Read the full article here by xkcd.com
Monday, 11 September 2017
Sunday, 10 September 2017
Data structure: the treap!
Here’s a quick sketch I did yesterday about a randomized data structure: the treap. It’s basically a really cool way to implement a balanced binary search tree. Kamal told me about it!
The main reason I know for sure this is useful is in case someone asks you to implement a balanced binary search tree in an interview. More seriously though – if you want to implement an ordered map (like C++’s std::map), then you probably want a balanced BST!
C++’s std::map is usually a red-black tree, but a treap performs just as well (in expected value) and the algorithms for insert/delete are way simpler.
Read the full article here by Julia Evans
Saturday, 9 September 2017
GNU/Linux in Ukraine: A Look Back and a Glimpse into the Future
GNU/Linux in Ukraine: A Look Back and a Glimpse into the Future
Sep 08, 2017, 08:00 (0 Talkback[s]) (Other stories by Bohdan Kovalchuk)WEBINAR: On-Demand
How You Can Improve Your Machine Learning with Spark REGISTER >
I believe that some of the main factors that impede the spread of GNU/Linux in Ukraine are, first, the continuing prevalence of online piracy and a pervasive stereotype that such software is designed solely for computer geeks because of its complexity, and second, the insufficient number of computer games in the ???A??? category.
Read the full article here by Linux Today
Google Is Apparently Ready To Buy Smartphone Maker HTC
According to a Taiwanese news outlet called Commercial Times, Google is in the final stages of acquiring all or part of smartphone maker HTC. CNBC reports: The report seems fishy, since Google has already been down this road, but there's a reason why Google might be interested in HTC. The Taiwanese company builds the Google Pixel, which means it could be a good fit for Google as it continues to cater to consumers with its "Pixel" smartphone brand. Here's where it sounds off base: Google acquired Motorola Mobility and then sold it off just a couple of years later. Why repeat that move? Commercial Times said HTC's poor financial position and Google's desire to "perfect [the] integration of software, content, hardware, network, cloud, [and] AI," is the driving force behind Google's interest. The news outlet said Google may make a "strategic investment" or "buy HTC's smartphone R&D team" which suggests that the VR team would exist as its own.
Read the full article here by Slashdot
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read the full article here by Slashdot
RED reveals more about its holographic smartphone display
When RED Camera first announced its crazy $1,200 Hydrogen smartphone with a "holographic display," a lot of folks wondered how that would actually work. Now, CEO Jim Jannard has revealed that RED is creating the screen in partnership with a company called Leia Inc. (yes, like that Leia). A spin-off from Hewlett-Packard labs, it calls itself "the leading provider of light field holographic display solutions for mobile," and the key words "light field" gives us a pretty good idea as to how it works
Light field displays use multiple layers of LCDs with a "directional backlight," letting you see two different views of the same object with each eye, producing a 3D effect. In practice, when you rotate a display, objects like buildings would appear to project from the screen, as shown in the video below. The effect shows a lot of promise for virtual and augmented reality headsets, but for external displays, viewing angles have been limited so far.
Leia says it "leverages recent breakthroughs in nano-photonic design and manufacturing to provide a complete lightfield 'holographic' display solution for mobile devices." It says the tech can create a holograph-like effect, "while preserving the normal operation of the display." In other words, if you turn off the 4D part, it'll work like a regular smartphone screen. RED hasn't showed the tech to many folks yet, but MKBHD's Marcus Brownlee did see it, and said he was "pretty impressed," adding that it wasn't perfect because of issues like light bleeding and stuttering for 4D gaming.
To produce content for the screen in the form of .h4v files, Jannard has told Redusers that "you can generate .h4v (holographic 4-View) by shooting 4 cameras (we are building solutions from consumer to professional), or by converting 3D to .h4v (very easy), or converting 2D to 3D (very hard) and then to .h4v."
RED has formed a "strategic partnership" with Leia and made an unnamed investment in the company, and Jannard will join its board of directors. It says the smartphone will arrive in the first half of 2018, and functional prototypes are supposed to be ready in the coming months.
Source: Reduser.net
Read the full article here by Engadget
Language Parsing with ANTLR
There are many projects that call out for a custom language parser. If you need something standard, you can probably lift the code from someplace on the Internet. If you need something custom, you might consider reading [Federico Tomassetti’s] tutorial on using ANTLR to build a complete parser-based system. [Frederico] also expanded on this material for his book, but there’s still plenty to pick up from the eight blog posts.
His language, Sandy, is complex enough to be a good example, but not too complex to understand. In addition to the posts, you can find the code on GitHub.
