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Microsoft Edge Follows Google, Disabling Manifest V2 Extensions

2025-02-28

Microsoft Edge Follows Google, Disabling Manifest V2 Extensions

Microsoft Edge Canary is now disabling Manifest V2-based extensions, including the popular ad blocker uBlock Origin. This mirrors Google's policy shift, which began phasing out Manifest V2 extensions last year. While Edge's stable and Beta/Dev versions are currently unaffected, this change signals the eventual demise of MV2 extensions. Users can choose to switch to a browser that still supports MV2 extensions (like Firefox) or upgrade to Manifest V3-based extensions.

(www.neowin.net)

Tech

Apple Silicon's Speculative Execution: Performance Boost and Security Risks

2025-02-28

Apple Silicon's Speculative Execution: Performance Boost and Security Risks

Apple silicon chips employ out-of-order execution, Load Address Prediction (LAP), and Load Value Prediction (LVP) to boost performance. These techniques predict instruction execution order and memory access values for efficiency gains, but introduce security vulnerabilities like Spectre, SLAP, and FLOP. While exploiting these vulnerabilities is challenging and requires targeting specific CPU architectures, the risks may grow with future CPU advancements. Apple and other chipmakers need to proactively address these security challenges.

(eclecticlight.co)

Tech Speculative Execution

Andrew Ng's New Document Extraction Service: Accuracy Challenges

2025-02-28

Andrew Ng's New Document Extraction Service: Accuracy Challenges

Andrew Ng's newly released document extraction service went viral on X, but Pulse's testing revealed significant issues with complex financial statements, including over 50% hallucinated values, missing negative signs and currency markers. The article argues that such errors can be catastrophic for industries relying on precise data, like finance. Pulse's solution combines traditional computer vision with proprietary table transformer models, achieving higher accuracy and lower latency, addressing the non-deterministic nature, poor spatial awareness, and slow processing speed of LLMs in document extraction.

(www.runpulse.com)

AI document extraction Andrew Ng

Big Tech: The Government's Silent Partner in Surveillance?

2025-02-28

Big Tech: The Government's Silent Partner in Surveillance?

The US government has gained chilling access to citizens' daily lives through cooperation with tech giants like Meta, Google, and Apple. Over the past decade, these three companies have handed over details of over 3 million accounts to the government, with data requests skyrocketing. While used for investigations, this raises serious privacy concerns, as many requests lack judicial oversight and may lead to wrongful convictions. To maintain their business models, tech companies struggle to effectively protect user privacy, inadvertently becoming complicit in government surveillance.

(proton.me)

Tech

Spotify's Pirate Secret: From P2P to Streaming Giant

2025-02-28

Spotify's success story has a little-known secret: in its early beta phase, it used unlicensed MP3s from pirate sites like The Pirate Bay! Rasmus Fleischer, a former member of The Pirate Bay, reveals that Spotify's beta was essentially a "pirate service," leveraging unlicensed music from employees' hard drives to launch the platform. This, combined with Spotify's P2P technology and its free, ad-supported model, successfully attracted millions of former pirates. This revelation highlights Spotify's shrewd early strategy and its complex relationship with the piracy wave.

(torrentfreak.com)

Tech

Building a Micro Asynchronous Event Loop Library from Scratch

2025-02-28

Building a Micro Asynchronous Event Loop Library from Scratch

This project implements a minimal, yet feature-complete asynchronous event loop library from scratch for educational purposes. It demonstrates core asynchronous programming concepts: task scheduling and management, I/O multiplexing with non-blocking sockets, timeouts and sleep functionality, task cancellation, and coroutine-based concurrency. The library uses Python's generator-based coroutines and the `select` module for I/O multiplexing, providing a simplified model of how modern async frameworks like `asyncio` work internally. Learn the magic behind `await`, how `yield from` functions, and how coroutines communicate with the event loop.

