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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.

(blog.orange.tw)

Tech Character Encoding

Facebook's Large Concept Models: Sentence-Level Language Modeling

2025-01-01

Facebook's Large Concept Models: Sentence-Level Language Modeling

Facebook Research unveils Large Concept Models (LCMs), a novel approach to language modeling operating in a sentence representation space. Utilizing the SONAR embedding space, LCMs support up to 200 text languages and 57 speech languages. Treating sentences as 'concepts', LCMs employ a sequence-to-sequence model for autoregressive sentence prediction. The project provides recipes for training and fine-tuning 1.6B parameter models, exploring MSE regression and diffusion-based generation.

(github.com)

AI Sentence Representation Multilingual

Trellis: AI-Powered Healthcare, Accelerating Patient Treatment

2025-05-24

Trellis: AI-Powered Healthcare, Accelerating Patient Treatment

Trellis, a startup spun out of Stanford's AI lab, uses AI to automate healthcare document processing, prior authorizations, and appeals, speeding up patient treatment and reducing paperwork. They've helped healthcare providers reduce treatment time by over 90% and improve prior authorization approval and reimbursement rates. Trellis's AI agent converts unstructured documents into structured data directly within EHR systems, addressing the high administrative costs plaguing the US healthcare system.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Tech

German ISP Changes DNS After Website Exposes Copyright Blocking Organization

2025-08-24

A major German ISP altered its DNS settings after the exposure of the CUII, a private organization deciding website blocks without transparency or judicial oversight. The author built cuiiliste.de to track blocked domains, as the CUII refuses to publish its list. The CUII previously mistakenly blocked defunct websites. ISPs initially used notice.cuii.info to indicate blocked sites, but later stopped, making blocked sites appear nonexistent. However, Telefonica (parent of o2, Germany's fourth-largest ISP) continued this method. After Telefonica checked its own test domain, blau-sicherheit.info, on the author's site, they changed their DNS to stop using notice.cuii.info, making tracking CUII blocks harder. This raises suspicions of the CUII trying to bury its mistakes.

(lina.sh)

Tech

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-05-21

arXivLabs is a platform enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Participants, both individuals and organizations, 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. Have an idea to enhance the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Development

Apple Shuffles Secret Robotics Team Away From AI Chief

2025-04-25

Apple Shuffles Secret Robotics Team Away From AI Chief

Apple is restructuring its secretive robotics unit, moving it from the AI division headed by John Giannandrea to the hardware engineering group under Senior Vice President John Ternus. This shift, confirmed by sources familiar with the matter, reflects Apple's ongoing adjustments in its AI strategy and suggests a potential recalibration of its approach to robotics.

(www.bloomberg.com)

Hardware

Black Hole Awakens 300 Million Light-Years Away: Defying Existing Theories

2025-04-12

Black Hole Awakens 300 Million Light-Years Away: Defying Existing Theories

For the first time, scientists have witnessed in real-time the awakening of a supermassive black hole 300 million light-years from Earth. Located in the center of the galaxy SDSS1335+0728 in the Virgo constellation, this black hole, nicknamed "Ansky," began emitting intermittent bright flashes of energy in late 2019. Subsequent observations revealed regular X-ray bursts, a phenomenon known as quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs). These QPEs are significantly more energetic and longer-lasting than previously observed, challenging existing theories of black hole lifecycles. Researchers suggest the eruptions might stem from disturbances in the accretion disk caused by nearby interstellar gas, rather than the death of a star. This discovery provides invaluable data for understanding black hole evolution.

(www.popsci.com)

Tech

Nvidia's Blackwell: A Colossus of Compute, but at What Cost?

2025-06-29

Nvidia's Blackwell: A Colossus of Compute, but at What Cost?

Nvidia's latest Blackwell architecture, exemplified by the RTX PRO 6000, boasts a gargantuan GB202 die (750mm², 92.2 billion transistors) and a staggering 188 SM units, delivering unmatched compute performance. A deep dive into its microarchitecture reveals details on instruction caching, execution units, and memory subsystems, comparing it to AMD's RDNA4. While Blackwell exhibits some imperfections, like L2 cache performance and per-unit efficiency, its sheer scale dwarfs the competition, making it the largest consumer GPU available. This ambition, however, comes at a cost, including power consumption (600W) and L2 latency. The article concludes with a perspective on the future GPU landscape.

