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Yesterday, the Nim team announced the release of Nim version 0.20.0. Nim is a statically typed compiled systems programming language, which successfully combines the concepts from mature languages like Python, Ada and Modula. This is a massive release from Nim, with more than 1,000 commits. Nim version 0.20.0 is effectively Nim 1.0 RC1. The team has also mentioned that the stable release 1.0 will either be, the Nim 0.20.0 being promoted to 1.0 status or another release candidate, as there will be no more breaking changes. Also, version1.0 will be a long-term supported stable release and will only receive bug fixes and new features in the future, as long as it doesn't break backwards compatibility. New Features not is always a unary operator Stricter compile time checks for integer and float conversions Tuple unpacking for constant and for loop variables Hash sets and tables are initialized by default Better error message for case-statements The length of a table must not change during iteration Better error message for index out of bounds Changelog The Nim version 0.20.0 includes many changes affecting backwards compatibility. One of the changes is that strutils.editDistance has been deprecated, instead editdistance.editDistance or editdistance.editDistanceAscii to be used instead. One of the breaking changes in the standard library includes osproc.execProcess now also takes a workingDir parameter and std/sha1.secureHash will now accept openArray[char], and not string. There are few breaking changes in the compiler too. One of the main changes is that the compiler now implements the “generic symbol prepass” for when statements in generics. Library additions There are many new library additions in this release. Some of them are mentioned below: stdlib module std/editdistance as a replacement for the deprecated strutils.editDistance. stdlib module std/wordwrap as a replacement for the deprecated strutils.wordwrap. Added split, splitWhitespace, size, alignLeft, align, strip, repeat procs and iterators to unicode.nim. Added or for NimNode in macros Added system.typeof for more control over how type expressions can be deduced. Library changes Many changes have been made in the library. Some of them are mentioned below: The string output of macros.lispRepr proc has been tweaked slightly. The dumpLisp macro in this module now outputs an indented proper Lisp, devoid of commas. Added macros.signatureHash that returns a stable identifier derived from the signature of a symbol. In strutils empty strings now no longer match as substrings The Complex type is now a generic object and not a tuple anymore. The ospaths module is now deprecated, use os instead. Note that os is available in a NimScript environment but unsupported operations produce a compile-time error. Language additions There have been new additions to the language as well. Some of them are mentioned below: Vm support for float32<->int32 and float64<->int64 casts was added. There is a new pragma block noSideEffect that works like the gcsafe pragma block User defined pragmas are now allowed in the pragma blocks Pragma blocks are no longer eliminated from the typed AST tree to preserve pragmas for further analysis by macros. Language changes The standard extension for SCF (source code filters) files was changed from .tmpl to .nimf. Pragma syntax is now consistent. Previous syntax where type pragmas did not follow the type name is now deprecated. Also pragma before generic parameter list is deprecated to be consistent with how pragmas are used with a proc. Hash sets and tables are initialized by default. The explicit initHashSet, initTable, etc. are not needed anymore. Tool changes jsondoc now includes a moduleDescription field with the module description. jsondoc0 shows comments as its own objects as shown in the documentation. nimpretty: –backup now defaults to off instead of on and the flag was undocumented; use git instead of relying on backup files. koch now defaults to build the latest stable Nimble version unless you explicitly ask for the latest master version via --latest. Compiler changes The deprecated fmod proc is now unavailable on the VM A new --outdir option was added The compiled JavaScript file for the project produced by executing nim js will no longer be placed in the nimcache directory. The --hotCodeReloading has been implemented for the native targets. The compiler also provides a new more flexible API for handling the hot code reloading events in the code. The compiler now supports a --expandMacro:macroNameHere switch for easy introspection into what a macro expands into. The -d:release switch now does not disable runtime checks anymore. For a release build that also disables runtime checks use -d:release -d:danger or simply -d:danger. The Nim version 0.20.0 also contains many bug fixes. Most developers are quite delighted with the release of Nim version 0.20.0. A user on Hacker News states that “It's impressive. 1000 commits! Great job Nim team!” Another user comments, “I've been full steam on the Nim train for the past year. It really hits a sweet spot between semantic complexity and language power. If you've used any mainstream language and understand types, you already understand 80% of the semantics you need to be productive. But more advanced features (generics, algebraic data types, hygienic macros) are available when needed. Now that the language is approaching 1.0, the only caveat is a small ecosystem and community. Nim has completely replaced Node as my language of choice for side projects and prototyping.” While there are some users who still prefer Python, for its strong command language, a user says that “It seems to me that the benefits of Nim over Python are far smaller than the benefits of Python's library ecosystem. I'm pretty happy with Python though. It seems like Nim's benefits couldn't be that big. I consider Python "great", so the best Nim could be is "great-er", as a core language I mean. I've been rooting for Nim, but haven't actually tried it. And my use case is pretty small, I admit.” These are select few updates. More information on the Nim blog. Containers and Python are in demand, but Blockchain is all hype, says Skill Up developer survey Apple releases native SwiftUI framework with declarative syntax, live editing, and support of Xcode 11 beta Storm 2.0.0 releases with Java enabled architecture, new core and streams API, and more

On Wednesday YouTube announced that it will remove thousands of videos and channels advocating bigoted ideologies such as white supremacy and neo-Nazism. This move comes under a new policy to tackle hate and extremist views on the platform as YouTube faces intense scrutiny over its user standards. According to the policy it will ban “videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion,” the company said in a blog post. “It’s our responsibility to protect that, and prevent our platform from being used to incite hatred, harassment, discrimination and violence,” reads the blog. https://twitter.com/YouTubeInsider/status/1136302198940291072 The policy also covers videos pushing conspiracy theories that allege violent incidents, like mass shootings did not take place. For example, InfoWars host Alex Jones continuously pushed a conspiracy theory on YouTube that the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was a hoax, and alleged that distraught families of the victims were crisis actors. Last month Facebook and Instagram banned about six particularly toxic extremists accounts and one conspiracy theorist organization. While Twitter had permanently blocked InfoWars and Jones in September last year for violating its harassment policies. The new anti-bigotry policy implementation by YouTube "YouTube has always had rules of the road, including a longstanding policy against hate speech," a company statement said. "Today, we're taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status." "We will begin enforcing this updated policy today; however, it will take time for our systems to fully ramp up and we'll be gradually expanding coverage over the next several months," YouTube said. In January, YouTube said it would stop recommending videos such as those claiming the earth is flat or promoting bogus theories about the September 11, 2001 terror attacks or the 2012 killings at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut. But it stopped short of banning such content. YouTube said it would seek ways to keep some of the violent content to make it available to researchers. The latest move is likely to eliminate numerous "channels" that use the platform for monetization. "We have long standing advertiser-friendly guidelines that prohibit ads from running on videos that include hateful content and we enforce these rigorously," the statement said. "Channels that repeatedly brush up against our hate speech policies will be suspended from the YouTube Partner program, meaning they can't run ads on their channel or use other monetization features." The new policy could be the result of continuous calls from lawmakers around the world to curb online hate The move comes after a call by world leaders to curb extremism online, following revelations about the live streaming of the Christchurch attack in New Zealand which happened in March this year. Last month 8 tech companies including Google and 18 governments signed a non-binding agreement to curb online extremism. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white supremacists and other extremist groups, says the ban will be positive only if YouTube enforces it. "As with other outlets before it, YouTube's decision to remove hateful content depends on its ability to enact and enforce policies and procedures that will prevent this content from becoming a global organizing tool for the radical right," said the group's intelligence director Heidi Beirich. "Tech companies must proactively tackle the problem of hateful content that is easily found on their platforms before it leads to more hate-inspired violence." Such moves by the social media has prompted criticism among right-wing activists in the United States, and President Donald Trump has claimed that online platforms are seeking to suppress conservative voices. Last month, Trump had also launched a new tool where US citizens can complain about social media bias and share their story. It is also worth noting that the Trump administration did not sign non-binding agreement to curb online extremism. Fallout of an algorithmic driven content moderation policy YouTube with the new policy roll out tried to tackle hate by removing harmful content. But it seems like it ended up also removing content which did not promote hate, but studied them.. It did not distinguish between what is good or bad content and relied upon algorithms to judge and suspend accounts entirely. For instance, as a part of this ban a history professor who had uploaded clips on Nazi policy featuring propaganda speeches by Nazi leaders was banned from YouTube. He shared his disappointment on Twitter and said 15 years of material for History teacher community has ended abruptly. https://twitter.com/MrAllsopHistory/status/1136326031290376193 Policy implementation is insufficient - Vox host Carlos Maza’s case in point YouTube did not disclose the names of any groups or channels that may be