(gist.github.com)

Development asynchronous programming event loop coroutines

JWST Detects Hydrogen Cyanide and Acetylene in Brown Dwarf Atmosphere – A First

2025-02-28

JWST Detects Hydrogen Cyanide and Acetylene in Brown Dwarf Atmosphere – A First

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made a groundbreaking discovery! An international team of astronomers, using JWST, has for the first time detected hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and acetylene (C2H2) in the atmosphere of a nearby brown dwarf binary system designated WISE J045853.90+643451.9. Published on the arXiv preprint server, the finding reveals a cloud-free, molecule-rich atmosphere. The discovery showcases the power of JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) Medium Resolution Spectrometer (MRS) in characterizing cool brown dwarfs. Future studies will investigate HCN and C2H2 in more detail and determine if these species are present in other similarly cool brown dwarfs.

(phys.org)

Tech Brown Dwarf Atmospheric Detection

Trump Nominates Arielle Roth to Lead NTIA

2025-02-28

Trump Nominates Arielle Roth to Lead NTIA

President Trump nominated Arielle Roth, telecom director for Senator Ted Cruz, to lead the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Roth has criticized the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, arguing its overemphasis on fiber deployments and excessive regulatory burdens. She advocates for technology neutrality, opposing NTIA's preference for fiber in BEAD and calling for Universal Service Fund (USF) reform, citing its unsustainable funding model. She also voiced concerns about the FCC's digital discrimination rules and expansion of the E-Rate program. Roth's nomination has been praised by industry groups who see it as an opportunity to reshape broadband and spectrum policy.

(broadbandbreakfast.com)

Tech Telecom Broadband

macOS Sonoma Hidden Gems: A Productivity Powerhouse

2025-02-28

Unlock hidden productivity power in macOS Sonoma with this comprehensive guide. Discover a treasure trove of system-wide keyboard shortcuts, Finder tricks, window management techniques, Safari enhancements, and more. Learn to navigate menus with ease, master screenshot shortcuts, efficiently manage files in Finder, and much more. Transform your Mac workflow and boost your productivity.

(saurabhs.org)

Development Keyboard Shortcuts

AIs Develop Secret Language to Boost Efficiency, Raising Privacy Concerns

2025-02-28

AIs Develop Secret Language to Boost Efficiency, Raising Privacy Concerns

A viral video showcases two AI agents conversing before switching to a non-human-intelligible 'Gibberlink' mode upon recognizing each other. Using the GGWave protocol, they communicate via beeps, far more efficiently than speech, saving compute resources and energy. The developers argue this is crucial as AI-to-AI calls become prevalent. However, this technology sparks concern: AI communicating in an uninterpretable language raises potential privacy and security risks.

(www.iflscience.com)

AI AI Communication

Microsoft Tests Ad-Supported, Feature-Limited Free Office for Windows

2025-02-28

Microsoft Tests Ad-Supported, Feature-Limited Free Office for Windows

Microsoft is testing a free, ad-supported version of its Office suite for Windows. This limited version includes stripped-down versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, omitting many advanced features. For example, Word lacks tables and mail merge, Excel lacks PivotTables and Power Query, and PowerPoint lacks custom slideshows. Documents must be saved to OneDrive for editing; local files are read-only. The "free" version displays 15-second video ads every few hours and a persistent ad sidebar. While Microsoft officially denies plans for a free, ad-supported desktop Office, this test suggests exploration of this monetization model, potentially leading to pre-installation on new PCs or other distribution methods.

(office-watch.com)

Tech ad-supported

Microsoft's Copilot Leaks 20,000+ Private GitHub Repositories

2025-02-28

Security firm Lasso revealed that Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant exposed over 20,000 private GitHub repositories belonging to companies like Google, Intel, and Huawei. These repositories, initially public, were later set to private but remained accessible via Copilot due to Bing's caching mechanism. Even after Microsoft addressed the Bing cache issue in November, Copilot continued to access a private repository removed due to a Microsoft lawsuit, highlighting significant data security risks associated with large language models.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

Notion's Seamless Database Cluster Expansion: Horizontally Scaling from 32 to 96 Databases

2025-02-28

Notion's Seamless Database Cluster Expansion: Horizontally Scaling from 32 to 96 Databases

To handle rapid user growth, Notion horizontally scaled its database cluster from 32 to 96 databases. The post details the process, including choosing a data migration strategy, horizontally sharding both the databases and the connection pool (PgBouncer), data replication and validation, and the final seamless switchover. Through careful planning and execution, Notion successfully expanded its database cluster, increasing capacity and performance without any downtime, leaving ample room for future growth.

