RLgraph: Robust, incrementally testable reinforcement learning
- Remove.bg – A service to remove the background of any photo
Remove Image Background: 100% automatically â in 5 seconds â without a single click â for free. - Applying Machine Learning to March Madness
Machine learned bracketology. Contribute to adeshpande3/March-Madness-ML development by creating an account on GitHub. - D-Wave 2000Q hands-on: Steep learning curve for quantum computing
- The complete checklist for debugging neural networks
- TVM deep-learning compiler framework transitions to Apache
- Nvidia’s $99 Jetson Nano Is an AI Computer for DIY Enthusiasts
NVIDIA has unveiled a $99 computer that brings AI hardware to the homebrew crowd. - Nvidia Announces Jetson Nano: $99 Tiny, yet Mighty Nvidia CUDA-X AI Computer
- The Promise of Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning
- LIGO gravitational wave detectors that hunt for ripples in space-time upgraded
- John Deere Plans to Feed the World with Robotics
In episode 2 of Tech Lightning Rounds, Beth Kindig goes directly to the source of robotics expertise and hosts discussions with technologists who specialize in the field. - MS TextWorld: open-source engine that both generates and simulates text games
TextWorld is text-based game and is an open-source, extensible engine that generates and simulates text games-use it to train reinforcement learning agents. - A list of the biggest datasets for machine learning
- Giant Military Contract Has a Hitch: A Little-Known Entrepreneur
- Sprayprinter – A graffiti robot startup
- Microsoft revives “Clippy” as a sticker for Microsoft Teams
- Why Is It So Hard to Build Profitable Robot Companies?
- IDE for Learning RISC-V
- How Developers Stop Learning: Rise of the Expert Beginner
- Deep Learning Optimizer Visualization
Blockchain and decentralization
- Human-First: Decentralizing Identity and Governance in the Era of AI
Democracy Earth’s token architecture is designed to model a humans-only political economy - A distributed rate counting system with Lua and Redis
At the last Globo.com’s hackathon, Lucas Costa and I built a simple Lua library to provide a distributed rate measurement system that depends on Redis and run embedded in Nginx but before we ⦠- Bit v0.5.0 – Bitcoin made easy, now with SegWit support
Bitcoin made easy. Contribute to ofek/bit development by creating an account on GitHub. - IBM’s global blockchain payment network goes live
- Volk Fi: Distributed network smartphone
A free crowdsourced mobile network. - Bitcoin Spreads Like a Virus
- JPM Coin Is the Wildest Big Bank Idea in Many Years
- Most Bitcoin Trading Faked by Unregulated Exchanges, Study Finds
- Bitcoin ETF research finds that 95% of Bitcoin volume is fake
â1/ New Research from us @BitwiseInvest.
As part of 226 slides presented to the SEC on our ETF filing, we did a first-of-its-kind analysis of *order book data* from all 81 exchanges reporting >$1M in BTC volume on CMC.
TLDR: 95% of reported volume is fake but LOTS of good news!â
Woman computer scientist of the week
Mary K. Hawes was a computer scientist who identified the need for a common business language in accounting, which led to the development of COBOL. Hawes chaired the data descriptions subcommittee in the Short-Range Committee, the team that was initially tasked with identifying problems with the current business compilers. In 1959, Hawes was a senior product planning analyst for the Electro Data Division of Burroughs Corporation. Mary K. Hawes co-authored the books Optimized code generation from extended-entry decision tables published in September 1971, Feature analysis of generalized data base management systems: CODASYL Systems Committee published in May 1971, and A survey of generalized data base management systems published in May 1969.
Cloud and architecture
- Seven Commandments for Event-Driven Architectures
- Database Architecture Blog
- Cloud Management with Prolog
- Azure Data Studio: An Open-Source GUI Editor for Postgres
- Programmer Migration Patterns
- A new class-action lawsuit takes aim at real estate agents and their 6% fee
- Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service
Stadia is here. - The Cloud is Just Another Sun
- AWS DeepRacer League
- AWS Redis goes multi-threaded
- Cloudflare Registrar
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- Intel Processor Graphics Gen11 Architecture
- Writing an API at the Edge with Workers and Cloud Firestore
- Theia: A cloud and desktop IDE framework implemented in TypeScript
- Architecting UIs for Change
Development and languages
- WebAssembly (MDN Web Docs)
WebAssembly is a new type of code that can be run in modern web browsers â it is a low-level assembly-like language with a compact binary format that runs with near-native performance and provides languages such as C/C++ and Rust with a compilation target so that they can run on the web. It is also designed to run alongside JavaScript, allowing both to work together. - Object Oriented Programming is bad
- Android Q will kill clipboard manager apps in the name of privacy
- Two-thirds of all Android antivirus apps are frauds
- Higher-Order Type-Level Programming in Haskell
- Set Camera Timer Using OpenCV-Python
- Bringing Byte-Level Binary Data Structures to JavaScript with Construct-JS
ð ï¸A library for creating byte level data structures. – francisrstokes/construct-js - Unbalanced oil and vinegar UOV digital signatures
- Bug in urllib2 Python 2.x and urllib in Python 3.x may lead to CRLF injection
- How the Guardian Went Digital
- WinSpd – create “SCSI disks” as user mode processes on Windows
- Gitlab Is Currently Down
- Tips and tricks to write LaTeX papers in with figures generated in Python
- A Homepage for the JavaScript Specification
- Interview with a Programmer Who Retired at 34
- Android users in Europe will be asked which browser and search engine they want
- Top must have visual studio code extensions
- build Python APIs with Go-like speed and automatic UI docs
- Is Windows an option for developers in 2019?