banned. But according to Buzzfeed report on 4th June, Vox host Carlos Maza expressed frustration over YouTube for not adequately enforcing its harassment policies. Maza has been experiencing an ongoing racist and anti-gay harassment from a right-wing Youtube personality Steven Crowder on the platform for years. Crowder has approximately 4 million subscribers on YouTube and has uploaded more than 1000 videos till now. Maza wrote a viral Twitter thread last week describing the harassment he is experiencing from Crowder and his followers. Crowder has published a number videos mocking Maza, calling him a “lispy queer” and making other racist and anti-gay comments. Maza, who hosts the Vox show Strikethrough, said he and Vox have directly reached out to YouTube for the past two years “and have gotten no action at all from them.” “Steven Crowder is not the problem. Alex Jones isn’t the problem. These individual actors are not the problem,” Maza said. “They are symptoms and the product of YouTube’s design, which is meant to reward the most inflammatory, bigoted, and engaging performers.” “I think YouTube should enforce its policies, and if it has a policy against hate speech, and bullying and harassment, it should enforce those policies,” he said. “They haven’t done anything so far and I’ll tell you right now there’s a 0.0% chance YouTube punishes Crowder at all. Nothing is going to happen because Crowder is good for engagement.” Andrew Surabian, a Republican strategist and former White House aide, said the move suggests YouTube has caved in to pressure from activists. "If that's their new standard, will they now demonetize all the rap videos with homophobic slurs on their platform?" he said on Twitter. https://twitter.com/Surabees/status/1136350669013704705 Nilay Patel, the Editor in Chief of The Verge says, that it is weird that conservatives think anything said in relation to racism, sexism or homophobia is against conservative speech too. https://twitter.com/reckless/status/1136396868102103042 https://twitter.com/ZenOfDesign/status/1136665000607735808 Yesterday The Verge reported that  Crowder's channel is still operational. And YouTube said later on Twitter it had suspended monetization of Crowder's channel, barring him from getting YouTube ad revenues. https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1136342955030130688 "We came to this decision because a pattern of egregious actions has harmed the broader community and is against our YouTube Partner Program policies," the company said. Public sentiments on the new policy When YouTube tweeted that today’s announcement generated a lot of questions and confusion. We know it hasn't been easy for everyone. Going forward, we'll be taking a closer look at our own harassment policies, with the aim to update them. https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1136475349129105408 There has been a surge in reactions from the audience on Twitter about this and most importantly how the company has changed its stance on the hate speech policy within two days of the announcement. Users are frustrated with the kind of response from YouTube and do not trust them on keeping the promises as per their words. Critics argue that Youtube demonetizing Crowder’s channel does solve the problem of continued spreading of hate filled rhetoric on the channel given the size of the channel. They point out that such channels do not rely primarily on Youtube’s payments for their functioning - the real revenue stream comes from the merchandize sold to the audience on the channel. https://twitter.com/FordFischer/status/1136334778670518273 https://twitter.com/jimmy_dore/status/1136418885882634240 https://twitter.com/PardesSeleh/status/1136405937269465089 Update on 24th June - Google warns its employees that Pride protests are against the company’s code of conduct Yesterday reports from various sources and The Verge says that Google employees are allowed to peacefully protest YouTube or Google during the Pride parade — as long as they are not marching with Google in an official capacity. According to internal memos sent to employees, anyone who chooses to walk the parade as a representative of Google and voice any protest will be considered in violation of Google’s code of conduct. The decision to stifle a would-be protest is frustrating to some employees, who see it as especially ironic given YouTube’s dedication to free speech. “YouTubers who use our platform and sometimes get significant revenue get to claim free speech to keep using our platform ... but LGBT Googlers get no free speech to say that Google doesn’t represent us,” one tells The Verge. “That’s ironic at best, but hypocritical ... specifically ironic trying to curb our speech on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall march riots.” https://twitter.com/Tri_Becca90/status/1143265475561791488 https://twitter.com/EthicalGooglers/status/1143276811649978369 https://twitter.com/lizthegrey/status/1143293045711892483 Mozilla and Google Chrome refuse to support Gab’s Dissenter extension for violating acceptable use policy Google Cloud went offline taking with it YouTube, Snapchat, Gmail, and a number of other web services YouTube went down, Twitter flooded with deep questions, YouTube back and everyone is back to watching cat videos

Last month, Square a financial services and mobile payment company updated its terms of service effective from this year in July. Developers are raising concerns upon one of the terms of service which restricts the use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores. What is GNU AGPL Affero General Public License The GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) is a free and copyleft license for software and other kinds of works. AGPL guarantees the freedom for sharing and changing all versions of a program. It protects developers’ right by asserting copyright on the software, and by giving legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software. What does the developer community think about AGPL The Content Restrictions section B-15  under the Online Store, reads, “You will not use, under any circumstance, any open source software subject to the GNU Affero General Public License v.3, or greater.” Few of the developers think that Square has misunderstood AGPL and this rule doesn’t make sense to them. A user commented on HackerNews, “This makes absolutely no sense. I'm almost certain that Square lawyers fucked up big time. They looked at the AGPL and completely misunderstood the context. There is no way in hell anyone can interpret AGPL in a way that makes Square responsible for any license violations their customers make selling software.” While according to few others the code which is licensed under AGPL can’t be used in a website hosted by Square, is what the rule means. Also, if the AGPL code is used by Square then the code might be sent to the browsers along with Square’s own proprietary code. And this could possibly mean that Square has violated AGPL. But a lot of companies follow the same rule, including Google, which clearly states, “WARNING: Code licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) MAY NOT be used at Google.”  But this could be useful for the developers as it keeps the code safe from the big tech companies using it. Chris DiBona, Director of open source at Google, said in a statement to The Register that “Google continues to ban the lightning-rod AGPL open source license within the company because doing so "saves engineering time" and because most AGPL projects are of no use to the company.” According to him, AGPL is designed for closing the "application service provider loophole" in the GPL and which lets ASPs use GPL code without distributing their changes back to the open source community. Under the AGPL, one has to open source their code if they use the AGPL code in their web service, and why would a company like Google do that? As its core components and back-end infrastructure that run its online services are not open source. But it also seems that it is something that needs the interference of lawyers and it is a matter of concern for them as well. https://twitter.com/MarkKriegsman/status/1136589805024923649 Also, the websites using AGPL code might have to provide the entire source code to their back end system. So, few think that AGPL is not an efficient license and they would want to see a better one that goes with the idea of freedom completely. And according to them such licenses should come from copyleft folks and not from the profit-oriented companies. While the rest argue that it is an efficient license and is useful for the developers and giving them enough freedom to share and protecting their software from companies. https://twitter.com/MarkKriegsman/status/1136589799341600769 https://twitter.com/mikeym0p/status/1136392884306010112 https://twitter.com/kjjaeger/status/1136633898526490624 https://twitter.com/fuzzychef/status/1136386203756818433 To know more about this news, check out the post by Square. AWS announces Open Distro for Elasticsearch licensed under Apache 2.0 Blue Oak Council publishes model license version 1.0.0 to simplify software licensing for everyone Red Hat drops MongoDB over concerns related to its Server Side Public License (SSPL)  

Yesterday Joyent announced its departure from the public cloud space. Beginning November 9, 2019, the Joyent Public Cloud, including Triton Compute and Triton Object Storage (Manta), will no longer accept new customers as of June 6, 2019, and will discontinue serving existing customers upon EOL on November 9th. In 2016, Joyent was acquired by Samsung after it had explored Manta, which is the Joyent’s object storage system, for implementation, Samsung liked the product, hence had bought it. In 2014, Joyent was even praised by Gartner, in its IaaS Magic Quadrant, for having a “unique vision.” The company had also developed a single-tenant cloud offering for cloud-mature, hyperscale users such as Samsung, who also demand vastly improved cloud costs. Since more resources are required for expanding the single-tenant cloud business, the company had to take this call. The team will continue to build functionality for their open source Triton offering complemented by commercial support options to utilize Triton equivalent private clouds in a single-tenant model. The official blog post reads, “As that single-tenant cloud business has expanded, the resources required to support it have grown as well, which has led us to a difficult decision.” Now the current customers have five months to switch and find a new home. The customers need to migrate, backup, or retrieve data running or stored in the Joyent Cloud before November 9th. The company will be removing compute and data from the current public cloud after November 9th and will not be capturing backups of any customer data. Joyent is working towards assisting its customers through the transition with the help of its partners. Some of the primary partners involved in assistance include OVH, Microsoft Azure, Redapt Attunix, and a few more, meanwhile, the additional partners are being finalized. Users might have to deploy the same open source software that powers the Joyent Public Cloud in their own datacenter or on a BMaaS provider like SoftLayer with the company’s ongoing support. For the ones who don’t have the level of scale for their own datacenter