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Kermit the Frog Delivers Commencement Address at University of Maryland

2025-05-26
Kermit the Frog Delivers Commencement Address at University of Maryland

Kermit the Frog, the iconic Muppet, delivered the commencement address at the University of Maryland's 2025 graduation ceremony. He offered graduating students advice on navigating economic uncertainty and political turmoil, encouraging collaboration rather than competition. The choice of speaker is a nod to Jim Henson, the Muppets creator and a 1960 University of Maryland alumnus, who famously crafted the original Kermit from his mother's coat and a ping-pong ball.

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(apnews.com)
Misc Commencement Speech

Edible Robots: RoboCake Takes Center Stage at Expo 2025

2025-05-09
Edible Robots: RoboCake Takes Center Stage at Expo 2025

The EU-funded RoboFood project unveiled its groundbreaking creation: RoboCake, an edible robotic wedding cake! Developed by EPFL and IIT researchers in collaboration with pastry chefs, this cake features two adorable, edible robotic teddy bears animated by an internal pneumatic system. Even more innovative, IIT created edible rechargeable batteries made from vitamin B2, quercetin, activated carbon, and chocolate, powering the cake's LED candles. This interdisciplinary marvel not only offers a unique culinary experience but also addresses electronic waste and food waste issues, with applications in emergency nutrition and healthcare.

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(actu.epfl.ch)
Tech edible robots

WorstFit: Exploiting Hidden Transformers in Windows ANSI

2025-01-09
WorstFit: Exploiting Hidden Transformers in Windows ANSI

Security researcher Orange Tsai unveils WorstFit, a novel attack surface in Windows. Exploiting the Best-Fit charset conversion feature, WorstFit leverages unexpected transformations during UTF-16 to ANSI conversion, leading to path traversal, argument injection, and even remote code execution (RCE). The unpredictable nature of Best-Fit mappings across different language configurations affects numerous well-known applications. The research highlights the challenges of patching this in the open-source ecosystem and proposes mitigations like using wide-character APIs.

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(blog.orange.tw)
Tech Character Encoding

Blockchain Misuse: Hype or Innovation?

2025-03-18
Blockchain Misuse: Hype or Innovation?

This article critically analyzes the current state of blockchain applications in areas such as supply chain management, object authenticity verification, statement authenticity guarantee, voting, proof of authorship, and land registry. The author points out that many seemingly logical blockchain solutions ignore the core issue of 'blockchain is not the Internet of Things (IoT)', leading to difficulties in guaranteeing data authenticity. The article argues that in many scenarios, distributed databases or digital signatures can solve the problem without the complexity and resource consumption of blockchain. The author believes that currently, only in the area of value transfer does blockchain (such as Bitcoin) demonstrate true value, while the application prospects of smart contracts remain unclear.

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(blog.smartdec.net)
Tech smart contracts

Sound Waves Rewire Gene Activity in Cells

2025-07-03
Sound Waves Rewire Gene Activity in Cells

Audible sound waves can alter gene expression in mouse cells, according to a new study in Communications Biology. Researchers exposed mouse myoblast cells to various frequencies of sound, discovering that over 100 genes showed altered activity. The sound increased cell adhesion and reduced fat accumulation. This non-invasive approach holds potential for regenerative medicine and cancer treatment, with human trials a possibility within the next decade.

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(www.scientificamerican.com)
Tech sound waves

AI-Powered Code Editor's Bot Fabricates Policy, Leading to User Cancellations

2025-04-18
AI-Powered Code Editor's Bot Fabricates Policy, Leading to User Cancellations

An AI-powered code editor, Cursor, recently faced backlash after its AI chatbot fabricated a company policy. A developer discovered that switching devices instantly logged them out of Cursor. When contacting support, an AI agent named "Sam" claimed this was a new security feature. However, no such policy existed; the AI invented the information, leading to user complaints and subscription cancellations. This highlights the risks of deploying AI systems in customer-facing roles without human oversight, potentially resulting in frustrated customers, damaged trust, and financial losses.

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(arstechnica.com)
Development

Missing Memories: A Blogger with Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) Speaks Out

2025-06-06
Missing Memories: A Blogger with Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) Speaks Out

Blogger Marco Giancotti shares his experience living with Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM). SDAM is a rare memory disorder characterized by an inability to recall specific past events; memories feel like a 'file cabinet without labels'. While his semantic and spatial memory are intact, recalling specific episodes is incredibly difficult, linked to his concurrent aphantasia. He uses personal anecdotes to illustrate how SDAM affects his life and how he compensates using spatial and semantic memory. Although SDAM causes emotional distress, he finds advantages, such as increased focus on the present and enhanced rational thinking.

