The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 state attorneys general have filed a lawsuit against Amazon, claiming that the company illegally maintains its monopoly power.
Amazon is accused of engaging in exclusionary conduct that stifling competition, inflates prices, reduces quality, and hinders innovation; this is seen as detrimental to both consumers and businesses.
The FTC and its state partners are seeking a permanent injunction to halt Amazon's alleged unlawful activities and restore competition in the market.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued Amazon claiming that it holds illegal monopoly power, hindering small businesses and limiting their opportunities to sell on other platforms.
Criticisms raised against Amazon include hiking prices for Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) sellers, coercing sellers to use its advertising services, and lack of adequate measures to tackle counterfeit products.
The lawsuit has sparked debates on implications of Amazon’s dual role as a platform and a competitor in the market, challenges faced by businesses using Amazon, and the influence of Apple’s privacy changes on advertising.
The author presents concerns over the Philips Hue ecosystem, focusing on the company's recent management choices which have increased user dissatisfaction.
Philips has enforced a new End User License Agreement and now requires users to log in, needing cloud integration, and this could potentially degrade the system's functionality.
A potential workaround mentioned is the use of the Ikea Dirigera hub, although it is not portrayed as a fail-safe solution. The author hopes for the development of a better alternative in the future.
The post centers on the mixed views toward the Philips Hue ecosystem and broader home automation, highlighting user frustrations about system changes, manufacturers' perceived lack of loyalty, and compulsory account creation.
Issues of brightness, reliability, compatibility, and user agreements are raised. Some users are turning to alternative smart bulbs and hubs or building their own home infrastructure to overcome these problems.
It also touches on more positive aspects of home automation such as the benefits of automated lighting and customization. The author shares their use of Zigbee2MQTT and refutes claims that Home Assistant is insecure. There's a general acknowledgment of both the potential and challenges of this technology field.
The Raverie engine is under development as an alternative to Unity, leveraging a component-based design similar to Unity's but with unique features such as separate worlds/levels and a configurable lighting and rendering engine.
The engine is constructed to WebAssembly without utilizing Emscripten, thereby easing future porting to other platforms.
The creators have a roadmap that includes the integration of the sound engine with WebAudio, enhancement of the script debugger, and the addition of networking capabilities using WebRTC and WebSockets, aiming ultimately to establish an online hub for sharing and remixing games.
The Raverie engine, created by DigiPen Institute of Technology, is an innovative game editor that operates on WebAssembly, featuring discrete worlds/levels, a scriptable lighting and rendering engine, and a physics mechanism.
The author raises concerns about over-dependency on readily available game engines, drawing from their experience at DigiPen.
Users commend the Raverie engine's editing capabilities, yet they convey concerns over performance issues, leading to discussions about the application of WebAssembly and potential enhancements.
The European Union (EU) is pressing Apple to open up its hardware and software ecosystem to rival companies.
The EU's Commissioner, Thierry Breton, encourages Apple to permit competitors to offer services like electronic wallets, browsers, and app stores on iPhones in accordance with the Digital Markets Act.
The Act's objective is to ensure a level playing field for all tech companies. Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, met with Breton but has yet to comment on the situation.
The European Union is urging Apple for increased competition in its operating system and app store, due to concerns about Apple's control over its ecosystem and limited user alternatives.
There are discussions about Google's dominance in the browser market with Chrome and potential monopolies of companies like Meta.
The arguments revolve around the need for user freedom versus the security of closed ecosystems, and the ongoing debate about user protection, freedom, and the role of governmental regulation in the tech industry.
Ariel Miculas, a software engineer at Cisco, had a discouraging experience where he felt he was denied acknowledgement for his first contribution to the Linux kernel.
He had developed a patch to fix a bug affecting debugging capabilities in the project, but the PowerPC maintainer, instead of accepting his patch, created his own fix.
The maintainer only credited Ariel for reporting the issue, not for his work in creating the patch, leading Ariel to feel undervalued and disheartened.
This discussion stresses the significance of appropriate acknowledgment and credit for contributions to the Linux kernel, a major open-source project.
There are divergent viewpoints regarding plagiarism, the role of maintainers (individuals who manage and oversee development areas), and the motivations of contributors to these projects.
The incident underscores the paramount importance of effective communication, collaboration, and just credit attribution in the open-source community.
Apple has launched a free software update, macOS Sonoma, introducing a variety of new functionalities for Mac users.
Key features include customizable desktop widgets, new screen savers, improved video conferencing and browsing with separate profiles, enhanced gaming with Game Mode, and updates to various applications such as Notes, Passwords, Messages among others.
The update has been released globally, however, its availability could differ based on region, language, and the device in use.
The discourse embraces topics like Apple's update bundling, problems with Siri and Apple Music, and clashes with package installation and compatibility.
Users show different preferences towards operating systems and package managers, also discussing Homebrew and its creator Max Howell.