(www.notion.com)

Development database scaling horizontal sharding seamless switchover

3FS: A High-Performance Distributed File System for AI

2025-02-28

3FS: A High-Performance Distributed File System for AI

3FS is a high-performance distributed file system designed to tackle the challenges of AI training and inference workloads. Leveraging modern SSDs and RDMA networks, it provides a shared storage layer that simplifies the development of distributed applications. Key features include: exceptional performance and usability, strong consistency via CRAQ, standard file interfaces, and support for diverse workloads (data preparation, dataloaders, checkpointing, and KVCache for inference). Benchmarks demonstrate impressive results: up to 6.6 TiB/s read throughput on large clusters and 3.66 TiB/min sort throughput. KVCache significantly boosts LLM inference efficiency, reaching peak read throughput of 40 GiB/s. The project is open-source with detailed setup and run instructions.

(github.com)

AI distributed file system

Markov Chains: A Visual Explanation

2025-02-28

Markov Chains: A Visual Explanation

This article provides a clear and visual explanation of Markov chains and their applications. Markov chains are mathematical systems that transition between different "states." The article uses the example of a baby's behavior (playing, eating, sleeping, crying) to illustrate the concept of a state space and transition probabilities. A simple two-state Markov chain is presented, along with its transition matrix. The article further demonstrates the practical application of Markov chains through a weather simulation example, highlighting the concept of 'stickiness' in real-world data. Finally, it mentions the use of Markov chains in Google's PageRank algorithm, showcasing their power and versatility.

(setosa.io)

AI Markov Chains Probability State Transition

Ladybird: A Novel Web Browser Built on Web Standards

2025-02-28

Ladybird: A Novel Web Browser Built on Web Standards

Ladybird is a truly independent web browser using a novel engine based on web standards. Currently in pre-alpha, it's intended for developers. Its multi-process architecture—with a main UI process, multiple WebContent renderers, an ImageDecoder, and a RequestServer—prioritizes robustness against malicious content. It runs on Linux, macOS, Windows (with WSL2), and many other *nix systems and leverages several core library components from SerenityOS. Developers are invited to join the Discord server for discussions and contributions.

(github.com)

Development web standards multi-process architecture

Warping in Fan-out Wafer-Level Packaging: Modeling, Measurement, and Control

2025-02-28

The end of Moore's Law has spurred advancements in advanced semiconductor packaging, such as fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP). FOWLP enhances performance and efficiency by packaging chips at the wafer level and redistributing interconnects. However, warping during FOWLP manufacturing poses a significant challenge. This paper reviews methods for measuring (Moiré interferometry, digital fringe projection, digital image correlation), modeling (Stoney's equation, Timoshenko's theory, finite element method, AI/ML models, multi-scale approaches), and controlling warping. Warping is primarily determined by material properties (coefficient of thermal expansion, glass transition temperature, Young's modulus), process parameters (temperature profiles, mold cure rate, mold flow rate), and geometry (layer thickness, chip geometry, chip layout, redistribution layer). Future research directions include the need for more accurate material data, multi-scale models, and the development of digital twin technology for real-time warping control.

(www.frontiersin.org)

Hardware Fan-out Wafer-Level Packaging Warping Finite Element Analysis

Firefox Terms of Use: A Deep Dive

2025-02-28

Firefox Terms of Use: A Deep Dive

Firefox, the free and open-source web browser, operates under a comprehensive set of Terms of Use outlining the agreement between users and Mozilla. These terms cover software licensing, intellectual property rights, user feedback, terms for optional features, updates and termination, user responsibilities, limitations of liability, and disclaimers. Users must adhere to Mozilla's Acceptable Use Policy, refraining from infringing on others' rights or violating applicable laws. Mozilla disclaims liability for losses incurred through Firefox usage but commits to notifying users of service suspensions or terminations. California law governs the agreement.