or for running BMaaS, Joyent is evaluating different options to support this transition and make it as smooth as possible. Steve Tuck, Joyent president and chief operating officer (COO), wrote in the blog post, “To all of our public cloud customers, we will work closely with you over the coming five months to help you transition your applications and infrastructure as seamlessly as possible to their new home.” He further added, “We are truly grateful for your business and the commitment that you have shown us over the years; thank you.” All publicly-available data centers including US-West, US-Southwest, US-East 1/2/3/3b, EU-West, and Manta will be impacted by the EOL. However, the company said that there will be no impact to their Node.js Enterprise Support offering, they will  invest heavily in software support business for both Triton and Node.js support. They will also be shortly releasing a new Node.js Support portal for the customers. Few think that Joyent’s value proposition got affected because of its public interface. A user commented on HackerNews, “Joyent's value proposition was killed (for the most part) by the experience of using their public interface. It would've taken a great deal of bravery to try that and decide a local install would be better. The node thing also did a lot of damage - Joyent wrote a lot of the SmartOS/Triton command line tools in node so they were slow as hell. Triton itself is a very non-trivial install although quite probably less so than a complete k8s rig.” Others have expressed remorse on Joyent Public Cloud EOL. https://twitter.com/mcavage/status/1136657172836708352 https://twitter.com/jamesaduncan/status/1136656364057612288 https://twitter.com/pborenstein/status/1136661813070827520 To know more about this news, check out EOL of Joyent Public Cloud. Google Cloud went offline taking with it YouTube, Snapchat, Gmail, and a number of other web services Bryan Cantrill on the changing ethical dilemmas in Software Engineering Yuri Shkuro on Observability challenges in microservices and cloud-native applications

Researchers from Northeastern University, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Czech Technical University in Prague, published a paper on the Impact of Programming Languages on Code Quality which is a reproduction of work by Ray et al published in 2014 at the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE) conference. This work claims to reveal an association between 11 programming languages and software defects in projects that are hosted on GitHub. The original paper by Ray et al was well-regarded in the software engineering community because it was nominated as the Communication of the ACM (CACM) research highlight. And the above mentioned researchers conducted a study to validate the claims from the original work. They used the experimental repetition method, which was partially successful and found out that association of 10 programming languages with defects is true. Then they conducted an independent reanalysis which revealed a number of flaws in the original study. And finally the results suggested that only four languages are significantly associated with the defects, and the effect size (correlation between two variables) for them is extremely small. Let us take a look at all the 3 researches in brief: 2014 FSE paper: Does programming language choice affect software quality? The question that arises from the study by Ray et al. published at the 2014 Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE) conference is, What is the effect of programming language on software quality? The results reported in the FSE paper and later repeated in the followup works are based on an observational study of a corpus of 729 GitHub projects that are written in 17 programming languages. For measuring the quality of code, the authors have identified, annotated, and tallied commits that are supposed to indicate bug fixes. Then the authors fitted a Negative Binomial regression against the labeled data for answering the following research questions: RQ1 Are some languages more defect prone than others? The original paper concluded that “Some languages have a greater association with defects than others, although the effect is small.” The conclusion was that Haskell, Clojure, TypeScript, Scala and Ruby were less error-prone whereas C, JavaScript, C++, Objective-C, PHP, and Python were more error-prone. RQ2 Which language properties relate to defects? The original study concluded that “There is a small but significant relationship between language class and defects. Functional languages have a smaller relationship to defects than either procedural or scripting languages.” It could be concluded that functional and strongly typed languages showed fewer errors, whereas the procedural, unmanaged languages and weakly typed induced more errors. RQ3 Does language defect proneness depend on domain? A mix of automatic and manual methods has been used for classifying projects into six application domains. The paper concluded that “There is no general relationship between domain and language defect proneness”. It can be noted that the variation in defect proneness comes from the languages themselves which makes the domain a less indicative factor. RQ4 What’s the relation between language & bug category? The study concluded that “Defect types are strongly associated with languages. Some defect type like memory error, concurrency errors also depend on language primitives. Language matters more for specific categories than it does for defects overall.” It can be concluded that for memory, languages with manual memory management have more errors. Also, Java stands out as the only garbage collecting language that is associated with more memory errors. Whereas for concurrency, Python, JavaScript, etc have fewer errors than languages with concurrency primitives. Experimental repetition method performed to obtain similar results from the original study The original study used methods of data acquisition, data cleaning, and statistical modeling. The researchers then planned for experimental repetition. Their first objective was to repeat the analyses of the FSE paper and obtain the same results. They used an artifact coming from the original authors that had 3.45 GB of processed data and 696 lines of R code for loading the data and performing statistical modeling. According to a repetition process, a script generates results and match the results in the published paper. The researchers wrote new R scripts for mimicking all of the steps from the original manuscript. They then found out that it is essential to automate the production of all tables, numbers, and graphs to iterate multiple times. Researchers concluded that the repetition was partly successful and according to them: RQ1 produced small differences but had qualitatively similar conclusions. The researchers were mostly able to replicate RQ1 based on the artifact provided by the authors. The researchers found 10 languages with a statistically significant association with errors, instead of the eleven reported RQ2 could have been repeated but they noted issues with language classification. They noted that RQ3 could not be repeated as the code was missing and also because their reverse engineering attempts failed. RQ4 could not be repeated because of irreconcilable differences in the data.  Another reason was that the artifact didn't contain the code which implemented the NBR for bug types. The Reanalysis method confirms flaws in the FSE study Their second objective was to carry out a reanalysis of RQ1 of the FSE paper. i.e., Whether some languages are more defect prone than others? The reanalysis differs from repetition as it proposes alternative data processing and statistical analyses for addressing methodological weaknesses of the original work. The researchers then used methods such as data processing, data cleaning, statistical modeling. According to the researchers, the p-values for Objective-C, JavaScript, C, TypeScript, PHP, and Python fall outside of the “significant” range of values. Thus, 6 of the original 11 claims have been discarded at this stage. Controlling the FDR increased the p-values slightly, but did not invalidate additional claims. The p-value for one additional language, Ruby, lost its significance and even Scala is out of the statistically significant set. And a smaller p-value (≤ 0.05) indicates stronger evidence against the null hypothesis, so the null hypothesis can be rejected in that case. In the table below, grey cells are indicating disagreement with the conclusion of the original work and which include, C, Objective-C, JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, and Python. So, the reanalysis has failed to validate most of the claims and the multiple steps of data cleaning and improved statistical modeling have also invalidated the significance of 7 out of 11 languages. Image source: Impact of Programming Languages on Code Quality The researchers conclude that the work by the Ray et al. has aimed to provide evidence for one of the fundamental assumptions in programming language research, that is language design matters. But the researchers have identified numerous problems in the FSE study that has invalidated its key result. The paper reads, “Our intent is not to blame, performing statistical analysis of programming languages based on large-scale code repositories is hard. We spent over 6 months simply to recreate and validate each step of the original paper.” The researchers’ contribution provides thorough analysis and discussion of the downfalls associated with statistical analysis of large code bases. According to them, statistical analysis combined with large data corpora is a powerful tool that might even answer the hardest research questions but the possibility of errors—is enormous. The researchers further state that “It is only through careful re-validation of such studies that the broader community may gain trust in these results and get better insight into the problems and solutions associated with such studies.” Check out the paper On the Impact of Programming Languages on Code Quality for more in-depth analysis. Samsung AI lab researchers present a system that can animate heads with one-shot learning Researchers from China introduced two novel modules to address challenges in multi-person pose estimation AI can now help speak your mind: UC researchers introduce a neural decoder that translates brain signals to natural sounding speech