- Some thoughts on hylang
- Concurrency with Python: Threads and Locks
- Cutter: Open-source GUI disassembler, with Python plugins
- GitHub Action CLI-tool to script updates of them on many repositories
- Mosaic – A declarative, front-end JavaScript library for building UIs
- Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android
A scheme to stealthily run video ads behind banner images drained users’ batteries and data while they used popular Android apps. - Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android
A scheme to stealthily run video ads behind banner images drained users’ batteries and data while they used popular Android apps. - The RedMonk Programming Language Rankings: January 2019
This iteration of the RedMonk Programming Language Rankings is brought to you by IBM. From Java to Node.js, IBM remains at the forefront of open source innovation. Try our code patterns to help bui⦠- Majority of health apps on Android tested shared personal health data
Objectives To investigate whether and how user data are shared by top rated medicines related mobile applications (apps) and to characterise privacy risks to app users, both clinicians and consumers.
Design Traffic, content, and network analysis.
Setting Top rated medicines related apps for the Android mobile platform available in the Medical store category of Google Play in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia.
Participants 24 of 821 apps identified by an app store crawling program. Included apps pertained to medicines information, dispensing, administration, prescribing, or use, and were interactive.
Interventions Laboratory based traffic analysis of each app downloaded onto a smartphone, simulating real world use with four dummy scripts. The app’s baseline traffic related to 28 different types of user data was observed. To identify privacy leaks, one source of user data was modified and deviations in the resulting traffic observed.
Main outcome measures Identities and characterisation of entities directly receiving user data from sampled apps. Secondary content analysis of company websites and privacy policies identified data recipients’ main activities; network analysis characterised their data sharing relations.
Results 19/24 (79%) of sampled apps shared user data. 55 unique entities, owned by 46 parent companies, received or processed app user data, including developers and parent companies (first parties) and service providers (third parties). 18 (33%) provided infrastructure related services such as cloud services. 37 (67%) provided services related to the collection and analysis of user data, including analytics or advertising, suggesting heightened privacy risks. Network analysis revealed that first and third parties received a median of 3 (interquartile range 1-6, range 1-24) unique transmissions of user data. Third parties advertised the ability to share user data with 216 “fourth parties”; within this network (n=237), entities had access to a median of 3 (interquartile range 1-11, range 1-140) unique transmissions of user data. Several companies occupied central positions within the network with the ability to aggregate and re-identify user data.
Conclusions Sharing of user data is routine, yet far from transparent. Clinicians should be conscious of privacy risks in their own use of apps and, when recommending apps, explain the potential for loss of privacy as part of informed consent. Privacy regulation should emphasise the accountabilities of those who control and process user data. Developers should disclose all data sharing practices and allow users to choose precisely what data are shared and with whom.
- Wintun – Layer 3 TUN Driver for Windows
- I no longer use GitHub
Quote of the week
Code never lies, comments sometimes do.
— Ron Jeffries
Enterprises
- Google’s Nest fiasco harms user trust and invades their privacy
Last month, Google announced that its Nest Secure would be updated to work with Google Assistant software. The problem? Google never told users its product had a microphone to begin with. Simple oversight or invasion of privacy? We break it down. - AMD Confirms Its Processors Aren’t Impacted by Vulnerability
- PBS Launching Streaming Service on Amazon Prime
- What Working at Stripe Has Been Like
- Chinese TechCrunch Rival 36Kr Is Said to Plan Overseas IPO
- Nvidia Accelerates Real Time Speech to Text Transcription 3500x with Kaldi
- EU government websites have undisclosed adtech trackers from Google and others
Plus: UK health service sites contain commercial trackers - Atlassian Acquires AgileCraft for $166M
- KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS
âKDE Connect has been removed from @GooglePlay for violating their new policy on apps that access SMS [1]. The policy has an explicit exception for companion apps (like KDE Connect), but it was removed anyway and *there’s no way to talk to Google*. 1/N
[1] https://t.co/WDXEqTUhHlâ
- Google’s GDC 2019 Streaming
- Google terminated our startup’s developer account – what do we do?
