Following the passing of owner Kevin Loch, the popular IP address lookup websites ip4.me, ip6.me, and several others will be shut down on April 1st, 2025. Inquiries regarding the purchase of these domains can be directed to [email protected].
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China's Supreme People's Court has issued its first-ever guidance on cracking down on academic paper mills, aiming to curb scientific fraud. While previous government regulations existed, paper mills – businesses that produce fraudulent or low-quality manuscripts – have persisted. The court's guidelines instruct lower courts to severely punish 'paper industry chains' and research fraud. The number of paper mill-related cases has increased in recent years, with court rulings shifting from recognizing contracts with paper mills as valid to deeming them invalid, reflecting a stronger emphasis on academic integrity and fair competition. While some researchers are optimistic this will curb misconduct, others remain skeptical of its impact.
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A remarkable discovery from the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius: a human brain, vitrified into glass by the intense heat and rapid cooling of the volcanic event. This unprecedented preservation method, never before seen in human or animal tissue, offers a unique window into the past and challenges our understanding of tissue preservation under extreme conditions. Analysis revealed the brain underwent a rapid transformation into organic glass at temperatures exceeding 510°C, a process confirmed through various scientific techniques.
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Satellogic, a satellite designer, manufacturer, and constellation operator, has announced an open satellite data feed program called "Satellogic EarthView." This program contains over 7 million unique images from more than 3 million locations, offering 1-meter resolution RGB and near-infrared imagery. The author details the analysis of Satellogic's constellation, launch history, and the process of accessing and working with the open data, creating visualizations that highlight spatial distribution and temporal coverage.
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AppStat is a free application performance monitoring tool that provides real-time monitoring of CPU, memory, disk, and thread metrics. Its clean graphical interface helps developers quickly identify resource bottlenecks, memory leaks, and performance spikes without interrupting their workflow. Features include dark/light modes, an always-on-top option, and exportable logs for team analysis.
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Uber and Waymo are partnering to bring self-driving ride-hailing to Austin, Texas. Users requesting a ride through the Uber app now have the chance to be matched with a Waymo fully autonomous electric vehicle at no extra cost. The service initially covers 37 square miles of Austin, with plans for expansion. This collaboration combines Waymo's autonomous driving technology with Uber's platform to offer a greener, more convenient transportation option, prioritizing safety with all vehicles meeting Uber's safety guidelines.
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Zenobē, a UK-based energy company, is constructing a massive 300MW/600MWh battery storage project, Blackhillock, in Scotland. This will be Scotland's largest battery storage facility to date, representing 32% of the country's current installed capacity. Funded by £101m in debt financing, the project will provide vital grid stability services, reducing CO2 emissions by approximately 2.6 million tonnes annually and saving consumers over £170 million over 15 years. Blackhillock will also have the capacity to power over 3.1 million homes for two hours. Zenobē is a leading player in the UK EV bus sector, operating over 2,000 electric vehicles globally.
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A study using the Danish Twin Tattoo Cohort reveals a heightened risk of lymphoma and skin cancer among tattooed individuals compared to their non-tattooed counterparts. Employing both twin cohort and case-cotwin study designs, the research indicates a stronger association with larger tattoos. The researchers hypothesize that ink deposits may interact with surrounding tissue, triggering an immune response and increased cell proliferation, thus raising cancer risk. However, limitations include a lack of sun exposure data and detailed tattoo type classification. Further research is urged to clarify the etiological pathway of tattoo ink-induced carcinogenesis and inform public health policy.
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DiffRhythm is a groundbreaking AI model that generates complete songs with vocals and accompaniment in just ten seconds, reaching lengths of up to 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Unlike previous complex multi-stage models, DiffRhythm boasts a remarkably simple architecture, requiring only lyrics and a style prompt for inference. Its non-autoregressive nature ensures blazing-fast generation speeds and scalability. While promising for artistic creation, education, and entertainment, responsible use requires addressing potential copyright infringement, cultural misrepresentation, and the generation of harmful content.
