James Earl Jones, renowned for his iconic voice as Darth Vader in "Star Wars," passed away at 93 in his Dutchess County, N.Y. home.
Overcoming a childhood stutter, Jones had a versatile career spanning over 60 years, including roles in "The Lion King," “Dr. Strangelove,” and “Field of Dreams.”
Jones won multiple prestigious awards, including two Tony Awards, two Emmys, a Grammy, and an honorary Oscar, and was also known for narrating documentaries and CNN’s tagline.
James Earl Jones, renowned for his iconic voice roles such as Darth Vader in Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King, has passed away.
Beyond his famous voice roles, Jones had a diverse career, including performances in films like "The Hunt for Red October," "Field of Dreams," and "Coming to America."
His achievements also include overcoming childhood stuttering, attending Ranger School, and performing in both Shakespearean and contemporary plays, making him a respected and versatile actor.
The FTC is being urged to address companies that intentionally degrade hardware through software updates, causing consumer frustration.
Examples include VR headsets and smartphones losing functionality due to manufacturers' remote actions, such as shutting down cloud servers.
There are calls for regulations to ensure device functionality or release source code when support ends, and suggestions for certifications for "cloud-free" or "open-source" devices.
The post emphasizes that some developers create open-source software purely for fun and the joy of problem-solving, not for financial gain or mass consumption.
It lists several "just for fun" projects, including a Ruby compiler (Natalie), a PHP parser in Rust (php-parser-rs), and a Minecraft launcher in Python (PyCraft), showcasing the diversity and creativity in the open-source community.
The post encourages developers to rediscover the fun in coding by working on projects that interest them, highlighting the importance of enjoying the process rather than focusing solely on the end product.
A developer shares their passion for coding and running a group where participants build projects together in 6-week cohorts, emphasizing the joy and excitement of collaborative creation.
The discussion highlights the value of working on personal projects for fun, with various participants sharing their experiences and motivations, such as learning new skills or simply enjoying the creative process.
The conversation touches on the challenges and perceptions of discussing personal projects in professional settings, with some seeing it as a sign of initiative and creativity, while others find it difficult to relate to job performance.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) initiated an antitrust trial against Google on September 9, 2024, in Virginia, focusing on Google's dominance in ad tech.
DOJ lawyer Julia Tarver Wood claimed Google has manipulated ad auctions, resulting in lower earnings for publishers and higher costs for advertisers.
The trial could be more damaging than previous cases, with the DOJ aiming to divest Google's Ad Manager suite, potentially leading to the separation of Google's search and advertising businesses.
The DOJ accuses Google of holding a "trifecta of monopolies" in the ad tech market, claiming these practices harm publishers and the economy.
Critics suggest the case should also address privacy violations and societal harm, while Google argues the DOJ's perspective on the ad tech market is outdated.
The trial underscores complex issues of market dominance, potential consumer benefits from breaking up Google, and broader implications for competition and innovation in the tech industry.
Cloudflare has developed a new open-source Rust crate to reduce CPU utilization, enhancing their CDN's capacity.
By optimizing the clear_internal_headers function using a trie data structure, they reduced its runtime from 3.65µs to 0.93µs, achieving a 1.28% reduction in CPU utilization for their proxy service.
This improvement highlights the significant impact of optimizing microsecond-level operations on overall performance, emphasizing the importance of observability and profiling tools.
Cloudflare's internal header storage method has ignited a debate on Hacker News, with users discussing various approaches like separate dictionaries and unique prefixes.
Critics argue that Cloudflare's method is error-prone, and a former employee highlighted potential issues with header manipulation in workers.
Cloudflare's CTO mentioned ongoing efforts to replace HTTP headers for inter-process communication (IPC), and the discussion also included data structure optimizations, such as using hash tables or Bloom filters.
Europe's top court has ruled against Apple in a decade-long tax dispute, mandating the company to pay 13 billion euros ($14.4 billion) in back taxes to Ireland.