Google has got into an agreement with data analytics startup Looker, and is planning to add it to its Google Cloud division. The acquisition will cost Google $2.6 billion in an all-cash transaction. After the acquisition, Looker organization will report to Frank Bien, who will report to Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. Looker is Google’s biggest acquisition since it bought smart home company Nest for $3.2 billion in 2014. Looker's analytics platform uses business intelligence and data visualization tools.  Founded in 2011, Looker has grown rapidly, now helping more than 1,700 companies understand and analyze their data. The company had raised more than $280 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Looker spans the gap in two areas of data warehousing and Business Intelligence. Looker's platform includes a modeling platform where the user codifies the view of the data using a SQL-like proprietary modeling language (LookML). It complements the modeling language with an end user visualization tool providing the self-service analytics portion. Source Primarily, Looker will help Google Cloud become a complete analytics solution that will help customers in ingesting data to visualizing results and integrating data and insights into their daily workflows. Looker + Google Cloud will be used for: Connecting, analyzing and visualizing data across Google Cloud, Azure, AWS, on-premise databases or ISV SaaS applications Operationalizing BI for everyone with powerful data modeling Augmenting business intelligence from Looker with artificial intelligence from Google Cloud Creating collaborative, data-driven applications for industries with interactive data visualization and machine learning Source Implications of Google + Locker Google and Looker already have a strong existing partnership and 350 common customers (such as Buzzfeed, Hearst, King, Sunrun, WPP Essence, and Yahoo!) and this acquisition will only strength it. “We have many common customers we’ve worked with. One of the great things about this acquisition is that the two companies have known each other for a long time, we share very common culture,” Kurian said in a blog. This is also a significant move by Google to gain market share from Amazon Web Services, which reported $7.7 billion in revenue for the last quarter. Google Cloud has been trailing behind Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud-computing market. Looker’s  acquisition will hopefully make its service more attractive to corporations. Looker’s CEO Frank Bien commented on the partnership as a chance to gain the scale of the Google cloud platform. “What we’re really leveraging here, and I think the synergy with Google Cloud, is that this data infrastructure revolution and what really emerged out of the Big Data trend was very fast, scalable — and now in the cloud — easy to deploy data infrastructure,” he said. What is intriguing is Google’s timing and all-cash payment of this buyout. FCC, DOJ, and Congress are currently looking at bringing potential antitrust on Google and other big tech. According to widespread media reports the US Department of Justice is readying to investigate into Google. It has been reported that the probe would examine whether the tech giant broke antitrust law in the operation of its online and advertisement businesses. According to Paul Gallant, a tech analyst with Cowen who focuses on regulatory issues, “A few years ago, this deal would have been waved through without much scrutiny. We’re in a different world today, and there might well be some buyer’s remorse from regulators on prior tech deals like this.” Public reaction to this accusation has been mixed. While some are happy: https://twitter.com/robgo/status/1136628768968192001 https://twitter.com/holgermu/status/1136639110892810241 Others remain dubious: "With Looker out of the way, the question turns to 'What else is on Google's cloud shopping list?," said Aaron Kessler, a Rayond James analyst in a report. "While the breadth of public cloud makes it hard to list specific targets, vertical specific solutions appear to be a strategic priority for Mr. Kurian." There are also questions on if Google will limit Looker to BigQuery, or at least get the newest features first. https://twitter.com/DanVesset/status/1136672725060243457 Then, there is the issue of whether Google will limit which clouds Looker can be run on. Although the company said, they will continue to support Looker’s multi-cloud strategy and will expand support for multiple analytics tools and data sources to provide customers choice.  Google Cloud will also continue to expand Looker’s investments in product development, go-to-market, and customer success capabilities. Google is also known for killing off its own products and also undermining some of its acquisition. With NEST for example, they said that it will be integrated with Google assistant. The decision was reversed only after a massive public backlash. Looker can also be one such acquisition, which may eventually merge with Google Analytics, Google’s proprietary Web analytics service. The deal expected to close later this year, albeit subject to regulatory approval. Google Cloud went offline taking with it YouTube, Snapchat, Gmail, and a number of other web services Google and Binomial come together to open-source Basis Universal Texture Format Ian Lance Taylor, Golang team member, adds another perspective to Go being Google’s language

On Tuesday, Firefox released a number of updates to its browser with the intention of putting “people’s privacy first”. The new features were detailed by Dave Camp, Senior Vice President of Firefox in a blog post. Firefox will roll out its Enhanced Tracking Protection, to all new users on by default. Additionally, they have upgraded Facebook Container extension, a Firefox desktop extension for Lockwise, and Firefox Monitor’s new dashboard to manage multiple email addresses. Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks third party cookies by default Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection offers protection controls to users to block third party cookies at their own level of comfort with three settings - Standard, Strict, and Custom. Per the new update, for all new users who install and download Firefox for the first time, Enhanced Tracking Protection will automatically be set on by default as part of the ‘Standard’ setting in the browser. The standard settings block known trackers and their cookies. Strict will block known trackers in all Firefox windows. This includes third party trackers and tracking cookies The custom setting of enhanced tracking protection allows you to select which trackers and cookies you want to block. https://twitter.com/jensimmons/status/1134549448120578048 This feature will be present as a shield icon in the address bar next to the URL address. Users can also see which companies are blocked by clicking on the shield icon. For existing users, Enhanced Tracking Protection by default will be rolled out in the coming months. Manually, users can turn this feature on by clicking on the menu icon marked by three horizontal lines at the top right of the browser, then under Content Blocking. Firefox Monitor- see if you’ve been part of an online data breach Firefox Monitor has a new feature in the form of a breach dashboard that presents a quick summary of updates for all registered email accounts. Firefox Monitor was launched in September, last year, as a free service that notifies people if they’ve been part of a data breach. The new breach dashboard helps users track and manage multiple email addresses, including both personal and professional email accounts. Users can easily identify which emails are being monitored, how many known data breaches may have exposed their information, and specifically, if any passwords have been leaked across those breaches. Safe password management with Firefox Lockwise Firefox have rolled out a new desktop extension that offers users safe password management features, the Firefox Lockwise. It will provide an additional touchpoint to store, edit and access passwords. Firefox Lockwise is already available for iOS, Android and iPad. The new Firefox Lockwise desktop extension includes: A new dashboard interface to manage saved list of passwords. For frequently visiting sites, users can quickly reference and edit what is being stored. For sites with fewer or no visits, users can easily delete a saved password. The mobile app and desktop extension can help users quickly retrieve your password to access a site account. Facebook Container now blocks tracking from other sites Firefox have updated their Facebook Container extension to prevent Facebook from tracking users on other sites that have embedded Facebook capabilities such as the Share and Like buttons on their site. Facebook Container is an add-on/web extension that helps users take control and isolate their web activity from Facebook. This blocking reduces Facebook’s propensity to build shadow profiles of non-Facebook users. Users would know the blocking is in effect when they see Facebook Container purple fence badge. It is interesting that Mozilla released a slew of updates following Apple's privacy focused features announced at WWDC 2019. It almost feels like they are acting as a counter balance to Google and Facebook, who have been under scrutiny for their data misinformation and privacy scandals. Google Chrome has also banned ad blockers for all users by deprecating the blocking capabilities of the webRequest API in Manifest V3. Chrome’s capability to block unwanted content will be restricted to only paid, enterprise users of Chrome. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1136058254608355328 https://twitter.com/queercommunist/status/1135906369599549440 https://twitter.com/johnwilander/status/1135911532779335680 Learn more about these privacy features on Mozilla Blog. Firefox 67 enables AV1 video decoder ‘dav1d’, by default on all desktop platforms Mozilla makes Firefox 67 “faster than ever” by deprioritizing least commonly used features Firefox 67 will come with faster and reliable JavaScript debugging tools

According to widespread media reports the US Department of Justice is readying to investigate into Google. It has been reported that the probe would examine whether the tech giant broke antitrust law in the operation of its online and advertisement businesses. On Monday news reported by Yahoo Finance suggests that the Justice Department's Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) met in recent weeks. They both have agreed to give the Justice Department the jurisdiction to undertake potential antitrust probes of major tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google. The supposedly imminent US investigation is the latest sign of the increasing scrutiny facing the world’s major tech businesses. Other reports cited that the e-commerce giant Amazon could also face the heightened antitrust scrutiny under a new agreement between U.S. regulators and the FTC. