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GOOGLE MUST CRACK OPEN ANDROID FOR THIRD-PARTY STORES, RULES EPIC JUDGE

Google has been ordered to effectively open up the Google Play app store to competition for three years. It will have to distribute rival third-party app stores within Google Play and give third-party app stores access to the full catalog of Google Play apps unless developers opt out. Google must also, between November 1, 2024, to November 1, 2027, stop requiring Google Play Billing for apps distributed on the Google Play Stores and let Android developers tell users about other ways to pay from within the Play Store, link to ways to download their apps outside of the Play Store, and set their own prices for apps irrespective of Play Billing. Many more details on the ruling are available in the article.

FIRST WAVE OF M4 MACS, INCLUDING SMALLER MAC MINI, COMING NOVEMBER 1

M4 Macs are predicted to launch on November 1 following a late-October announcement. Apple is expected to launch refreshed 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips, a new M4 version of the 24-inch iMac, and an M4 update to the Mac mini. The refreshed Mac mini will come with a fully revamped design and be closer in size to an Apple TV box. It will have fewer ports than current models. The new Macs should launch around the same time as the macOS Sequoia 15.1 update. M4 Macs likely won't get any unique Apple Intelligence features.

SPACEX LAUNCHES EUROPE'S HERA ASTEROID MISSION AHEAD OF HURRICANE MILTON

NASA smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid millions of miles from Earth two years ago to test a technique for deflecting objects off a collision course with Earth. The European Space Agency launched a mission on Monday to go back to the crash site to see the damage done. The Hera mission will arrive in late 2026 to perform a comprehensive survey. It will help scientists better understand the inner structure of asteroids, allowing future mission planners to know how best to deflect hazardous objects that threaten Earth.

AGILITY ROBOTICS, MAKER OF HUMANOID BOTS, SHOWS OFF ITS ‘ROBOFAB'

Agility Robotics' RoboFab will produce its first bot sometime this month. The company is among a number of robot makers that are combining increasingly powerful batteries, motors, and sensors with software to create bots that can work in spaces designed for humans. It will set up as many as four production lines. RoboFab doesn't require the expensive machinery usually found in auto plants. Agility's robots can mostly be assembled by humans wielding hand tools.

ALI DIAMOND, FROM HAK5: "I'M A SOFTWARE ENGINEER, AND I HAVE TO MAKE BAD SECURITY DECISIONS—WHY?" Save your spot!

SQ DATA WRANGLER

sq is a command line tool that provides jq-style access to structured data sources. It executes jq-like queries and can join across sources. sq outputs to a multitude of formats and can insert query results directly to a SQL database. It can inspect sources to view metadata about the source structure.

UNLOCKING THE ‘AHA' MOMENT: DEVELOPER RELATIONS FOR STARTUPS

While developer relations can be the cornerstone of product adoption and growth for early-stage companies, many of these companies often focus on the wrong things. Success lies in how quickly developers reach their first 'aha' moment - the moment when they truly grasp a product's core value and potential. This article discusses the importance of getting developers to the 'aha' moment and how using a product marketing mindset can help, how to build an incredible developer experience, how to use open source to drive growth and build a community, and more.

PRIVATE EQUITY RUINS TECH COMPANIES

Private equity firms raise money from investors to buy companies, restructure them, and sell them for a profit. They're all about maximizing returns in the fastest time possible. When these firms acquire a tech company, they focus on aggressive cost-cutting and streamlining operations to boost short-term profitability. This is extremely destructive - private equity-backed companies are 10 times more likely to go bankrupt than public companies. Open source communities are particularly vulnerable to this model.

THE 30-YEAR-OLD INTERNET BACKDOOR LAW THAT CAME BACK TO BITE

China-backed hackers have compromised the wiretap systems of several US telecom and internet providers. These wiretap systems typically grant a select few employees nearly unlimited access to information about customers, including internet traffic and browsing histories. Technologists have warned for years about the security risks of legally required backdoors. The wiretap systems are mandated under a 30-year-old US federal law, which requires communication providers to provide the government with all necessary assistance to access customers' information when presented with a lawful order.

