Month: December 2018

How Facebook engineers keep Messenger from crashing on New Year's Eve, when more messages are sent than on any other day, through "graceful degradation" (Amy Nordrum/IEEE Spectrum)

Amy Nordrum / IEEE Spectrum: How Facebook engineers keep Messenger from crashing on New Year’s Eve, when more messages are sent than on any other day, through “graceful degradation”  —  Messenger’s 1.3 billion users send more messages on New Year’s Eve than on any other day of the year How Facebook engineers keep Messenger from

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Our favorite Android apps in 2018

Here at TNW we’re always looking for a killer app that does something better, entertains us, or introduces innovation. Our favorite Android apps in 2018 are a mixture of brand new apps, returning champions, and things we’re finding for the first time. These aren’t the usual suspects, like “Netflix” and “Spotify” that you’ll find on

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Hackers pocketed $878,000 from cryptocurrency bug bounties in 2018

While hardcore cryptocurrency enthusiasts often tout blockchain for its heightened security, the technology is not perfect – and there are often tons of vulnerabilities in the code. Indeed, blockchain companies have received at least 3,000 vulnerability reports in 2018 alone. According to stats from breach disclosure platform HackerOne, blockchain companies awarded $878,504 in bug bounties to hackers

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As Alphabet tests Wing drone deliveries in a suburb of Canberra, some enjoy the convenience of orders arriving in minutes while others complain about noise (Mike Cherney/Wall Street Journal)

Mike Cherney / Wall Street Journal: As Alphabet tests Wing drone deliveries in a suburb of Canberra, some enjoy the convenience of orders arriving in minutes while others complain about noise  —  In one of the world’s most advanced drone-delivery tests, sunscreen arrives in minutes—as do complaints As Alphabet tests Wing drone deliveries in a

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Infinity Cube Is Gorgeous Yet Simple

Typically when we hear the words “LED” and “Cube”, we think of small blinking devices on protoboard designed to flex one’s programming and soldering skills. However, while [Heliox]’s Cube Infini could be described as “a cube of LEDs”, it’s rather a different beast (video in French, subtitles available). The cube starts with a 3D printed frame,

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Profiles of Arab women influencers, like the recently murdered Tara Fare, who are pushing boundaries in conservative societies while facing death threats (Meher Ahmad/The Verge)

Meher Ahmad / The Verge: Profiles of Arab women influencers, like the recently murdered Tara Fare, who are pushing boundaries in conservative societies while facing death threats  —  Middle Eastern women like Tara Fares hustle for followers and brands like any other influencers — but they risk being killed for it Profiles of Arab women

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Tech stocks are overvalued and it’s killing innovation

We’re entering an unprecedented era of advanced technology and behemoth tech companies driving its development. Earlier this year, Apple became the first company to reach a one-trillion-dollar valuation, and Amazon followed suit, reaching a one-trillion-dollar market cap in September. Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Facebook, and Netflix are similarly dominant over the S&P 500, together providing

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Bangladesh orders mobile operators to shut down high-speed mobile internet services to "prevent rumours and propaganda" ahead of national elections on Sunday (Al Jazeera)

Al Jazeera: Bangladesh orders mobile operators to shut down high-speed mobile internet services to “prevent rumours and propaganda” ahead of national elections on Sunday  —  The country’s telecom regulator say it ordered mobile operators to shut down 3G, 4G services until December 30 midnight. Bangladesh orders mobile operators to shut down high-speed mobile internet services

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European Commission to start offering bug bounties on 14 Free Software projects like Notepad++ and VLC that the EU institutions rely on (Julia Reda)

Julia Reda: European Commission to start offering bug bounties on 14 Free Software projects like Notepad++ and VLC that the EU institutions rely on  —  It’s been a while since I last wrote about the Free and Open Source Software Audit project, FOSSA, so let me start with a quick recap that you can safely

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