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(aethermug.com)
Misc memory disorder

Negative Capacitance Breaks Through GaN Transistor Performance Barrier

2025-07-31
Negative Capacitance Breaks Through GaN Transistor Performance Barrier

Scientists in California have discovered that integrating an electronic material exhibiting the unusual property of negative capacitance can help high-power gallium nitride (GaN) transistors overcome a performance bottleneck. Research suggests negative capacitance helps circumvent a physical limit that typically forces trade-offs between a transistor's performance in the 'on' and 'off' states. This research indicates that negative capacitance, extensively studied in silicon, may have broader applications than previously understood, potentially impacting GaN power electronics in 5G base stations and compact cellphone power adapters.

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(spectrum.ieee.org)
Tech negative capacitance GaN transistor high-power electronics

Construct Your Own Language: A Language Construction Kit

2025-02-06

This guide provides a comprehensive kit for creating artificial languages, perfect for fantasy worlds, alien civilizations, or simply as a hobby. Author Mark Rosenfelder details linguistically sound methods for building naturalistic languages, outlining steps such as deciding on sounds, lexicon, grammar, alphabet, and cursive writing. He uses his own Verdurian language as an example, emphasizing the importance of the construction order to avoid inconsistencies like those found in Hergé's Syldavian. Further resources and print versions are provided for advanced learning.

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(www.zompist.com)
Development artificial language worldbuilding

Germany Pushes for Digital Sovereignty: Building a 'German Stack' to Counter US Tech Giants

2025-06-06
Germany Pushes for Digital Sovereignty: Building a 'German Stack' to Counter US Tech Giants

Germany's Federal Minister for Digital Affairs, Karsten Wildberger, recently called for greater digital sovereignty for Germany and Europe at the re:publica internet conference. He advocates for open standards and open source as guiding principles, highlighting the need to reduce Europe's dependence on US tech giants. To achieve this, Germany plans to build a "German Stack," a unified IT infrastructure and cloud services to avoid redundant development. He also stressed the importance of digital identity, secure payment systems, and fostering a domestic digital economy. The German government is committed to establishing European-led structures in cloud computing to promote fair, open, and innovation-driven competition.

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(www.heise.de)
Tech German Stack

Logitech's Solar-Powered Wireless Keyboard: Signature Slim Solar+

2025-09-05
Logitech's Solar-Powered Wireless Keyboard: Signature Slim Solar+

Logitech is gearing up to launch the Signature Slim Solar+, a wireless keyboard boasting a solar panel promising up to 10 years of battery life. Resembling the MX Keys S but with an added solar panel above the keys, this keyboard charges using ambient light. Made with 70% recycled plastic, it's lightweight and connects to up to three devices. Customization options via the Logi Options+ app and an AI Launch key (Copilot) are also included. Pricing and availability remain unannounced.

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(www.tomshardware.com)
Hardware Wireless Keyboard

Democrats' Failing Strategy of Mildness: A Game Without Rules

2025-07-22

This article criticizes the Democrats' weak and compromising response to the Republicans' aggressive political tactics. Examples cited include the passive acceptance of DeJoy as Postmaster General, the ineffective response to the rejection of Obama's Supreme Court nominee, and the inaction regarding Trump's incitement of the January 6th insurrection. The author argues that Democrats cling to the illusion of cooperation while Republicans disregard rules and solely pursue victory. This strategic disparity leads to repeated setbacks for the Democrats, ultimately harming their own interests.

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(arstechnica.com)
Misc Democrats

NSF Cancels $1B+ in Grants, Leaving US Research in Turmoil

2025-09-19
NSF Cancels $1B+ in Grants, Leaving US Research in Turmoil

A US court upheld the National Science Foundation's (NSF) cancellation of over 1,700 research grants totaling more than $1 billion. While the court rejected a request to reinstate the grants, it allowed challenges to the NSF's new grantmaking policy. The cancellations, largely affecting grants tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, have sparked outrage. The NSF cited a need to avoid prioritizing certain groups. The decision has severely disrupted the US research ecosystem, halting projects and jeopardizing graduate students' employment. A French university's offer of refuge to affected US researchers highlights the international impact of this controversial move.

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(www.theregister.com)
Tech research grants

Estonia: A Digital Identity Pioneer

2025-03-19
Estonia: A Digital Identity Pioneer

Estonia's e-ID system, operational for over 20 years, is the cornerstone of its e-governance. All Estonian citizens, regardless of location, possess a state-issued digital identity used for daily transactions, from paying bills and voting online to signing contracts and accessing healthcare. This success has influenced EU policy, driving interoperability across Europe. Estonia now champions the adoption of digital wallets, enhancing security and convenience, while sharing its expertise globally.