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US ANTITRUST CASE AGAINST AMAZON TO MOVE FORWARD

VIRTUALIZING IOS ON APPLE SILICON

This post explores how to virtualize iOS on Apple Silicon Macs.

APPLE IS REPORTEDLY MOVING AWAY FROM ANNUAL LAUNCHES

Apple is shifting away from annual launches and instead saving features to make a bigger splash.

LICENSING CAN BE JOYFUL (AND LEGALLY DUBIOUS)

There are a lot of small, playful licenses that inject a little joy and play into an area of software that's usually serious and somber.

LLMS, THEORY OF MIND, AND CHERYL'S BIRTHDAY

Large language models appear to not have theory of mind.

VIDEO IS IMPOSSIBLE

Running a dedicated video site on the internet is impossible because it is extremely expensive to host an enormous amount of content and serve it instantly and at high quality to users all around the world.

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FACEBOOK LAUNCHES A GEN Z-FOCUSED REDESIGN

Meta has announced a series of changes to Facebook that will put a greater emphasis on local community information, videos, and Facebook Groups. The changes are aimed at making Facebook more approachable for those wanting to connect with their local community or be entertained. Meta also announced updates to Meta AI, Facebook Dating, and Messenger. This article goes through the long list of upcoming changes in detail.

GOOGLE'S GRIP ON SEARCH SLIPS AS TIKTOK AND AI STARTUP MOUNT CHALLENGE

TikTok has recently started allowing brands to target ads based on users' search queries and Perplexity, an AI search startup, plans to introduce ads later this month under its AI-generated answers. Google's share of the US search ad market is expected to drop below 50% next year for the first time in over a decade. Generative AI, which serves fully formed answers to user queries, is transforming search products. Companies are experimenting with ways to monetize ads with chatbots, but some analysts are uncertain whether ads in chatbots will be as valuable as traditional search because people might be less likely to click on them.

THE US HAS PASSED PEAK OBESITY, A NEW SURVEY SUGGESTS. IS IT THE OZEMPIC EFFECT?

The obesity rate in adults in the US fell by 2% between 2020 and 2023. There is no established direct link between new weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and the decline in obesity, but there is a strong possibility of a link considering the medications hit the market around 2021. Approximately one in eight US adults have tried the new weight-loss drugs, with more than 15 million using a prescription. At least 25,000 people in the US are starting the drug every week.

TO BE BORN IN A BAG

Several research groups are developing artificial wombs to replicate their basic life-support functions for extremely premature infants. At least one group is working on a system to grow a fetus from embryo to birth entirely outside of the womb. Such technology could have profound implications for the future of human reproduction. Despite several technology hurdles, it might not be very long before the first human baby is birthed from a bag.

Datadog researchers examined more than 2.4 billion containers

run by tens of thousands of customers. What are the most prominent patterns when it comes to container usage, security, and implementation? Download the full report here → 10 Insights On

Real-World Container Usage (PDF)

ONE

One is a React framework for web and native that simplifies things with universal, typed routing seamlessly across static, server, and client pages. The project aims to make full stack development as simple as possible. It allows developers to target React Native and web with a single code base with shared file-system routing. One includes a production server out of the box.

CONTENT-VISIBILITY: THE NEW CSS PROPERTY THAT BOOSTS YOUR RENDERING PERFORMANCE

The content-visibility property launching in Chromium 85 may be one of the most impactful new CSS properties for improving page load performance. It enables the user agent to skip an element's rendering work until it is needed. It also allows for faster interactions with on-screen content. Reducing rendering work can in some situations reduce a page's Interaction to Next Paint, a metric that evaluates a page's ability to be reliably responsive to user input.

WE'RE ENTERING UNCHARTED TERRITORY FOR MATH

Terence Tao, a mathematics professor at UCLA widely considered to be the world's greatest living mathematician, recently posted his impressions of OpenAI's o1 model, comparing it to a mediocre but not completely incompetent graduate student. This article contains an edited transcript of an interview with Tao where he describes a kind of AI-enabled 'industrial-scale mathematics' in which AI acts as a lubricant for mathematicians' hypotheses and approaches to unlock new information. This approach keeps humans at its core, embracing both the strengths of people and machines.

