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Microsoft's Kernel-Level Security Overhaul: A Collaborative Effort to End BSODs

2025-06-30

Microsoft's Kernel-Level Security Overhaul: A Collaborative Effort to End BSODs

Following a widespread outage caused by a faulty CrowdStrike update last year, Microsoft is collaborating with major security vendors like CrowdStrike, Bitdefender, and ESET to revolutionize Windows kernel security. The initiative involves moving antivirus and EDR applications out of the kernel to a new endpoint security platform. This aims to mitigate the risk of kernel-level driver errors causing system crashes and reduce reliance on kernel-level access, including for game anti-cheat engines. Microsoft emphasizes this will be an iterative process, starting with AV and EDR, before expanding to other use cases. Additionally, a new Quick Machine Recovery feature and a redesigned BSOD are also in the works to improve user experience.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech Kernel Security

Harvard Professor Unravels the Math Behind Möbius Strips, Brain Folds, and Termite Mounds

2025-06-30

Harvard University professor L. Mahadevan uses mathematics and physics to explore the form and function of everyday phenomena. From the equilibrium shape of a Möbius strip to the complex factors driving biological systems like morphogenesis and social insect colonies, his curiosity knows no bounds. In this podcast episode, he shares his research inspirations, explaining how gels, gypsum, and LED lights can help uncover form and function in biological systems, and how noisy random processes might underlie our intuitions about geometry. He explores brain folds, simulating the folding process with gel experiments, and reveals how termites build massive mounds to regulate temperature and ventilation.

(www.quantamagazine.org)

Tech biological morphogenesis

US-Canada Trade War Averted: Digital Tax Retreat

2025-06-30

US-Canada Trade War Averted: Digital Tax Retreat

A potential trade war between the US and Canada was averted after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rescinded the country's digital services tax on US tech companies. President Trump had previously suspended all trade talks with Canada in response to the tax, threatening retaliatory tariffs. The move highlights the high stakes involved in maintaining the deeply integrated trade relationship between the two nations. While Canada claims the tax repeal is a step towards a broader trade agreement, the incident underscores existing tensions and the US's powerful negotiating position.

(www.newsweek.com)

Tech US-Canada Trade Digital Services Tax Digital Tax

Groundbreaking Discovery: Dramatically Reduced Space Needed for Computation

2025-06-30

Groundbreaking Discovery: Dramatically Reduced Space Needed for Computation

MIT computer scientist Ryan Williams has made a groundbreaking discovery, overturning 50 years of assumptions about the trade-off between computation space and time. Traditional theory held that a t-step computation requires roughly t bits of memory. However, Williams proved that any problem solvable in time t needs only about √t bits of memory. This achievement relies on reducing the problem to an equivalent one that cleverly reuses space, thus compressing information. The research suggests that the bottleneck in computation isn't memory capacity, but how efficiently it's used.

(www.scientificamerican.com)

Tech memory compression

Modeling API Rate Limits as Diophantine Inequalities

2025-06-30

This article explores a mathematical approach, specifically using Diophantine inequalities, to solve API rate limiting problems. The author uses a scenario with a 10-requests-per-hour limit and three retry attempts per task as an example, demonstrating how to transform the task scheduling problem into an integer feasibility problem. By analyzing the task retry pattern and time windows, the author establishes an inequality model and uses Go to write a program that determines whether a new task can be safely scheduled without exceeding the rate limit. The article also mentions optimizing the algorithm to reduce time complexity from O(n^2) to O(n*log(n)).

(vivekn.dev)

Development API Rate Limiting Diophantine Inequalities

Cross-Compiling Raylib Lisp Bindings and Games for Windows from Linux

2025-06-30

This article details the process of cross-compiling C code and an SBCL Lisp program for Windows from Linux, using Wine to run a Windows SBCL within a Linux-based Emacs, and loading .dll files into the Lisp image to produce a .exe executable. The author outlines cross-compiling C code using mingw-w64-toolchain, configuring the Raylib library for cross-compilation to generate .dll files, installing and using SBCL within Wine, leveraging vend for dependency management, and finally using sb-ext:save-lisp-and-die to create the Windows executable.

(www.fosskers.ca)

Development

Reddit's AI Spam Problem: A Self-Inflicted Wound?

2025-06-30

Reddit's AI Spam Problem: A Self-Inflicted Wound?

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman admits the platform is battling a flood of AI-generated spam, engaging in an ongoing "arms race" to detect and block these fake posts. The irony? Reddit's deal to sell user posts for AI training – a $60 million agreement with Google – is fueling the problem. To protect this deal, Reddit restricted access, leaving only Google to index its site. Now, companies are using AI bots to create fake posts on Reddit, hoping chatbots will regurgitate this content for better brand visibility. Huffman confirms this, highlighting the never-ending battle against these bots. Reddit users were already upset about their posts being sold for AI training; this escalating spam problem only exacerbates the situation.