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, tweeted yesterday that, “the US regulators will begin long overdue investigation to determine if digital platforms have harmed Americans. Unwarranted, concentrated economic power in the hands of a few is dangerous to democracy – especially when digital platforms control content. The era of self-regulation is over.” https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1135698760397393921 The news of the potential investigation for Google and Facebook was first broken by The Wall Street Journal last Friday. As per a CNN report the scope of DOJ's interest is unclear. Agency regulators led by antitrust chief Makan Delrahim say their focus is on Google's search business and Google's advertising practices. This investigation would pose the most serious challenge to the tech industry, as political leaders like Elizabeth Warren have accused Silicon Valley titans of strangling competition and have also demanded the tech giants to be broken up. These calls have been spurred on by an endless string of privacy mishaps, misinformation scandals and the proliferation of graphic and hateful content on the tech platforms. Most recent example being of the Christchurch terrorist attack in New Zealand which was enabled and amplified by social media. This fresh investigation of Google by US regulators could also reopen older probes from 2013 when the company was under FTC investigation. But it emerged relatively unscathed as Google pledged to change certain aspects of its business, such as how it handles content from third-party travel or shopping sites etc. The FTC then closed the investigation. EU regulators have also taken Google under similar scrutiny when this year in March, the company faced a €1.5bn fine from EU regulators over antitrust violations. The fine was linked to its AdSense service, with the EU ruling that the terms it forced on companies were unfair. They included preventing rivals from appearing in online search ads from “exclusivity contracts” with publishers. The €1.5bn fine was the third that the EU commission had made against Google in the past two years. In 2018, it slapped the firm with a €4.3bn fine relating to its Android mobile operating system that was used to unfairly undercut rivals in the mobile phone market and a €2.4bn fine for promoting its own shopping service over rivals. CNN further reports that according to few analysts the likelihood of a new probe for Google is high. "If there were a clearance fight over a Google investigation — this is such a big matter that whoever won the clearance fight would almost certainly be opening an investigation," said Michael Kades, a former FTC antitrust attorney. “Still, just because DOJ is taking on responsibility for Google's oversight does not mean an investigation has been opened or that the agency is imminently poised to act against Google,'' said Gene Kimmelman, a former Justice Department antitrust official. "This is a warning sign for Google," he said. "It's quite clear the Department of Justice will be at least scrutinizing their behavior very carefully." Maureen Ohlhausen, a former acting chairman of the FTC, said the tech industry's fall from political grace has raised expectations for the nation's top competition enforcers — and for Delrahim to stake out new territory for DOJ." "With the continuing techlash from the right and the left, both antitrust agencies are under pressure to escalate their actions," she said. "The companies ought to be careful about how they behave at this moment," Kimmelman added. "But I also think there will be enormous scrutiny of what the enforcement officials do, and why they do it." As US-China tech cold war escalates, Google revokes Huawei’s Android support, allows only those covered under open source licensing Silicon Valley investors envy China’s 996 work culture; but tech workers stand in solidarity with their Chinese counterparts GDPR complaint in EU claim billions of personal data leaked via online advertising bids

Apple is getting pretty serious about user privacy. Last month, Apple had proposed a “privacy-focused” ad click attribution model to count conversions without tracking users. And just yesterday, Apple announced a host of security and privacy-related features at its ongoing Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2019. Users seem to be excited about the move taken by the company towards privacy and security. While some still seem to be a little confused and looking forward to exploring the major announcements by the company. Experts are indirectly indicating that these major steps by Apple might turn out to be really powerful and might make other tech companies think about their next moves in the same direction. https://twitter.com/ow/status/1135603153712422913 https://twitter.com/jmj/status/1135615177766739973 Sign In with Apple With iOS 13, Apple is introducing a new way to quickly sign into apps and websites with Sign In with Apple. Users can now simply use their Apple ID for authentication purpose instead of using a social account, verifying email addresses, etc. Apple will be protecting users’ privacy by providing developers with a unique random ID. Users also have the option to keep their email address private and can instead share a unique random email address. Sign In comes with built-in two-factor authentication for an added layer of security. The company does not use Sign In with Apple to profile users or their activity in apps. Users can now create a new account on an app with just one click and without revealing any new personal information. Twitter users are quite happy with Apple’s Sign in feature. https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1135673287659347968 https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1135602700710793217 https://twitter.com/izzydoesizzy/status/1135829977050615808 Apple can now stop third-party sites and services from getting users’ information when they sign up to an app. Apple’s software engineering chief Craig Federighi said at the company’s annual developer conference, “Next I want to turn to login to get a more personalized effect with an app, we all have seen buttons like this, asking us to use a social account login. Now this can be convenient, but it also can come at the cost of your privacy — your personal information sometimes gets shared behind the scenes and these logins can be used to track you. We wanted to solve this and many developers do too. Now we have a solution, it’s called Sign in with Apple. ” One time location sharing Apple will soon let users access their iPhone’s location just once, as the company is soon rolling out one-time location option. “For the first time, you can share your location to an app just once and then require it to ask you again next time at wants,” said Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi at its annual developer conference on Monday. He also highlighted that a lot of apps try and bypass the location sharing restrictions by simply scanning WiFi and Bluetooth signals in that particular area which could reveal the users’ location. He added, “We’re shutting the door on that abuse as well.” https://twitter.com/ittechbuz/status/1135887736227934211 Apple updates its App Store guidelines Apple has also updated its App Store guidelines to ensure privacy and security enforced for new and existing apps. Here are a few of the highlights from the updated guidelines list. Keeping Kids’ data private Apple has taken a step towards keeping the kids’ data private.Apps in the kids category and apps for kids can’t include any third-party advertising or analytics software and cannot transmit data to third parties. This guideline has been enforced for new apps and even existing apps must follow this guideline by September 3, 2019. https://twitter.com/icastanheda/status/1135672922608087040 HTML game may not provide access to digital commerce The company has made a major move by stating in its guidelines that HTML5 games that are distributed in apps may not provide access to lotteries, real money gaming, or charitable donations and not support digital commerce. This functionality is appropriate only for code that’s embedded in the binary and that can be reviewed by Apple. Also, this guideline is now enforced for new apps and existing apps must follow this guideline by 3rd September 2019. VPN apps cannot provide access to sensitive data to third parties Since VPN provides access to sensitive data, so according to this guideline, VPN apps may not sell, use, or disclose any data to third parties for any purpose, and must commit to this in their privacy policy. The apps that are used for parental control, content blocking and security from approved providers can use the NEVPNManager API. This new guideline may possibly have the popular ad blocker, AdGuard Pro back on iOS.t was discontinued last year because of the App Store policy which said, “Guideline 2.5.1 – Performance – Software Requirements. Your app uses a VPN profile or root certificate to block ads or other content in a third-party app, which is not allowed on the App Store.” The new updates announced in the AppStore Review Guidelines at WWDC may probably make AG Pro compliant with it. https://twitter.com/AdGuard/status/1135660616679645185 https://twitter.com/pveugen/status/1135743658148356096 MDM apps can’t sell/use/disclose data to third parties MDM (Mobile Device Management) provides access to sensitive data, so according to this guideline, MDM apps should request the mobile device management capability. And they may only be offered access by commercial enterprises, such as business organizations, or government agencies, etc, and, in some cases, companies utilizing MDM for parental controls. Also, according to this guideline, MDM apps may not sell, use, or disclose any data to third parties for any purpose, and must also commit to this in their privacy policy. Health data can’t be shared with third parties Apps may use a user’s health data for providing a benefit directly to that user, and the data is not to be shared with a third party. The developer must also disclose to the user the specific health data collected from the device. Information coming in without user’s consent won’t be allowed on App Store Apps that compile information from any source that is not directly coming from the user or without the user’s explicit consent, even public databases for that matter, are not permitted on the App Store. Apps need to get consent for data collection Apps are supposed to get consent for data collection, even if that data is considered anonymous at the time of collection or immediately following it. Many are confused about this latest update, as they have some concerns about using Wikipedia API. https://twitter.com/jcampbell_05/status/1135679675026628608 As developers speculate about the changes in the guidelines, many are still wondering how the change in the rule would affect them and are looking forward to some clarity with the guidelines. Health Apps Apple has also introduced a few health apps that could be useful for users and below mentioned are the highlights from this section: Noise app Apple introduced the Noise app for Apple watchOS 6 that detects loud environments and notifies users when it thinks users at risk for hearing damage. This app uses the watch's built-in microphone for measuring the decibels at concerts, theaters, construction zones, parades, and other loud situations that usually aren't good for the ears. But to achieve this, the app needs to keep track of what the users are listening to, and such apps usually scares people as it appears to be like ‘always-listening technology’. Dr. Sumbul Desai, Apple’s VP of health, clarified, “It only periodically samples and does not record or save any audio.” So users need not worry as none of the audio or sounds in the environment aren’t saved or sent to Apple, according to the company. Menstrual cycle tracking feature Apple also unveiled the menstrual cycle tracking feature, called Cycle Tracking at the conference. Women can now easily log their symptoms and receive notifications when their periods are about to begin. They can also receive a fertility window prediction. This feature is also available in the Health app on iPhone with iOS 13. Apple Vice President of Health Sumbul Desai said, “We are so excited to bring more focus to this incredibly important aspect of women’s health.” But users are concerned over fertility data collection by the company. https://twitter.com/Vince34359049/status/1135677667859034112 While others think that this feature is not new and users have already used such applications for tracking their cycles. https://twitter.com/DrShark/status/1135773575154216960 Apple has taken steps towards strengthening security and maintaining privacy by introducing new features, apps and updating the guidelines, but only time will tell how effective they would turn out to be. Apple proposes a “privacy-focused” ad click attribution model for counting conversions without tracking users Apple Pay will soon support NFC tags to trigger payments U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against Apple on its App Store monopoly case    

