Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Popular：

Virtualization DNS security formal verification reachability analysis compiler errors macro conflict web extension development framework Bitmap Graphics API inconsistencies All Tags

Ebenezer Clifford: Revolutionary War Veteran, Master Joiner, and Underwater Explorer

2025-03-05

Ebenezer Clifford: Revolutionary War Veteran, Master Joiner, and Underwater Explorer

Ebenezer Clifford, a remarkable 18th-century figure, was an architect, master joiner, bell diver, cabinetmaker, and quartermaster sergeant in the Revolutionary War. His exceptional woodworking skills are evident in surviving planes and buildings he designed or helped construct that still stand today. In his later years, he took up underwater salvage, using a diving bell to recover treasures from shipwrecks, adding another layer of adventure to his already extraordinary life.

(workingwoodenplanes.com)

Misc historical figure woodworking

Through-the-Earth Communication: Revolutionizing Underground Connectivity

2024-12-14

Traditional radio waves struggle to penetrate rock, making communication in mines and caves challenging. This article explores Through-the-Earth (TTE) communication, utilizing ultra-low frequency (300-3000 Hz) signals that propagate through rock strata. TTE systems, including portable magnetic-loop cave radios, Personal Emergency Devices (PEDs), and the innovative 'Miner Lifeline' technology, are highlighted for their crucial role in mine rescue operations and cave exploration, even after catastrophic events like fires or explosions.

(en.wikipedia.org)

Tech Through-the-Earth Communication Mine Communication Emergency Rescue

Fighting Search Engine Spam: A Powerful Blocklist

2025-01-14

Fighting Search Engine Spam: A Powerful Blocklist

The GitHub project `BadWebsiteBlocklist` offers a powerful filter to block spam and misleading websites from appearing in search results. It aims to clean up search results by removing AI-generated low-quality articles, spam sites, and thinly-veiled advertisements posing as information. The filter is used via the uBlocklist extension; users simply add a subscription link to enable it. The project encourages users to submit spam websites and provides explanations for each blocked site, ensuring transparency and sustainability.

(github.com)

Development spam filtering

Monorepo Build Tools: Scaling Your Codebase

2024-12-20

Traditional build tools struggle with large codebases (100-10,000 active developers). Monorepo build tools like Bazel and Mill offer solutions by supporting multiple languages, custom build tasks, automatic caching and parallelization, remote caching and execution, drastically improving build speed and efficiency. They also feature dependency-based test selection and build task sandboxing, reducing testing time and non-determinism. While these features might seem unnecessary for small projects, they are crucial for large-scale collaboration and continuous integration in larger projects, preventing build times from becoming a bottleneck.

(mill-build.org)

Development build tools scalability

Heat Accelerates Auto Chip Aging, Raising Safety Concerns

2024-12-18

Heat Accelerates Auto Chip Aging, Raising Safety Concerns

New research shows that automotive chips are aging significantly faster than expected in hot climates, shortening the lifespan of electric vehicles and potentially creating new safety issues. In areas like Phoenix, Arizona, where high temperatures can persist for weeks, cabin temperatures can reach 93°C, severely impacting chip longevity. Studies reveal that for a chip designed for a 30-year lifespan, high temperatures reduce life expectancy by an additional 10% annually. Chipmakers are working to address this, requiring new materials, design redundancy, and active cooling solutions. Increased chip utilization due to autonomous driving exacerbates the problem. Proactive monitoring and predictive failure analysis will become crucial, impacting both vehicle reliability and safety.

(semiengineering.com)

Hardware automotive chips aging high temperatures

Maine Prison's Remote Work Program: A Path to Redemption

2024-12-24

Maine Prison's Remote Work Program: A Path to Redemption

Maine's prison system is conducting a bold experiment: allowing inmates to work remotely. This program not only provides inmates with fair market wages, helping them pay restitution, support children, and save for the future, but also instills dignity and hope. Remote work allows inmates to learn new skills, build self-worth, and prepare for re-entry into society. While facing skepticism from victims and the public, the program's positive impact is undeniable, offering a model for prison reform in other states.

