Category: Uncategorized

Bernhard Warner / New York Times: How researchers at Amazon and other companies are making AI-powered devices and bots more conversational by tackling the voice disentanglement issue  —  For Alexa to speak like a Dubliner, Amazon researchers had to crack a problem that’s vexed data scientists for years: voice disentanglement.

There’s a surprisingly straightforward answer to how many numbers are needed to fill an infinite grid so that identical numbers never get too close together.

We plonked our butts on these electric and nonelectric toilet seats to see which cleaned best.

Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica: Red Hat’s new source code policy doesn’t violate the GPL itself but makes it harder to verify the company’s GPL compliance, angering the open-source community  —  A (reasonably) condensed version of two weeks’ worth of heated GPL argument.  —  When CentOS announced in 2020 that it was shutting …

New York Times: Drone shows are increasingly replacing fireworks displays; research: the global drone light show market is projected to grow from $1.3B in 2021 to $2.2B in 2031  —  The light displays are quieter, safer and better for the environment.  —  Like many in the fireworks industry, Stephen Vitale is in the family business.

So many food blogs and recipe sites are samey and full of pretty pictures but untested recipes. Don’t worry, it’s possible to find something you’ll love to cook and eat.

Wes Davis / The Verge: Valve says it won’t approve Steam games that use copyright-infringing AI artwork, contrary to reports claiming the company planned to completely ban AI art  —  On Thursday, various outlets reported on a June Reddit post from user potterharry97 saying that Steam would no longer be publishing games with AI-generated content.

We’ve tested tongs, wands, curling irons, and dryers in our pursuit of the best tools for all hair types and styles. These are our top twisters.

Jay Peters / The Verge: Bluesky says it is “temporarily” pausing new sign-ups to resolve performance issues caused by “record high-traffic”  —  / ‘We will temporarily be pausing Bluesky sign-ups while our team continues to resolve the existing performance issues.’

Plus: Hackers knock out Russian military satellite communications, a spyware maker gets breached, and the SEC targets a victim company’s CISO.

The perfect kitchen companion, these versatile blenders can whip up breakfast, dinner party dips, and everything in between.

Poynter: Q&A with Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, on the whirlwind first two weeks under Elon Musk, Twitter’s content moderation approach, and more  —  Yoel Roth explains how moderation rules evolved at Twitter, the fight against harassment and why he no longer drives a Tesla

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Elon Musk says verified Twitter accounts are temporarily limited to reading 6K posts/day, unverified 600, and new unverified 300, due to “extreme” data scraping  —  Twitter is putting limits to how many tweets its users can read as the Elon Musk-owned service suffers extended outage …

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Tracxn: Indian startups raised $5.46B in H1 2023, down from $17.1B in H1 2022 and $13.4B in H1 2021; Tiger Global made just one deal while SoftBank made none  —  Several high-flying Indian startups, including Byju’s, Swiggy and PharmEasy, have experienced a dramatic downward adjustment in their valuations

Fans have lots of ways to help ensure even lesser-known music acts can continue playing.

In Held v. Montana, 16 young residents challenged what the state must do to uphold its constitution’s guarantee of a “clean and healthful environment.”

NBC News: The FBI says it formed an online database in May to prevent swatting by facilitating coordination between police departments and law enforcement agencies  —  Advances in technology allow callers to mask their voices, phone numbers or IP addresses (also called “spoofing”) or make their false 911 calls sound more credible.

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: Generative AI can make experienced programmers more productive, potentially eliminating tasks done by junior developers as companies use the tech to save money  —  Artificial-intelligence software is eating the software industry, as companies turn to generative AI tools to save money on programmers.

Ari Levy / CNBC: Nasdaq gained 32% in H1 2023, its best first half since 1983’s 37% rise; Nvidia is up 195%+, Meta is up 130%+, Apple and Amazon are up 50%+, Alphabet is up 34%+  —  – The Nasdaq jumped 32% in the first six months of the year, its best first half since […]

Bloomberg: Fidelity, Invesco, VanEck, and WisdomTree refile for a spot bitcoin ETF with Coinbase as market surveillance provider, to answer the US SEC’s objections  —  In a flurry of Friday afternoon activity, Fidelity Investments, Invesco, VanEck and WisdomTree filed a fresh set of applications …

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: VMware partners with Samsung, AMD, and the RISC-V Keystone community to accelerate the adoption of confidential computing, which encrypts data as it’s processed  —  VMware Inc. stepped up its efforts to accelerate the adoption of confidential computing today, announcing an alliance …

Understanding artificial intelligence and how it relates to matters of national security has become a top priority for military and government leaders in recent years. A new three-day custom program entitled “Artificial Intelligence for National Security Leaders” — AI4NSL for short — aims to educate leaders who may not have a technical background on the basics of […]

Companies need to consider a set of risks as they explore how to adopt new tools.

Talking through five common reasons you may have taken a step back from work.