(chipsandcheese.com)

Hardware

Digital Fossils in AI: How Nonsense Terms Become Embedded in Our Knowledge

2025-05-01

Digital Fossils in AI: How Nonsense Terms Become Embedded in Our Knowledge

Scientists discovered the nonsensical term "vegetative electron microscopy" spreading through AI models. Originating from digitization errors in 1950s papers and amplified by translation mistakes, it became ingrained in large language models. This highlights the challenges of massive training datasets, lack of transparency, and self-perpetuating errors in AI. The incident poses serious issues for academic research and publishing, prompting reflection on maintaining reliable knowledge systems.

(www.sciencealert.com)

AI knowledge reliability

Cyberpunk Death Games: A Centenarian's Journey

2025-06-03

In a technologically advanced cyberspace, 690-year-old Caroline, Queen of the Death Jockeys, is known for her unique experiences. A death game pits her against Timothy, a young challenger with a poorly designed 'authentic death' experience, highlighting his misunderstanding of true death. She then engages in a violent and erotic death game with Fred, a zombie, before attending an annual reunion of criminals. The narrative interweaves the creation of Prime Intellect (a super AI) and its intervention in human society, culminating in universe-altering events and exploring humanity's role and fate in technological advancement.

(localroger.com)

Game death games

Dumbphones in 2025: Reclaiming Focus and Freedom

2025-06-04

Tired of endless notifications and distractions from your smartphone? This author shares their experience using a dumbphone in 2025. They argue that ditching the smartphone not only improves focus and reduces cognitive overload, but also enhances relationships, boasts longer battery life, increases privacy, and offers a minimalist design. While it means less frequent access to social media and instant messaging, this paradoxically boosts productivity and allows for greater presence in daily life. It's not about rejecting technology entirely, but rather advocating for a more balanced and healthy approach to its use.

(samueleamato.xyz)

Misc dumbphone

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.

(www.heise.de)

Tech German Stack

MassTransit v9 Goes Commercial: Ensuring the Future of a Beloved .NET Messaging Framework

2025-04-03

After over a decade as a leading open-source .NET messaging framework, MassTransit is transitioning its v9 release to a commercial licensing model. This ensures long-term sustainability, continued innovation, and enterprise-grade support. MassTransit v8 will remain open-source with community support. The commercial v9 offers enhanced scalability, security, performance, and enterprise support, with pricing tiered for small/medium businesses (~$400/month) and large organizations (~$1200/month). v8 will receive continued maintenance through the end of 2026.

(masstransit.io)

Development Commercial License

1700-Year-Old Intact Roman Egg Baffles Scientists

2025-04-18

1700-Year-Old Intact Roman Egg Baffles Scientists

Archaeologists in the UK have unearthed a remarkably preserved 1700-year-old egg at the Berryfields site, about 50 miles northwest of London. Found in an ancient well that served as both a water source and ritual site during Roman times, the egg's liquid interior remains intact. The discovery, alongside other artifacts like coins and bones, offers invaluable insights into Roman culture, daily life, and animal introductions. The egg's preservation, its seemingly unbroken state, and its potential connection to Roman rituals make it a truly unique find. Scientists plan to extract the liquid and perform DNA testing to determine the species and origin of the egg.

(www.atlasobscura.com)

Tech Egg

Legacy Airlines Crack Down on Carry-On Bags

2024-12-31

Legacy Airlines Crack Down on Carry-On Bags

Flying with legacy carriers like British Airways or Air France used to mean included checked baggage and carry-on. However, to compete with low-cost airlines, many legacy carriers are now eliminating free carry-on allowances and even complimentary meals. Air Canada, for example, will no longer allow standard carry-on bags on North American and Caribbean routes from January 3rd, only permitting small personal items. Other airlines like United and Finnair have adopted similar strategies. This 'basic economy' fare is blurring the lines between legacy and budget airlines, adding extra costs for passengers.

(www.telegraph.co.uk)

Tech low-cost airlines carry-on baggage

2PB of Traffic: The Cost of a Simple Auto-Updater Bug

2025-04-29

2PB of Traffic: The Cost of a Simple Auto-Updater Bug

A simple bug in the auto-updater of the screen recording app Screen Studio caused it to repeatedly download a 250MB update file every 5 minutes for a month, resulting in 9 million downloads and over 2 petabytes of Google Cloud traffic. Thousands of users had the app running in the background, leading to massive bills and internet service disruptions for some users. This incident highlights the importance of setting cloud cost alerts, writing code carefully, and regularly checking cloud resources.