(9to5mac.com)

Tech AI spam

Lotus Founder Mitch Kapor Finally Gets His MIT Master's Degree After 45 Years

2025-06-30

Lotus Founder Mitch Kapor Finally Gets His MIT Master's Degree After 45 Years

Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development, left MIT's master's program in 1979 to pursue a lucrative startup opportunity. Forty-five years later, he finally completed his degree, submitting a thesis on his 'gap-closing investing' strategy. This approach, focused on addressing racial and income inequality, inadvertently supported many entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups. Kapor's journey highlights the allure of the tech startup world and the importance of social responsibility, inspiring those who chase their dreams despite setbacks.

(www.bostonglobe.com)

Startup

Uncollected Woolf Letters Reveal a Multifaceted Writer

2025-06-30

Uncollected Woolf Letters Reveal a Multifaceted Writer

A new book, *The Uncollected Letters of Virginia Woolf*, unveils over 1,400 previously unknown letters, offering a fresh perspective on the celebrated author. These letters reveal Woolf's relationships with other writers like Eliot and Forster, showcasing her as a sociable woman, shrewd businesswoman, and committed humanitarian, challenging the established image of a reclusive depressive. The correspondence covers a wide range of topics, from literary creation and social interactions to personal emotions, providing invaluable primary source material for scholars.

(literaryreview.co.uk)

Misc Virginia Woolf Unpublished Letters Literary Studies

Rubin Observatory's First Image Reveals Thousands of Previously Unknown Asteroids

2025-06-30

Rubin Observatory's First Image Reveals Thousands of Previously Unknown Asteroids

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile released its first image, revealing a staggering 2,104 previously unknown asteroids, including seven near-Earth objects. This surpasses five times the number of asteroids discovered in the last 200 years. Equipped with the world's largest digital camera, the observatory will capture massive high-resolution images of the southern sky every three nights. The ability to record asteroid movement as 'movies' is crucial for planetary defense, enabling better study of asteroid movements and timely detection of potential threats.

(www.space.com)

Tech asteroid discovery

Duolingo's AI Pivot Sparks User and Employee Backlash

2025-06-30

Duolingo's AI Pivot Sparks User and Employee Backlash

Language learning app Duolingo's announcement of its shift to an "AI-first" strategy, planning to replace some contractors with AI, has ignited a fierce backlash. Young users took to social media to express their anger, even deleting the app in protest. This incident reflects growing public concerns about AI's large-scale replacement of human labor and increasing discontent with the technology's potential negative impacts, such as copyright infringement and environmental damage. While Duolingo claims AI won't entirely replace employees, its move aligns with similar downsizing trends in other tech companies, fueling fears of AI threatening jobs.

(www.wired.com)

Tech user protest

NSA and CISA Push for Memory-Safe Programming Languages

2025-06-30

NSA and CISA Push for Memory-Safe Programming Languages

The US National Security Agency (NSA) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have jointly issued guidance urging software developers to adopt memory-safe programming languages like Rust and Go. The report highlights memory safety vulnerabilities as a leading cause of software security issues, citing C and C++ as particularly vulnerable due to their memory management mechanisms. While projects aim to improve C/C++ security, a long-term shift to memory-safe languages is presented as the best risk mitigation strategy. Government initiatives, such as DARPA's TRACTOR program (which aims to automatically translate C code to Rust), are actively promoting this transition.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

FSF's 40th Anniversary Merch Drop: Limited Time Only!

2025-06-30

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is having a limited-time sale of its 40th-anniversary merchandise in its GNU Press shop. This includes a summery yellow anniversary shirt, restocked favorites like the popular book 'Ada & Zangemann', a GNU baseball cap, and a webcam guard. Purchases support the FSF's mission to empower the world through free software. They're also running a summer membership drive, with new members getting a 20% discount in the GNU Press shop. Shipping is delayed due to volunteer-based fulfillment.

(www.fsf.org)

Misc Merchandise

Earth's Energy Imbalance Doubles, Accelerating Climate Change

2025-06-30

Earth's Energy Imbalance Doubles, Accelerating Climate Change

New research reveals Earth's energy imbalance has more than doubled in the last 20 years, suggesting climate change is accelerating. This imbalance, primarily driven by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, shows the planet is absorbing significantly more heat than it's releasing. While the oceans absorb most of the excess heat, land and atmospheric temperatures are also rising, leading to increased extreme weather events. Scientists track this imbalance using satellites and ocean buoys, but funding uncertainties in the US threaten this crucial research. The findings highlight the urgency of immediate greenhouse gas emission reductions to avoid more severe long-term climate consequences.

