The Economist reports on a groundbreaking study showing that stimulating specific parts of the brain can enable paralyzed individuals to walk again. Researchers used implanted electrodes to help a man climb stairs unaided, offering new hope for those with spinal cord injuries and marking a significant advance in neuroscience.
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QEMU version 9.2.0 and later now supports Vulkan acceleration for VirtIO-GPU thanks to the Venus patches. This represents a significant advancement in Vulkan graphics rendering for QEMU virtual machines. The article details the setup process, including installing necessary packages (Linux kernel 6.13+, QEMU 9.2.0+, Vulkan drivers, etc.), building QEMU from source, and creating a VM image. While virt-manager currently lacks Vulkan configuration support, command-line parameters offer a workaround. Troubleshooting tips are provided, along with notes on current limitations in virt-manager and libvirt.
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A developer adding XAML support to a C++ application encountered a series of compiler errors simply by including the winrt/Windows.UI.Xaml.h header file. The errors stemmed from what appeared to be a normal function declaration: `template struct consume_Windows_UI_Xaml_IExceptionRoutedEventArgs { [[nodiscard]] auto ErrorMessage() const; };` The root cause was a pre-existing macro named ErrorMessage in the developer's project, conflicting with the function name. This macro created an ErrorMessageString object and returned a pointer to an error message string. The macro's lack of boundaries caused the compiler to misinterpret the function declaration as a macro invocation, resulting in errors like "not enough arguments." The solution involved disabling the macro using #pragma undef before including the header or removing the macro entirely and replacing it with an inline function.
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The Qubes OS team has developed a novel security mechanism for converting untrusted PDFs into trusted ones. Leveraging Qubes' Disposable VMs, the process isolates PDF parsing within a secure container. The PDF is converted to a simple RGB image representation, then back to a PDF. This approach effectively mitigates attacks from malicious PDFs; even if parsing fails, the resulting PDF will only be a corrupted image, posing no system threat. This innovation significantly enhances Qubes OS security, allowing users to handle PDFs from the web or email more safely.
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Ashton-Tate, a prominent player in the 1980s personal computer revolution, rose to fame with its database software, dBASE. Initially conceived by Wayne Ratliff as Vulcan, the program quickly became a standard for CP/M systems and later flourished with the IBM PC's ascendancy. Its user-friendly interface and powerful features propelled Ashton-Tate to an IPO and significant success. However, the company's later struggles with dBASE III's development, escalating competition, and internal issues ultimately led to its acquisition by Borland. This story details the dBASE legacy, Ashton-Tate's rise and fall, offering valuable insights into the software industry's dynamics.
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kubespec.dev has released a reference guide and documentation for Kubernetes Spec v1.32, providing comprehensive documentation for all built-in resources, properties, types, and examples. The guide covers workloads, cluster, networking, configuration, storage, administration, and access control, enabling users to quickly find and understand Kubernetes functionalities. The project is open-source and accepts contributions.
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Google, in partnership with Samsung and Qualcomm, announced Android XR, a platform designed to extend reality for exploration, connection, and creation. Leveraging AI advancements, Android XR enables headsets and glasses to understand user intent and context, facilitating more natural interactions. The first device, codenamed Project Moohan and built by Samsung, will launch next year and features integration with Gemini AI, pre-installed apps like YouTube and Google TV, and seamless transitions between virtual and real environments. Future plans include support for glasses offering everyday assistance.
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Great Question, a YC-backed startup simplifying customer research, is seeking an experienced People Operations Manager. This role will focus on streamlining recruitment, onboarding, compensation standardization, and enhancing company culture to boost employee engagement and retention. The ideal candidate will have 3+ years of experience in people operations, expertise in compensation and performance management, excellent communication skills, and a proven ability to thrive in a remote work environment. This is a crucial opportunity to contribute to a rapidly growing startup.
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BlenderGPT is an advanced AI program that generates 3D models from text or image prompts in approximately 20 seconds. It produces fully textured meshes, importable directly into Blender via a shortcut, or downloadable for use in any compatible software. Try it free today and experience the speed and ease of this revolutionary 3D modeling tool.