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(e-estonia.com)
Tech digital identity e-governance Estonia

Merliot Hub: Your Private AI-Powered Device Hub

2025-05-17
Merliot Hub: Your Private AI-Powered Device Hub

Merliot Hub is an AI-integrated device hub allowing natural language control (via LLMs like Claude Desktop or Cursor) over your self-built devices using Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, and other components. Its distributed architecture ensures data privacy; no third-party access or data exploitation. A web app (no phone app needed), it's Docker-deployable and runs on free Koyeb cloud VMs. Build your own private smart home ecosystem!

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(github.com)
Hardware

The Cybersecurity Industry's Silence on the Chris Krebs Case: A Moral Failing

2025-04-18
The Cybersecurity Industry's Silence on the Chris Krebs Case: A Moral Failing

Former CISA Director Chris Krebs, who affirmed the integrity of the 2020 election, faces retaliation via an executive order aiming to blacklist him. This action raises serious constitutional concerns, violating the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. While a few cybersecurity voices have spoken out, the industry's largely silent response is alarming. The author argues this silence is a moral failure, highlighting the industry's complicity in allowing political power to suppress truth. The article calls for a stronger defense of principles and a rejection of appeasement.

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(www.forbes.com)
Tech political retaliation

Beyond Text-to-SQL: Building an AI Data Analyst

2025-09-01

This article explores the challenges and solutions in building an AI data analyst. The author argues that simple text-to-SQL is insufficient for real-world user questions, requiring multi-step plans, external tools (like Python), and external context. Their team built a generative BI platform using a semantic layer powered by Malloy, a modeling language that explicitly defines business logic. This, combined with a multi-agent system, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and strategic model selection, achieves high-quality, low-latency data analysis. The platform generates SQL, writes Python for complex calculations, and integrates external data sources. The article stresses context engineering, retrieval system optimization, and model selection, while sharing solutions for common failure modes.

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(www.pedronasc.com)
AI AI Data Analyst Semantic Layer

AI's Energy Consumption: On Track to Surpass Bitcoin Mining?

2025-05-31
AI's Energy Consumption: On Track to Surpass Bitcoin Mining?

A new study warns that AI's energy consumption is rapidly escalating, projected to consume nearly half of global data center electricity by 2025, potentially surpassing even Bitcoin mining. The lack of transparency from major tech firms regarding AI's energy demands hinders accurate assessment. While efficiency improvements and a shift towards renewables are underway, these may not offset AI's exponential growth. The massive energy needs, resulting carbon emissions, and reliance on rare minerals pose a significant environmental challenge.

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(www.digit.fyi)
Tech

VW Emissions Scandal: Four Managers Convicted, Prison Sentences Handed Down

2025-05-28
VW Emissions Scandal: Four Managers Convicted, Prison Sentences Handed Down

After nearly four years, a German court convicted four former Volkswagen managers for their roles in the diesel emissions cheating scandal. The former head of diesel development received a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence, while the head of drive train electronics got two years and seven months. Two others received suspended sentences. The scandal began in 2015 when the U.S. EPA revealed VW's use of software to manipulate emissions tests. VW has paid over $33 billion in fines and compensation. While former CEO Martin Winterkorn's trial is suspended due to health reasons, proceedings against 31 other suspects are ongoing.

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(apnews.com)
Tech emissions scandal fraud

Holes in Topological Spaces: Homotopy and Weak Homotopy Equivalence

2025-06-23
Holes in Topological Spaces: Homotopy and Weak Homotopy Equivalence

This article explores the concept of 'holes' in topological spaces and introduces two equivalence relations: homotopy equivalence and weak homotopy equivalence. Homotopy equivalence allows spaces to be deformed while preserving the number of 'holes,' such as a coffee cup and a torus being homotopy equivalent. Weak homotopy equivalence is more relaxed, requiring only that spaces have the same homotopy groups, even if they differ in local structure. The article delves into the concept of homotopy groups and illustrates how to identify 'holes' in spaces using homotopy groups with the example of a torus. Finally, it mentions Grothendieck's conjecture that the infinity groupoid captures all information about a topological space up to weak homotopy equivalence, which is closely related to weak factorization systems and Quillen model categories.

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(bartoszmilewski.com)
Development homotopy theory homotopy equivalence

Hugging Face Scientist Doubts AI's Ability to Drive Scientific Discovery

2025-06-25
Hugging Face Scientist Doubts AI's Ability to Drive Scientific Discovery

Thomas Wolf, chief scientist at Hugging Face, casts doubt on the ability of current AI systems to make the groundbreaking scientific discoveries some leading labs anticipate. While large language models (LLMs) excel at answering questions, Wolf argues they struggle with the more challenging task of formulating truly original questions—the crux of scientific progress. He uses the game of Go as an analogy: mastering the rules is impressive, but inventing the game itself is a far greater feat. Similarly, he believes current AI models, acting as 'yes-men on servers,' lack the capacity to challenge existing assumptions and pose truly novel scientific questions.