(pietrasiak.com)

Development auto-updater cloud computing costs

Superellipses and Superhyperbolas: Beyond Classical Geometry

2025-03-28

This article introduces superellipses and superhyperbolas, generalizations of ellipses and hyperbolas, respectively. The shapes are controlled by a parameter 'p'. When p=2, they reduce to standard ellipses and hyperbolas. Increasing p makes superellipses more rectangular, but with continuous curvature; superhyperbolas become blunted at the vertices. The article explores why superellipses are far more common than superhyperbolas, speculating on naming conventions and the lack of effective advocacy for the latter.

(www.johndcook.com)

Misc Superellipse

Revolutionizing Race Timing: StoryTiming Demo

2025-01-20

StoryTiming reimagines race timing, prioritizing timing information and letting the race action follow. This demo, using data from the 2024 IMSA Rolex 24, showcases an innovative interactive experience. Users navigate the race effortlessly via keyboard shortcuts or mouse controls, viewing data through various perspectives, including a driver tracker overlay. Aimed at enhancing digital broadcasts, this project is the work of an independent software developer and is still under development.

(storytiming.racing)

Misc race timing interactive video

Zed Integrates Claude Code: AI-Powered Coding in Your Editor

2025-09-04

Zed Integrates Claude Code: AI-Powered Coding in Your Editor

Zed editor has released a public beta integration with Claude Code, running natively through the new Agent Client Protocol (ACP). This represents a significant step forward in AI-powered code assistance. Developers can now run Claude Code directly within Zed's high-performance editor, view real-time multi-file edits, and review code changes granularly. ACP, an open standard, enables any agent to connect to Zed and other editors, making this Claude Code integration possible. The future will see more AI agents integrated into Zed via ACP, offering developers greater choice.

(zed.dev)

Development

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.

(apnews.com)

Misc Commencement Speech

WordPress Founder Deactivates Accounts of Contributors Planning a Fork

2025-01-11

WordPress Founder Deactivates Accounts of Contributors Planning a Fork

WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg deactivated the accounts of several WordPress.org community members involved in efforts to create a fork of the open-source project. The conflict stemmed from a dispute with WP Engine, a commercial hosting company criticized for insufficient community contribution. Following this, key community figures like Joost de Valk (Yoast) and Karim Marucchi (Crowd Favorite) expressed concerns about WordPress governance, hinting at a potential fork. Mullenweg, ostensibly to support their independent efforts, deactivated their accounts and others, sparking controversy.

(techcrunch.com)

Development Community Governance

French Court Orders VPN Providers to Block Pirate Sports Streaming Sites

2025-06-06

A French court ruled that several VPN providers, including NordVPN, CyberGhost, and ExpressVPN, must take measures to prevent users from accessing specific pirate sports streaming websites. Copyright holders like Canal+ sued, alleging these VPNs allowed users to bypass geo-restrictions and watch illegal streams. The court dismissed the VPN providers' objections, finding that Article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code applies to VPN providers and ordered the blocking of listed website domains within three business days. This marks a new milestone in France's fight against online piracy but also raises concerns about internet censorship and user privacy.

(torrentfreak.com)

Tech

MINI Goes Vegan: A Surprisingly Luxurious Leather Alternative

2025-02-19

MINI Goes Vegan: A Surprisingly Luxurious Leather Alternative

MINI's new all-electric J01 Cooper ditches leather entirely, opting for a sustainable, recycled vegan alternative called Vescin. A hands-on review reveals Vescin's surprisingly plush feel, surpassing the quality of MINI's mid-range leather and even rivaling its premium offering. Easier to clean and more environmentally friendly, Vescin offers a compelling alternative, proving that luxury and sustainability aren't mutually exclusive. While the signature leather smell is absent, the superior comfort, durability, and eco-conscious production make it a compelling upgrade.

(www.motoringfile.com)

Tech vegan leather sustainable materials electric vehicle interior

Geometric Frustration: The Secret to the Rose's Shape

2025-05-09

Geometric Frustration: The Secret to the Rose's Shape

Physicists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered the mechanical secret behind the rose's iconic shape. Their research, published in Science, reveals that the unique morphology of rose petals is driven by 'Mainardi-Codazzi-Peterson incompatibility,' a geometric frustration. This incompatibility prevents petals from achieving their ideal smooth curve, resulting in the multiple curls and sharp edges we see. The team used a combination of theoretical analysis, computer modeling, and physical experiments to unravel this mechanism, potentially paving the way for new shape-morphing materials.