Conversations touch on naming conventions for operating system releases, portraying a blend of satisfaction, frustration, and preferences for various software and hardware options.
Prophet is an open-source software from Facebook's Core Data Science team designed to assist in forecasting time series data by employing an additive model to accommodate non-linear trends and seasonal and holiday effects.
The software is resilient against missing data and outliers and is designed to excel with time series possessing robust seasonal impacts and sufficient historical data.
Prophet can be installed using either R or Python, and is accessible for downloading on CRAN and PyPI. It's covered under the MIT license and includes an experimental backend, referred to as cmdstanr.
Facebook has discontinued Prophet, its automatic forecasting procedure; it suggests users to consider other tools like NeuralProphet, statsforecast, or Darts for time series forecasting.
Several criticisms surfaced against Prophet with proposed alternative implementations using torch and numpy+scipy.optimize. Issues with STAN, a library Prophet used, were highlighted.
The discussion emphasized evaluating forecasts and understanding data structures as essential, promoting classical Bayesian models, Generalized Linear Models (GLM), and Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) for time-series forecasting purposes.
AMD is prioritizing unification of its various software stacks like ROCm, Vitis AI, and ZenDNN to enhance performance across a varying range of its AI hardware products.
The company has identified ROCm as its main concern and is investing in software development and talent acquisition to meet its unification goals.
AMD is supporting the open-source programming language Triton as an alternative to Nvidia's CUDA, and is encouraging community participation for the fast-tracking development of its software stack.
The Python package facilitates the incorporation of LLM queries into regular code by enabling the writing of function signatures.
This package simplifies the task of parsing LLM outputs by using the function's return type annotation, even for sophisticated return types.
The primary aim of this package is to demonstrate the flexible use of LLMs with regular code, and to streamline integration, inviting external contributions.
Magentic is a Python package enhancing the application of Language Models in code, praised for its streamlined API design.
Users have proposed using yaml instead of JSON for model formats while expressing concerns regarding elaborate return types.
The community conversation includes the advantages of using decorators in Python when measuring performance metrics, use of "..." in Python, various Language Models, and function design for the answer object.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has overruled the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) plea for immunity regarding its checkpoint staff involved in sexual assault incidents.
The court has established that lawsuits can be brought against the TSA under the Federal Tort Claims Act, making the administration liable for damages its staff incurs.
This decision sets a precedent in the 9th Circuit, affecting the West Coast states and the case is now referred back to the U.S. District Court for further examination.
The 9th Circuit has decided that the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) can be sued for employee misconduct, rebutting the agency's assertion of immunity.
This judgement signifies a move toward holding government bodies responsible for the actions of their staff.
Numerous discussions are ongoing, addressing TSA's efficacy, questioning the need for its presence, considering alternate security approaches, and casting doubt on TSA procedures' ability to prevent theft and abuse.
The article is about the creation of a tool named "st" which offers data on program runtimes, memory utilisation, and processes/threads created.
The performance of this tool is compared with gcc and clang compilers, and the performance of the clang++ C++ compiler is also analysed amid a separate program.
The author faced challenges using netlink for process tracking, but overcame with valuable insights from Natan Yellin's Blog.
The article delves into using the Linux command-line for monitoring space and time, particularly focusing on the measurement of command execution time through the 'time' command.
It discusses memory usage of C programs, along with other command-line operation concepts, providing in-depth coverage of the topic.
The article has earned praise from readers for its clear and comprehensive explanations, rendering it valuable for those interested in Linux command-line operations.
Essence is a new desktop operating system built from scratch, focusing on user control, simplicity, and respect for the user.
Despite being in development, Essence exhibits efficient resource management and impressive performance, even on low-powered hardware.
It features an open-source codebase and a vector-based user interface. Interested users can join the Discord server for updates and support its development on Patreon.
The Essence Operating System is highlighted as an appealing alternative for users not needing backward compatibility or server features, offering control, simplicity, and a customized interface.
Discussions also cover improving boot times, the optimization of the boot process, and the creation of new Operating System projects and web browsers.
There's overall positive sentiment towards the Essence OS development, with further mention of similar projects employing memory-safe languages.
"Blood in the Machine" by Brian Merchant challenges the common perception of Luddites, arguing that their resistance was not against technology but for workers' rights in the face of automation.
The author draws parallels between historical Luddite movement and modern resistance to technological advancements, especially in the artificial intelligence era. The potential consequences of AI-caused job displacement and unethical labor practices are highlighted.
Despite the unsuccessful endeavors of the Luddites to stop industrialization, the author emphasizes the necessity for societal responses and regulations to ensure that all benefit from automation.
The article examines the historical revisionism of the Luddite movement that opposed technology due to unfavorable work conditions and safety issues, drawing parallels between these concerns and the current impact of automation on workers.