Yesterday, Apple previewed the next version of macOS called Catalina, at its ongoing Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2019. macOS 10.15 or Catalina comes with new features, apps, and technology for developers. With Catalina, Apple is replacing iTunes with entertainment apps such as  Apple PodcastsApple Music, and the Apple TV app. macOS Catalina is expected to be released this fall. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, said, “With macOS Catalina, we’re bringing fresh new apps to the Mac, starting with new standalone versions of Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and the Apple TV app.” He further added, “Users will appreciate how they can expand their workspace with Sidecar, enabling new ways of interacting with Mac apps using iPad and Apple Pencil. And with new developer technologies, users will see more great third-party apps arrive on the Mac this fall.” What’s new in macOS Catalina Sidecar feature Sidecar is a new feature in the macOS 10.15 that helps users in extending their Mac desktop with the help of iPad as a second display or as a high-precision input device across the creative Mac apps. Users can use their iPad for drawing, sketching or writing in any Mac app that supports stylus input by pairing it with an Apple Pencil. Sidecar can be used for editing video with Final Cut Pro X, marking up iWork documents or drawing with Adobe Illustrator iPad app support Catalina comes with iPad app support which is a new way for developers to port their iPad apps to Mac. Previously, this project was codenamed as “Marzipan,” but it’s now called Catalyst. Developers will now be able to use Xcode for targeting their iPad apps at macOS Catalina. Twitter is planning on porting its iOS Twitter app to Mac, and even Atlassian is planning to bring its Jira iPad app to macOS Catalina. Though it is still not clear how many developers are going to support this porting, Apple is encouraging developers to port their iPad apps to the Mac. https://twitter.com/Atlassian/status/1135631657204166662 https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1135642794473558017 Apple Music Apple Music is a new music app that will help users discover new music with over 50 million songs, playlists, and music videos. Users will now have access to their entire music library, including the songs they have downloaded, purchased or ripped from a CD. Apple TV Apps The Apple TV app features Apple TV channels, personalized recommendations, and more than 100,000 iTunes movies and TV shows. Users can browse, buy or rent and also enjoy 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos-supported movies. It also comes with a Watch Now section that has the Up Next option, where users can easily keep track of what they are currently watching and then resume on any screen. Apple TV+ and Apple’s original video subscription service will be available in the Apple TV app this fall. Apple Podcasts Apple Podcasts app features over 700,000 shows in its catalog and comes with an option for automatically being notified of new episodes as soon as they become available. This app comes with new categories, curated collections by editors around the world and even advanced search tools that help in finding episodes by the host, guest or even discussion topics. Users can now easily sync their media to their devices using a cable in the new entertainment apps. Security In macOS Catalina, Gatekeeper checks all the apps for known security issues, and the new data protections now require all apps to get permission before accessing user documents. Approve that comes with Apple Watch helps users to approve security prompts by tapping the side button on their Apple Watch. With the new Find My app, it is easy to find the location of a lost or stolen Mac and it can be anonymously relayed back to its owner by other Apple devices, even when offline. Macs will be able to send a secure Bluetooth signal occasionally, which will be used to create a mesh network of other Apple devices to help people track their products. So, a map will populate of where the device is located and this way it will be useful for the users in order to track their device. Also, all the Macs will now come with the T2 Security Chip support Activation Lock which will make them less attractive to thieves. DriverKit MacOS Catalina SDK 10.15+ beta comes with DriverKit framework which can be used for creating device drivers that the user installs on their Mac. Drivers built with DriverKit can easily run in user space for improved system security and stability. This framework also provides C++ classes for IO services, memory descriptors, device matching, and dispatch queues. DriverKit further defines IO-appropriate types for numbers, strings, collections, and other common types. You use these with family-specific driver frameworks like USBDriverKit and HIDDriverKit. zsh shell on Mac With macOS Catalina beta, Mac uses zsh as the interactive shell and the default login shell and is available currently only to the members of the Apple Developer Program. Users can now make zsh as the default in earlier versions of macOS as well. Currently, bash is the default shell in macOS Mojave and earlier. Zsh shell is also compatible with the Bourne shell (sh) and bash. The company is also signalling that developers should start moving to zsh on macOS Mojave or earlier. As bash isn’t a modern shell, so it seems the company thinks that switching to something less aging would make more sense. https://twitter.com/film_girl/status/1135738853724000256 https://twitter.com/_sjs/status/1135715757218705409 https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1135701324589256704 Additional features Safari now has an updated start page that uses Siri Suggestions for elevating frequently visited bookmarks, sites, iCloud tabs, reading list selections and links sent in messages. macOS Catalina comes with an option to block an email from a specified sender or even mute an overly active thread and unsubscribe from commercial mailing lists. Reminders have been redesigned and now come with a new user interface that makes it easier for creating, organizing and tracking reminders. It seems users are excited about the announcements made by the company and are looking forward to exploring the possibilities with the new features. https://twitter.com/austinnotduncan/status/1135619593165189122 https://twitter.com/Alessio____20/status/1135825600671883265 https://twitter.com/MasoudFirouzi/status/1135699794360438784 https://twitter.com/Allinon85722248/status/1135805025928851457 To know more about this news, check out Apple’s post. Apple proposes a “privacy-focused” ad click attribution model for counting conversions without tracking users Apple Pay will soon support NFC tags to trigger payments U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against Apple on its App Store monopoly case

Update: Five days after the release of iOS 13, Apple has released its first update, iOS 13.1 on September 24th. It contains many features that were announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) but were not part of the iOS 13 release. The major updates include sharing ETA (estimated time of arrival) with contacts while using Maps, new tweaked colors, and designs for dynamic wallpapers and its availability on more devices. iOS 13.1 also has a new volume slider which shows icons of the type of devices connected, such as AirPods, or HomePod. It also brings many bug fixes to the iOS 13 release.  https://twitter.com/jaylyne0821/status/1176786286771724290   Update: More than three months after previewing iOS 13 at the WWDC, Apple finally released iOS 13, on September 19th. Users can check out the many features of iOS 13 below. Many Apple users are excited about the release of iOS 13. https://twitter.com/popootel/status/1174910893076836353   https://twitter.com/zerobbh/status/1174929742958477312 Update: On 30th July, 2019, Apple released public betas of iOS13 and macOS catalina. However, these betas are extremely buggy. Users may incur severely reduced battery life and many broken apps, particularly on the iOS beta. On the upside, this is an invaluable preview particularly for an app developer or Apple enthusiast. At the ongoing Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2019, Apple has previewed iOS 13. It has distinct features like Sign In with Apple, Dark Mode, Advanced Photo and Camera Features, and an All-New Maps Experience. iOS 13 will also support Xbox One and PS4 controllers. A framework for iOS 13, BackgroundTasks has also been released. Sign In with Apple This is a simple, fast, and more private way to sign into Apple apps and websites. Instead of going through the lengthy process of using a social account or filling out forms, verifying email addresses or choosing passwords, users can now use their Apple ID for authentication. Apple has also maintained that it will protect users’ privacy by providing developers with a unique random ID. If in a particular case, developers are asking for name and email address details, users will still have the option to keep their email addresses private and share a unique random email address instead. Sign In with Apple will make it easy for users to authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID. It will have a two-factor authentication built in, for an added layer of security. Also, Apple will not use Sign In with Apple to monitor users or their activity in apps. Dark Mode Providing a dramatic look, iOS 13 will have a Dark Mode which is a new dark color scheme that will work system-wide and across all native apps. This will provide users’ with a great viewing experience, especially in low light environments. It will also be available to third-party app developers for integrating it into their own apps. This mode can also be scheduled to turn on automatically at a particular time or at sunset. Advanced Photo and Camera Features In iOS 13, photos and videos are arranged in a systematic way. This will make browsing, and discovering and reliving favorite memories much easier. iOS 13 is also enabled with auto play videos. New tools have been introduced in photo editing which will make it easier to apply, adjust and review photos at a glance. Most of the photo editing tools will also be available for video editing, making it possible to rotate, crop or apply filters within the photos app. In the camera app of iOS 13, portrait lighting adjustments can be made. This will enable to virtually move the light closer to sharpen eyes and brighten and smooth facial features or push the light farther away to create a subtle, refined look. A new High-Key Mono effect has also been introduced to create a beautiful, and monochromatic look for Portrait mode photos. All -Nnew