(theconversation.com)

Tech energy imbalance

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-06-30

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations involved share arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these principles and only partners with those who adhere to them. Have an idea to improve the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Development

Rust Error Handling: Evolving from Monolithic Enums to Elegant Error Sets

2025-06-30

Rust's error handling has been a point of contention. The traditional approach of defining massive error enums per module or crate leads to bloated and hard-to-maintain code. This article explores alternatives: representing individual errors with structs and managing error sets using tools like the `error_set` crate. `error_set` simplifies error enum definition and conversion via macros, supporting composition and subset relationships between error sets for cleaner, more efficient error handling. While extra work is still needed for complex errors requiring additional information, `error_set` provides a more elegant and maintainable approach to Rust error handling.

(felix-knorr.net)

Development

Substandard Cancer Drugs Plague Africa: One in Six Found Defective

2025-06-30

Substandard Cancer Drugs Plague Africa: One in Six Found Defective

A shocking study reveals a widespread problem of substandard cancer drugs in several African countries. Researchers tested nearly 200 cancer drugs from hospitals and pharmacies in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Cameroon, finding that roughly 17% had insufficient active ingredients, including drugs used in major hospitals. This could lead to tumor growth and spread. The study points to weak drug regulation in Africa, highlighting the need for stronger oversight, improved testing technologies, and training. While most drugs met standards, a few bad actors pose a significant health risk.

(www.dw.com)

Tech Fake Drugs

Ransomware's Weird Vulnerability: Virtual Keyboards as a Defense

2025-06-30

Security experts have discovered a peculiar vulnerability in nearly all ransomware strains: they refuse to install on Windows computers with virtual keyboards like Russian or Ukrainian already installed. This is because many malware strains originating from Eastern Europe include checks for specific countries (e.g., Russia, Ukraine) to avoid local law enforcement. While not foolproof, installing a virtual keyboard, such as a Russian one, offers a simple, additional security measure to reduce ransomware infection risk. This approach leverages the fact that many cybercriminals avoid targeting computers within their own countries to avoid investigation.

(krebsonsecurity.com)

Tech

Former Australian PM's Boarding Pass Leaks Passport Details

2025-06-30

Former Australian PM's Boarding Pass Leaks Passport Details

A blogger discovered that a photo of former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's boarding pass, posted on Instagram, revealed sensitive personal information, including his passport number. With minimal effort, the blogger accessed Abbott's flight booking page, obtaining his passport number, phone number, and internal airline communications. The blogger reported the issue to the Australian government and the airline, and with Abbott's permission, published this blog post warning about the risks of sharing boarding passes online and the importance of protecting personal information.

(mango.pdf.zone)

Tech

The Sludge: How Bureaucracy Breaks Us

2025-06-30

The Sludge: How Bureaucracy Breaks Us

This article recounts the author's harrowing experience with Ford's customer service after his car malfunctioned. The ordeal highlighted the pervasive 'sludge' in modern life: endless wait times, unhelpful customer service representatives, and deliberately obstructive processes. This isn't an isolated incident but a systemic issue costing individuals time, energy, and sanity, leading to feelings of powerlessness. The author explores contributing factors, including companies prioritizing short-term gains over customer satisfaction, flawed customer service design, and changing consumer behavior. The article offers coping mechanisms, like collaborative 'Admin Nights' with friends, but ultimately underscores the need for broader systemic reform to combat this pervasive 'sludge' and the despair it induces.

(www.theatlantic.com)

Misc

Blazing Fast In-Process Event Dispatcher for Go

2025-06-30

Blazing Fast In-Process Event Dispatcher for Go

This Go package delivers a high-performance, in-process event dispatcher ideal for decoupling modules and enabling asynchronous event handling. Boasting speeds 4-10x faster than channels (processing millions of events per second!), it supports both synchronous and asynchronous operations with a focus on simplicity. Perfect for intra-process module decoupling, lightweight pub/sub, and high-throughput scenarios, but not suitable for inter-process communication, event persistence, or advanced routing.

(github.com)

Development Event Dispatcher

Reverse Engineering Anti-Cheat Updates: A Deep Dive

2025-06-30

This post details the update mechanisms of popular anti-cheat systems like EasyAntiCheat, Battleye, EA-AC, Vanguard, and EQU8. Through reverse engineering, the author meticulously analyzes their CDN structures, update package encryption, and module extraction methods, providing code examples. The article highlights the differences in update strategies and the trade-offs between security and convenience. While some information might be known, it offers a systematic analysis approach and showcases practical experience.

(not-matthias.github.io)

Tech

Scaling Customer Container Builds with the Depot API

2025-06-30

Scaling Customer Container Builds with the Depot API

Many SaaS platforms need to run code on behalf of their customers, presenting challenges in container building. This post demonstrates building tools with the Depot API to create isolated build environments for a multi-tenant SaaS platform. Using a Go client, you can create projects, manage project caches, retrieve build metrics, and logs. The Depot API leverages Buf.build, offering client libraries for various languages, making integration into existing infrastructure seamless. The article details creating, deleting, and resetting project caches, fetching build metrics and step details, ultimately enabling scalable and secure customer container infrastructure.