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Research by Doug Leith, Professor and Chair of Computer Systems at Trinity College Dublin, reveals that Android secretly collects user data, including advertising cookies, before users even open their first app. This data collection, facilitated by pre-installed apps like Google Play Services and the Google Play Store, occurs without user consent and lacks an opt-out mechanism. Key trackers include the DSID cookie and the Google Android ID, which continues sending data even after logout. Leith argues this may violate data protection laws like GDPR. Google responded by stating their commitment to privacy laws but didn't directly address the specific issues. This discovery, coupled with the recent controversy surrounding the consent-less installation of Android System SafetyCore, fuels concerns about Google's data collection practices.
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Apple announced the new iPad Air powered by the M3 chip, boasting significant performance improvements, with up to a 4x graphics performance boost. Available in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, the new iPad Air features a more powerful Neural Engine and supports Apple Intelligence, offering enhanced AI capabilities like Photo Cleanup and Image Wand. A new, lower-priced Magic Keyboard designed for the iPad Air also launched. Additionally, the standard iPad received an update, featuring the A16 chip and double the starting storage.
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arXivLabs is a framework for collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations working with arXivLabs embrace our 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.
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Microsoft unveiled Dragon Copilot, an AI-powered healthcare system leveraging Nuance's voice technology (acquired in 2021). It offers multilingual ambient note creation, natural language dictation, medical information searches, and automation of tasks like generating orders and summaries. Microsoft claims it reduces administrative burden for clinicians, improves patient experience, and decreases burnout. This announcement follows similar moves by Google Cloud, highlighting a growing trend in AI-powered healthcare tools. While acknowledging potential risks, Microsoft emphasizes Dragon Copilot's commitment to responsible AI development with built-in security and compliance features.
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Google has open-sourced SpeciesNet, an AI model that identifies animal species from camera trap photos. Researchers globally use camera traps, generating massive datasets taking weeks to analyze. SpeciesNet, trained on over 65 million images, helps accelerate this process. It classifies images into over 2,000 labels including species, taxa, and non-animal objects. Released under an Apache 2.0 license, SpeciesNet empowers developers and startups to scale biodiversity monitoring efforts.
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EA recently open-sourced the code for classic Command & Conquer games (1995-2003), revealing fascinating comments like "HACK ALERT!" and the programmer's lament, "oh shit." This release aids modders, preserves the games for future platforms (complementing projects like OpenRA and OpenSAGE), and offers 35 minutes of newly discovered alpha footage from Generals and Renegade. It's a testament to how classic games can find renewed life with the right community and corporate collaboration.
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Millions of federal workers were forced back to offices by the Trump administration, leading to widespread chaos. Many offices lacked basic amenities like Wi-Fi and electricity, with some even reporting hazardous conditions like exposed wires, resulting in employee injuries. Lease cancellations left some employees without office space. This move, seen as part of Trump's broader effort to shrink the federal government and pressure employees, has been met with strong union pushback and legal challenges.
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February 2025 saw significant progress for the postmarketOS project. A name change is underway, with community input being sought. MSM89x7 audio support improved, and more Xiaomi devices joined community support. Security audits were completed, and infrastructure improvements, including backup and CI systems, were implemented. Numerous kernel updates and package upgrades were released, enhancing stability and performance.
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Italy's government has approved a draft law to reintroduce nuclear power, aiming to address energy security and climate change goals, with a target of carbon neutrality by 2050. After phasing out nuclear energy following a 1987 referendum, a shift in public opinion and government policy has led to the inclusion of nuclear power in national energy plans. The new law emphasizes advanced modular reactor technologies and establishes an independent regulatory authority to ensure safety and transparency.
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This article challenges the conventional understanding of the meter's origin, suggesting it might predate the French revolution by millennia. It explores the mathematical relationships within the Great Pyramid of Giza, revealing astonishing connections between its dimensions and the constants π and the Golden Ratio, ultimately linking these to the modern-day meter. The author proposes that ancient Egyptians possessed knowledge of the meter and derived units like the cubit from it, raising questions about the technological sophistication of ancient civilizations.
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Just like small code commits are preferred in software development, small, focused documentation improves clarity, accessibility, and review efficiency. This article advocates for writing concise docs addressing a single idea, providing complete context, and avoiding oversimplification. Larger documents should be broken into smaller, self-contained parts. Effective organization, cross-linking, and regular maintenance are crucial to prevent information fragmentation. The ultimate goal is faster reviews, clearer communication, and less stress for everyone involved.