(phys.org)

Tech rose

Breaking the Linear Time Barrier: The Rise of Sublinear Time Algorithms

2025-02-24

Linear time algorithms have long been considered the gold standard for problem-solving. However, with the prevalence of massive datasets, sublinear time algorithms are gaining increasing attention. Sublinear time algorithms read only a tiny fraction of the input, a seemingly impossible feat. While deterministic sublinear time algorithms exist for some problems, most require randomization and provide approximate solutions. Recent breakthroughs have been made on various problems, including classical optimization problems and property testing. Techniques such as the Szemeredi Regularity Lemma and low-rank matrix approximations are proving useful in designing sublinear algorithms, yet much remains to be understood about their scope and limitations.

(people.csail.mit.edu)

Development sublinear time algorithms

Automating the Search for Artificial Life with Foundation Models

2024-12-24

Automating the Search for Artificial Life with Foundation Models

Sakana AI, in collaboration with MIT and others, has developed ASAL, an algorithm using vision-language foundation models to automate the discovery of artificial life. ASAL tackles three search problems: finding simulations with specific target behaviors, discovering simulations generating perpetual novelty, and illuminating all possible simulations. Successfully applied to Lenia, Boids, Particle Life, and others, ASAL unearthed novel artificial lifeforms and cellular automata rules surpassing Conway's Game of Life in open-endedness. This breakthrough promises to revitalize ALife research by overcoming the limitations of manual simulation design and offers insights for future AI development, incorporating principles of open-endedness and self-organization.

(sakana.ai)

AI Artificial Life Foundation Models Automated Search

Grid Failure in Extreme Heat: Uncontrolled Grid Reactance Due to Increasingly Complex Corona Discharge

2025-04-29

A recent grid failure during extreme heat is attributed to uncontrolled grid reactance caused by corona discharge. High temperatures and low humidity exacerbated corona discharge on high-voltage transmission lines, introducing unexpected reactance that overwhelmed traditional grid stability control systems. The modern grid's rapid response capabilities, enabled by inverter-based energy storage, generation, and transmission, proved counterproductive in this case, amplifying grid imbalances and leading to cascading failures and a complete blackout. As climate change intensifies, such events may become more frequent, demanding improved models and mitigation strategies to ensure grid stability.

(physics.stackexchange.com)

Tech grid failure corona discharge

Knowledge Distillation: How Small AI Models Can Challenge the Giants

2025-07-24

Knowledge Distillation: How Small AI Models Can Challenge the Giants

DeepSeek's R1 chatbot, released earlier this year, caused a stir by rivaling the performance of leading AI models from major companies, but at a fraction of the cost and computing power. This led to accusations that DeepSeek used knowledge distillation, a technique potentially involving unauthorized access to OpenAI's o1 model. However, knowledge distillation is a well-established AI technique, dating back to a 2015 Google paper. It involves transferring knowledge from a large 'teacher' model to a smaller 'student' model, significantly reducing costs and size with minimal performance loss. This method has become ubiquitous, powering improvements to models like BERT, and continues to show immense potential across various AI applications. The controversy highlights the power and established nature of this technique, not its novelty.

(www.quantamagazine.org)

AI Knowledge Distillation AI Model Compression

Axolotl Regeneration: Cracking the Code for Limb Regeneration

2025-06-20

Axolotl Regeneration: Cracking the Code for Limb Regeneration

Scientists have identified retinoic acid as a key molecule in the limb regeneration of axolotls, amphibians known for their remarkable regenerative abilities. This molecule forms a gradient across the body, guiding regenerating cells to rebuild the correct tissues in the right places. Experiments showed that increasing retinoic acid levels caused axolotls to regenerate entire limbs, rather than just the missing part. This research offers a promising avenue for human limb regeneration, suggesting that we might one day be able to regenerate injured tissues and organs like axolotls.

(www.sciencealert.com)

Tech Regenerative Medicine Retinoic Acid

Asteroid 2024 YR4: Lunar Impact Possible, Meteor Shower Likely

2025-07-26

Asteroid 2024 YR4: Lunar Impact Possible, Meteor Shower Likely

Asteroid 2024 YR4, initially feared to be on a collision course with Earth, is now projected to potentially impact the Moon in late 2032. The impact could create a visible flash and a 1-kilometer-wide crater, showering Earth with lunar material in a spectacular meteor shower. While posing no direct threat to Earth itself, the event could endanger astronauts and infrastructure on the Moon, as well as orbiting satellites. This has prompted scientists to reassess planetary defense strategies, considering the Moon's inclusion in protective measures.

(www.cnn.com)

Tech Planetary Defense

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