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SoftBank Acquires Ampere Computing for $6.5B, Doubling Down on AI

2025-03-20

SoftBank Group Corp. announced the acquisition of Ampere Computing, a leading independent silicon design company, for $6.5 billion in an all-cash deal. This acquisition strengthens SoftBank's AI infrastructure investments and accelerates its growth in AI. Ampere will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary, retaining its name and Santa Clara headquarters. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son stated the acquisition will help accelerate its vision for Artificial Super Intelligence. Ampere CEO Renee James expressed excitement about joining SoftBank and continuing its AmpereOne roadmap for high-performance Arm processors and AI. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2025.

(group.softbank)

Tech

Lago: Open-Source Monetization Platform Hiring Backend Engineers

2025-03-16

Lago, an open-source platform (7k+ GitHub stars), helps engineers build better monetization systems, including usage metering, subscription management, billing, invoicing, and payments. Used by companies like Mistral, Together, Groq, and Laravel, Lago's team previously built Qonto's (a fintech unicorn) monetization system. They're a lean team of 25 (mostly engineers) seeking backend engineers. The role offers a competitive salary ($60k-$100k), remote-friendly options, and is based in LATAM (within +/- 1 hour of NYC timezone). Their values emphasize ambition, progress, humble confidence, paying it forward, and work-life balance.

(jobs.lever.co)

Development monetization backend

General Fusion Achieves Global First: Steam-Driven Plasma in Fusion Reactor

2025-03-16

General Fusion Achieves Global First: Steam-Driven Plasma in Fusion Reactor

General Fusion, a Canadian fusion energy company, has achieved a world-first: generating plasma in a reactor driven by steam. This milestone was reached in their Lawson Machine 26 (LM26) prototype reactor, using magnetized target fusion (MTF), a technology employing steam-powered pistons to compress plasma instead of lasers. After 23 years of dedicated research, this breakthrough represents a significant step, although commercial power generation remains a future goal. The achievement offers promising advancements in clean energy technology.

(interestingengineering.com)

Tech

Hollywood's Unsung Architect: The Paul R. Williams Story

2025-03-14

Hollywood's Unsung Architect: The Paul R. Williams Story

The documentary "Hollywood's Architect: The Paul R. Williams Story" chronicles the life of Paul Revere Williams, the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects. Overcoming immense racial barriers, Williams designed iconic buildings like LAX and homes for Hollywood legends. The film not only celebrates his extraordinary talent but also highlights the lack of diversity in architecture and the importance of preserving his legacy, prompting reflection on racial equality and cultural heritage preservation.

(www.latimes.com)

Design architecture racial equality

Game Devs Boycott GDC Over US Political Climate

2025-03-16

Game Devs Boycott GDC Over US Political Climate

A Swedish game developer is boycotting events like GDC in the US due to concerns about the increasingly extreme political climate, particularly the crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights. She cites feeling unsafe and scared in the US as an LGBTQ+ person. Other developers share similar concerns, viewing the US as no longer a safe place to conduct business and calling for the game industry to become more globally minded, moving beyond a North American-centric approach. While GDC organizers report business as usual, the boycott reflects the impact of the US political environment on the international gaming industry.

(www.wired.com)

Game

Resurrecting a Lost Piece of Apple History: The Performa 550's Secret Recovery Partition

2025-03-16

While rescuing data from a failing hard drive in an old Apple Performa 550, the author uncovered a hidden recovery partition containing a fascinating piece of Apple's software history. This partition, designed to boot in case of system failure, allowed users to reinstall the OS. A three-year quest involving online appeals culminated in finding a pristine hard drive, revealing the partition's mechanics and leading to the sharing of its image. This compelling story highlights the thrill of tech archeology and software preservation.

(www.downtowndougbrown.com)

Tech tech archeology hard drive recovery

Hopsworks Migrates from AWS to OVHCloud: A Seamless Transition

2025-03-14

Hopsworks Migrates from AWS to OVHCloud: A Seamless Transition

Hopsworks, an open-source platform for developing and operating AI systems at scale, successfully migrated from AWS to OVHCloud. Driven primarily by AWS's high egress costs, the migration leveraged Kubernetes and S3-compatible storage, resulting in a nearly seamless transition for thousands of users. The move significantly reduced operational costs, with OVHCloud's competitive pricing and good service quality being key factors in the decision.