(www.bostonglobe.com)

Misc prison reform reintegration

Hardware-Efficient UNORM and SNORM to Float Conversion

2024-12-26

Hardware-Efficient UNORM and SNORM to Float Conversion

This blog post delves into the efficient hardware implementation of converting UNORM and SNORM integer formats to IEEE 754 binary32 floating-point numbers. The author details handling special values for 8-bit and 16-bit UNORM and SNORM, demonstrating how bit shifts and additions achieve precise conversion without complex division. Normalization and rounding are explained to ensure accuracy. The post concludes by summarizing the hardware cost, highlighting its efficiency.

(fgiesen.wordpress.com)

Hardware float conversion

OpenAI's GPT-5 Project Hit by Delays and High Costs

2024-12-23

OpenAI's GPT-5 Project Hit by Delays and High Costs

OpenAI's highly anticipated GPT-5 project, codenamed 'Orion,' is significantly behind schedule and facing substantial cost overruns, according to the Wall Street Journal. Intended as a major leap forward for the technology powering ChatGPT, the project is encountering challenges, including concerns about insufficient data to reach its ambitious intelligence goals. Microsoft, OpenAI's largest investor, had expected the new model by mid-2024, but that timeline is now uncertain. The project, underway for over 18 months, faces an unclear future.

(www.wsj.com)

AI

DeepSeek-R1: An Open-Source LLM That Can Reason

2025-01-27

DeepSeek-R1: An Open-Source LLM That Can Reason

DeepSeek-R1 is a cutting-edge large language model (LLM) that boasts impressive reasoning capabilities. Unlike typical LLMs that simply predict the next word, DeepSeek-R1 generates 'thinking tokens' to systematically solve problems. Its training involves three stages: first, a base model is trained on massive datasets; second, supervised fine-tuning using 600,000 long chain-of-thought reasoning examples generated by a specialized reasoning model; and finally, reinforcement learning to enhance both reasoning and non-reasoning task performance. DeepSeek-R1's success demonstrates that combining high-quality base models with automatically verifiable reasoning tasks significantly reduces reliance on labeled data, paving the way for future LLM advancements.

(newsletter.languagemodels.co)

AI

Mysterious Tablet with Unknown Script Unearthed in Georgia

2024-12-14

Mysterious Tablet with Unknown Script Unearthed in Georgia

A basalt tablet inscribed with an enigmatic language has been discovered near Lake Bashplemi in Georgia's Dmanisi region. The 24.1 x 20.1 cm tablet, featuring 60 characters (39 unique), has baffled researchers. Its symbols, possibly related to military spoils, construction, or religious offerings, bear partial resemblance to scripts from the Middle East, India, Egypt, and West Iberia, yet are distinct. Dating potentially to the Late Bronze or Early Iron Ages, the tablet adds a layer of complexity to the cultural history of the Caucasus, hinting at possible ancient cultural exchange between diverse regions.

(archaeologymag.com)

Misc unknown script

Deep Dive into CPS: A Journey into Functional Programming Compilation

2024-12-25

This article delves into Continuation-Passing Style (CPS) and its application in compiling functional programming languages. The author builds a CPS transformer step-by-step for a simple Scheme-like language, explaining optimization strategies and code generation methods. The article details the transformation of integers, variables, function calls, arithmetic operators, lambda expressions, and if expressions into CPS form. It also discusses meta-continuations and optimization techniques such as constant folding and beta reduction. Finally, it outlines several approaches to generating executable code from CPS, including generating C code, using trampolines, and employing a single large switch statement.