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Peter Solnica, a core developer of the Hanami framework, recently announced his retirement from the core team. After two years of reflection, he decided to dedicate more time to his family and pursue a better work-life balance. Solnica expressed gratitude to numerous individuals and organizations that significantly impacted his career, including Lunar Logic, the DataMapper team, and Hanami team members. He stated that while no longer a core team member, he will continue to support Hanami's development and maintain contact with the community. Solnica's retirement doesn't reflect a loss of faith in Hanami, but rather a personal adjustment in time management and life priorities, shifting his focus to family and Elixir development.
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In round 14 of the 2024 World Chess Championship, 18-year-old Indian Grandmaster Gukesh D defeated defending champion Ding Liren to become the youngest world champion ever! Ding employed a Reversed Grünfeld Defense, but Gukesh, with precise opening play and deep preparation, steered the game into a complex endgame. After a prolonged struggle, Ding blundered, allowing Gukesh to capitalize and secure a historic victory, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
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A middle school student, participating in a research program with a local university, discovered a novel compound, orfamide N, in a goose poop sample collected from a park. While not responsible for the initial observed antibiotic activity of the bacteria, orfamide N inhibited the growth of human melanoma and ovarian cancer cells in lab tests. This research demonstrates the success of combining educational outreach with natural product discovery, highlighting the importance of university-community partnerships. The project provided invaluable hands-on experience for the student, showcasing the potential of young scientists.
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Quantus is an advanced quantitative trading platform designed to provide professional traders and institutional investors with efficient and reliable trading solutions. It integrates powerful data analytics tools, flexible backtesting capabilities, and a low-latency execution system, enabling users to better capitalize on market opportunities and enhance investment returns. With its robust technology and user-friendly interface, Quantus is quickly becoming a rising star in the fintech landscape.
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Microsoft's Recall feature, designed to record computer activity, has a flawed 'sensitive information filter'. Tests revealed it failed to prevent screenshots containing credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other sensitive data from being saved. While Microsoft promises improvements, the current security vulnerability raises concerns. The AI-powered filter struggles to reliably identify sensitive information, posing a significant security risk.
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Gentrace, an LLM evaluation platform, announced an $8 million Series A funding round. Addressing challenges like siloed evaluation processes and poor team collaboration, Gentrace offers a collaborative testing environment. Teams can test directly through a user-friendly interface, eliminating the need for isolated evaluation code. Supporting model, code, and human evaluations, Gentrace provides experiment management, reporting, and debugging tools for efficient LLM development. Success stories from Webflow, Multiverse, and Quizlet highlight significant improvements in testing efficiency (e.g., a 40x increase).
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lfi is a lightweight functional programming library focused on synchronous, asynchronous, and concurrent iteration. It significantly outperforms libraries like p-map and p-filter in concurrent iteration by processing each item independently, resulting in substantial performance gains. lfi also features lazy evaluation, performing operations only when needed to save memory, and boasts a small size, making it easily tree-shakeable. Its clean API design, combined with the pipe function, leads to more readable and maintainable code.
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Oasis Security's research team discovered a critical vulnerability in Microsoft Azure's Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) implementation. Attackers could bypass MFA to gain unauthorized access to user accounts, including Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, and Azure Cloud. The vulnerability exploited the lack of rate limiting, allowing rapid session creation and code enumeration to exhaust the possibilities of a 6-digit code without alerts. Microsoft has since implemented a stricter rate limit to address the issue. This highlights the importance of enabling MFA and monitoring failed attempts.
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A team is attempting to prove Fermat's Last Theorem using Lean, encountering unexpected challenges along the way. Instead of relying on the original proof, they're using a modern, more generalized approach. While formalizing crystalline cohomology, they discovered an error in a key lemma, leading to a re-examination of the theory's foundations. They ultimately found a workaround using an alternative proof. This experience highlights potential errors in modern mathematical literature and underscores the need for formalized proofs.
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In Colorado, Meat Cleaver, a meat processor, partners with hunters to donate excess venison, elk, and other wild game to local food banks, combating food insecurity. Funded by Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry (FHFH), the program reduces waste and provides healthy protein to vulnerable families. While currently limited to Meat Cleaver, the program has successfully donated thousands of pounds of meat, receiving community praise. Participating hunters, despite the competitive hunting license system, find fulfillment in assisting those in need.
