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Spotify Paid Out $10 Billion to the Music Industry in 2024: A Streaming Success Story?

2025-02-04

Spotify Paid Out $10 Billion to the Music Industry in 2024: A Streaming Success Story?

Spotify announced it paid a record $10 billion to the music industry in 2024, a billion more than the previous year. This brings its total payouts to roughly $60 billion since its founding in 2006. While artist compensation from streaming remains a contentious issue, Spotify highlights its contribution to the industry's revival after a period of decline due to illegal downloading. The company attributes its success to high user retention, a freemium model, and global expansion, claiming to be both the most popular and highest-paying subscription streaming service. Further details on royalty distributions will be released in their annual Loud & Clear report.

(variety.com)

Tech Streaming Music Music Industry

Vets Who Code: A Nonprofit That Changed a Veteran's Life

2025-04-02

Vets Who Code: A Nonprofit That Changed a Veteran's Life

Osvaldo Vargas, a US Army veteran and now a Senior Software Engineering Manager at Accenture Federal Services, leveraged over 14 different resources during his transition to civilian life. While he participated in numerous programs, only three significantly aided his transition. He credits Vets Who Code as the single organization that truly changed his life for the better, providing more value than twelve other nonprofits combined.

(vetswhocode.io)

Startup Veteran Transition Nonprofit Impact Coding Bootcamp

Reaktiv: A Reactive Programming Library for Python

2025-01-31

Reaktiv: A Reactive Programming Library for Python

Reaktiv is a reactive programming library for Python, inspired by Angular's reactivity model and featuring first-class async/await support. It simplifies building and managing data-dependent signals, automatically updating dependencies when data changes. With a straightforward API, Reaktiv supports both synchronous and asynchronous contexts, boasts automatic dependency tracking, zero external dependencies, and efficient memory management, significantly reducing the complexity of asynchronous programming.

(github.com)

Development reactive programming

Massive Data Breach at DISA Exposes 3.3M+ Individuals

2025-02-25

Massive Data Breach at DISA Exposes 3.3M+ Individuals

DISA Global Solutions, a U.S.-based employee screening company, suffered a data breach affecting over 3.3 million individuals. The breach, discovered on April 22nd, 2024, but originating from a February 9th, 2024, intrusion, exposed sensitive data including Social Security numbers, financial information, and government IDs. While DISA claims it can't definitively identify all stolen data, the incident highlights significant security vulnerabilities and raises concerns about the company's response time. The breach impacts over 55,000 businesses and a third of Fortune 500 companies.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech personal information

Sony Pushes for C++20 as LLVM Clang's Default

2025-01-11

Sony engineers are proposing a change to the default C++ mode in the LLVM Clang compiler, switching from C++17 to C++20. This aligns with Sony's upcoming plans to make C++20 the default for their PlayStation 5 compiler. While some C++20 test cases currently fail and Clang's C++20 support isn't yet complete, Sony intends to contribute a build/test bot to assist upstream development. This initiative aims to accelerate Clang's adoption of C++20, leading to a more efficient compilation environment for game development.

(www.phoronix.com)

Development

ChatGPT's Name Filters Spark Controversy

2024-12-12

ChatGPT's Name Filters Spark Controversy

The AI chatbot ChatGPT has sparked controversy due to its built-in name filters. These filters prevent users from mentioning certain names, such as Brian Hood, Jonathan Turley, and Jonathan Zittrain, causing chat interruptions. The reason for filtering these names stems from previous instances where ChatGPT incorrectly generated information about these individuals, leading to legal disputes. While OpenAI claims the filtering of "David Mayer" was a glitch, the incident highlights the challenges LLMs face in handling sensitive information and the potential problems hard-coded filters can create.

(arstechnica.com)

AI name filters

Mr. Beetle's Infidelity and Retribution: A Bug's Life Gone Wrong

2025-04-03

Mr. Beetle's Infidelity and Retribution: A Bug's Life Gone Wrong

Bored with his marriage, Mr. Beetle visits a nightclub and elopes with a beautiful dragonfly dancer. A vengeful grasshopper, however, films their affair and reveals it to Mrs. Beetle, leading to domestic violence and imprisonment. This darkly comedic tale satirizes marital infidelity and the cyclical nature of revenge, ending with a prediction of a less exciting future for the Beetle couple.