(bernsteinbear.com)

Development Functional Programming

Google Cuts Code Migration Time in Half with AI

2025-01-16

Google Cuts Code Migration Time in Half with AI

Google reports using its AI tools to halve the time required for code migrations. This involved projects like migrating 32-bit IDs to 64-bit IDs in the Google Ads codebase, upgrading JUnit testing libraries, and replacing the Joda time library. While human review is still necessary, the AI significantly sped up the process, reducing what would have taken hundreds of engineering years to just months. Google emphasizes the AI should be used in conjunction with traditional methods for optimal efficiency and cost management.

(www.theregister.com)

Development Code Migration

The Ugly Truth About Lisp Indentation

2025-01-19

Lisp programmers have long debated the best indentation style. This article explores various approaches, including no indentation, function-aligned indentation, space-filling indentation, and the author's controversial "sick" macro indentation. Function-aligned indentation becomes unwieldy with deep nesting, while space-filling, though efficient, falls short in extreme cases. The author advocates for a "sick" macro style, which, despite being unconventional, maintains readability in deeply nested code and plays well with most indentation tools. Readers are invited to share their preferred styles.

(aartaka.me)

Development coding style indentation

ByteDance's INFP: AI Brings Still Images to Life

2024-12-22

ByteDance's INFP: AI Brings Still Images to Life

ByteDance has unveiled INFP, a groundbreaking AI that transforms static images into lively characters capable of speaking, singing, and interacting with their environment. This technology uses advanced algorithms to seamlessly sync audio with realistic movements, facial expressions, and lip-syncing, breathing life into still images. Applications span art creation, storytelling, virtual interviews, and musical performances, opening exciting possibilities for AI creativity and human-computer interaction.

(pdftranslate.ai)

AI image generation ByteDance

Apple's AI: More Hype Than Substance?

2025-01-07

Apple's AI: More Hype Than Substance?

Apple's much-hyped AI features are facing significant criticism due to a string of embarrassing errors. From misrepresenting news headlines to producing nonsensical summaries in everyday applications, the AI's performance falls far short of expectations. This recalls Apple's previous Maps debacle, highlighting a potential flaw in the company's technology readiness assessment. While Apple claims to be working on improvements, the reliability of its AI remains questionable, potentially damaging its brand image and user trust.

(www.ndtvprofit.com)

Tech Technical flaws

dbt Labs Acquires SDF Labs to Supercharge Developer Experience

2025-01-14

dbt Labs Acquires SDF Labs to Supercharge Developer Experience

dbt Labs announced the acquisition of SDF Labs, a company with cutting-edge SQL comprehension technology. This acquisition will dramatically improve the dbt developer experience, including significantly faster compilation speeds, IDE autocompletion, and higher-fidelity data lineage. SDF's technology allows dbt to understand user-written SQL more deeply, enabling more powerful features and a smoother development workflow, described as a 'React moment' for the data world.

(www.getdbt.com)

Development data development

Musk-Linked Engineer Gains Full Control Over US Payment Systems: Treasury Officials in Panic

2025-02-04

Musk-Linked Engineer Gains Full Control Over US Payment Systems: Treasury Officials in Panic

A 25-year-old engineer with ties to Elon Musk has been granted full read-and-write access to the US Treasury Department's payment systems, sparking alarm among insiders. This access encompasses nearly all government payments, including Social Security and tax refunds, raising concerns about potential for irreversible changes or security breaches. Sources express worry about data leaks to Musk allies within the General Services Administration (GSA) and a lack of reporting channels. The incident highlights critical vulnerabilities in government IT systems and potential threats to crucial infrastructure.

(www.rawstory.com)

Tech Government IT

Mysterious Tablet with Unknown Script Unearthed in Georgia

2024-12-14

A basalt tablet inscribed with 60 enigmatic characters has been discovered near Lake Bashplemi in Georgia. The unique symbols, arranged in seven registers, bear partial resemblance to scripts from the Middle East, India, Egypt, and even West Iberia, but don't directly match any known writing system. Dating potentially to the Late Bronze or Early Iron Ages, its purpose remains a mystery, though theories include recording military spoils, construction projects, or religious offerings. The discovery suggests cultural exchange between the Caucasus and neighboring regions in antiquity.

(languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu)

Misc ancient script archaeological discovery Georgia

Apple's iOS 18 Uses Homomorphic Encryption for Private Photo Search

2025-01-15

Apple's iOS 18 utilizes homomorphic encryption to enhance its photo search functionality, enabling cloud-based searches without revealing the content of users' photos. The article explains the underlying principles of homomorphic encryption, allowing computations on encrypted data with the decrypted result matching computations on unencrypted data. Apple's implementation isn't fully homomorphic, trading some privacy for performance and combining it with differential privacy and anonymization networks to bolster privacy. While not perfect, it represents a significant step towards balancing privacy and usability.

(boehs.org)

Tech homomorphic encryption

Roe AI: Revolutionizing Data Warehousing, Seeking Founding Engineer

2025-02-06

Roe AI: Revolutionizing Data Warehousing, Seeking Founding Engineer

Roe AI, backed by Gradient Ventures and Y Combinator, is building the next-generation data warehouse aiming to be the last data warehouse you'll ever need. They're looking for a founding engineer to develop their core SQL engine, multi-modal AI data engines, and multi-modal RAG system. The ideal candidate will have experience with generative AI, front-end and back-end development, and strong computer science fundamentals. Excellent benefits and a hybrid work arrangement are offered.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Startup Data Warehouse

BloodFlowTrixi.jl: High-Performance Blood Flow Models in Julia

2025-02-19

BloodFlowTrixi.jl: High-Performance Blood Flow Models in Julia

BloodFlowTrixi.jl is a Julia package implementing 1D and 2D blood flow models for arterial circulation, derived from the Navier-Stokes equations. Developed for PhD research on cardiovascular pathologies, it leverages the Trixi.jl framework for efficient Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) simulations. The package supports curvilinear geometries and compliant wall dynamics. Future development includes 3D fluid-structure interaction and vascular network simulations.

(github.com)

Development computational fluid dynamics

Massive Data Breach: 190 Million Americans Affected by Change Healthcare Ransomware Attack

2025-01-25

Massive Data Breach: 190 Million Americans Affected by Change Healthcare Ransomware Attack

UnitedHealth Group confirmed that a ransomware attack on its subsidiary, Change Healthcare, in February 2024 affected approximately 190 million Americans – nearly double previous estimates. The attack resulted in the theft of massive amounts of sensitive health and insurance data, including names, addresses, birthdates, Social Security numbers, and medical records. Some data was even published online by the hackers. Change Healthcare paid ransoms to prevent further data release. This is the largest healthcare data breach in US history, highlighting critical vulnerabilities in the healthcare system's cybersecurity.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech healthcare security

Quantum Teleportation Achieved Over Busy Internet Cables for the First Time

2024-12-27

Quantum Teleportation Achieved Over Busy Internet Cables for the First Time

Northwestern University engineers have achieved a breakthrough by successfully demonstrating quantum teleportation over a fiber optic cable already carrying internet traffic. This discovery, published in Optica, opens the door to integrating quantum communication with existing internet infrastructure, significantly simplifying the requirements for advanced sensing and quantum computing applications. The team cleverly navigated the challenge of entangled photons interfering with dense internet traffic by selecting an optimal wavelength and employing special filters. This successful transmission paves the way for next-generation quantum and classical networks sharing a unified fiber optic infrastructure, promising a future of more accessible quantum technologies.

(news.northwestern.edu)

Tech quantum teleportation quantum communication fiber optic networks fiber optic network

Artist Trains Rats to Predict Forex Markets

2024-12-19

Artist Trains Rats to Predict Forex Markets

Austrian conceptual artist Michael Marcovici's project, "Rat Traders," trained rats to predict foreign exchange futures prices. He converted price fluctuations into piano notes, and the rats predicted subsequent note changes. Surprisingly, trained rats seemingly outperformed human traders after months, though this lacked rigorous statistical testing. Marcovici's project satirizes the belief in market prediction and the human desire for shortcuts to profit in a chaotic system. The project ultimately ended due to rats' limited trading capacity, highlighting the unreliability of market prediction.