The European Court of Justice upheld the European Commission's 2016 claim that Apple received "illegal" tax benefits from Ireland, reversing a 2020 appeal win by Apple and Ireland.
This case highlights ongoing tensions between U.S. tech giants and the European Union over taxation and antitrust issues, with Apple set to incur a $10 billion tax charge in its fourth fiscal quarter of 2024.
The EU's top court has ruled that Apple must pay 13 billion euros in back taxes, questioning whether Ireland applied uniform tax rules to all companies.
The case centers on whether Ireland's tax treatment of Apple constituted illegal state aid, which the court found it did.
This ruling has ignited debates about the EU's influence on taxation policies and its impact on companies and member states.
Harrison.rad.1 is a new radiology-specific foundational model that significantly outperforms others, scoring 85.67% in the FRCR 2B Rapids exam, compared to other models scoring below 50%.
The model excels in various radiology tasks, including finding detection, localisation, multi-modalities, and structured reporting, thanks to its exclusive dataset and specialised architecture.
Harrison.rad.1 aims to enhance global healthcare by increasing radiology capacity and is available to select collaborators for research and clinical integration.
A discussion on a radiology-specific AI model by harrison.ai highlights its potential benefits and challenges, including restricted public access and the need for a subscription model with disclaimers.
Users debate the technological and ethical risks of self-diagnosis, regulatory and commercial limitations, and the importance of integrating patient data and open datasets.
Concerns about liability, accuracy, and potential misuse of AI models are raised, with some users optimistic about AI's future in healthcare and others cautioning against over-reliance without proper oversight.
The sigrok project provides a portable, cross-platform, open-source signal analysis software suite, supporting devices like logic analyzers and oscilloscopes.
Key components include libsigrok, libsigrokdecode, and frontends like PulseView and sigrok-cli, with the latest update being sigrok-cli 0.7.2.
Sigrok offers features such as data logging, lab device control, and digital signal decoding, with extensive hardware support and comprehensive documentation available online.
Sigrok is a portable, cross-platform, free and open-source software (FOSS) suite for signal analysis, praised for its utility with affordable hardware.
Contributors have expressed frustration over slow feedback and outdated code styles, leading to discussions about the challenges of contributing large patches and the need for maintainers to balance their time.
Some users suggested forking the project due to slow merges, while others remain hopeful for more contributors to enhance the project.
Antithesis introduces a revolutionary debugging tool that allows users to "rewind time" to inspect systems just before a crash, making bug detection and resolution more efficient.
Key features include deterministic simulation, snapshotting, network traffic analysis, and performance profiling, all aimed at simplifying the debugging process.
The Reactive Multiverse Interface offers a browser-based reactive notebook connected to a deterministic hypervisor, providing a side effect-free environment for immediate debugging feedback.
Antithesis has introduced a new hypervisor for time-travel debugging, sparking interest due to its unique approach to deterministic debugging.
Unlike existing tools, Antithesis focuses on automated testing and deterministic development environments, addressing issues like non-determinism and storage costs efficiently.
The hypervisor can run on generic Linux systems, including NodeJS, and uses guided fuzzing and snapshots to manage complex production environments and long captures.
Ford Motor Company is seeking a patent for technology that listens to in-car conversations to tailor advertisements based on dialogue, location, and historical data.
The system, called “in-vehicle advertisement presentation,” can deliver audio or visual ads and predict destinations for relevant ads, but the patent does not specify data protection measures.
Ford's patent application has raised privacy concerns, similar to previous patents involving monitoring car speeds and self-repossessing vehicles.
Ford is pursuing a patent for technology that listens to driver conversations to deliver targeted ads, raising significant privacy concerns.
Critics worry about the broader implications, including potential regulatory issues and the erosion of consumer privacy, if this technology becomes widespread.
The debate centers on whether consumers will accept these features or avoid brands that implement such intrusive advertising methods.