(depot.dev)

Development container builds

Toothbrush-Sized Ultrasound Transducer for Painless Gum Disease Screening

2025-06-30

Toothbrush-Sized Ultrasound Transducer for Painless Gum Disease Screening

Scientists have developed a toothbrush-shaped ultrasound transducer for a less invasive way to screen for gum disease. In tests on animal tissues, this miniaturized device produced results comparable to traditional manual probing. Its small size allows easy access to molars and premolars, while its high-frequency operation provides high-quality images, overcoming limitations of larger transducers. This innovative tool promises a more comfortable and effective approach to diagnosing and treating gum disease.

(phys.org)

Tech gum disease

Touching the Back Wall: A Nostalgic Apple Store Game

2025-06-30

Touching the Back Wall: A Nostalgic Apple Store Game

The author recounts a high school game of sneaking into an Apple Store, touching the back wall, and escaping without staff interaction. This reflects the millennial fascination with Apple products and the store's strategy as an interactive luxury experience. The author then shares their first iPod purchase, contrasting it with a previous, cheaper MP3 player that unexpectedly had a bigger impact—leading to media piracy, Linux exploration, and a journey into web and game development.

(blog.lauramichet.com)

Misc Millennials

German ICE Train Sets New Speed Record: 405 km/h

2025-06-30

German ICE Train Sets New Speed Record: 405 km/h

Deutsche Bahn (DB) and Siemens Mobility achieved a new speed record of 405 km/h on the Erfurt–Leipzig/Halle high-speed line using an ICE test train. This speed demonstrates the capabilities of existing infrastructure and provides valuable data for future high-speed rail maintenance and technological advancements. The test train, Velaro Novo, showcased its energy efficiency and high performance, paving the way for future innovations in high-speed rail technology. The test was conducted on an existing line during scheduled maintenance, which included upgrading bridge supports to ensure long-term reliable operation.

(www.deutschebahn.com)

Tech speed record

The $25,000 Car is Going Extinct

2025-06-30

Affordable new cars under $25,000 are becoming increasingly rare. Automakers are prioritizing higher-profit, more expensive vehicles because many fixed costs (engineering, design, marketing, emissions standards) are similar across the entire model range. While budget-friendly models like the Ford Maverick initially saw huge popularity, their low profit margins led to price hikes and ultimately, the phasing out of many similar models. The remaining affordable options have seen significant price increases due to low supply. Consumer demand for higher trim levels and features also contributes to this trend. Though recent economic uncertainty shifted some consumer preference back to more affordable models, the era of the bargain car is largely over, with almost every new car now considered a luxury purchase.

(media.hubspot.com)

Tech auto industry affordable cars

Python Dataclasses: `kw_only=True` for Maintainability and Extensibility

2025-06-30

Python's dataclasses offer a convenient way to create data classes, but the default `__init__` method uses positional arguments, which can lead to maintenance and extension difficulties. This article introduces the `kw_only=True` parameter, which enforces keyword arguments, preventing issues caused by changes in argument order and allowing subclasses to add required fields flexibly. While this parameter was introduced in Python 3.10, the article also provides a solution for compatibility with older versions.

(chipx86.blog)

Development

Over-the-Counter CGM for $50: My Experience

2025-06-30

Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) is now available over-the-counter for $50. This device, resembling a thick guitar pick, measures glucose levels every 5 minutes, transmitting data to a smartphone app. The author's experience highlighted unexpected blood sugar spikes from seemingly healthy meals and the significant impact of exercise. While data export isn't directly supported, integration with Apple Health allows for data retrieval. The gamified aspect of monitoring blood sugar levels proved highly effective. Overall, the device provides affordable and accessible glucose monitoring, offering valuable insights into personal health.

(www.imperialviolet.org)

Tech health tech

Accidentally Solving Robotics by Watching 1 Million Hours of YouTube

2025-06-30

Accidentally Solving Robotics by Watching 1 Million Hours of YouTube

Researchers accidentally solved a long-standing robotics problem by training a model called V-JEPA 2 on one million hours of YouTube videos. Instead of predicting the next word, V-JEPA 2 predicts the next moment in reality, learning to understand physics through observation. Unlike previous language-dependent models, V-JEPA 2 demonstrates impressive zero-shot generalization, successfully completing complex tasks like grasping and placing objects in unseen environments. While limitations like camera pose sensitivity and long-horizon drift remain, this research opens new avenues for robotics, hinting at a future where robots might possess comprehension comparable to ChatGPT.

(ksagar.bearblog.dev)

AI

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