(www.theatlantic.com)

Misc finance

Tracking Down Bulgarian Marketplace Scammers: A Programmer's Undercover Investigation

2024-12-23

A programmer, while selling an item on an online marketplace, fell victim to a sophisticated scam involving a phishing website and fake courier information. Driven by personal reasons, he launched an investigation, uncovering a vast Bulgarian-based scam operation utilizing a custom Node.js system and Telegram bots. The investigation revealed the group's organizational structure, members' identities, and operational methods, implicating thousands across multiple European countries. Despite reporting, such scams are difficult to eradicate.

(sy1.sh)

Tech online scam

WebGL Fluid Simulation App Launched: Experience Realistic Fluid Effects!

2024-12-29

The "Try Fluid Simulation" app has arrived! Leveraging WebGL, it delivers stunningly realistic fluid simulations right in your browser. Experience the mesmerizing movement of liquids, the ebb and flow of waves, and more, all with simple controls. Create fluids of various shapes and textures with a few clicks, witnessing the power of physics engines in action. This app is perfect for developers learning WebGL and enthusiasts fascinated by computer graphics and fluid simulation. Dive into this mesmerizing world of fluids!

(paveldogreat.github.io)

Development Fluid Simulation

Keeling Labs: Pioneering ML for Complex Energy Control

2025-01-17

Keeling Labs: Pioneering ML for Complex Energy Control

Keeling Labs is a mission-driven startup in Venice, Los Angeles, pioneering machine learning solutions for complex control problems in the energy sector. The team boasts experience from companies like Rivian, DeepMind, and boasts a collaborative in-person work environment emphasizing whiteboarding and brainstorming. If you're passionate about energy trading and machine learning and want to join a growing startup, Keeling Labs might be the perfect fit.

(www.keelinglabs.com)

Startup energy trading

Exploring the Fourth Dimension: A Journey into 4D Geometry

2025-01-28

This article uses engaging analogies to explain the concept of the fourth dimension. By imagining a 2D being observing a 3D object, the author illustrates how we might perceive a 4D hypercube. It clearly explains how to understand 4D geometry through cross-sections, and utilizes rotation matrices and linear algebra to calculate and visualize the projection of a rotated hypercube into 3D space, resulting in complex geometric forms.

(axalatar.github.io)

Misc fourth dimension

Introducing NDEF: The Language of NFC

2024-12-19

Introducing NDEF: The Language of NFC

This chapter introduces the Near Field Communication (NFC) Data Exchange Format (NDEF), the common language for NFC devices and tags. NDEF is a binary format structured in messages, each containing several records. Each record comprises a header (metadata) and a payload (content). The chapter details the structure of NDEF records, including Type Name Format, Payload Type, Payload Identifier, and Payload, and shows how to write and read NDEF-formatted messages using Android apps. It also covers NDEF message size limits and record chunking for larger payloads. Finally, a sample application demonstrates creating a simple NFC tag writer app using the PhoneGap-NFC plugin, writing NDEF messages to tags to launch the Foursquare app.

(www.oreilly.com)

Development

Vestigial Ear Muscles Activate During Effortful Listening

2025-01-31

Vestigial Ear Muscles Activate During Effortful Listening

A new study reveals that human auricular muscles, once used to move our ears, reactivate during challenging listening tasks. Scientists used electromyography to measure muscle activity while participants listened to audiobooks with competing sounds. The results showed increased activity in the superior auricular muscles when hearing was difficult, suggesting these vestigial muscles may play a role in attentional mechanisms. While the muscle movements are minuscule and likely don't improve hearing, their activation could serve as an objective measure of listening effort.

(www.frontiersin.org)

Tech hearing auricular muscles

← Previous 1 2 … 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 … 565 566 Next →