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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an emergency directive warning federal agencies about actively exploited vulnerabilities in Cisco and Windows systems. CVE-2023-20118 affects Cisco RV series VPN routers, allowing remote code execution. CVE-2018-8639, a Windows elevation of privilege flaw, also enables arbitrary code execution. CISA added these to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, mandating remediation by March 23rd for federal agencies. This highlights the critical need for prompt patching to mitigate sophisticated cyberattacks.
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Researchers at UC San Diego have developed an AI system called DNAformer that can decode data stored in DNA nearly 90 times faster than previous methods. The system uses a deep learning model to reconstruct DNA sequences, incorporating error correction and data conversion algorithms. It successfully read 100MB of data, including images, audio, and text. This breakthrough promises to accelerate the practical use of DNA data storage, offering new solutions for long-term data preservation.
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This article benchmarks the performance difference between using Go's `panic` and `recover` for array iteration versus a traditional loop. The results demonstrate a significant performance penalty for abusing `panic`/`recover` for control flow in smaller datasets. This is attributed to the inhibition of compiler optimizations such as inlining and bounds check elimination. While `panic`/`recover` can offer efficiency gains in handling internal errors, the author cautions against overuse and stresses the importance of keeping such mechanisms internal to a package, away from public APIs.
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Following user criticism of its updated Terms of Use, Mozilla has revised its policy for Firefox. The original terms were criticized for overly broad language, implying Mozilla claimed rights to user data inputted or uploaded to the browser, raising concerns about potential sale to advertisers or AI companies. Mozilla clarified this wasn't the intention, stating the changes don't alter its data usage practices. The revised terms specify that data access is solely for Firefox operation and doesn't grant Mozilla ownership. Mozilla also removed references to the Acceptable Use Policy and updated its online Privacy FAQ for clearer legal explanations.
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The author previously implemented setjmp in WebAssembly, bypassing WASI libc's reliance on the exception handling proposal. However, this approach was limited to files smaller than 2GB. This post details how to use the File API and Blob type to create a memory-based filesystem for handling larger files. Since web I/O is asynchronous while system languages are typically synchronous, Asyncify was used to bridge the paradigms. The author encountered optimization issues with wasm-opt, resolving them by creating a dummy wasm-opt. Finally, by cleverly using a volatile function pointer, they bypassed Asyncify's incorrect assumption about the `asyncjmp_rt_start` function, ultimately achieving asynchronous handling of large files.
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The Trump administration is reportedly planning to cancel leases for two crucial NOAA weather forecasting centers, one of which is the nerve center for national weather forecasts. This move could cripple the US weather forecasting system, leading to potentially severe consequences. A NOAA employee, speaking anonymously, suggests this, along with recent layoffs and hiring freezes, points to a deliberate attempt to dismantle the agency. While the cancellation notice isn't final, rebuilding the functionality elsewhere could take over a year, leaving critical forecasting gaps during that time.
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Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander successfully touched down on the moon, marking the first successful lunar landing by a private company. The mission, carrying ten NASA experiments including lunar soil analysis and subsurface temperature measurements, paves the way for future lunar exploration and commercial development. This success signals a new era of private sector involvement in lunar exploration, with more private landers expected to follow.
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An incredible project is underway to port Windows NT 3.51 and later to the GameCube and Wii! This involves significant hacking, including custom ARC firmware, drivers, and a toolchain. The project supports GameCube, Wii, and Wii U (vWii only), detailing the installation process, including partitioning, driver installation, and potential pitfalls. While a challenging undertaking, it showcases the potential of game console hardware and developer ingenuity.
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Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software argues that the GPL license hinders participation and adoption in WordPress. This article counters that argument, asserting that WordPress's thriving plugin and theme community is a direct result of the GPL. The author uses personal experience to show how the GPL protects user freedoms and ultimately fosters a flourishing ecosystem rather than hindering development. While acknowledging limitations, the core principles of sharing and reciprocity are vital for building a robust community and ecosystem – far outweighing license concerns.
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Giancarlo Devasini, one of the world's newest billionaires, leads a reclusive life in Lugano, Switzerland. He lives modestly, but fiercely contends with an American rival he believes is trying to destroy his business. Devasini is the main owner of Tether, whose digital dollar is crucial to the cryptocurrency industry. Tether's importance has made him incredibly wealthy and influential, backed by a top Trump ally.
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