(publicdomainreview.org)

Game dark comedy revenge

Clinical Trials Bottleneck: Culture, Regulation, and Innovation Stalled

2024-12-20

Clinical Trials Bottleneck: Culture, Regulation, and Innovation Stalled

This blog post explores the high costs and inefficiencies of clinical trials. The authors argue the root problem lies in industry culture—an overemphasis on safety that neglects the risks of inaction. This leads to regulatory overreach, such as restrictions on patient compensation and slow adoption of innovative methods (like risk-based monitoring). The post calls for a cultural shift, increased transparency, and policy adjustments to incentivize innovation, ultimately speeding up drug development.

(www.writingruxandrabio.com)

Tech clinical trials regulation

Server CPU Utilization: Don't Be Fooled by the Numbers!

2025-09-03

Server CPU Utilization: Don't Be Fooled by the Numbers!

Do you rely on server CPU utilization to assess server performance? This author ran a series of stress tests and discovered that CPU utilization isn't linearly correlated with actual work efficiency. Especially above 50% utilization, hyperthreading and Turbo Boost significantly skew the relationship, leading to much higher actual throughput than the reported utilization suggests. Instead of relying on CPU utilization, the author recommends benchmarking to measure actual work completed for a more accurate assessment of server performance.

(www.brendanlong.com)

Development server performance CPU utilization hyperthreading

France's Digital Sovereignty Crisis: A Dependence on US Tech Giants

2025-07-21

France's Digital Sovereignty Crisis: A Dependence on US Tech Giants

France's growing reliance on US tech giants is raising serious concerns about its digital sovereignty. A Senate report accuses the French government of a "political fault" for outsourcing critical data infrastructure to US companies like Microsoft, subject to US extraterritorial laws. This exposes public data from health, education, and other crucial sectors to foreign surveillance under US legislation like FISA and CLOUD. The report criticizes the government for systematically discrediting European alternatives, neglecting the contributions of French companies to the national social security system. Denmark's shift to open-source alternatives highlights a growing European movement towards technological independence. French MPs are urging the EU to address this growing digital dependency and prevent critical data from falling into foreign hands.

(brusselssignal.eu)

Tech tech dependence

olduse.net: A Continuously Updated Delayed Usenet Archive

2025-03-02

olduse.net is a unique Usenet archive project that adds a new port each year, with a one-year delay. The post details the project's history from 2011 to 2021 and how Adam Sjøgren took over and continues to maintain it. Now, users can access Usenet article archives with varying delays through multiple ports, experiencing the charm of Usenet's past. This isn't just a technical project; it's a continuation of an interactive art piece.

(olduse.net)

Misc Archive Interactive Art

Russia's Shadow War in Europe: 59 Incidents Exposed

2025-03-22

Russia's Shadow War in Europe: 59 Incidents Exposed

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia and its proxies have been accused of orchestrating dozens of attacks and incidents across Europe, ranging from cyberattacks and propaganda to assassinations, arson, sabotage, and espionage. The goal: to sow discord, undermine support for Ukraine, and erode public trust in European governments. While the Kremlin denies involvement, mounting evidence points to Russia's culpability. This "bold" campaign highlights a new strategy of hybrid warfare, demanding increased cooperation and intelligence sharing among European nations to counter the threat.

(apnews.com)

Tech Ukraine War Hybrid Warfare

Why Your AI Product Team Needs an AI Quality Lead

2025-01-25

Why Your AI Product Team Needs an AI Quality Lead

Help Scout's success highlights the critical need for an "AI Quality Lead" within AI product teams. This role bridges the gap between domain expertise and AI development, typically filled by domain experts who then learn generative AI skills like prompt engineering and evaluation. Responsibilities include reviewing production data, defining evaluation criteria, managing test datasets, improving prompts, and training team members. This role accelerates time to market, increases trust in performance metrics, and shortens feedback loops. Even without generative AI expertise, domain experts with strong customer understanding, systematic problem-solving skills, and communication abilities can excel in this position.