Cohost.org will shut down at the end of 2024 due to lack of funding and staff burnout, with no paid staff and all funds directed towards operational costs.
The site will become read-only on October 1, 2024, with improved data export options, and users can download their data until December 31, 2024, after which all data will be deleted.
Starting January 1, 2025, the site will redirect to the Wayback Machine, and the team is seeking new jobs while expressing gratitude to users and requesting potential funding support.
Cohost, a social media platform, announced it will shut down at the end of 2024, sparking discussions about the sustainability of open social web services.
The debate highlights the misconception that minimal user contributions can sustain such platforms, ignoring significant costs like developer salaries, administrative hours, and moderation efforts.
The shutdown underscores broader issues in the tech industry, such as the challenges of maintaining non-ad-supported services and the unrealistic expectations of low-cost operations.
Illuminate is an experimental AI tool designed to transform content into engaging audio discussions, specifically optimized for computer science topics.
Users can join a waitlist to experiment with Illuminate, which uses AI-generated voices and discussions to adapt content to individual learning preferences.
Google has introduced "Illuminate," a service that converts books and academic papers into audio content using AI-generated voices.
The technology uses AI to create conversational audio that discusses key points from selected papers, currently optimized for computer science research.
This innovation has sparked discussions about the potential for autogenerated podcasts, the quality of AI-generated voices, and concerns about the authenticity and accuracy of AI-extracted content.
Gartner's AI chief Erick Brethenoux claims that AI techniques requiring specialist hardware, such as GPUs, are "doomed" and represent a "brute force" phase that will end as programming techniques improve.
Brethenoux argues that generative AI is overhyped, suitable for only five percent of workloads, and suggests organizations can benefit from AI without relying heavily on it.
Gartner's Bern Elliot advises against over-relying on generative AI, recommending its use primarily for content generation and conversational interfaces, and suggests using non-generative AI to verify results.
The current phase of AI development heavily relies on brute force computing, leading to high demand for GPUs.
Jevons paradox implies that increased efficiency in AI could result in even higher overall GPU demand due to more applications.
There is ongoing debate on whether AI advancements will shift away from GPUs or if the need for powerful hardware will persist as AI applications expand.
Udon is releasing the first batch of his DE-10 Nano clone boards, "MiSTer Pi," today at 8 PM NYC time, with a second batch on September 6th at 8 AM NYC time.
Pricing for the clone boards starts at $100, with options for additional components like RAM and fans, and a full PCB kit available for $160 (excluding a case).
There are concerns about the manufacturing process, and potential buyers are advised to wait for a detailed comparison to the original DE-10 and QMTech versions before purchasing.
Affordable DE10-Nano compatible boards for the MiSTer FPGA retro platform have been released, generating significant interest among retro gaming enthusiasts.
The MiSTer project targets the DE10-Nano board and its Cyclone V FPGA SoC, with no current port for a more powerful board, highlighting the niche focus on retro gaming hardware emulation.
The new boards sold out quickly, indicating high demand and excitement within the community, with the next batch expected in early October.
High-quality OpenType fonts can pack multiple styles into one file, unlike traditional fonts that require separate files for different styles.
OpenType fonts support variable axes (e.g., weight, width, slant) and various features like alternates, different numeral styles, small caps, and contextual alternates, which can be manipulated using CSS properties.
These advanced font features enhance typography by providing stylistic alternates, swashes, different numeral styles, and small caps, making text more visually appealing and versatile.
High-quality fonts enhance typography and offer features like tabular numerals, but many, especially from Google Fonts, lack advanced OpenType features to minimize file size.
Users express concerns over the scarcity of comprehensive Unicode fonts and the absence of a standardized set of open-license fonts across different operating systems.
Variable axes in fonts provide flexibility beyond weight adjustments, and resources like Butterick's Practical Typography and tools like fontdrop.info assist designers in optimizing font features.