Daily Tech News 10 February 2024

• More like this, perhaps: The Frame smart glasses from Brilliant Labs are augmented-reality goggles that don't look like your head is being eaten by a coconut crab. (The Verge)
  
  At $349 and 40 grams they're one tenth the price and one fifteenth the weight of Apple's Vision Pro. They're about the size and weight of regular eyeglasses, and you can add prescription lenses for an extra $99.
  
  The shortcoming is that the AR display is only 640x400 and covers a small part of your vision, but that's really what you want when you're actually using them in everyday life. Just a little area that can show you an urgent message, or directions to where you're headed, or identify the snake that just bit you because you were looking at the AR display rather than where you were walking.

• Skiff is joining Notion. (Skiff)
  
  Oh, and shutting down and deleting all your data, so back it up right now.
  
  
  
• We all wondered what Apple was up to when they came out in support of right-to-repair, because Apple is the most vehemently anti-consumer-rights company in the world.
  
  The answer was simple: They truly meant it - for everyone else. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Now that an Oregon right-to-repair bill is looking at banning engineering practices that make repairs of Apple devices impossible, the company is back to its old tricks.
  
  
  
• The problem of 240/4. (The Register)
  
  240/4 is an IP address subnet containing 268 million addresses that is locked off thanks to decisions made in the 1970s, back when they handed out millions of IP addresses for free to anyone who wanted them.
  
  With IPv4 basically exhausted at this point, those addresses are worth about $7 billion, but because the range has been locked off for about 50 years some companies are using the same addresses internally, and if they were unlocked for public use, shit would break big time.
  
  
  
• Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, is reported to be looking for $7 trillion in investment funds to create dedicated AI chips. (Unusual Whales)
  
  That's trillion. With a t. And a rillion.
  
  That used to be a lot, and still is.
  
  
  
• Canada is looking to ban the Flipper Zero over it allegedly being used to steal cars. (Gizmodo)
  
  If your car can be stolen with a Flipper Zero, it can probably also be stolen with a pocket knife. Flipper Zero is used to test wireless electronics to make sure they're not horribly insecure.
  
  
  
• A search index in 80 lines of Python. (Alex Molas)
  
  This is Vedal-level standing on the shoulders of giants. The "import" statements that constitute the first seven of those 80 lines pull in over a million lines of freely available code in Python, C, C++, and Fortran that do the work.
  
  Still cool.
  
  
  
• Are you sure you want to use MMAP in your DBMS? (Symas)
  
  The original version of MongoDB used MMAP and was notorious for losing data if a gnat sneezed in the server room.
  
  The original version of Symas LMDB used MMAP - and it still does, and it's fast, light, and reliable.
  
  Like most things, MMAP is a tool, and if you don't know how to use it you had better have your health insurance up to date.
  
  
  
• Reddit doesn't have to share the IP addresses of people who discussed piracy. (TorrentFreak)
  
  Well, good.
  
  
  
• The Selen Tatsuki / Nijisani drama written up so that normal humans can understand it. (Polygon)
  
  Now I just need to figure out how to explain how her re-debut was demonetised when a fan triggered a clip of Freebird during the livestream.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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