(www.mozilla.org)

Development Terms of Use

OpenAI Delays GPT-4.5 Rollout Due to GPU Shortage

2025-02-28

OpenAI Delays GPT-4.5 Rollout Due to GPU Shortage

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that the rollout of the company's newest model, GPT-4.5, has been delayed due to a shortage of GPUs. Altman described the model as "giant" and "expensive," requiring "tens of thousands" more GPUs before wider access can be granted. GPT-4.5 will initially be available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers starting Thursday, followed by ChatGPT Plus users next week. The model's immense size contributes to its high cost: $75 per million input tokens and $150 per million output tokens, significantly more expensive than GPT-4. Altman attributed the GPU shortage to OpenAI's rapid growth, promising to add tens of thousands of GPUs next week to expand access. OpenAI plans to address future computing capacity limitations by developing its own AI chips and building a large network of data centers.

(techcrunch.com)

AI GPU shortage

GitHub Data Leaks: Even Briefly Public Repos Linger in Copilot

2025-02-28

GitHub Data Leaks: Even Briefly Public Repos Linger in Copilot

Security researchers warn that data exposed on the internet, even momentarily, can persist in generative AI chatbots like Microsoft Copilot. Lasso, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, found over 20,000 once-public GitHub repositories, now private, still accessible via Copilot. This affects major companies including Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and others, potentially exposing sensitive corporate data, keys, and tokens. Microsoft classified the issue as "low severity" and removed Bing cache links from search results in December 2024, but Lasso argues this isn't a complete fix.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech Data Leak

Microsoft Quietly Pulling the Plug on Classic Outlook?

2025-02-28

Microsoft Quietly Pulling the Plug on Classic Outlook?

Microsoft is phasing out the classic Outlook client in favor of its new, still-under-development version. Despite promises of a 12-month transition period, many users are reporting that new installations of Microsoft 365 no longer include the classic Outlook. The new Outlook suffers from several shortcomings, including poor offline support, inability to write to PST files, lack of S/MIME encryption, and missing cross-mailbox functionality. As a result, many users still need the classic version. Fortunately, users can download the classic Outlook from Microsoft's website or the Microsoft Store, or obtain it from the 'offline installer' package available through their Microsoft account.

(office-watch.com)

Tech Email Client

EA Open-Sources Command & Conquer Source Code, Adds Steam Workshop Support

2025-02-27

EA Open-Sources Command & Conquer Source Code, Adds Steam Workshop Support

EA has announced that it's open-sourcing the source code for several classic Command & Conquer games, including Command & Conquer (Tiberian Dawn) and Red Alert, and adding Steam Workshop support to games like Renegade, Generals and Zero Hour. This move will allow players and modders to deeply modify and create new content, breathing new life into these beloved titles. While not the Tiberian Sun remaster many hoped for, this is still exciting news for fans, promising a revitalized future for these classic games.

(www.pcgamer.com)

Game

Type 1 Diabetes Reversed in Mice Using Engineered Blood Vessels

2025-02-27

Type 1 Diabetes Reversed in Mice Using Engineered Blood Vessels

A preclinical study shows that transplanting insulin-producing cells alongside engineered blood vessel-forming cells successfully reversed type 1 diabetes in mice. The innovative approach involved co-implanting human islets and reprogrammed vascular endothelial cells (R-VECs) under the skin, creating a vascularized network that produced insulin and normalized blood glucose for over 20 weeks. This breakthrough offers hope for a cure, though challenges remain in scaling up production and avoiding immunosuppression before clinical trials in humans.

(newatlas.com)

Tech Type 1 Diabetes Cell Transplantation Vascular Engineering

Technicolor Files for Bankruptcy Protection, Thousands of VFX Jobs at Risk

2025-02-27

Visual effects giant Technicolor, home to MPC, The Mill, and other prominent brands, has filed for bankruptcy protection in France after failing to secure new investors. The move threatens thousands of VFX jobs across the US, UK, Canada, and India. Some employees are already finding new opportunities; for example, a portion of The Mill's US team is launching a new venture, Arc Creative, with Dream Machine FX. Technicolor's struggles highlight challenges in the post-production industry, raising concerns within the VFX community and jeopardizing numerous ongoing film projects.