(freeplay.ai)

AI AI Quality AI Teams Domain Expertise

FFglitch Art: A Stunning Collection of Glitch Art

2025-09-13

This is a collection of stunning glitch art created using the FFglitch software. Artists leverage FFglitch's powerful capabilities to create visually striking works, ranging from dynamic cityscapes to abstract artistic experiments. The article lists links to works by multiple artists, including Thomas Collet, Kaspar Ravel, and Sebastien Brias, showcasing the limitless possibilities of FFglitch in the field of glitch art. You can find these breathtaking works on Vimeo, Instagram, Reddit, and Facebook.

(ffglitch.org)

Design Glitch Art Digital Art

Pi in Pascal's Triangle: A Stunning Discovery

2025-06-09

Mathematician Daniel Hardisky has unearthed a novel formula for pi within Pascal's Triangle, sparking considerable interest in the mathematical community. His discovery builds upon a modification of the Nilakantha Somayaji series, linking the denominators to the areas of Pythagorean triangles and cleverly representing them using binomial coefficients. The article also presents other formulas connecting pi to Pascal's Triangle and binomial coefficients, showcasing pi's surprising hidden connections within mathematics.

(www.cut-the-knot.org)

Misc Pascal's Triangle Binomial Coefficients

EU's Reliance on Russian Gas Undermines 2027 Target

2025-03-28

EU's Reliance on Russian Gas Undermines 2027 Target

A new report reveals that EU imports of Russian gas surged by 18 percent in 2022, undermining its goal of ending reliance on Russian fossil fuels by 2027. Despite stable gas demand, increased imports from Italy, Czechia, and France were facilitated by the use of 'shadow' vessels and 'whitewashing' of origins. The EU spent €21.9 billion on Russian fossil fuels last year, exceeding aid to Ukraine. Experts criticize the EU's lack of legally binding targets and a concrete plan, arguing continued reliance on Russian gas jeopardizes security, exposes the bloc to price volatility and blackmail, and undermines support for Ukraine.

(e360.yale.edu)

Tech russian gas

Engineering Management: Reflections from the Trenches

2025-02-09

Engineering Management: Reflections from the Trenches

This post offers a personal reflection on the realities of engineering management. It emphasizes that the role goes beyond technical skills, focusing heavily on understanding and managing people. Effective engineering managers need to grasp team members' personalities, align individual goals with organizational objectives, and foster a positive work environment. The author explores technology selection, team building, risk management, and provides case studies illustrating how to effectively manage teams and technology, advocating for a balance between challenging engineers and supporting their growth.

(blog.digital-horror.com)

Development engineering management team building technology selection

India's Gaganyaan Program Achieves Milestone: Successful SMPS Hot Tests

2025-07-13

India's Gaganyaan Program Achieves Milestone: Successful SMPS Hot Tests

ISRO announced the successful completion of two hot tests of the Gaganyaan Service Module Propulsion System (SMPS). The tests, lasting 30 and 100 seconds, validated the system configuration and successfully demonstrated the simultaneous operation of all Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters and Liquid Apogee Motors (LAMs). This is a crucial step in the Gaganyaan human spaceflight program, aiming to demonstrate India's capability to launch a crewed spacecraft into low Earth orbit. ISRO plans a full-duration hot test shortly.

(www.thehindu.com)

Tech

Interstellar Navigation: New Horizons Uses Stellar Parallax

2025-07-07

Interstellar Navigation: New Horizons Uses Stellar Parallax

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, hurtling out of our solar system, offers a unique perspective on the Milky Way. The stars' positions appear significantly different from Earth's view. Scientists have leveraged this parallax effect to achieve the first-ever interstellar navigation using stellar positions. By comparing New Horizons' images of Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359 with data from the Gaia space telescope, researchers calculated the probe's galactic location. While less precise than the Deep Space Network, this method offers advantages at greater distances from Earth, enabling autonomous operation without relying on radio signals from our solar system. Future improvements could significantly enhance accuracy, paving the way for future interstellar missions.