(www.hopsworks.ai)

Tech cloud migration

The Collatz Conjecture and Cryptography: A Tale of Computational Complexity

2025-03-15

The Collatz Conjecture and Cryptography: A Tale of Computational Complexity

This article explores the infamous Collatz conjecture and its surprising connection to ARX algorithms in cryptography (e.g., ChaCha). The Collatz conjecture describes a simple iterative function; whether it always converges to 1 remains unproven. The article draws an analogy between the Collatz function and a Turing machine, highlighting how carry propagation in its bitwise implementation creates unpredictable complexity. This contrasts interestingly with ARX algorithms, which use addition, rotation, and XOR to achieve efficient diffusion. The article suggests the Collatz conjecture's unsolved nature might stem from the inherent complexity of computation, similar to the halting problem.

(soatok.blog)

Misc Computational Complexity

Neuroscience's Theoretical Bottleneck: Can Spatial Dynamics Unlock the Brain's Secrets?

2025-03-12

While the cellular biology of brains is relatively well-understood, neuroscientists haven't yet generated a theory explaining how brains work. This article explores major obstacles in neuroscience, identifying them as largely conceptual. Neuroscience lacks models rooted in experimental results explaining how neurons interact at all scales. Brains aren't solely driven by external and internal stimuli; their autonomy is significant. Furthermore, the traditional assumption of time as an independent variable clashes with experimental findings; spatial dynamics may offer a more suitable framework. The paper proposes several conceptual frontiers needing breakthroughs, emphasizing the importance of single-trial designs and analyses, and the need for improved experimental methods to reveal the brain's spatial dynamics.

(pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Tech brain mechanisms spatial dynamics

One-Stop Remote Connection Management Hub

2025-03-12

One-Stop Remote Connection Management Hub

This tool acts as your central hub for all remote connections, consolidating SSH, Docker, Kubernetes, and more. It supports various terminals, container runtimes, and hypervisors (Proxmox, Hyper-V, etc.), offering complete SSH support including config files, agent integrations, jump servers, tunnels, key files, smart cards, X11 forwarding, and more. Launch shell sessions instantly and efficiently manage all your remote resources.

(xpipe.io)

Development remote connection terminal management

GizmoSQL: A High-Performance Apache Arrow Flight SQL Server

2025-03-20

GizmoSQL: A High-Performance Apache Arrow Flight SQL Server

GizmoSQL is an Apache Arrow Flight SQL server implementation using DuckDB or SQLite as a backend database. It enables authentication via middleware and allows encrypted connections via TLS. This project offers Docker images and CLI executables for easy deployment and use. Users can connect to the server via JDBC or ADBC drivers and query using Python or the `gizmosql_client` CLI tool. GizmoSQL supports custom initialization SQL commands and offers flexible configuration options, such as selecting different backend databases and enabling/disabling TLS. A slim Docker image is also available.

(github.com)

Development

AI Coding Assistants: The 70/30 Rule and the Enduring Human Role

2025-03-14

AI Coding Assistants: The 70/30 Rule and the Enduring Human Role

AI coding assistants automate roughly 70% of software development, handling boilerplate and routine tasks. However, the remaining 30%—complex requirements, architecture, edge cases, and ensuring correctness—demands human expertise. This article explores the crucial skills engineers need to thrive alongside AI, including system design, handling edge cases, code review, debugging, communication, and continuous learning. Senior engineers should leverage their experience to guide AI and mentor junior developers, while junior developers should focus on fundamentals, problem-solving, and testing. AI accelerates development but doesn't replace human judgment; the article emphasizes the enduring importance of critical thinking, design, quality assurance, and problem-solving in the age of AI.