(variety.com)

Tech Visual Effects

Slim Cuts Ties with Starlink: A $22 Billion Bet on Self-Built Infrastructure

2025-02-27

Slim Cuts Ties with Starlink: A $22 Billion Bet on Self-Built Infrastructure

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has canceled his collaboration with Elon Musk's Starlink, a deal worth a staggering $22 billion. Following a controversial tweet by Musk implying Slim's ties to organized crime, tensions escalated. Slim's decision to invest $22 billion in building his own telecommunications infrastructure strengthens his market position in Latin America. However, this move represents a significant loss for Starlink, costing them a major partner, substantial revenue, and potentially ceding ground to Chinese companies, impacting US commercial presence in the region.

(mexicodailypost.com)

Tech Slim

Groundbreaking Immunotherapy for Brain Cancer to Enter Large-Scale Clinical Trial

2025-02-27

Groundbreaking Immunotherapy for Brain Cancer to Enter Large-Scale Clinical Trial

An Australian-led international clinical trial will scientifically investigate the efficacy of a double immunotherapy approach in treating glioblastoma. The trial, led by The Brain Cancer Centre, a collaboration of world-leading oncologists, immunologists, and neurosurgeons, will test double immunotherapy, with some patients also receiving chemotherapy. While early results are promising, researchers emphasize the need for a large-scale clinical trial before it can be considered a breakthrough.

(www.wehi.edu.au)

Tech glioblastoma clinical trial

IBM Acquires HashiCorp: Building a Comprehensive Hybrid Cloud Platform

2025-02-27

IBM Acquires HashiCorp: Building a Comprehensive Hybrid Cloud Platform

IBM has completed its acquisition of HashiCorp, a leader in automating and securing the infrastructure for hybrid cloud applications and generative AI. This acquisition strengthens IBM's hybrid cloud offerings, enabling clients to accelerate innovation, enhance security, and maximize cloud value. HashiCorp's products, such as Terraform and Vault, will integrate with IBM's Red Hat, watsonx, and other technologies, creating powerful synergies. This move solidifies IBM's position in the hybrid cloud market and demonstrates its continued investment in automation software to help organizations optimize IT spending and reduce costs.

(newsroom.ibm.com)

Tech Hybrid Cloud

pgRouting: Beyond GeoSpatial, Graph Algorithms in PostgreSQL

2025-02-27

pgRouting: Beyond GeoSpatial, Graph Algorithms in PostgreSQL

pgRouting, a PostgreSQL extension, typically finds the shortest path between two locations. However, this article explores its broader graph capabilities. It demonstrates pgRouting's applications in project management, distributed systems, and recommendation engines. By modeling task dependencies, server networks, and video recommendations as graphs, pgRouting leverages Dijkstra's and A* algorithms to find critical paths, optimal resource allocation routes, and relevant video suggestions. This showcases pgRouting as a powerful lightweight alternative beyond traditional geospatial uses.

(supabase.com)

Development graph algorithms

NVIDIA's RIVA 128: From Near Bankruptcy to GPU Domination

2025-02-27

NVIDIA's RIVA 128: From Near Bankruptcy to GPU Domination

This is the first in a series of posts detailing the architecture of NVIDIA's first commercially successful product, the RIVA 128 graphics card. The author recounts NVIDIA's early struggles, including the failures of the NV1 and NV2 chips, and the desperate race against bankruptcy to develop the RIVA 128. The RIVA 128's success catapulted NVIDIA to its current position as a dominant force in AI and GPUs. The post provides a deep dive into the RIVA 128's architecture, covering its memory mapping, interrupt system, DMA engine, and object system, revealing the complexity and ingenuity of this iconic GPU.

(86box.net)

Tech

Thrift Store Find: $30 Valve Potentially Worth $223,520

2025-02-27

Thrift Store Find: $30 Valve Potentially Worth $223,520

A Washington State man, Zach, purchased an aircraft engine air supply valve for $30 at a thrift store. The part, identified as a Honeywell 3290628-4, is reportedly part of a GE CF6-80 engine from an A330-300 and had a reference value of $223,520 in 2011, according to Aeroval. While Zach acknowledges the difficulty of selling the part due to missing documentation and its potentially non-functional state, the story highlights the surprising value of discarded items and the potential for incredible thrift store finds.

(www.avweb.com)

Misc thrift store find aircraft parts unexpected value

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