The implementation code is Java, but you can still learn a lot even if you plan to use another language. The posts take you through building a lexer (the part that breaks text into tokens), the parser, handling syntax highlighting and autocompletion, creating an abstract syntax tree, and more.
The example compiler generates Java bytecode, so it can produce output that can run anywhere Java can run.
If you are using C, you might consider looking up lex and yacc or flex and bison to get similar results. You might also be interested in using LLVM as a very specific kind of parser if you are wanting to parse C or C++. Either way, a custom language is just the ticket to give your custom CPU project a boost.
Filed under: Software Development, software hacks
Read the full article here by Hack a Day
Linux 4.14 Will Be The Next LTS Kernel Branch (Confirmed)
Linux 4.14 Will Be The Next LTS Kernel Branch (Confirmed)
Sep 07, 2017, 07:00 (0 Talkback[s]) (Other stories by ADARSH VERMA)WEBINAR: On-Demand
How You Can Improve Your Machine Learning with Spark REGISTER >
Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman has confirmed on his blog that Linux kernel 4.14 will be the next LTS kernel branch, which will be supported with stable kernel patch backports for at least 2 years.
Read the full article here by Linux Today
Friday, 8 September 2017
Intel Core "Coffee Lake" Desktop Processors Launch Date Revealed
Intel could launch the first wave of 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" desktop processors in the retail channel, on the 5th of October, 2017. It's also becoming ominous that with increasing core counts across the lineup, Intel is also raising prices by anywhere between 12.5 to 25 percent. For example, the Core i7-8700K, which logically succeeds the $339 Core i7-7700K, could be priced upwards of $400. The i5-8600K, which succeeds the $249 i5-7600K, could be priced a little over $300. One can expect similar price-hikes across the board for other Core i5 six-core and Core i3 quad-core SKUs.
The first wave of 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" desktop processor launches could be limited to certain overclocker-specific Core i7 and Core i5 SKUs. It is also launching just one compatible motherboard chipset option with this first wave, the Z370 Express, which supports CPU overclocking. Among the SKUs to look out for, are the top-dog Core i7-8700K six-core processor with HyperThreading enabling 12 threads, 12 MB of L3 cache; and the Core i5-8600K, which is also a six-core part but lacks HyperThreading, and comes with 9 MB of L3 cache.
Source: io-Tech.fiRead the full article here by techPowerUp!
Wednesday, 6 September 2017
Alexa will recommend third-party skills for things it can’t do
When Amazon's Alexa doesn't know how the answer to a question, the digital assistant typically just says so. Now, though, instead of "Hmmmm. I don't know that," Alexa may start to recommend third-party skills to help you out more effectively.
In a video shot by Voicebot's Bret Kinsella, you can clearly hear Alexa recommending a non-Amazon skill to answer his question about Apple stock prices. According to Kinsella, after Alexa asked if he wanted to use a skill to answer his stock query, it went straight to a genera listing of prices instead of addressing the specific question he originally asked.
It's clear from Kinsella's video that this new behavior is still hit-or-miss, but it does make a lot of sense. If Alexa can't figure out what you need, then surely there's a skill that might. Instead of having users find a skill that might have the answer, Alexa can do most of the heavy lifting in finding an appropriate one.
As TechCrunch notes, Google Assistant can already recommend apps to users when the app developers tell Google what kind of actions it can handle. How this works with Alexa and when it will roll out to all users is still unclear, however. When reached for comment, Amazon said, "In limited scenarios, Alexa will suggest skills that may be helpful to answer a customer's question. We are excited for this feature to roll out to more customers over time to help them discover new skills and get information through Alexa."
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Voicebot
Read the full article here by Engadget
Tuesday, 5 September 2017
JumpFm - An Electron-based File Manager Focused on Performance
JumpFm - An Electron-based File Manager Focused on Performance
Sep 03, 2017, 18:00 (0 Talkback[s]) (Other stories by Martins Divine Okoi)WEBINAR: On-Demand
How You Can Improve Your Machine Learning with Spark REGISTER >
JumpFm is a cross-platform dual panel file manager with a focus on efficient directory navigation, automatic bookmarking, and NPM-based extensibility. According to its developer, JumpFm has been inspired by fman A Present Day File Manager for Power Users, and exa , Modern Replacement for Linux ls, so it comes to me as no surprise how it sports a dual-pane UI with a color coded ls command.
Read the full article here by Linux Today
Monday, 4 September 2017
With Android Oreo, Google is introducing Linux kernel requirements
Android may be a Linux-based operating system, but the Linux roots are something that few people pay much mind. Regardless of whether it is known or acknowledged by many people, the fact remains that Android is rooted in software regarded as horrendously difficult to use and most-readily associated with the geekier computer users, but also renowned for its security.