(addyo.substack.com)

Development Coding Assistants

New Benchmark Exposes the Automation Bottleneck in OCR: Achieving 98% Precision

2025-03-14

The influx of new OCR players like Mistral and Andrew Ng's offerings makes it hard for enterprises to distinguish genuine advancements from hype. Existing benchmarks focus on OCR accuracy and information extraction, neglecting automation levels. Nanonets introduces a new benchmark emphasizing automation at 98% precision. Using a dataset of 1000 images and 16,639 annotated data points, they measure model performance based on confidence scores – the proportion of data accurately processed without human intervention. While LLMs excel in overall accuracy, reliable confidence scores remain elusive. Gemini 2.0 Flash achieved 98% precision but automated only 8% of the data. This benchmark aims to help enterprises find solutions that truly reduce manual effort in document processing.

(nanonets.com)

Development

Zinc: A Minimalist Systems Programming Language Prototype

2025-03-12

Zinc is an experimental prototype of a systems programming language aiming to be easier to use than C while retaining low-level capabilities. It features a unique syntax with range conditionals, built-in assertions, and avoids complexities like package managers and garbage collection. Currently in early development, Zinc lacks modules, pointers, and functions, but the author envisions integrating 2D graphics libraries for game development.

(sr.ht)

Development systems programming language low-level language

DOJ's Antitrust Proposal Could Kill Browser Competition

2025-03-12

The Department of Justice's proposed remedies in the U.S. v. Google case could inadvertently kill browser competition. The plan to ban all search payments to browser developers would severely harm smaller, independent browsers like Firefox, crucial for maintaining an open, innovative, and free web. Losing search revenue would make survival difficult, potentially leaving Google's Chromium as the only cross-platform browser engine and exacerbating the dominance of tech giants. Mozilla argues this won't solve search monopolies but harms consumers by reducing choice and weakening the internet ecosystem.

(blog.mozilla.org)

Tech google

AgentKit: Building Multi-Agent Networks with Deterministic Routing and Rich Tooling

2025-03-20

AgentKit: Building Multi-Agent Networks with Deterministic Routing and Rich Tooling

AgentKit is a framework for building multi-agent networks offering deterministic routing, support for multiple model providers, and rich tooling via MCP. Combined with the Inngest Dev Server and its orchestration engine, AgentKit makes your Agents fault-tolerant when deployed to the cloud. Core concepts include Agents (LLM calls combined with prompts, tools, and MCP), Networks (a simple way to get Agents to collaborate with a shared State, including handoff), State (combines conversation history with a fully typed state machine, used in routing), Routers (autonomy from code-based to LLM-based (ex: ReAct) orchestration), and Tracing (debug and optimize your workflow locally and in the cloud with built-in tracing). AgentKit supports multiple routing strategies, including code-based deterministic routing and agent-based autonomous routing, and offers a shared state mechanism for easier agent collaboration.

(github.com)

Development multi-agent network deterministic routing

Deep-Sea Bacterial Teamwork: Unlocking the Secrets of Efficient Organic Matter Degradation

2025-03-12

Deep-Sea Bacterial Teamwork: Unlocking the Secrets of Efficient Organic Matter Degradation

Researchers from the University of Oldenburg, Germany, have discovered that a family of bacteria called Desulfobacteraceae are globally distributed in marine environments, efficiently breaking down diverse organic matter via a modular metabolic system and playing a crucial role in the global carbon cycle. These bacteria thrive in anaerobic conditions, using sulfate for respiration, and while less efficient than aerobic bacteria, their vast numbers and collaborative efforts make them dominant in organic matter decomposition in marine sediments. Analysis of their proteome and genome revealed the molecular mechanisms behind their efficient degradation, highlighting their potentially increasing importance under future climate change scenarios.

(phys.org)

Tech carbon cycle

The Open Access Commons Under Siege: Navigating the AI Data Minefield

2025-03-16

The Open Access Commons Under Siege: Navigating the AI Data Minefield

The ideals of the open access movement clash with the realities of AI model training. Contributors are finding their work exploited for profit, even fueling harmful projects, leading to questions about the sustainability of knowledge sharing. This article explores solutions beyond restrictive licensing, advocating for fair collaborative models like Wikimedia Enterprise and Creative Commons' preference signals. Collective bargaining can ensure AI companies fairly compensate infrastructure costs, provide attribution, and reinvest in the commons, fulfilling the vision of universal knowledge access.