A significant discussion point is the diverse perspectives on the effects of technology and automation on jobs, which includes potential job loss, power concentration, and the necessity for worker self-organization.
Commentary also encapsulates concerns about how artificial intelligence (AI) might negatively affect jobs, the possible decline of human welfare due to AI and automation, and the imperative for mutual respect and trust in technology.
The article emphasizes the benefits and strategies of arena allocators in programming, including improved performance, reduced fragmentation, and optimized allocation.
It discusses how to handle situations with limited memory, avoid disruptions, adhere to strict aliasing rules, and use char arrays for memory allocation.
The text further mentions "CollectionMicrobench", a GitHub project that enables control over block size in the arena allocation, signifying the practical use of these techniques.
The article talks about a popular Stack Overflow answer which was widely copied due to its functionality of converting byte size into a human-readable format, but later revealed to be flawed.
The author identifies the issues in the snippet, primarily centering around precision limitations and problems associated with floating-point arithmetic used within the code.
The article ends with a learning point: favoring short, straightforward loops over complex mathematical solutions, and the author proposes improvements to rectify the existing flaws in the code.
The discussion and articles are examining the shortcomings of a frequently replicated Stack Overflow code snippet and the habit of developers copying code without fully understanding it.
They delve into the potential risks that come with depending on copied code, indicating the urgency for error-proof coding practices.
The conversation highlights the relevance of validating certificates in TLS (Transport Layer Security) implementations and provides a scrutinized analysis of Stack Overflow code snippets found in GitHub projects.
The article explains how to implement breakpoints in a custom debugger known as DbgRs, detailing code modifications made for this purpose.
It introduces the concept of hardware breakpoints as the next progression, controlled by debug registers. It also goes on to show how to manage breakpoints, handle exceptions, and resume the execution process.
However, the article highlights a limitation - the provided code lacks call stack viewing functionality.
Mutton, meat from mature sheep, is not readily available in the US and typically found only in specialty butcher stores or ethnic markets.
The consumption of mutton has declined since the 20th century due to the replacement of wool by synthetic fibers in sheep farming, and its longer required cooking times.
Despite having a unique, strong flavor that some people enjoy, mutton is broadly perceived negatively in contemporary American society.
The discussions span across a wide range of topics, including the preference for different types of meats like lamb, mutton, and goat in various countries.
The conversations also explore different cooking methods for these meats, the effect of using soap on cast iron pans, and the impact of sheep grazing on the environment.
Further topics touched upon include the reduction in global market diversity, influences of marketing on food choices, and the availability of various meat types in supermarkets.
Researchers have uncovered a new cross-origin attack, dubbed 'GPU.zip', that reveals usernames, passwords, and other sensitive visual data displayed by websites using GPUs from major suppliers.
The attack enables malicious websites to read and reconstruct pixels from a different domain in order to view the content of the targeted site, thereby bypassing the same-origin policy, a fundamental security principle that segregates content from different website domains.
GPU.zip leverages data compression used by internal and discrete GPUs to exploit a side channel and steal pixels. The vulnerability has been demonstrated on GPUs made by Apple, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Arm, and Nvidia.
A sidechannel pixel-stealing attack has been identified in Chromium-based browsers, using SVG filters to determine each pixel's color on targeted sites.
The suggested remedy is the constant-time processing for iframes; however, it's viewed as cumbersome. Notably, Safari and Firefox browsers are not susceptible to this attack.
The discourse further explores issues about running untrusted code, repercussions of accelerated CSS on cross-origin iframes, timing attacks in web technologies, and debates on the concept of 'stealing' and its impact on security tools such as uMatrix.
GPU.zip is a recently discovered side channel vulnerability in modern Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) exploiting graphical data compression to leak visual data.
The vulnerability can be misused by harmful websites to steal pixels from other webpages, thereby breaching browser security models. It affects GPUs of multiple manufacturers and leaves some sensitive websites vulnerable.
GPU manufacturers and Google are currently debating whether to patch the vulnerability. While Google Chrome is susceptible to this attack, Firefox and Safari are not. The source code for GPU.zip is now publicly available.
The individual has developed design tools to address common issues and, reflecting on the positive feedback from conferences, is contemplating making them commercial.
Faced with the challenges of being a single founder, the person is considering aspects like setting milestones, geographical location, and marketing strategies for the products.
There is also an interest in understanding the difference between fundraising and founding a company, indicating that they are considering various avenues for financial support and business growth.
The post delves into the complexities and risks of a solopreneur attempting to monetize design tools, securing sizable contracts, and the need for customer diversification.
It underscores the challenges of operating as a solo team, the perks of targeting specific clientele, scaling via marketing strategies, and the role of emotional intelligence (knowledge and abilities to perceive, understand, and manage emotions) in sales.
Key points also include incorporating PubExchange with publishers, importance of face-to-face meetings, leveraging user feedback, comprehension of customer issues, and prioritizing product development for sustainable success.