As is easy to tell by comparing versions of Android from different handset manufacturers, developers are — broadly speaking — free to do whatever they want with Android, but with Oreo, one aspect of this is changing. Google is introducing a new requirement that OEMs must meet certain requirements when choosing the Linux kernel they use.
Until now, as pointed out by XDA Developers, OEMs have been free to use whatever Linux kernel they wanted to create their own version of Android. Of course, their builds still had to pass Google’s other tests, but the kernel number itself was not an issue. Moving forward, Android devices running Oreo must use at least kernel 3.18, but there are more specific requirements to meet as well.
Source:
http://ift.tt/2vCoZC0
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
Read the full article here by Full Circle Magazine
Sunday, 3 September 2017
Mercedes teases hybrid supercar with Formula 1 tech
You've seen hybrid supercars before, but likely nothing quite so exotic as this. Mercedes-Benz is teasing the debut of the Mercedes-AMG Project One, a hybrid "supersports showcar," at the Frankfurt International Motor Show beginning September 14th. While the preview image doesn't show much besides a GT-style body (complete with an air scoop on the roof), Mercedes makes much ado of the car's Formula 1 underpinnings -- both powerplants amount to race car technology adapted to "day-to-day" use.
Based on previous info, the machine will combine an F1-based 1.6-liter turbo V6 with two electric motors: a 134HP motor linked to the crankshaft, and a 107HP motor that minimizes turbo lag, even though the engine can rev up to an extreme 11,000RPM. The hardware promises over 1,000 combined horsepower and a 217MPH top speed, yet it should offer 15.5 miles of pure electric driving. And yes, all that raw power is as punishing as you'd suspect -- just like a race car, you'll need to rebuild the engine every 31,000 miles.
Needless to say, this will be hard to get. Even if you can swing the expected $2.54 million sticker price for Project One, AMG says it only expects to make 275 units. There's a good chance that business tycoons will snap up the production run almost immediately. Still, it's good to see hybrid technology taken to its limits before electric supercars take over.
Source: Mercedes-Benz
Read the full article here by Engadget
Saturday, 2 September 2017
Billionaire Brothers Want to Build a Cheaper Rival to Slack
Saritha Rai, writing for Bloomberg: A teenage entrepreneur who became a millionaire by 20 before sharing a billion-dollar fortune at 36, Bhavin Turakhia isn't afraid to think big. Now he's putting $45 million of his own money into building a rival to Slack and other office messaging platforms. Flock, a cloud-based team collaboration service, has attracted 25,000 enterprise users and customers including Tim Hortons, Whirlpool and Princeton University. It's a market that has already drawn interest from global technology giants Facebook, Amazon.com and Microsoft. This time last year, few had heard of Bhavin and his younger brother Divyank. That changed when they sold their advertising technology company Media.net, with customers including Yahoo, CNN and the New York Times, to a Chinese consortium for $900 million. The all-cash deal catapulted the duo from mere millionaires into the ranks of the super-rich. "I want to make Flock bigger and better than anything I've built before," Bhavin Turakhia, wearing his signature dark Levi's T-shirt and Puma sweatpants, said at his Bangalore offices.
Read the full article here by Slashdot
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read the full article here by Slashdot
New blockchain platform helps cut online ad fraud
While digital advertising is increasingly popular, it suffers from a lack of trust due to fraud and, despite predictive technology, has relatively low accuracy. As a result, a high percentage of spend gets wasted. Advertising ecosystem Papyrus, launching today, aims to bring together users, publishers, advertisers and developers of decentralized applications in a new way that permits them to interact in an environment with built-in fraud prevention and which offers an unprecedented level of control. It works using a "trustless" environment powered by blockchain technology. Using blockchain, participants rely on decentralized consensus and universal transparency and incentives for fair and… [Continue Reading]
Read the full article here by Betanews
Read the full article here by Betanews
Linux Desktop Market Share Crosses 3%
Data for the month of August 2017 from reliable market analytics firm Net Applications is here, and it suggests that Linux has finally surpassed the three percent mark, quite possibly for the first time in recent years. According to Net Applications, the desktop market share of Linux jumped from 2.53 percent in July to 3.37 percent in August. There's no explanation for what amounted for this growth.
Read the full article here by Slashdot
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read the full article here by Slashdot
Talk: Android on OSS Graphics @ GDG Berlin Android
I would like to thank the wonderful organizers, GDG Berlin Android, for hosting a great community event.
Downloads
If you're curios about the slides, you can download the PDF or the OTP.
Read the full article here by memcpy.io
Friday, 1 September 2017
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)