(www.citationneeded.news)

AI Open Access Commons

Hexagonal Grid Spiral Coordinates Guide Updated

2025-03-15

The author updated their popular hexagonal grid guide with a new section on spiral coordinate systems. Despite not yet using them in a real project, they decided to stop waiting and share their current understanding, including unoptimized sample code. More variants will be added in the future. Additionally, they discovered a simplified angle sorting method using axial coordinates, which is detailed on a separate page.

(www.redblobgames.com)

Development spiral coordinates

Amazon Forces a Privacy Trade-off for Alexa Users

2025-03-14

Amazon Forces a Privacy Trade-off for Alexa Users

Amazon will now delete Alexa voice recordings by default, but this disables the Voice ID feature for users who opt out of saving recordings. Voice ID allows for actions like sharing calendar events. This decision sparks debate about the balance between user privacy and convenience. Past controversies include reports of Amazon employees listening to Alexa recordings and viewing Ring camera footage. Amazon claims this move improves speech recognition and emphasizes encryption and security measures. However, analysts suggest Amazon prioritizes profitability through its Alexa+ subscription service over user privacy concerns.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

ArkFlow: A High-Performance Rust Stream Processing Engine

2025-03-14

ArkFlow: A High-Performance Rust Stream Processing Engine

ArkFlow is a high-performance stream processing engine built on Rust and Tokio. It supports multiple data sources like Kafka, MQTT, and HTTP, and offers various processors including SQL queries, JSON processing, and Protobuf encoding/decoding. Its modular design allows for easy extension, and configuration is managed via YAML files. Users can define inputs, pipelines, and outputs to handle diverse stream processing tasks, such as Kafka-to-Kafka data processing or generating and processing test data.

(github.com)

Development

Rich Nations Must Form 'Climate Finance Clubs' to Avoid Climate Catastrophe

2025-03-13

Rich Nations Must Form 'Climate Finance Clubs' to Avoid Climate Catastrophe

The COP29 climate summit failed to secure sufficient funding to meet the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. High-income countries pledged at least $300 billion annually to low- and middle-income countries by 2035, but their own contributions remain unspecified, and the diverse funding sources are inefficient. The article urges high-income countries to form 'climate finance clubs' to provide grants, not loans, prioritizing nations committed to emission reductions. This approach would facilitate decarbonization, prevent massive economic losses from climate change, and ultimately achieve global emission reduction targets.

(www.nature.com)

Tech climate finance

Xata Agent: Your AI-Powered PostgreSQL Expert

2025-03-13

Xata Agent: Your AI-Powered PostgreSQL Expert

Xata Agent is an open-source AI agent that monitors your PostgreSQL database, identifies root causes of issues, and suggests fixes and improvements. Think of it as a seasoned SRE specializing in Postgres, now part of your team. It watches logs and metrics, proactively suggests configuration tuning, troubleshoots performance problems (including high CPU, memory, and connection counts), offers indexing advice, and even helps with vacuuming. Supporting models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Deepseek, Xata Agent is easily deployed via Docker. The Xata team already uses it daily to manage numerous active Postgres databases. A cloud version is in development.

(github.com)

Development

North Korea's Crypto Laundering Scheme: A Billions-Dollar Headache

2025-03-18

North Korea's Crypto Laundering Scheme: A Billions-Dollar Headache

North Korea's hacking spree has netted billions in cryptocurrency, but converting this loot into fiat currency presents a massive challenge. Unable to use major exchanges due to KYC regulations, they rely on a global network of over-the-counter brokers, particularly in under-regulated regions like China. The sheer volume of funds, however, creates a significant bottleneck, leaving vast sums of crypto trapped in wallets – a modern-day equivalent of Escobar's cash storage problem. While employing mixers and other tools to obfuscate transactions, North Korea faces persistent pressure from nations like the US, who employ various methods to track and seize these illicit funds. This includes using provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act to subpoena Chinese banks, a strategy requiring significant political capital.