(www.newscientist.com)

Tech interstellar navigation stellar parallax

From Pegasus to Predator: The Evolution of Commercial Spyware on iOS

2024-12-30

From Pegasus to Predator: The Evolution of Commercial Spyware on iOS

This talk traces the evolution of iOS spyware from the initial discovery of Pegasus in 2016 to the latest cases in 2024. It begins by analyzing how exploits, infection vectors, and methods of commercial spyware on iOS have changed over time. The presentation then explores advancements in detection methods and forensic resources available to uncover commercial spyware, including a case study on the discovery and analysis of BlastPass, a recent NSO exploit. Finally, it discusses technical challenges and limitations of detection methods and data sources, concluding with open research topics and suggestions for improving the detection of commercial spyware.

(media.ccc.de)

Tech iOS spyware exploits

The Simon-Ehrlich Bet: A Century of Resource Scarcity?

2025-01-12

The Simon-Ehrlich Bet: A Century of Resource Scarcity?

In 1980, economist Julian Simon bet biologist Paul Ehrlich on the future price of five metals. Ehrlich predicted rising prices due to resource depletion from population growth, while Simon believed human innovation would prevent this. Simon won the 10-year bet. However, analyzing data from 1900 to the present, this article reveals that both Simon and Ehrlich would have won in different decades. The long-term trend, though, shows that prices haven't dramatically increased despite vastly increased production, supporting Simon's view that human ingenuity mitigates resource scarcity.

(ourworldindata.org)

Tech Resource Scarcity Price Prediction Human Ingenuity

Samsung's 2025 Bespoke Lineup: AI-Powered Appliances for the Smart Home

2025-03-30

Samsung's 2025 Bespoke Lineup: AI-Powered Appliances for the Smart Home

Samsung finally unveiled its full 2025 Bespoke appliance lineup, initially teased at CES. The highlight is the Bespoke 4-door French-door refrigerator, available with 9-inch and a massive 32-inch Family Hub+ screen (capable of playing TikTok!). AI Vision Inside recognizes 37 fresh and 50 processed food items, generating shopping lists. A hybrid cooling system combines compressor and Peltier technology for energy efficiency and quiet operation; a space-saving Kitchen Fit model is also available. The smart oven recognizes 80 recipes, records cooking processes; a quiet dishwasher auto-detects food residue; the AI washer/dryer completes cycles in 68 minutes; and a cordless stick vacuum boasts 400AW suction and 100-minute runtime. Pre-orders offer up to $1000 off and an extra year of warranty.

(www.engadget.com)

Hardware Smart Appliances Samsung Bespoke

DOGE's Intrusion into FEMA: A Power Grab in Plain Sight

2025-02-13

DOGE's Intrusion into FEMA: A Power Grab in Plain Sight

Sources inside FEMA reveal that DOGE, an organization whose motives remain unclear, has gained access to FEMA's core financial management system, including the FEMA Grant Outcomes (FEMA GO) and the Integrated Financial Management and Information System (IFMIS). This access grants DOGE control over disaster grant disbursements and access to sensitive personal information of disaster relief and migrant aid applicants, including A-numbers. While claiming to be auditing FEMA, DOGE employees, described as primarily computer scientists, lack financial management expertise, leading to misunderstandings and potential misuse of data. The firings of at least four FEMA employees under questionable circumstances further escalate concerns. This situation raises serious questions about data security, internal controls within government agencies, and potential political maneuvering.

(www.dropsitenews.com)

Tech

Radar's HorizonDB: A Rust-Powered Geospatial Database

2025-08-09

Radar's HorizonDB: A Rust-Powered Geospatial Database

Radar processes over 1 billion API calls daily, demanding high-performance geolocation services. To meet this challenge, they built HorizonDB, a geospatial database written in Rust, replacing their previous MongoDB and Elasticsearch setup. HorizonDB consolidates multiple location services and leverages technologies like RocksDB, S2, Tantivy, FSTs, LightGBM, and FastText to achieve millisecond response times and linear scalability. This resulted in significant cost savings, improved developer efficiency, and a robust foundation for future growth.