Maps Experience Apple Maps in iOS 13, will provide a broader road coverage, better pedestrian data, more precise addresses, and more detailed land cover. This new map is available in select cities and states presently. It will rollout across the US by the end of 2019 and to more countries in 2020. A new Look Around feature, using the new base-map and high-resolution 3D photography, has been introduced. It delivers a beautiful street-level imagery of a city with smooth and seamless transitions. iOS 13 also brings additional new features to the Maps app, including collections to easily share favorite restaurants, travel destinations or places to shop with friends and more. Support to Xbox One and PS4 controllers iOS 13 and Apple TV will support Xbox One and PS4 controllers. This controller support has arrived, after Apple had planned to launch the Apple Arcade game subscription service, for iOS, Mac, and Apple TV. Background Tasks Apple has released a framework for background tasks. This will support iOS 13, along with UIKit for Mac 13.0 and tvOS 13.0, all in beta. This framework will enable the app content to remain up to date and run tasks, while the app is in the background. Additional Features in iOS 13 AirPods Siri will be able to read incoming messages as soon as they arrive from Messages or any SiriKit-enabled messaging app. HomePod This can distinguish voices from anyone in the home to deliver personal requests, including messages, music and more. Handoff will enable users to easily move music, podcasts or a phone call to HomePod when they arrive home. Health It offers ways to monitor hearing health and has new ways to track, visualize and predict a woman’s menstrual cycle. Siri Siri will have a new and more natural voice. Siri shortcuts will now support suggested automation that will provide personalized routines, like heading to work or going to the gym. Messages It can automatically share a user’s name and photo or customized Memoji or Animoji, so that the user can be easily identified, in the message thread. These distinct features of iOS 13 have made users’ very excited for its release. https://twitter.com/gregbarbosa/status/1135668685882974210 https://twitter.com/SuperSaf/status/1135606599362514947 https://twitter.com/sascha_p/status/1135600265741053952 https://twitter.com/ijustine/status/1135605052742152198 These are some of the features of iOS 13. For more details, head over to the Apple press release Check out WWDC 2019 highlights, for all releases and updates announced during the conference. Apple releases native SwiftUI framework with declarative syntax, live editing, and support of Xcode 11 beta Apple promotes app store principles & practices as good for developers and consumers following rising antitrust worthy allegations Apple proposes a “privacy-focused” ad click attribution model for counting conversions without tracking users

Apple held its annual conference Worldwide Developers Conference, WWDC 2019 in San Jose on Monday and to say that the keynote session, was jammed with announcements would be an understatement. This time Apple has really tried to innovate, it was not just the usual product hardware updates but also key features in the business, software space, along with a focus on privacy. Some new products and services which were showcased included a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR, iOS 13 with a dark mode, MacOS Catalina and an operating system for the iPad called iPadOS. There was also a new privacy-focused sign-in, SwiftUI framework, and Feedback Assistant. Needless to say, people were enthralled by the event and expressed their excitement on Twitter. https://twitter.com/ShaneyBoy112/status/1135628489065996288 https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1135653636145590273 https://twitter.com/nickchapsas/status/1135616253677191169 New enhancements to Apple’s flagship operating systems macOS Catalina in beta Apple previewed a new version of Mac operating system, macOS Catalina (macOS 10.5) as a result of the expansion of the company's Marzipan program -- now called Project Catalyst -- which brings iOS apps to the Mac. With macOS Catalina, Apple is replacing iTunes with its popular entertainment apps — Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and the Apple TV app. It also has a new Sidecar feature which helps users extend their Mac desktop by using their iPad as a second display or as a high-precision input device across Mac apps. Catalina has new security features such as ‘Find My app’ and ‘Approve’ to keep users better protected. Voice Control lets users control their Mac entirely with their voice. It also has the Screen Time feature, giving users options such as monitoring usage, scheduling downtime, and setting limits for both apps and websites across all devices. macOS Catalina will be available this fall as a free software update for Macs introduced in mid-2012 or later. For more information, see our detailed coverage here. iOS 13 Beta Apple previewed the latest update of its mobile operating system, iOS 13 at WWDC. It introduces dark mode, advanced photo and camera features, Sign in with Apple and a new Maps experience. Sign in with Apple allows customers to simply use their Apple ID to authenticate instead of using a social account or filling out forms, verifying email addresses or choosing passwords. The Sign in will protect users’ privacy by providing developers with a unique random ID. Siri has a new, more natural voice. HomePod can also distinguish voices from anyone in the home to deliver personal requests, including messages, music and more. https://twitter.com/astralwave/status/1135602897821917184 The developer preview of iOS 13 is available to Apple Developer Program members at starting yesterday, and a public beta program will be available to iOS users later this month. New software features will be available this fall as a free software update for iPhone 6s and later. Read more about iOS 13 features here. Apple iPadOS WWDC 2019 also saw iPad getting its own Apple iPadOS. Basically, iPadOS builds on the same foundation as iOS, adding intuitive features specific to the large display of iPad. It has a Split view allowing iPad users to work with multiple files and documents from the same app simultaneously. They can also quickly view and switch between multiple apps in Slide Over. It also introduces mouse support for both USB and Bluetooth devices. Source: Apple Now Apple Pencil is even more integrated into the iPad experience. Customers can now mark up and send entire webpages, documents or emails on iPad by swiping Apple Pencil from the corner of the screen. The Files app also comes with iCloud Drive support for folder sharing. Text editing on the iPad receives a major update with iPadOS. It is easier and faster to point with precision and speed, select text with just a swipe and use new gestures to cut, copy, paste and undo. iPadOS will be available this fall as a free software update for iPad Air 2 and later, all iPad Pro models, iPad 5th generation and later and iPad mini 4 and later. tvOS 13 and watchOS 6 Apple also released tvOS 13 operating system for Apple TV 4K. With tvOS 13, Apple TV 4K now has a new Home screen; multi-user support for customers to access their own TV shows, movies, music, and recommendations; support for Apple Arcade; expanded game controller support for Xbox One S and PlayStation DualShock 4; and new 4K HDR screen savers. tvOS 13 will be available this fall as a free software update for Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD. Apple previewed watchOS 6, offering users better health and fitness management such as cycle tracking and Noise app, gives access to dynamic new watch faces and the Activity Trends and App Store directly on Apple Watch. New software features will be available this fall as a free software update for Apple Watch Series 1 or later paired with iPhone 6s or later running iOS 13 or later. Source: Apple Swift UI framework Apple unveiled its SwiftUI framework at WWDC offering a simple way for developers to build user interfaces across all Apple platforms using just one set of tools and APIs. It features a declarative Swift syntax that’s easy to read and natural to write. SwiftUI Working with new Xcode design tools, Swift UI keeps code and design perfectly in sync. It also offers features such as automatic support for Dynamic Type, Dark Mode, localization, and accessibility. Swift UI got developers quite excited who compared it with React Native and Flutter. https://twitter.com/chrismaddern/status/1135624920036184067 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1135835228696600576 https://twitter.com/benjaminencz/status/1135797158807035904 Apple aims to protect user privacy with Apple Sign in Apple has a new way to stop third-party sites and services from getting your information when you sign up to an app. The “Sign in with Apple” button introduced at WWDC, can authenticate a user using Face ID on their iPhone without turning over any of their personal data to a third-party company.  Often users are dependent on third-party apps for using a social account or filling out forms, verifying email addresses or choosing passwords. Sign in with Apple allows customers to simply use their Apple ID to authenticate. It protects users’ privacy by providing developers with a unique random ID. Other privacy updates to the App Store Apps intended for kids cannot include third-party advertising or analytics software and may not transmit data to third parties. HTML5 games distributed in apps may not provide access to real money gaming, lotteries, or charitable donations, and may not support digital commerce. VPN apps may not sell, use, or disclose to third parties any data for any purpose, and must commit to this in their privacy policy. Apps that compile information from any source that is not directly from the user or without the user’s explicit consent, even public databases, are not permitted on the App Store. Apps must get consent for data collection, even if the data is considered anonymous at the time of or immediately following collection. More privacy related announcements here. New Mac Pro with Apple Pro Display XDR At the WWDC, Apple also announced its all-new redesigned Mac Pro, starting at $5,999. The design is a homage to Apple’s classic “cheese grater” look, but it is far from a simple grater when it comes to features. https://twitter.com/briantong/status/1135612966789820418 The new Intel Xeon processor inside the Mac Pro will have up to 28 cores, with up to 300W of power and heavy-duty cooling. System memory can be maxed out at 1.5TB, says Apple, with six-channel memory across 12 DIMM slots. It also has 32GB of memory, Radeon Pro 580X graphics, and a 256GB SSD. With this Mac Pro, Apple is launching a custom expansion module, the MPX Module. It has a quad-wide PCIe card that fits two graphics cards, has its own dedicated heat sink, and also has a custom Thunderbolt connector to hook into Thunderbolt 3 backbone that Apple built into the motherboard to deliver additional power and high-speed connectivity to components. The power supply of the new Mac Pro maxes out at 1.4kW. Three large fans sit at the front, just behind the new aluminum grille, blowing air across the system at a rate of 300 cubic feet per minute. Alongside the new Mac Pro, Apple also introduced a matching 6K monitor, the 32-inch Pro Display XDR at WWDC, whose starting price is $4,999. The Pro Display XDR, which stands for extreme dynamic range, has P3 and 10-bit color with reference modes built in, as well as Apple’s True Tone automatic color adjustment for ambient lighting. It’s 40 percent larger than the iMac 5K display and has an anti-reflective coating, and comes in a matte option called nanotexture. Source: Apple Feedback Assistant for Developers Bug reporter is now replaced with Feedback Assistant which is available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the web, making it easy for developers to submit effective bug reports and request enhancements to APIs and tools. When developers file a bug, they will receive a Feedback ID to track the bug within the app or on the website. Other features include automatic on-device diagnostics, remote bug filing, detailed bug forms, and bug statuses. For more coverage of Apple’s special event keep watching this space. You can also stream the WWDC Keynote from the San Jose Convention Center here. Apple releases native SwiftUI framework with declarative syntax, live editing, and support of Xcode 11 beta. Apple Pay will soon support NFC tags to trigger payments Apple proposes a “privacy-focused” ad click attribution model for counting conversions without tracking users