(www.coindesk.com)

Tech Cryptocurrency Laundering

Thessaloniki: A City's Struggle with Erasure and Remembrance

2025-03-13

Thessaloniki: A City's Struggle with Erasure and Remembrance

This article explores the complex history of Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city. Once a vibrant Ottoman city with a diverse population of Jews, Muslims, Bulgarians, and others, Thessaloniki's identity drastically shifted after its capture by Greece in WWI. The Greek state implemented policies to 'Hellenize' the city, leading to the displacement and assimilation of many non-Greek communities. The article centers around Musa Baba's mausoleum—the city's last remaining Muslim memorial—and the perspectives of Odysseas, an elderly Greek man, and Ayşe, a young Turkish-Greek woman, revealing the lasting impacts of these historical events. The narrative intertwines personal stories with broader themes of cultural erasure, national identity, and the ongoing struggle to reconcile a city's past with its present.

(thecritic.co.uk)

Misc urban transformation cultural conflict

CppMatch: A Rust-like Error Handling and Pattern Matching Library for C++

2025-03-16

CppMatch: A Rust-like Error Handling and Pattern Matching Library for C++

CppMatch is a lightweight header-only C++ library bringing Rust-style exception handling and pattern matching to C++. It uses a `Result` type to represent success or failure, simplifies error handling with the `expect` macro, and implements pattern matching with the `match` macro. It also offers `zip_match` to combine multiple `Result` objects. Compatible with Clang and GCC, CppMatch offers various error handling strategies, including handling different error types with lambdas. It's a compelling option for C++ developers seeking the elegance of Rust's error handling.

(github.com)

Development Pattern Matching

Chan Chan: Unraveling the Mysteries of a Lost Andean City

2025-03-16

Chan Chan: Unraveling the Mysteries of a Lost Andean City

This article explores the rise and fall of Chan Chan, the capital city of the Chimú civilization in northern Peru. Built in the arid Moche Valley, Chan Chan, through remarkable irrigation engineering, became one of the largest urban centers in the Americas. Its unique architecture reflects a rigid social hierarchy. Recent archaeological discoveries reveal a far more complex social structure than previously understood, encompassing diverse elites and immigrants from various regions, not just artisans. The article also details the extensive child sacrifice rituals practiced by the Chimú, which were highly organized state-level ceremonies, not random events, serving to solidify power and maintain social order. Excavations at Chan Chan and surrounding areas continuously reshape our understanding of the Chimú, revealing a dynamic and complex ancient society.

(archaeology.org)

Tech Chimú Civilization Chan Chan Ancient City

The Absurdity of US School Carpool Lines: Why Are They So Long?

2025-03-14

The Absurdity of US School Carpool Lines: Why Are They So Long?

The ubiquitous and frustrating school carpool lines in the US are a national embarrassment. This article explores the reasons behind their existence, citing declining school bus usage, increased distances between homes and schools due to suburban sprawl, and a car-centric urban design. The author analyzes data showing a dramatic increase in the percentage of students driven to school by private vehicles and a corresponding decrease in walking and biking. Solutions proposed include improving pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, encouraging the use of e-bikes, and fostering greater independence in children. Ultimately, the article argues that fixing this problem requires a community-wide effort to reshape both the physical environment and cultural expectations.

(collegetowns.substack.com)

Misc traffic

Firefox's Ticking Time Bomb: Critical Root Certificate Expiring Soon!

2025-03-11

Firefox's Ticking Time Bomb: Critical Root Certificate Expiring Soon!

Users of older Firefox versions face a critical deadline: March 14, 2025. A crucial root certificate expires then, disabling add-ons and breaking streaming services (like Netflix) if you haven't updated to Firefox 128 (or ESR 115.13+). This also compromises security features. Check your version now and update to avoid broken add-ons, streaming issues, and security vulnerabilities!

(betanews.com)

Tech Security Update

The Five-Week Solo Startup: A Mad Dash to Launch

2025-03-16

The Five-Week Solo Startup: A Mad Dash to Launch

This article outlines a five-week plan for launching a startup, not promising overnight success but offering a framework for rapid iteration. It emphasizes personal development for founders (communication, networking), securing a first paying customer, continuously improving the product and service, and securing funding. The plan covers marketing, team building, and aims to establish a sustainable business model.

(taylor.town)

Startup Business Model Rapid Launch

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