(radar.com)

Development Geospatial Database

Recursion Pharmaceuticals Ditches Cell Painting for Brightfield Imaging

2024-12-15

Recursion Pharmaceuticals Ditches Cell Painting for Brightfield Imaging

Recursion Pharmaceuticals, a biotech leveraging machine learning for drug discovery, recently announced a surprising shift: abandoning its signature cell painting technique in favor of traditional brightfield imaging. This article delves into the reasons behind this change. Advances in deep learning allow models to effectively process raw images, diminishing the value of cell painting's fluorescent dyes for contrast enhancement. Brightfield imaging offers advantages in cost, ease of implementation, and compatibility with live-cell time-lapse microscopy, opening up possibilities for studying cellular dynamics. Despite the seemingly risky move, internal testing at Recursion shows brightfield imaging yielding comparable or even superior results in predicting drug perturbations.

(www.owlposting.com)

Tech cell imaging drug development

US Government Censorship: A Chilling Effect on Scientific Research

2025-02-21

US Government Censorship: A Chilling Effect on Scientific Research

The new US government is shutting down aid programs, withdrawing from the WHO and the Paris Agreement, deleting datasets, refusing funding to universities, and banning words like "bias," "women," and "gender" from federal documents. This is crippling scientific research and threatening public health. An anonymous researcher reveals government censorship and the silencing of vulnerable populations, urging attention to this alarming situation. The actions taken are causing widespread fear and threaten the integrity of scientific research and public health.

(www.bmj.com)

Tech scientific censorship

No AI December: A Month Without AI Tools

2025-02-09

The author embarked on a challenge called 'No AI December,' abstaining from using AI tools like ChatGPT for a month. Initially a joke, it became a profound reflection on technology's impact. He discovered that over-reliance on AI led to diminished thinking skills, poorer problem-solving abilities, and poor information retention. The author argues for proactive deep thinking instead of passively relying on AI for quick answers and encourages others to try 'No AI December' to reassess their relationship with technology.

(blog.rybarix.com)

Tech AI dependence deep thinking

The 5 Stages of SaaS Grief in the Age of AI

2025-08-10

The 5 Stages of SaaS Grief in the Age of AI

This article outlines the five stages of SaaS companies' reactions to the disruptive wave of AI: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Many initially deny AI's threat, then become angry as competitors leverage AI, followed by attempts to add AI features (bargaining), leading to depression, and finally accepting that AI will reshape the industry, shifting to building outcome-oriented, AI-native solutions. The author argues that SaaS companies need to move from focusing on "how can we help humans do this better?" to "why do humans need to do this at all?" to survive and thrive in the AI era.

(arnon.dk)

Startup

Hacking the Clock: How Scientists Are Reviving Ancient Forests

2025-03-10

Hacking the Clock: How Scientists Are Reviving Ancient Forests

Britain faces a biodiversity crisis, with the decline of ancient oak trees threatening countless species. This article explores how scientists are using technology—from laser scanning and microbial injections to artificial wounding—to accelerate the development of features in young trees that mimic the habitats found in centuries-old giants. This 'veteranization' process, while seemingly destructive, speeds up the natural creation of hollows and decay crucial for supporting diverse ecosystems, bridging the centuries-long gap between young and ancient trees, and offering hope for endangered species.

(www.noemamag.com)

Tech

Meta's Strobelight: A Profiling Orchestrator Saving 15,000 Servers

2025-03-07

Meta's Strobelight: A Profiling Orchestrator Saving 15,000 Servers

Meta unveiled Strobelight, a powerful profiling orchestrator combining multiple technologies (many open-source) to boost efficiency across its massive server fleet. Strobelight isn't a single profiler, but an orchestrator of various profilers collecting detailed CPU usage, memory allocation, and other performance metrics. Visualized through tools like Scuba and Tracery, Strobelight has already yielded significant savings, equivalent to 15,000 servers annually. A single character change in one code line (&) resulted in this massive gain. Strobelight leverages efficient eBPF technology, flexible custom profilers, automated data collection, and dynamic sampling for optimal performance.

(engineering.fb.com)

Tech server optimization

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