THIS TEENAGE HACKER BECAME A LEGEND ATTACKING COMPANIES. THEN HIS RIVALS ATTACKED HIM

Arion Kurtaj is a hacker accused of breaking into Uber and stealing software and videos from Rockstar Games. He was given an indefinite hospital order for his crimes, confined to a secure mental health ward until doctors and UK officials decide he is no longer a danger to the public. His lawyers are seeking an appeal, arguing that evidence fails to prove Kurtaj committed many of the offenses he is accused of or was the central player. This article tells the story of Kurtaj's life. Kurtaj lived a very empty offline life with all sorts of difficulties, challenges, and limitations, but online, he was a bit of a superhero.

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MATT MULLENWEG: ‘WORDPRESS.ORG JUST BELONGS TO ME'

Matt Mullenweg has made it clear over the past several weeks that he's in charge of WordPress' future.

META'S NEW “MOVIE GEN” AI SYSTEM CAN DEEPFAKE VIDEO FROM A SINGLE PHOTO

Meta does not yet have plans for when or how it will release the new capabilities to the public.

SAFER PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS MAY BE COMING

While psychedelics have been shown to be very effective, they can be scary and unpredictable.

VENTURE CAPITAL'S "CRISIS"

Many startups are overvalued relative to their exit potential, but there is hope in AI and the upcoming elections.

STARBASEDB

StarbaseDB is an HTTP SQLite database that features HTTPS endpoints to interact with databases, transactions support for ACID database interactions, and scale-to-zero compute when databases are not in use.

NEARLY 50% OF RESEARCHERS QUIT SCIENCE WITHIN A DECADE, HUGE STUDY REVEALS

A study of nearly 400,000 scientists across 38 countries found that a third quit science within five years of authoring their first paper.

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INSIDE ELON MUSK'S AI PARTY AT OPENAI'S OLD HEADQUARTERS

Elon Musk laid out his vision to beat closed, for-profit AI during a recruitment party for xAI held the same day OpenAI was hosting its annual Dev Day across town. Musk had co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman and a group of partners in 2015, but he quit the board three years later due to a potential future conflict with Tesla's focus on AI and disagreements with the OpenAI team. He founded xAI to create a digital superintelligence, assembling a team drawn from his other companies. This article takes a look at what happened at the recruitment party, where Musk called on developers to join the company to help build the intelligence and applications derived from that intelligence.

OPENAI LAUNCHES NEW ‘CANVAS' CHATGPT INTERFACE TAILORED TO WRITING AND CODING PROJECTS

OpenAI has introduced an interface for interacting with ChatGPT called 'canvas'. The feature allows users to generate text and then highlight sections of the text to have the model edit. It is now available in beta to ChatGPT Plus users - Enterprise and Edu users will receive it next week. OpenAI plans to offer the feature to free users once it is out of beta.

CERN CONFIRMS ULTRA-RARE PARTICLE TRANSFORMATION, HINTS AT NEW PHYSICS

Researchers at CERN have established, experimentally observed, and measured the decay of a charged kaon particle into a charged pion and a neutrino-antineutrino pair. This specific kind of decay is incredibly rare but well predicted by the complex mathematics making up the Standard Model of physics. Its rarity and precision makes it a highly sensitive gauge for detecting new physics.

NASA IS WORKING ON A PLAN TO REPLACE ITS SPACE STATION, BUT TIME IS RUNNING OUT

NASA will finalize a strategy for its operations in low-Earth orbit after 2030 over the next several months. It will award contracts to one or more private companies to develop small space stations towards the end of next year. These space stations will make NASA and other space agencies customers rather than operators. The plans are still developing and there are still many questions left unanswered, such as whether NASA really needs to continue having a presence in low-Earth orbit at all.

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VENATOR

Venator is a flexible threat detection system that simplifies rule management and deployment. It is optimized for Kubernetes deployment but can run standalone or with other job schedulers. Venator allows developers to easily switch between different data lakes or services with minimal changes and avoid vendor lock-in and dependence on specific SIEM solutions for signal generation.