Plus: Microsoft fixes 78 vulnerabilities, VMWare plugs a flaw already used in attacks, and more critical updates from June.

Created in 2000 to halt urban decay in the Brazilian city of Recife, the initiative has brought thousands of tech jobs to the region.

Daryna Antoniuk / The Record: Hackers claim responsibility for an attack on Russian satellite service Dozor-Teleport; IODA project says the network has been offline since 10pm EST on June 28  —  A group of previously unknown hackers has claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on the Russian satellite communications …

Industrially processed pizzas, cereals, and convenience foods are responsible for a host of diseases. Policymakers and doctors need to lead the food fight.

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: An Indian court dismisses Twitter’s challenge to government content rules and fines the company ~$61K after it failed to explain its delayed compliance  —  An Indian court has dismissed Twitter’s lawsuit against the federal government that sought to challenge New Delhi’s block orders on tweets and accounts.

Alexa Corse / Wall Street Journal: Sources: Linda Yaccarino advocated for Twitter to rejoin Tech Coalition, which helps fight CSAM, and approved $40K in dues; Twitter’s membership lapsed in March  —  CEO Linda Yaccarino approved $40,000 annual cost to participate in group as part of her efforts to reassure advertisers

A pomegranate might seem a bit mundane on the outside, but, like many things in the world, it contains a wondrous richness inside. That’s a motif of Helen Elaine Lee’s new novel, “Pomegranate,” published by Simon and Schuster this spring. The story tracks the journey of Ranita Atwater, a queer Black woman redefining her life […]

Chart captions that explain complex trends and patterns are important for improving a reader’s ability to comprehend and retain the data being presented. And for people with visual disabilities, the information in a caption often provides their only means of understanding the chart. But writing effective, detailed captions is a labor-intensive process. While autocaptioning techniques […]

Snag a bargain on our favorite gear for camping, hiking, and plopping down in your backyard.

Aaron Holmes / The Information: Court docs: Satya Nadella said Azure’s cloud server business made $34B in revenue in the year ended June 2022, less than half of AWS’ revenue in the same period  —  For years Microsoft has kept a lid on details about the true size of its Azure cloud server rental business […]

OceanGate’s lost sub sparked a frantic rescue effort—and resurfaced safety questions that had been raised years earlier.

From Flamin’ Hot to Stan Lee, here’s what you need to watch on the streaming platform.

Alex Heath / The Verge: Meta plans to let people in the EU directly download apps through Facebook ads; a pilot is set to start as soon as this year with select Android app developers  —  Meta is planning to let people in the EU directly download apps through Facebook ads, setting the company up […]

Ryan Naraine / SecurityWeek: NYC-based Venn Software, which is developing a Secure Enclave product that can be installed on remote employee laptops, raised a $29M Series A led by NewSpring  —  New York startup scores early stage financing to build new technology to replace virtual desktop infrastructure.

Claims that superintelligent AI poses a threat to humanity are frightening, but only because they distract from the real issues today, argues Mhairi Aitken, an ethics fellow at The Alan Turing Institute

Joby Aviation’s electric flying vehicle has received regulatory permission to begin test flights in the US, ahead of delivering the vehicle to the US Air Force next year

Address the three factors that deter them from applying to top positions.

Summer is the perfect time to curl up with a good book — and MIT authors have had much to offer in the past year. The following titles represent a selection of books published in the past 12 months by MIT faculty and staff. In addition to links for each book from its publisher, the […]

Successful relationships take time to develop, with both parties investing energy and resources and fostering mutual trust and understanding. The MIT Portugal Program (MPP), a strategic partnership between MIT, Portuguese universities and research institutions, and the Portuguese government, is a case in point. Portugal’s inaugural partnership with a U.S. university, MPP was established in 2006 […]

No one wants a bored board.

Strategies to help you balance the day-to-day demands of the job with your long-term goals.

Hema Parmar / Bloomberg: Sources: Tiger Global rejected hundreds of bids for its private assets in recent months; as of January 1, the firm managed $51B, including $37B via its VC unit  —  Tiger Global Management turned down hundreds of bids for its private assets in recent months because it felt the offers were too […]

This week, we talk to the author of To Dye For, a new book about toxic fashion and the abundance of harmful chemicals in our clothing.

The Atlantic Ocean is extremely warm right now—fuel for gnarlier hurricanes. But will a burgeoning El Niño butt in and stop the storms before they start?

John Biju / Reuters: Chinese food delivery giant Meituan plans to acquire AI startup Light Year from Meituan co-founder Wang Huiwen for ~$233.7M in cash and ~$50.7M in debt  —  Chinese food delivery giant Meituan (3690.HK) said on Thursday that it is acquiring artificial intelligence (AI) company Light Year …

Matt Burgess / Wired: Activists and researchers file a GDPR complaint against Pornhub in Italy, claiming the company is “illegally” handling user data; the process may take years  —  Complaints filed in the European Union claim the porn site fails to follow basic data-collection policies under GDPR.