The Australian National University (ANU) recently revealed they were hacked and personal data of students and staff over 19 years have been accessed. An official letter from ANU’s Vice-Chancellor, Brian Schmidt said that in late 2018 a “sophisticated operator” accessed their systems illegally. However, the breach was detected just two weeks ago and the ANU staff is working towards strengthening the systems “against secondary or opportunistic attacks”, Schmidt said. Regarding details on what data was affected, Schmidt wrote, “Depending on the information you have provided to the University, this may include names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, personal email addresses, and emergency contact details, tax file numbers, payroll information, bank account details, and passport details. Student academic records were also accessed.” However, the systems that store credit card details, travel information, medical records, police checks, workers' compensation, vehicle registration numbers, and some performance records have not been affected. Schmidt also said, “We have no evidence that research work has been affected” and that ANU is working closely with Australian government security agencies and industry security partners to investigate further. Suthagar Seevaratnam, ANU’s Chief Information Security Officer, also wrote a letter, today, addressing the ANU community and suggested certain steps users can take to stay safe while using emails, passwords, and also advice on general device maintenance and configuration. “If you have not reset your ANU password since November 2018, it is highly advised that you do so immediately,” he mentions in his letter. This is the second data breach in ANU’s system, which lasted for seven months. Last year, in July, the ANU revealed that hackers infiltrated its systems. Schmidt said, “Following the incident reported last year, we undertook a range of upgrades to our systems to better protect our data.  Had it not been for those upgrades, we would not have detected this incident”. “The university said it did not believe data was stolen in that attack, which national security sources said was the work of the Chinese government”, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. What will hackers actually gain by such data breach? The Australian National University is considered to be one of the nation's most prestigious educational institutions and is home to global leading research. The hackers may be trying to leverage more information about international students who attend classes at the ANU university. “The ANU also educates on national security and houses the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and the National Security College”, ABC Canberra news reports. Jamie Travers, a producer at ABC Canberra, tweeted that he had a conversation with the ANU media and they declined any information sharing about the massive breach. https://twitter.com/JamieTravers/status/1135732681407262725 Tom Uren, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute told Travers that there could be two possible types of hackers behind this breach: 1) A state-sponsored group (presumably China) 2) A cybercriminal gang Travers also put forward his hypothesis on “why would a state-sponsored group such as China hack the ANU?” by giving two reasons: https://twitter.com/JamieTravers/status/1135749238468382720 https://twitter.com/JamieTravers/status/1135749435185516544 In one of his tweets, Travers also highlighted the profit a cybercriminal gang would get by breaching the ANU data, which include: Could use TFNs to file bogus tax returns. Could use bank account details to try and access users’ account. Could sell data as a whole to someone else online for ID theft. Schmidt, in his letter, said, “the University has taken immediate precautions to further strengthen our IT security and is working continuously to build on these precautions to reduce the risk of future intrusion”. To know more about this news in detail, read Brian Schmidt’s official letter to ANU’s students and staff. Facebook confessed another data breach; says it “unintentionally uploaded” 1.5 million email contacts without consent Canva faced security breach, 139 million users data hacked: ZDNet reports DockerHub database breach exposes 190K customer data including tokens for GitHub and Bitbucket repositories

Today, Samsung Electronics announced a multi-year strategic partnership with AMD. The strategic alliance is for ultra low power, high performance mobile graphics IP based on AMD Radeon graphics technologies. As part of the partnership, Samsung will license AMD graphics IP and will focus on advanced graphics technologies and solutions that are critical for enhancing innovation across mobile applications, including smartphones. “As we prepare for disruptive changes in technology and discover new opportunities, our partnership with AMD will allow us to bring groundbreaking graphics products and solutions to market for tomorrow’s mobile applications," said Inyup Kang, president of Samsung Electronics. "We look forward to working with AMD to accelerate innovations in mobile graphics technologies that will help take future mobile computing to the next level,'' he said “Adoption of our Radeon graphics technologies across the PC, game console, cloud and HPC markets has grown significantly and we are thrilled to now partner with industry leader Samsung to accelerate graphics innovation in the mobile market,” said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. “This strategic partnership will extend the reach of our high-performance Radeon graphics into the mobile market, significantly expanding the Radeon user base and development ecosystem.” Key terms of the partnership include: AMD will license custom graphics IP based on the recently announced, highly-scalable RDNA graphics architecture to Samsung for use in mobile devices, including smartphones, and other products that complement AMD product offerings. Samsung will pay AMD technology license fees and royalties. Read more on this news from the Samsung official announcement. Microsoft introduces Service Mesh Interface (SMI) for interoperability across different service mesh technologies Samsung AI lab researchers present a system that can animate heads with one-shot learning Samsung opens its AI based Bixby voice assistant to third-party developers

Ana Holdings Inc., HaptX, SynTouch, and Shadow Robot Company are set to unveil the next generation of robotics technology at the upcoming Amazon Re:Mars Expo. The Amazon Re:Mars will be held in Las Vegas from June 4th and 7th. By incorporating the latest tech from across the field of robotics, they have invented the teleoperation and telepresence system. This system will feature the first robotic hand to successfully transmit touch sensations. This technology is being hailed as the ‘Holy Grail of robotics’ by the inventors. They have combined Shadow Robot’s world-leading dexterous robotic hand with SynTouch’s biomimetic tactile sensors and HaptX’s realistic haptic feedback gloves. This new technology enables unprecedented precision remote-control of a robotic hand. They have also implemented tests on it and in a recent test, a human operator in California was able to operate a computer keyboard in London, with each keystroke detected through fingertip sensors on their glove and faithfully relayed 5000 miles to the Dexterous Hand to recreate. They also promise that combining touch with teleoperation in this way is ground-breaking for future applications to perform actions at a distance, e.g. bomb disposal, deep-sea engineering or even surgery performed across different states. At the Amazon re:MARS Tech Showcase, the trailblazing team will demonstrate their teleoperation and telepresence technology outside the lab for the first time. Check out this video to understand how this technology will function. Kevin Kajitani, Co-Director of ANA HOLDINGS INC., Avatar Division says, “We are only beginning to scratch the surface of what is possible with these advanced Avatar systems and through telerobotics in general. In addition to sponsoring the $10M ANA Avatar XPRIZE, we’ve approached our three partner companies to seek solutions that will allow us to develop a high performance, intuitive, general-purpose Avatar hand. We believe that this technology will be key in helping humanity connect across vast distances.” Jake Rubin, Founder and CEO of HaptX says, “Our sense of touch is a critical component of virtually every interaction. The collaboration between HaptX, Shadow Robot Company, SynTouch, and ANA brings a nat-ural and realistic sense of touch to robotic manipulation for the first time, eliminating one of the last bar-riers to true telepresence.” Dr. Jeremy Fishel, Co-Founder of SynTouch says, “We’ve got something exciting up our sleeves for re:MARS this year. Users will see just how essential the sense of touch is when it comes to dexterity and manipulation and the various applications it can have within industry.” Rich Walker, Managing Director of the Shadow Robot Company says, “Our remotely controlled system can help transform work within risky environments such as nuclear decommissioning and we’re already in talks with the UK nuclear establishment regarding the application of this advanced technology. It adds a layer of safety between the worker and the radiation zone as well as increasing precision and accuracy within glovebox-related tasks.” Paul Cutsinger, Head of Voice Design Education at Amazon Alexa says, “re:MARS embraces an optimistic vision for scientific discovery to advance a golden age of innovation and this teleoperation technology by the Shadow Robot Company, SynTouch and HaptX more than fits the bill. It must be seen.” Amazon to roll out automated machines for boxing up orders: Thousands of workers’ job at stake Artist Holly Herndon releases an album featuring an artificial intelligence ‘musician’ Doteveryone report claims the absence of ethical frameworks and support mechanisms could lead to a ‘brain drain’ in the U.K. tech industry