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In an escalating fight against online sports piracy, French media giant Canal+ secured court orders forcing DNS providers Quad9 and Vercara to block access to pirate streaming sites in France. Quad9, deeming this an absurd application of copyright law, plans to appeal but has globally blocked the domains for now. This action sparks a global debate about copyright and net neutrality, with Quad9 seeking public support for its appeal to maintain an open internet.
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This article explores the evolution of AI scaling laws, arguing that they extend beyond pre-training. OpenAI's o1 model demonstrates the utility and potential of reasoning models, opening a new, unexplored dimension for scaling. The article delves into techniques like synthetic data, Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), and reinforcement learning to enhance model performance. It clarifies that Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Opus and OpenAI's Orion weren't failures, but rather shifts in scaling strategies. The authors emphasize that scaling encompasses more than just increasing data and parameters; it includes inference-time compute, more challenging evaluations, and innovations in training and inference architecture.
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The author daily drives Jujutsu, a Git-based version control system, and highly recommends it. Unlike other simplified Git alternatives, Jujutsu focuses on enhancing the workflow of power users, particularly in simplifying history editing. The author recounts a personal experience showcasing Jujutsu's ease in modifying past commits, eliminating complex Git commands. While Jujutsu has some shortcomings, like lacking support for git send-email and the Google CLA requirement, the author still uses it daily for personal projects.
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Mullvad VPN has released the report for its 2024 third-party security audit of its VPN app. The audit uncovered six vulnerabilities, ranging in severity from low to high, all of which have been addressed. Three high-severity vulnerabilities involved signal handlers and a virtual IP address leak and have been fixed in the latest version. The audit also noted some non-security issues that Mullvad is actively working to resolve. Overall, the Mullvad VPN app is deemed highly secure, but users are still advised to upgrade to the latest version.
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The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) released a mining map visualizing global Bitcoin mining energy consumption as part of the Cambridge Blockchain Network Sustainability Index. The map shows the share of Bitcoin mining hashrate by country and region, revealing a seasonal migration pattern of Chinese miners between ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ seasons to leverage cheaper hydropower. However, this migration pattern likely ended after the Chinese government crackdown on the mining industry in June 2021. The research is based on geolocation mining facility data collected in partnership with several Bitcoin mining pools and acknowledges contributions from BTC.com, Poolin, ViaBTC, and Foundry.
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A recent study in Chemosphere claimed that black plastic kitchenware contains cancer-causing flame retardants, causing widespread panic. However, a McGill University scientist discovered a simple mathematical error in the study, overestimating exposure levels by a factor of ten. Despite the error, researchers maintain concerns about potential risks associated with black plastic kitchenware remain.
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Scientists have unexpectedly discovered a strange quasiparticle, a semi-Dirac fermion, in a ZrSiS material. This particle exhibits a peculiar behavior: it's massless when moving along a specific direction but gains mass when traveling in other directions. This discovery, stemming from research into the properties of quasiparticles within ZrSiS, relates to Einstein's mass-energy equivalence, E=mc². When moving at light speed in a specific direction, the quasiparticle is massless; changing direction and slowing down causes it to gain mass. The finding could potentially lead to novel applications for ZrSiS, similar to those of graphene.
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This article delves into programming language memory models, specifically the behavior of shared memory in multithreaded programs. Using a simple C-like program as an example, it illustrates how compiler optimizations can lead to unexpected results, such as race conditions between threads. To address this, modern languages introduce atomic variables and atomic operations to ensure thread synchronization and avoid data races. The article compares the memory models of Java, C++, Rust, and other languages, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and evolution, and points out the remaining challenges in formally defining memory models.
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The website is Hacker News, a popular news aggregator that focuses on technology and computing. It allows users to submit and vote on stories, with the most popular stories appearing on the front page. The site also has a discussion forum where users can comment on submitted stories.
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way we design with colors. Using AI algorithms, AIColors.co helps designers create color palettes that evoke desired emotions, enhance user experience, and align with brand identities. The website offers a user-friendly interface where designers can input keywords or images to generate unique color combinations. With a database of millions of colors and various customization options, AIColors.co empowers designers to explore and refine their color choices. Additionally, the website provides resources and tutorials on color theory and AI-driven design, making it a valuable tool for both novice and experienced designers.
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