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A history of Xerox Alto, a computer that debuted in the early spring of 1973 at PARC and presaged personal, interactive, networked, and graphical computing (David C. Brock/IEEE Spectrum)

David C. Brock / IEEE Spectrum: A history of Xerox Alto, a computer that debuted in the early spring of 1973 at PARC and presaged personal, interactive, networked, and graphical computing  —  I’m sitting in front of a computer, looking at its graphical user interface with overlapping windows on a high-resolution screen.

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A profile of OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, who previously led Model X development at Tesla and has been at the helm of OpenAI’s strategy to test its tools in public (Ainsley Harris/Fast Company)

Ainsley Harris / Fast Company: A profile of OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, who previously led Model X development at Tesla and has been at the helm of OpenAI’s strategy to test its tools in public  —  OpenAI unlocked the generative-AI boom with tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E—and that’s why it’s our Most Innovative Company of

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Analysis: at least eight companies that went public via SPACs filed for bankruptcy since June 2022, almost 100 are spending unsustainably, and 73 trade below $1 (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Analysis: at least eight companies that went public via SPACs filed for bankruptcy since June 2022, almost 100 are spending unsustainably, and 73 trade below $1  —  It took only 10 months for Quanergy Systems Inc., a maker of high-tech sensors and software, to go from its stock market debut to filing for bankruptcy.

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A look at India’s homegrown digital payments system UPI, which is run by a nonprofit organization NPCI and is now used by ~300M individuals and 50M merchants (New York Times)

New York Times: A look at India’s homegrown digital payments system UPI, which is run by a nonprofit organization NPCI and is now used by ~300M individuals and 50M merchants  —  India’s homegrown instant payment system has remade commerce and pulled millions into the formal economy.  —  Reporting from New Delhi, Mumbai and Kerala in

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A look at India’s homegrown digital payments system UPI, which is run by a nonprofit organization NPCI and is now used by ~300M individuals and 50M merchants (New York Times)

New York Times: A look at India’s homegrown digital payments system UPI, which is run by a nonprofit organization NPCI and is now used by ~300M individuals and 50M merchants  —  India’s homegrown instant payment system has remade commerce and pulled millions into the formal economy.  —  Reporting from New Delhi, Mumbai and Kerala in

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Analysis: at least eight companies that went public via SPACs filed for bankruptcy since June 2022, almost 100 are spending unsustainably, and 73 trade below $1 (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Analysis: at least eight companies that went public via SPACs filed for bankruptcy since June 2022, almost 100 are spending unsustainably, and 73 trade below $1  —  It took only 10 months for Quanergy Systems Inc., a maker of high-tech sensors and software, to go from its stock market debut to filing for bankruptcy.

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Researchers detail UEFI bootkit BlackLotus, capable of bypassing UEFI Secure Boot even on up-to-date Windows 11 systems and selling for $5K since October 2022 (Martin Smolár/WeLiveSecurity)

Martin Smolár / WeLiveSecurity: Researchers detail UEFI bootkit BlackLotus, capable of bypassing UEFI Secure Boot even on up-to-date Windows 11 systems and selling for $5K since October 2022  —  The first in-the-wild UEFI bootkit bypassing UEFI Secure Boot on fully updated UEFI systems is now a reality

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Microsoft researchers unveil Kosmos-1, a multimodal LLM they claim can understand image content, pass visual IQ tests, and accepts a variety of input formats (Benj Edwards/Ars Technica)

Benj Edwards / Ars Technica: Microsoft researchers unveil Kosmos-1, a multimodal LLM they claim can understand image content, pass visual IQ tests, and accepts a variety of input formats  —  Microsoft believes a multimodal approach paves the way for human-level AI.  —  On Monday, researchers from Microsoft introduced Kosmos-1 …

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What Happened to Sweden’s Slot Car EV Road?

Many EVs can charge 80% of their battery in a matter of minutes, but for some applications range anxiety and charge time are still a concern. One possible solution is an embedded electrical rail in the road like the [eRoadArlanda] that Sweden unveiled in 2016. Overhead electrical wires like those used in trolleys have been

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Apptopia: so far in 2023, TikTok has generated $205M more in IAP revenue than Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter combined (John Koetsier/Forbes)

John Koetsier / Forbes: Apptopia: so far in 2023, TikTok has generated $205M more in IAP revenue than Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter combined  —  Big social networks are pulling a massive revenue U-turn since Apple’s introduction of App Tracking Transparency.  The user privacy feature …

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Top Chains and Protocols to Meet at ETH Denver

The web3 community is gearing up for one of the biggest events of the year – ETH Denver. This event is a gathering of developers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts from all over the world, who come together to discuss the latest trends, innovations, and projects in the blockchain space. With so much talent and innovation under

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Java source code could switch to UTF-8 encoding

Source code for the Java Development Kit (JDK) would be redone in UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format) to facilitate better-defined encoding, under a plan afoot in the OpenJDK Java community. The proposal, created in early January and updated on February 28, can be found at bugs.openjdk.org. It describes the current state of source code in the

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Filing: crypto-friendly bank Silvergate delays its annual report and cites investigations from regulators, Congress, and the US DOJ; its stock plunges 30%+ (CoinDesk)

CoinDesk: Filing: crypto-friendly bank Silvergate delays its annual report and cites investigations from regulators, Congress, and the US DOJ; its stock plunges 30%+  —  Shares fell over 10% in after-hours trading.  —  Christy Goldsmith Romero … Commissioner  —  U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission

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The Tale Of Two Broken Flukes

Some repairs happen as if by pure luck, and [Sebastian] shows us one such repair on Hackaday.io. He found two Fluke 175 meters being sold on eBay, with one having a mere beeper issue, and another having a “strange error”. Now, theoretically, swapping beepers around would give you one working meter and a kit of

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Snowflake reports Q4 revenue up 53% YoY to $589M, vs. $576M est., lowers FY 2024 guidance below est., and authorizes a $2B share buyback program; SNOW drops 5%+ (Emily Bary/MarketWatch)

Emily Bary / MarketWatch: Snowflake reports Q4 revenue up 53% YoY to $589M, vs. $576M est., lowers FY 2024 guidance below est., and authorizes a $2B share buyback program; SNOW drops 5%+  —  Company lowers full-year forecast relative to an initial view offered in November  —  This update corrects the FactSet consensus …

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Paris-based Sesamm, which uses NLP to generate insights helping companies adhere to their ESG goals, raised a €35M Series B2, taking its total funding to €50.5M (Paul Sawers/TechCrunch)

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: Paris-based Sesamm, which uses NLP to generate insights helping companies adhere to their ESG goals, raised a €35M Series B2, taking its total funding to €50.5M  —  Sesamm, a French startup that helps financial firms and corporates adhere to their ESG goals by using natural language processing …

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