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(fortune.com)
AI Scientific Discovery

mem-isolate: Safely Running Unsafe Code

2025-04-06
mem-isolate: Safely Running Unsafe Code

mem-isolate executes your function via a fork(), waits for the result, and returns it to the parent process, preventing unsafe code from affecting the parent's memory footprint. It handles memory leaks and heap fragmentation, enforcing memory purity even for impure functions. Currently supporting only Unix-like systems, it adds approximately 1ms overhead compared to direct function calls—a reasonable trade-off for memory safety in critical applications.

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(github.com)
Development memory isolation inter-process communication safe programming

Refuting Fukuyama: Life Extension Isn't the Apocalypse

2025-06-04
Refuting Fukuyama: Life Extension Isn't the Apocalypse

This article refutes Francis Fukuyama's arguments against life extension. Fukuyama claims it's physiologically impossible and would lead to societal sclerosis. The author counters that we're already extending healthspans through interventions like statins and GLP-1s. Furthermore, brain plasticity allows for cognitive function well into old age. The author argues that the benefits of longer lifespans—increased innovation and lower healthcare costs—far outweigh the potential risks. Life extension is a design problem, not a philosophical roadblock.

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(www.alexkesin.com)
Tech life extension society

Archaeological Study Upends Traditional Views on Wealth Inequality

2025-04-27
Archaeological Study Upends Traditional Views on Wealth Inequality

A groundbreaking study in PNAS challenges conventional wisdom about wealth inequality, showing it's not an inevitable outcome of societal progress. Analyzing data from over 50,000 houses across 1,000 archaeological sites, researchers found that inequality levels varied greatly throughout history. While often correlated with population growth and hierarchical governance, it wasn't universally true. Some societies developed mechanisms to curb wealth concentration. The study debunks the myth that inequality is an automatic consequence of technological or demographic change, highlighting the crucial role of human decisions in shaping social outcomes.

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(archaeologymag.com)
Tech Sociology

Equatorial Guinea Cuts Internet to Annobón Island After Protest Over Dynamite Blasting

2025-09-14
Equatorial Guinea Cuts Internet to Annobón Island After Protest Over Dynamite Blasting

Following a protest by residents of Annobón Island, Equatorial Guinea, against dynamite explosions by a Moroccan construction company, Somagec, the government responded by cutting off internet access to the island. Dozens of protesters were imprisoned for nearly a year. The internet shutdown has crippled banking and emergency medical services, leaving residents reliant on expensive phone calls. The government and Somagec deny involvement in the shutdown, but the action is seen as another instance of government repression. Despite the island's mineral wealth, residents live in poverty and have sought independence for years, with this internet outage exacerbating tensions.

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(apnews.com)
Tech government repression Equatorial Guinea

arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaborators

2025-06-07
arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the arXiv website. Individuals and organizations working with arXivLabs embrace our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only partners with those who share them. Have an idea for a project that will benefit the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

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(arxiv.org)
Development

arXivLabs: Community Collaboration on New Features

2025-05-12
arXivLabs: Community Collaboration on New Features

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Participants, individuals and organizations alike, embrace arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only partners with those who share them. Got an idea for a project that will benefit the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

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(arxiv.org)
Development

YouTube's Ad Problem: Low-Quality Content and Unfriendly Top Channels

2025-06-01
YouTube's Ad Problem: Low-Quality Content and Unfriendly Top Channels

For two decades, YouTube has pitched advertisers on its future as the entertainment powerhouse, simply stating: "Young people don't watch cable; they watch YouTube." However, two key issues persist: the overwhelmingly low quality of much of its content, and the fact that its most popular channels aren't always advertiser-friendly. While viewers primarily watch top-performing videos, the existence of low-quality content still impacts ad appeal, exacerbated by issues with top channels.

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(www.bloomberg.com)
Tech Content Quality

US Electricity Prices Soar: Wholesale Costs and Transmission Bottlenecks

2025-09-19
US Electricity Prices Soar: Wholesale Costs and Transmission Bottlenecks

Since 2020, US electricity prices have skyrocketed by 35%. This article delves into trends in wholesale electricity prices, finding that the increase is linked to both generation costs and transmission bottlenecks. Independent System Operators (ISOs)/Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) manage electricity markets using Location Marginal Pricing (LMP), composed of energy, congestion, and losses. Analyzing LMP data across various ISOs/RTOs reveals a significant surge in wholesale electricity prices since 2020, partly due to rising natural gas prices. However, transmission bottlenecks are increasingly significant, hindering the movement of inexpensive electricity from low-cost areas to high-demand regions, amplifying price volatility. California's solar power growth and natural gas supply shortages in certain areas exacerbate transmission congestion.

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(www.construction-physics.com)
Tech transmission bottlenecks
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