- Forget Tesla, It’s China’s E-Buses That Are Denting Oil Demand
- Google hit with €1.5bn fine from EU over advertising
The search engine has been fined for blocking rival online search advertisers. - After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again
- ARM and Intel have different performance characteristics
- Kidfluencers’ Rampant YouTube Marketing Creates Minefield for Google
- Microsoft Defender Comes to the Mac
Microsoft today announced that it is bringing its Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to the Mac. Previously, this was a Windows solution for protecting the machines of Microsoft 365 subscribers and assets of the IT admins that try to keep them safe. It was also previously called Wi⦠- Microsoft, UW demonstrate first fully automated DNA data storage
- Google may rank sites for queries that don’t appear on the page at all
An undocumented ranking method can result in sites appearing in Google search results for queries that donât appear on the page - Google Stadia uses Style Transfer ML to change video game art in Real-Time
Turing Tribe is the best place to find new artificial intelligence and machine learning products, individual projects, latest news stories, and events. - Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code
Tesla Inc filed a lawsuit on Thursday against a former engineer at the company, … - New Stripe API Reference
- Amazon to Launch Mobile Ads, in a Threat to Google and Facebook
- San Francisco considers banning cashless Amazon stores
Amazon might have to choose between shutting down stores or putting cashiers in cashierless locales. - Google resists pressure to pull LGBT “conversion therapy” app
Apple, Amazon and Microsoft have all banned the app. - A eulogy for every product Google has killed (145 and counting)
- Google’s Work with China Eroding US Military Advantage, Dunford Says
Dunford said he was concerned that the work Google was doing with China on AI was undermining the U.S military.
Other news
- Mushrooms may ‘reduce the risk of mild brain decline’
- Americans Are Going Bankrupt from Getting Sick
- Early Hackers Used Whistles from Cap’n Crunch Cereal Boxes
- Can a Person Learn While Sleeping?
- Kryofluxing PC Floppies
- The Deadlock Empire: A game that teaches locking and concurrency
- A Plea to Journalists
- Hacking your face to dodge the rise of facial recognition tech
- Picotorrent a tiny, modern and hackable BitTorrent client
- Drug which makes human blood lethal to mosquitoes can reduce malaria: study
- SC sheriffs fly first class, bully employees,line their pockets w taxpayer money
South Carolina sheriffs dipped into public money to pay for luxury accommodations and broke laws they swore to uphold, a Post and Courier investigation found. - Nike and Boeing Are Paying Sci-Fi Writers to Predict Their Futures
- Linux 5.1-Rc1
- Quantum Computing for the Curious
- Today’s Firefox Aims to Reduce Your Online Annoyances
Whether itâs autoplaying videos, page jumps or finding a topic within all your multiple tabs, Firefox can help. Todayâs Firefox release minimizes those online inconveniences, and puts you back in control. - How to take back control of /etc/resolv.conf on Linux
There are many programs on Linux that wants to automatically manage your DNS configuration file (resolv.conf). Here is how you get rid of them so you can control the file manually. - Setting Up a Software Development Environment on Alpine Linux
Iâm a big Linux fan, and enjoy experimenting with new environments, so I was very excited when I was tasked with porting the OverOps agent to native Alpine Linux! But before I could get started with any actual porting work, I had to set myself a proper Alpine development environment. In this post, Iâll cover my experience in setting up an Alpine Linux workstation for C++ and Java development, with some hopefully useful Alpine know-hows, tips and resources. - Students don’t seem to be getting much out of higher education
Students don’t seem to be getting much out of higher education. - New study provides evidence that we need different drugs for men and women
A new study shows clear differences in the biology of how men and women feel pain, a reminder that sex-specific pain medications might benefit us all. - We Pay You to Learn to Code
- A Robot Leg Learned to Walk by Itself Without Programming in Scarily Short Time
- Quantum Machine Appears to Defy Universe’s Push for Disorder
- Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills
- Google reviewed pay equity and learned it was underpaying men
- Women: Learn to Program This Summer
As an investor, I’ve found that one of the reasons there are fewer female startup founders than male ones is that there are fewer female programmers. So this summer I’m trying an experiment to see…
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